Chapter 8: Class I, II, III, and IV Supply Problems
Quartermaster items were ordinarily provided in adequate quantities, in spite of many handicaps. On but few occasions after the fall of the Philippines did troops suffer from hunger, and then only for short periods of time. There were frequent scarcities of some items of food, it is true, yet men did not starve for lack of them; they merely ate larger quantities of available items. Nor did they long go ill-clad or ill-shod though some articles of apparel and footwear might be temporarily unavailable. By improvising new items and substituting obtainable articles for missing articles, the ill effects flowing from long-continued scarcities of a few of the so-called housekeeping items were mitigated. In the all-important matter of gasoline supply combat units were adequately provided for. They did not always receive all the gasoline they wanted, but lack of this vital fuel halted no operation and never more than temporarily inconvenienced fighting troops. Provision of Quartermaster items thus in general caused but slight trouble for supply officers. It was the problems associated with shortages—sporadic though they usually were—which demanded of quartermasters the greater part of their time, gave them the greatest anxiety, and brought down on their heads the most criticism.
Class I Losses
The most persistent Class I—that is, subsistence—problem facing the QMC was the heavy loss of food. In the absence of accurate stock records the extent of this loss cannot be determined precisely, but it was probably largest in 1942 and 1943, when storage and distribution conditions were at their worst. Articles packed in tin or fiber containers showed severest wastage. At Port Moresby in June 1943 more than 162,000 of the 1,015,000 food cans then inspected by the Veterinary Service were pronounced unsuitable for issue. Twenty-two percent of the evaporated milk, 40 percent of the lima beans, and lesser percentages of tomatoes, cabbage, corned beef, and peaches were condemned.1 A survey of the canned food held by the 41st Division in the Oro Bay area at this time revealed that 40 to 50 percent of the evaporated milk, 20 to 40 percent of canned fruits, and 20 to 25 percent of canned vegetables were unfit to eat. One observer concluded that at least 40 percent of the rations in the Southwest Pacific were then “spoiled or unconsumable.” In September it was estimated that losses
were running at the rate of 2 percent every month.2 In the South Pacific, too, losses accumulated at a prodigious rate. In the first eight months of 1943 the Veterinary Service condemned about 3,500,000 pounds of evaporated milk and enormous quantities of canned fruits and vegetables.3 Only Hawaii escaped wholesale condemnations of stored food.
Heavy subsistence losses resulted not only from storage in the open and from inferior packaging and packing but also from such causes as shipping accidents and enemy attacks. Unit messes were notoriously wasteful of food; their cooks often had neither training nor experience in the preparation of meals and were in general lax in the performance of their duties, neglecting to separate spoiled from unspoiled meats and vegetables and by their ineptness ruining many a meal.4 Pilferage further increased losses. This evil was particularly prevalent on board ship, on docks, and in open storage, where supplies were easily accessible to passers-by. The problem was an especially serious one for the QMC, for its food items were in greater demand than the supplies of other services. The generally small size of these items, which made them easy to hide, further encouraged petty thievery.5
Though losses of nonperishables decreased somewhat after mid-1943, they remained high. In March 1944 the War Department estimated that 12 percent of such food moved in the previous year from the United States to the South Pacific and 17 percent of that moved to the Southwest Pacific could not be accounted for.6 In the twelve months between 1 May 1943 and 30 April 1944 in the latter area, the Chief Quartermaster’s record, covering food from Australia as well as the United States, agreed with the War Department figure. It ascribed losses to the following causes: spoilage, 5.44 percent; shipping accidents, 5.44 percent; pilferage, 3.40 percent; excess issues, 1.36 percent; and unknown causes, 1.36 percent. This estimate did not include losses in combat and in unit storerooms, kitchens, and messes. The Subsistence Division, OCQM, USASOS, listing slightly different causes of destruction, placed the total figure at 19 percent, or 2 percent higher than that given in the other calculations. According to this estimate combat hazards and deterioration each caused a loss of 6 percent; pilferage, a loss of 5 percent; accidents in transit, 1 percent; and enemy action ashore, 1 percent.7
These estimates may all have been too low. This possibility is suggested by their failure to include wastage in units, by the declaration of the Chief Veterinarian, USA-SOS, who was responsible for most inspection of nonperishables, that storage losses in New Guinea during 1943 amounted to about 13.6 percent, and by the continued condemnation in the following year of non-perishables in proportions somewhat higher
than were given in the estimates.8 In March 1944 condemnations at Port Moresby, where storage conditions were comparatively good, amounted to 2,143,000 pounds, or 16 percent of all the food examined. Yet wholesale condemnations had been made at this base only nine months before. All but 10,000 pounds of the 541,000 pounds of canned corned beef and all but 8,000 of the 410,000 pounds of canned beets were pronounced unfit to eat. All of the C and J rations, all but a tiny fraction of the D rations, all the hominy, dried apples, and assorted biscuits were condemned. Less than 5 percent of the canned tomatoes and of the raisins were found edible, and 70 percent of the margarine and much of the canned orange juice and dehydrated vegetables were unusable.9 Wholesale condemnations, like those at Port Moresby, lend weight to the belief that even in 1944 the total loss of nonperishables in the Southwest Pacific may have run as high as 25 percent. Because of slightly better storage and handling conditions, losses in the South Pacific may have been 5 to 10 percent lower. For comparable reasons the Central Pacific Area probably had an even smaller wastage.
Supply of Subsistence in Advance Areas
Heavy subsistence losses were one of the main causes for what was perhaps the major Quartermaster problem in the Pacific—recurrent scarcities of some food items at advance bases and in combat zones, particularly in New Guinea. But this problem was not produced by any single cause; it developed out of the whole complex of conditions that hampered Quartermaster activities in that part of the world. As General Frink pointed out, shortages developed in New Guinea not so much because items were scarce in the Southwest Pacific Area as a whole as because they could not be sent to the proper places in the proper quantities at the proper times. Area-wide stocks of such commodities as flour and sugar were in general more than ample to fill all requirements, yet they were repeatedly unavailable at advance bases and to troops in the field.10 More or less chronic scarcities indeed existed only in boneless beef and some of the more popular vegetables, but such scarcities were made more acute by the tendency of island installations to issue these favored items in sizable quantities as long as they were available. This failure to conserve limited stocks did much to promote the “feast-and-famine” cycle characteristic of many unit messes. A directive of February 1944 ordered base commanders in New Guinea to prepare monthly menus which would be based on actual stocks and expected receipts and which would list the amount of each item to be served at every meal. Because of the uncertainty of receipts, this method of controlling issues proved futile. Bases themselves usually ignored the menus and continued, much as in the past, to overissue popular items.11
Ration problems in New Guinea came to a climax in late 1943 and early 1944. Usable cargo space was then at a low level in relation to the rapidly rising troop strength, and combat units were often stationed at unexpected and widely scattered points for which no adequate supply plans had been formulated. Weeks sometimes passed before
workable arrangements could be made to provision these points. All bases on the island encountered great difficulties in maintaining enough stocks for troops in training, at rest camps, and in operational zones. These installations even found it hard to supply soldiers at the bases themselves.
After August 1943 the movement of cargoes from the West Coast direct to New Guinea introduced a fresh obstacle to equitable distribution, for distribution agencies in Australia then found it almost impossible to ascertain how many supplies from the United States were being landed at northern bases or even what bases were receiving the supplies. Consequently, these agencies could not determine what supply points were most in need of food. Late in 1943 the development of a new War Department shipping document, giving complete information concerning items and quantities shipped and discharge points, paved the way for at least a partial solution, for it gave distributing agencies a much better conception of the dispersion of supplies coming from the United States.12
Distribution of food supplies reached a critical phase in the opening months of 1944, when many new supply points were established within a short time and the arrival of many operational cargoes from the United States held up the discharge of subsistence cargoes from Australia.13 On 15 March Maj. Gen. James L. Frink told representatives of USASOS distribution agencies called together to contrive means of relieving food scarcities that he had received “frantic wires in the last 24 hours from bases in the forward area.” Milne Bay needed 2,000 tons of flour but had only 1.480 tons; Oro Bay needed 1,300 tons but had on hand only 526 tons; Lae and Finschhafen were equally bad off. Declining Port Moresby was the only base that had enough flour, and it had double its requirements. The maintenance of regular bread issues in forward areas supplied by other bases depended on the receipt of flour by air. Sugar was even scarcer than flour. Milne Bay needed 900 tons but had a mere 100 tons. Stocks stood at equally low levels at Oro Bay and Lae, which needed, respectively, 568 and 307 tons of sugar but actually had only 103 and 35 tons. Finschhafen required 153 tons and possessed none. Again, Port Moresby alone had adequate stores.14
Stocks of nonperishables were unbalanced throughout New Guinea in March 1944, but those at Lae and Finschhafen were in the worst shape. Subsistence at Lae was unbalanced as between such fundamental components of the ration as canned meats and fruits, and there was also marked maldistribution within these components Whereas this base had a 26-day supply of canned meats and vegetables, it had only a 1-day supply of canned fruits, fruit juices, and salt, and a 2-day supply of milk. No tobacco whatever was on hand. Of a 26-day supply of canned meat, 23 consisted of corned beef and corned beef hash; of a comparable supply of canned vegetables, 12 consisted of carrots, 8 of cabbage, and 4 of beets—all of limited acceptability. At Finschhafen fourteen basic elements of the ration were entirely lacking—canned fruits, rice, macaroni, rolled oats, jam, syrup, peanut butter, tea, cocoa, pickles, pepper, vinegar, tomato sauce, and flavoring. These were all
essential in view of the variety they gave to the menu.15
Nonperishables were not much better balanced at other bases, and there were notable examples of maldistribution as between bases. In early February Oro Bay had on hand a 71-day supply of lard and butter but only a 15-day supply of salt. It had a 180-day supply of fruit juices whereas Lae had but a 1-day supply. At Milne Bay corned beef and C rations were “hopelessly in excess” of any conceivable requirement, but more acceptable items, like coffee, canned fruits, sugar, cheese, and dehydrated potatoes and onions, had been almost exhausted, and the base Quartermaster was begging for their replenishment.16
The maldistribution of perishables was even worse than that of nonperishables. Acute shortages of fresh provisions prevailed everywhere in New Guinea. For days and even weeks early in 1944 lack of reefers at Milne Bay held up the transfer of perishables to forward installations. On 31 January neither Port Moresby nor Oro Bay had any fresh beef or poultry, yet these two bases together were responsible for provisioning 103,000 of the 232,000 men in New Guinea. Finschhafen then had only a 2-day supply of these provisions, and Lae only a 7-day supply. Even the 14-day supply at Milne Bay fell short of the amount needed for regular supply. Bacon and ham were as scarce as beef and poultry. Finschhafen had a mere 1-day supply; Oro Bay, a 2-day supply; Milne Bay, a 5-day supply; and Port Moresby, a 7-day supply.17 New Guinea, in short, was almost without fresh meat. Even more deplorable was the status of fruits, vegetables, and eggs. Not a single base had any fresh fruit. Only one had any fresh vegetables, and it held but a single day’s supply. Milne Bay and Lae possessed a 6-day and a 2-day supply of fresh eggs, but the other bases had none. Butter was available in larger but still inadequate quantities. Port Moresby stocked a 12-day supply; Milne Bay, an 11-day supply; and Lae, a 5-day supply. But at Oro Bay and Finschhafen butter stores were wholly depleted.18 Ten days later levels of perishables in general showed only a slight rise. Whereas stocks of beef and butter at Port Moresby had passed the 30-day level, and enough beef had been received at Oro Bay to set up a 27-day level, other perishable stores at these bases and Milne Bay showed little if any change. At Lae and Finschhafen the status of stocks had so deteriorated that neither installation had any sort of fresh provisions.19
During the rest of 1944 both perishables and nonperishables remained more or less unbalanced, but shortages were never so marked as in the opening months of the year. Some excess stockages appeared at Port Moresby and Milne Bay as these installations were left farther and farther to the rear of combat operations. The new and growing bases at Finschhafen and Hollandia, however, continued to encounter difficulty in matching supplies and requirements. At Finschhafen on 15 May, there was only a 2- or 3-day supply of such staples as canned meat, canned and dehydrated fruits and vegetables, flour, coffee, evaporated milk, and sugar. No cigarettes and only a single day’s supply of other tobacco
products were on hand.20 Though such low stock levels occurred but rarely, food was seldom obtainable in the variety needed for satisfying meals.
Unbalanced stockages were reflected in subsistence issues at bases, but to a slighter extent than at the supply points of the combat forces dispersed along the north shore and on the outlying islands. This disparity, while in the main a consequence of distribution difficulties, resulted in part from the natural tendency of bases to take for their own troops a disproportionately large share of what was available. Higher echelons and other organizations that controlled airplanes employed them to bring coveted food and tobacco direct from Australia. The “silent blessing” given to this practice by the commanding officers of these organizations stimulated the discriminatory traffic.21
Troops at or near bases were in general fed somewhat better than those in advance units, but even they usually received only a monotonous fare. This fact is illustrated by the slim issue of perishables at Finschhafen in December 1943. During the whole month there were but five servings of boneless beef, one of turkey, especially made at Christmas, six of eggs, three of potatoes, and three of butter. For several weeks in February and March 1944 the base was obliged to confine its meat issues to canned corned beef hash and meat and vegetable hash and stew and its vegetable issues to canned cabbage, beets, carrots, and tomatoes.22 Of these items there was an abundance. Consequently, troops did not suffer from hunger but only from lack of the varied diet to which they were accustomed.
When bases received deliveries of fresh provisions in excess of their refrigerator capacity, they were obliged to issue the surplus quickly in order to keep it from spoiling. For this reason troops at Oro Bay, between 22 and 24 November 1943, were daily served nineteen eggs and bountiful portions of beef and butter. Such fortunate soldiers were said to be on a “prince and pauper” fare, for they gorged themselves for several days and then went back to a dreary fare of canned goods.23
As the Sixth Army moved westward to Aitape and Hollandia in April, to Wakde and Biak Islands in May, and to Noemfoor Island and Sansapor in July, stringing new supply points along the far-flung north shore, distribution difficulties were intensified. Biak lay 815 miles west of Finschhafen and 345 miles west of Hollandia. Noemfoor Island and Sansapor, respectively, 435 and 645 miles west of Hollandia, were still more remote. From May to July troops beyond Finschhafen had to be supplied with fresh provisions largely by air. But heavy tactical demands on available planes made impossible any substantial abatement of the scarcity of perishables. The few air shipments gave only scattered and temporary relief to ground troops. Lt. Col. Clarence E. Reid, quartermaster of the U.S. forces at Biak, commenting on shipments to his area, asserted that they were nearly always brought to the air base on nearby Owi Island and that several days elapsed before he learned
that they had come in.24 Even air organizations, if actively supporting combat operations, were not much better provisioned than ground organizations. Early in August, for instance, Maj. Gen. St. Clair Streett, commanding the Thirteenth Air Force at Noemfoor Island, reported that his troops had received no perishables by sea for two months and only sporadic shipments by plane. His men, he declared, had “to forage perishables almost entirely” from relatively well-stocked Navy shore organizations.25
Only when air units were not actively engaged in operational missions could they utilize their transport craft to obtain perishables. They might then bring fresh provisions not only from Australia but also from New Guinea bases, which lacked reefers to supply all the forward points in their distribution areas. Air units with the necessary means of transportation often asked these bases for the unshipped provisions, and some of the bases acceded to these requests. Ground troops considered such action unfair because it diminished the already small stocks available for their supply, and bases were finally instructed not to comply with these requests unless authorized to do so by higher authority.26
In mid-August the Fifth Air Force allocated six planes to the regular transportation of fresh provisions for ground and air troops alike. These planes flew from Finschhafen or Hollandia to forward areas and carried on each trip about 5,000 pounds of boneless beef, salted ham, or butter. Their flights resulted in a slight betterment of rations, but Lt. Gen. Walter Krueger, commander of the Sixth Army, maintained that at least fourteen planes were needed to insure an ample supply of perishables for forward elements. He suggested that four planes be run regularly to Aitape, an equal number to Biak, and two each to Wakde Island, Noemfoor Island, and Sansapor. Tactical requirements precluded such an allotment of aircraft.27
Even the limited quantities of perishables in forward areas could not always be distributed equally among units. In May, for example, three small shipments consigned to the Humboldt Bay—Tanahmerah Bay region arrived by water and were all issued to the 41st Division at Humboldt Bay. The 24th Division and other organizations at neighboring Tanahmerah Bay received none; even the hospital there had no fresh food. The explanation of this inequity was the presence of better landing places at Humboldt Bay, the absence of roads between that point and Tanahmerah Bay, the inadequate dump and cold-storage equipment in the latter area, and the natural tendency to provide first for the forces most easily reached. But whatever the causes, the surgeon of I Corps declared that the result was a ration incapable of maintaining good health.28 Early in August Maj. Gen. Frederick A. Irving, commander of the 24th Division, reported that poor
supply during the previous four months had “made the use of prepared rations, rather than the balanced field ration, necessary for extended periods.” Some units, he declared, were forced to eat packaged rations “exclusively for extended periods.” Not until the end of June, he added, had conditions materially improved.29
At that very time, however, the surgeon of the 1881st Engineer Aviation Battalion, which was performing heavy manual work on a 24-hour-a-day schedule seven days a week, reported that the unit’s rations were still unsatisfactory. During the previous four weeks, he declared, the ration had been constantly deficient in quantity by 30 to 40 percent. This considerable deficit bore with particular severity on organizations, which, like the battalion, operated on a 24-hour schedule and daily served five meals. To compensate for the vitamin deficiency caused by the total absence of fresh foods, the surgeon issued each man two vitamin tablets a day. According to Maj. W. G. Caples, who commanded the battalion, hunger was undermining the health of his men, some of whom had already been hospitalized. Yet the battalion was no worse off insofar as the quantity of its rations was concerned than were many other units supplied by the 24th Division at Tanahmerah Bay. That division had only a 7-day supply of unbalanced rations ashore and afloat and only five trucks to distribute this limited supply to units widely scattered along the coast.30
Early in July an officer investigating the exceptionally bad ration supply of the 34th Infantry Regiment bivouacked at Hollandia concluded that “technically all units are getting ample food” but that “actually they are not, as the ration issued has been mainly ‘C’ ration and after several days the troops can not eat it.”31 Some companies had been for days entirely without flour, sugar, coffee, milk, butter, salt, and types of canned vegetables that their men would eat. Mess sergeants had even been obliged to request food from air, service, and other favorably situated organizations outside the regiment. Some of these noncommissioned officers refused to beg rations, for they regarded such action as degrading to combat units. Officers and men alike felt “highly incensed by what they consider to be a grossly unfair distribution of rations,” and their anger was intensified when food-seeking sergeants returned with reports of organizations eating roast beef and maintaining “their own PX where ice cream and other delicacies are sold to the troops of the unit only.”32
The sense of being discriminated against was especially aggravated by the disparity between Army and Navy rations. Through naval supply channels construction battalions and other Navy units on shore obtained fairly well-balanced and appetizing meals even when nearby Army units were eating an unpalatable fare. This fact is not surprising, for logisticians have long recognized that organizations having the readiest access to superior means of transportation are better supplied than are those less fortunately situated, and there is no doubt that the Navy possessed more and better means of shipping rations than did the Army. The larger naval vessels all had ample refrigeration capacity from which perishable provisions were taken for sailors on shore.
Naval units occasionally had so much fresh food they bartered their surplus stores with Army organizations. Such marked contrasts between the subsistence of the two services aroused bitter criticism and angry discontent among hungry soldiers. To some extent similar reactions, varying in intensity with the quality of Army rations, were encountered among troops nearly everywhere in the Pacific.33
Few forward organizations were ever as bad off as those in the Hollandia—Tanahmerah region from May to August 1944. Most combat troops received enough food to provide a full ration if bulk alone was considered. The experience of the 1st Cavalry Division typified that of the majority of combat organizations in New Guinea. Though this division had ample food, it proposed in February 1944 the deletion of canned beets and parsnips from the menu and recommended in place of canned cabbage, carrots, and beets more beans, peas, corn, asparagus, and sweet potatoes. Instead of so much corned beef it wanted more Vienna sausage. It also desired more yeast and baking powder and more macaroni and chili powder.34 USASOS headquarters was unable to act favorably on these proposals. Australian vegetable production was so lacking in variety that beets and parsnips could not be eliminated. To prevent waste, it asserted, “these stocks must be consumed.”35 Low Australian production of the other items wanted by the 1st Cavalry also precluded their delivery in larger quantities.36
Meanwhile the rations served to the 1st Cavalry declined in quality. In May that organization, still in the Admiralties several weeks after having finished its tactical operations there, complained that during the previous sixty days it had received fresh beef at only three meals. “Every man,” Maj. Gen. Innis P. Swift, commander of the division, asserted, “is sick and tired of corned beef and corned beef hash.” There was no baking powder whatever, and only enough flour for one issue of bread a day.37 There was no flour at all for rolls, biscuits, pancakes, dumplings, pie crust, or cake, nor was there any lard or lard substitute. Scarcely any sugar, milk, salt, or fresh fruits and vegetables were available. The men, General Swift added, “say that dehydrated foods are all right for about a week, but after that they are nauseating.” “The only way,” he concluded, “to get a square meal is to get some Jap souvenirs and trade them to the CB’s.”38
During 1944 report after report from the Sixth Army stressed the continued preponderance of canned corned beef, corned beef hash, carrots, cabbages, and beets in shipments from Australia. The monotony of meals was intensified by extensive use of wholly packaged rations, usually C rations, which contained too many unattractive components and less than stipulated amounts of some acceptable items. In one shipment of 600,000 C rations to Biak two-thirds of the meat components consisted of corned beef hash.39
As the year closed, startling disparities still existed in perishable stocks. In
November, Thirteenth Air Force groups at Sansapor received only 1½ pounds per man of perishables, nearly all fresh meats, whereas groups on Guadalcanal in October received 115 pounds per man, of which about 27 pounds were fresh meats, 69 pounds were fresh vegetables, and 9 pounds were butter. Throughout their stay at Sansapor, Thirteenth Air Force groups received only small and fluctuating quantities of perishables. In September they were issued 2½ pounds per man of fresh meat, in October 8 pounds, in November 1⅕ pounds, in December 12 pounds, and in January 6 pounds. The groups on Guadalcanal fared much better, obtaining in three successive months 29, 17, and 37 pounds of fresh meat. Apart from the chronic distribution difficulties, these remarkable inequalities sprang from the necessity of supplying air units at Sansapor through the Quartermaster section of an infantry division already burdened with countless routine duties, from the fact that New Guinea bases were called upon to give heavy logistical support to offensive operations in the Philippines at a time when there were still many troops to be supplied in New Guinea itself, and from the rapid decline of Guadalcanal as a supporter of forward and combat elements and the consequent availability of more rations for troops on Guadalcanal itself.40 Around Sansapor the scarcity of perishables and the dearth of variety in canned foods meant that both air and ground forces had for a time almost nothing to eat but C rations, dehydrated vegetables, and spam. Not until the Philippines were reached, did rations become much better. In June 1945 members of the Thirteenth Air Force on Leyte each received 25 pounds of fresh meats, in July 41 pounds, and in August 18 pounds. But stocks of butter and fresh vegetables remained low.41
Class II and IV Supplies
The distribution of Class II items (clothing and equipage) and Class IV items (general supplies, that is, articles of general utility) was ordinarily a less important matter than that of food and Class III items (petroleum products), for troops could operate over lengthy periods of time with limited quantities of clothing and general supplies but could not long survive without food nor conduct modern warfare without gasoline. To the procurement and distribution difficulties that made Class II and IV supply a hard task was added, then, the lack of a sense of urgency.
Shortages
From the outset recurrent and sometimes acute scarcities appeared in these classes. By October 1942 they were almost depleted in New Guinea. Stocks in Australia were then limited and unbalanced, but the quartermaster at the Brisbane base assembled 2,500 tons of supplies to meet the needs of the advance bases. Unfortunately, he could obtain neither vessels nor planes for their movement, and meanwhile the advance bases clamored for replenishment. At the end of three weeks, space for part of the cargo was finally allotted on northbound vessels, but until well into the following year similar instances of shipping delays occurred—much more often than for other Quartermaster items.42
Chiefly because of procurement difficulties in the United States, there were chronic scarcities of some items of jungle clothing and equipment, which had been specially developed to meet the extraordinary requirements of tropical warfare. For that reason the issue of these supplies was confined to units assigned or attached to the Sixth Army and to a few designated organizations in operational areas. As combat activity increased, shortages at times became so severe that issues were restricted to Sixth Army units actually operating in combat zones. By this means damaging shortages in tactical forces were averted.43
Early in 1943 many other Class II and IV items in the Southwest Pacific were also being issued only to designated combat units in New Guinea and to organizations being equipped in Australia for coming offensives. The shortages that led to the adoption of this procedure were reflected at the advance bases, many of which then had almost no stocks of warehouse, laundry, bakery, and salvage equipment, field ranges, mess outfits, portable typewriters, and duplicating and stencil-cutting machines. Without these supplies administrative, storage, cooking, laundry, and salvage activities were gravely handicapped. At some bases it was indeed impossible to provide all Quartermaster services. Even such indispensable items as trousers, jackets, work suits, bedding, and dinnerware were scarce. Inevitably, these shortages increased tremendously the personal discomforts of troops in New Guinea.44
While it was true that such widespread shortages of essential items were usually short-lived, local scarcities, especially of “expendable” items, that is, those consumed in use, such as napkins, tooth paste, and insecticides, were often particularly severe. Of sixty-five expendable items requisitioned from the Oro Bay base by the Fifth Air Force in November 1943, only thirteen were on hand in the necessary quantities. Thirty-one were not obtainable at all and twenty-one only in quantities less than required. To replenish exhausted supplies, stopgap shipments of the most urgently needed stores were made by air from Port Moresby, the sole base in New Guinea with adequate stocks of the scarce items. Among the articles forwarded were insect repellents, toilet paper, brooms, scrub brushes, and spoons. Extreme necessity alone brought about such use of planes. A more permanent solution for shortages like those at Oro Bay was eventually found in higher priorities for the movement of badly needed expendable items.45
Early in 1944 the base at Lae completely lacked socks and other articles of clothing, and troops supplied by it could obtain none of these vital items. Fifth Air Force units solved the problem for themselves by sending one of their crash boats—high-speed motorboats used to rescue survivors of forced landings of aircraft at sea—to Port Moresby in order to obtain the missing articles. USASOS, supposedly in possession of vessels for transferring materials by water, was thus placed in the anomalous position of seeing the air force supply the shipping for this purpose. Late in April Class II and IV stocks at Lae were still generally far below authorized levels. The Intermediate Section, USASOS, attributed this unfavorable
situation to the unusually heavy demands made by the Fifth Air Force on the base’s limited resources.46
Even after the return to the Philippines, stocks of Class II and IV items, unlike those of other Quartermaster classes in the Southwest Pacific, remained inadequate. This situation was usually ascribed to the unexpectedly heavy requirements of Filipino civilians and the continued slowness of deliveries from San Francisco.47
Like the New Guinea bases, those in the South Pacific experienced frequent shortages of clothing, equipage, and general supplies, but they were less severe than in the Southwest Pacific and occurred mainly at new installations. For several months after the establishment of the base at Guadalcanal, its inability to handle ships arriving direct from the West Coast caused temporary distress, but with a few exceptions scarcities disappeared once the base was fully operative.48
In the Central Pacific Area, shortages presented even less of a problem. Soldiers’ complaints sprang more from allegedly inadequate allowances of socks, underwear, work suits, and towels than from actual scarcities. The survey of the Pacific Ocean Areas, conducted by the OQMG late in 1944, revealed a general demand among troops for larger issues of these items. Commenting on this finding, one officer maintained that allowances had proved ample for normal needs but that lack of laundry facilities and the consequent delay in the return of clothing had produced the appearance of scarcity.49
Though the supply of Class II and IV items was not fully satisfactory anywhere in the Pacific, the most annoying problems sprang from the storage difficulties encountered with such specialized items as “protective clothing,” from the “tropical deterioration” affecting textile and leather goods, and from the chronic scarcity of tents, sized items in the correct proportions, and spare parts for mechanical equipment.
Storage of Protective Clothing
The QMC stored “impregnated clothing,” which had been treated by the Chemical Warfare Service to safeguard wearers from gas attacks, and distributed such clothing in accordance with plans made by that service. If there seemed to be any possibility of gas warfare by the enemy during a coming operation, protective clothing was shipped with the troops. Since impregnation lessened the resistance of textiles to deterioration, the better types of storage were at first used for clothing so treated. But as it became increasingly improbable that the Japanese would embark upon gas warfare, such storage was devoted more and more to ordinary clothing in heavy demand, and protective clothing was often simply placed in the open, with all the hazards this presented. Even under good conditions the serviceability of impregnated garments seldom exceeded twelve months. Better methods of impregnation, adopted in the zone of interior late in 1944, lengthened the useful life of such garments, but few
garments impregnated after that date arrived in the Pacific. The apparel handled by the QMC was therefore particularly susceptible to deterioration. The storage problem was worsened as a result of the fact that many garments issued to individual troops on their departure from the United States or later in the Pacific areas were turned in to the bases. This additional burden on the bases was necessitated by inability of units to furnish adequate safeguards for apparel that soldiers indifferently cast aside because of the unlikelihood of gas warfare. Even a well-intentioned soldier found it hard to take good care of his protective garments, for if he put them in a clothing bag, they imparted a sickening odor to his other garments.50
The process of turning in impregnated apparel was a troublesome task that demanded the collection of hundreds of articles from individual soldiers. After transfer to Quartermaster salvage warehouses, “impregnated clothing of all types, sizes, and colors” was likely to be “jumbled in wild disorder, and interspersed with gas masks, shoe impregnite, and protective covers.”51 Months sometimes elapsed before sufficient men could be spared to sort the mess, clean dirty garments, and store the whole lot. At Port Moresby in April 1943 protective clothing was piled in the open and protected by tarpaulins that left six feet of the side walls exposed to the weather. Many garments, particularly shirts and gloves, were already so badly rotted as to be worthless. Stitched seams had generally disintegrated, and apparel dyed green for camouflage in the jungle was turning yellow—next to red, the most conspicuous color. In the South Pacific, protective clothing was stored in sheet metal warehouses, but these structures were little better than open storage for they furnished no ventilation except through the doors.52
Even after protective garments were no longer issued to individual soldiers, such apparel continued to be kept at bases, ready for issue if chemical warfare broke out or there was strong evidence of its imminence. If operational commanders approved, impregnated clothing was also carried as unit equipment in combat. As a further protective measure, chemical processing companies, which began to arrive in the Southwest Pacific in June 1943, accompanied large operational forces to impregnate clothing in case of need. When American troops landed on Leyte, however, most of the protective apparel in the Southwest Pacific Area was still stored at Hollandia. A considerable period of time would of necessity have elapsed before these stocks could have been delivered in the distant Philippines, where American troops had only the impregnated garments carried as unit equipment. In the Pacific, fortunately, the general conviction that the Japanese were unable to start gas warfare proved correct. The disturbing potentialities of unpreparedness nonetheless suggest the need for a method of handling protective clothing that will maintain large stocks in close proximity to operational areas.53
Tentage and Tarpaulins
Several factors combined to make tentage chronically scarce. In addition to the sizable inroads made on base stocks by issues of tents to organizations coming from the United States without those supposed to accompany them,54 tents lost through the wear and tear of combat operations had to be replaced. Whole divisions sometimes had to be re-equipped. This need arose after the 1st Marine Division arrived in Australia, fresh from the savage fighting on Guadalcanal, and after the 32nd Division lost the bulk of its tentage during the early operations in New Guinea.55 Another serious drain on the available supply was produced by the efforts of units, “through hook or crook,” as one officer expressed it, to “obtain tentage in excess of their true needs.”56
During 1942 and 1943 assembly and hospital tents were virtually unprocurable in the Southwest Pacific because of their unauthorized employment for mess and storage purposes. Hospital tents were so scarce early in 1943 that shelter could not be provided for all the sick and wounded.57 Tents for housing troops were hard to obtain, partly because the established allowances employed by ports of embarkation in editing requisitions were based on the requirements of settled areas with permanent dwellings available for the use of soldiers rather than on the requirements of areas destitute of such dwellings. In New Guinea staging and replacement camps had to be maintained at each base for casuals, for units coming to the island for assignment, and for units during their staging and rest periods. At these camps tents, whether occupied or not, had to remain standing, ready to accommodate any troops which might arrive. Encampments had to be kept also for men on leave or on their way to or from Australia. Finally, although not authorized by prevailing allowances, tents had to be furnished for offices and administrative and supervisory staffs at new bases and even at some old ones.58
The rapid deterioration of canvas was as important a reason for shortages as unauthorized issues. In mid-1943 an Australian scientific mission investigating the condition of military supplies and equipment found that almost all tents in New Guinea leaked.59 It concluded that the main explanation for this defect was “the prevalent and continual high humidity, which prevents any effective drying of stores which become damp, and causes frequent and unavoidable condensation even on stores well protected from the rain.”60 Moisture saturating tentage over prolonged periods facilitated the growth of molds, which, in turn, produced holes in the fabric. Canvas in storage was often so badly riddled that, when erected, it was wholly unserviceable. Lack of rotproofing in the United States until mid-1944 heightened the damage, particularly in poorly packed, stored, and ventilated stocks. Most tents leaked within six months and in another six months were
Open storage of canvas items for prolonged periods in the South Pacific Area frequently rendered them unserviceable.
useless. Had not sizable numbers of thatched huts been utilized as offices, warehouses, and living quarters, a truly critical housing problem might have developed.61
Tropical deterioration affected tarpaulins—in fact, all canvas items and duck and webbing equipment as well—in the same way it did tentage. In the United States the OQMG early in the war recognized the seriousness of the fungus problem and conducted extensive experimentation in mildewproofing, but though much was learned about the problem, it was not possible before the end of hostilities to apply satisfactory protection to materials sent to the tropics. Early in 1944, therefore, the OQMG urged the Pacific areas to take special storage precautions, but even before this advice had been received, both the South and Southwest Pacific Areas had begun to stress the need for better warehousing and packaging of canvas goods and had required local manufacturers to utilize existing though inadequate methods of “tropicproofing.” Quartermasters in the field themselves waterproofed many tents to reduce mildewing. These remedial measures alleviated but did not solve the problem, for complete tropicproofing could not be undertaken with the limited means available. In any event no known methods offered complete protection against fungi. At the close of the war it was still reported that
“even under the best storage conditions” all types of canvas swiftly deteriorated.62
Clothing, Towels, Blankets, and Footwear
In unventilated storage places cotton clothing and towels, like canvas supplies, became moldy and developed an unpleasant odor, but extensive deterioration was almost unknown, except in case of extreme neglect. For example, cotton materials in use were not subject to unusual decomposition, but dirty garments, lying about in heaps for some time awaiting laundering, quickly deteriorated. Blankets made of wool, a protein substance fairly resistant to molds and other fungi, were less likely to deteriorate than were cotton goods, but, when wet, they quickly rotted if not promptly laundered.63
Footwear and leather goods in general were subject to fairly rapid deterioration, chiefly because of the fats and oils employed in tanning the leather. These components furnished the main elements on which molds lived, for leather itself was a rather stable protein not very susceptible to attack. Fungus growths were most likely to develop on shoes lying in poorly aired structures, but moldy footwear never became quite as much of a problem for the U.S. Army as for the Australian Army, whose storage huts in general were not as well ventilated as those of its ally. Molds were particularly liable to grow on the cotton stitching, and most of the work of shoe repair depots resulted from failure of the seams in uppers and soles. The Australian mission that investigated tropical deterioration suggested the substitution of waxed linen stitchings as a corrective. Decomposition of leather in American shoes was caused principally by rust of metal parts. Leather developed a high moisture content, which, together with excessive humidity, caused such parts to corrode. Rust, in turn, weakened the resistance of leather to wear and shortened the life of shoes.64
Size Tariffs
As in other overseas areas, there were insufficient sizes of clothing and footwear available for the troops. Various causes some originating in the procurement process and others in the distribution pipeline between the manufacturer and the ultimate consumer in the Pacific, combined to produce this result.
Incorrect size tariffs, that is, national schedules listing the proportions in which the various sizes of clothing and shoes were to be procured, was perhaps the major cause. The inaccuracy of tariffs is not surprising in view of the issue of almost 6,000 sizes of shoes and garments of all sorts to men of varying ages and physiques. At best the published tariffs were no more than rough approximations of the number of sizes required by an army whose average age and weight were constantly changing and whose component organizations had widely differing needs. The tariffs were useful as guides in the procurement of sized items for depot stocks but had small value
to organizations requisitioning supplies. Units, indeed, were directed to base requisitions not on published schedules but on the sizes their actual experience showed to be needed. Sometimes, however, tariffs necessarily served as the standard of distribution. They were so employed in the early days of the Pacific areas before supply officers had gained knowledge of the sizes normally in demand among their troops and when the zone of interior had no more reliable basis for making the automatic shipments prescribed during this period than the national size tariffs. Such use of tariffs was also made when a base simply requisitioned clothing and footwear in bulk without specifying the desired percentages of different sizes. As late as August 1944, some Pacific bases still had such inadequate data on the requirements of the organizations drawing supplies from them that 40 percent of their requisitions merely requested bulk shipments. Since organizations seldom required sized goods in the proportions stipulated in the tariffs, they received an assortment of supplies that did not fully meet their needs. Worst of all, these shipments had a cumulative effect, for, as they continued, the initial discrepancies were compounded and excesses and shortages accentuated.65
Several other causes contributed to the unbalancing of stocks of sized items. Limited time for loading cargoes and unavailability of shipping space occasionally resulted in movements from the West Coast that consisted of only a few sizes. Once cargoes arrived in the Pacific, distribution among the widely scattered supply points in line with local requirements was often impossible, for area shortages might force the substitution of unrequisitioned sizes. Even if clothing and footwear were delivered in conformance with estimated requirements, rapid loss of weight by troops serving in tropical regions and the broadening of soldiers’ feet as a result of protracted wearing of ill-fitting shoes might invalidate previous calculations of requirements by increasing the demand for small trousers and jackets and wide shoes. The procurement of footwear in Australia further complicated the distribution of shoes in the proper sizes since that dominion for nearly two years provided shoes in but three widths.66
The disproportion between the sizes of clothing received by issuing organizations and those which they actually needed is illustrated by a delivery of trousers and jackets made by the John Foster to the 6th Infantry Division at Wakde Island, a shipment described by the division’s commander, Maj. Gen. Edwin D. Patrick, as “fairly representative” of prior movements of clothing received at that place.67 Despite the fact that only 23 percent of the command required jackets of sizes 38 or larger, 6,861 of the 7,891 jackets delivered by the John Foster, or 87 percent, were of these sizes. The contrast between requirements and deliveries of trousers was equally marked. Only 5 percent of the division needed large sizes, but 3,802 or 49 percent of the 7,482 trousers delivered fell into this category.68
Similar reports of shortages in small sizes and excesses in large sizes came from all parts of the Pacific. Surveys conducted in the Sixth Army, in the seven largest bases of
the South Pacific Area, and in the divisions passing through Hawaii revealed that nowhere did stocks of clothing and footwear accurately reflect actual needs. In Hawaii local conditions intensified the shortage of small sizes, for native inductees were predominantly Japanese, Filipinos, Hawaiians, and mixed breeds, who were all of slight physique and required small sizes in much larger quantities than did troops from the United States.69
Lacking enough of the small sizes, the QMC was of course obliged to issue the larger sizes. Had units possessed the means of altering poorly fitted garments, the resulting discomfort of many soldiers could have been remedied, but few units were equipped to do this work. Freedom of movement and combat efficiency, General Patrick noted, were in consequence often impaired.70 Capt. Robert L. Woodbury, who observed tactical operations on Leyte for the OQMG, reported that even at the front he had seen infantrymen “without shoes because not enough small sizes are included in the tariff.”71 Such extreme incidents, fortunately, were exceptional; most soldiers got along as best they could with what was available. But when they were garbed in uncomfortable clothing, morale was perceptibly lowered.
Though size difficulties were never corrected, they were alleviated by the establishment of local size tariffs. In October 1944 Brig. Gen. Charles R. Lehner, Sixth Army Quartermaster, prepared a tariff table based on the experience of that organization and requested that it be used in the assembling of future shipments. The OQMG in Washington asked the San Francisco Port of Embarkation to make the downward or upward adjustments in stock levels required by the new schedule. But even then the size problem was not solved, for requirements fluctuated as new troops arrived and old ones departed and always varied somewhat from division to division.72
Spare Parts
Throughout the war technical services were harassed by inability to obtain sufficient spare parts to keep intricate mechanical equipment in operation. The major Quartermaster items involved in this problem were materials-handling, bakery, cooking, shore refrigeration, laundry, salvage, and reclamation equipment, typewriters, comptometers, and adding and other office machines. In varying degrees all these types of equipment were rendered unusable by the wearing out or loss of essential parts. “Every unit,” Captain Orr reported in June 1944, “which has a piece of Quartermaster equipment has a parts problem.” He then pointed out that since every unit had typewriters and other office equipment and an M1937 field range for cooking, the problem existed “for every unit, be it large or small.”73
The more complex, the newer, and the less standardized a machine, the greater was the difficulty of securing replacement parts, particularly for fork-lift trucks and warehouse tractors. Within the Pacific areas the storage and distribution of parts for these and other materials-handling machines
formed a major segment of the Quartermaster mission until January 1944, when these duties were shifted to the Ordnance Department. The Corps, however, continued to obtain parts in the United States and distribute them to theaters of operations.74 The importance of materials-handling equipment, at times called “the keystone of the entire supply structure,” can hardly be overstated.75 Every technical service used such equipment for warehousing supplies and loading and unloading shipments. Unless replacement parts were available, the whole supply process might be delayed. Col. Henry W. Bobrink, chief of the Stock Control Branch in the OQMG, exaggerated only slightly when he declared that “the greatest problem facing the Quartermaster Corps is of spare parts for materials-handling equipment.”76
Overseas areas encountered difficulty from the very outset in obtaining parts for such equipment from the zone of interior. Parts manufacturers simply did not possess the means of meeting quickly the fifteenfold increase in demand that stemmed from huge military purchases; moreover, for some months early in the war the OQMG wanted machines rather than replacement parts. The problem was further magnified by the absence of a centralized parts procurement program until one was established in May 1943 under the administration of the OQMG. Before that date depots had tried with scant success to buy parts as they were needed. Distribution, too, was at first decentralized, parts being stored at all supply installations. A similar system operated in the Pacific areas.77
Centralized procurement had the advantage of facilitating the concentration of the thousands of materials-handling parts in a few depots, but it still left many troubles unsolved. There were no official lists of replacement parts, for the War Department had not developed its own specifications for most types of materials-handling equipment and had simply procured commercial models, the complete cataloguing of whose parts required months. Manufacturers’ lists, which were used in the meantime, were incomplete and inaccurate and did not cover all models, and even these lists were not always available at Pacific bases. At best it was not easy for requisitioning agencies either overseas or in the zone of interior to order the proper parts; sometimes it was impossible. Manufacturers added to procurement troubles by arbitrary substitution of new parts not interchangeable with old ones. Not until June 1945—too late to help overseas areas— could the OQMG provide the chief means for adequate requisitioning, fairly complete and accurate manuals that catalogued materials-handling parts, supplied the nomenclature and stock numbers indispensable for proper ordering, and indicated what parts were interchangeable. Since detailed information regarding these matters was lacking during most of the war, requisitioning was everywhere pretty much “a shot in the dark proposition.”78
Several additional factors accentuated the unreliability of requisitions. One was
the absence of figures from overseas experience showing probable future requirements. Another was the inaccurate inventorying of stocks both in the United States and in the Pacific. Because of the large number of parts, estimated in the thousands, and the lack of an accepted nomenclature applicable for identification purposes, these deficiencies were almost insoluble. Reliable inventories were particularly difficult to make in the Pacific because the similar appearance of many different parts led men, untrained in their handling, to store them with the wrong items. Proper marking of parts, especially as to identification, on their shipment from the United States would have alleviated this problem, but such marking was applied to only about 75 percent of movements. Still another factor rendering requisitioning difficult was the broad fluctuation in demand brought about by the wide variations in age of equipment in use. The consequent uncertainty about future requirements made the submission of accurate requisitions an almost impossible task. Actually, there was no normal rate of issue for most items.79
An equally serious cause of shortages, along with these inaccurate requisitions, was the slowness and inadequacy of deliveries of materials-handling parts from the United States. These deficiencies are illustrated by the high proportion of requisitions from the Central Pacific Base Command that remained largely or wholly unfilled. At the beginning of September 1944 no deliveries whatever had been made on eleven of the thirty-one requisitions submitted between 1 January and 31 May. Not a single one of the other twenty requisitions had been completely filled; only eight had been more than half filled. On the twenty requisitions submitted between the beginning of June and the end of August nothing had been received on nineteen and only 1 percent on the other. A survey of materials-handling parts overseas, conducted in February 1944 by ASF headquarters, revealed that tardy deliveries in the Central Pacific had delayed the loading and discharge of interarea cargoes. A year and a half later incomplete requisitions were still causing marked shortages.80
Difficulties, similar to those encountered in obtaining materials-handling parts, were encountered with other Quartermaster parts. Some bases possessed no catalogues whatever for commercial types of refrigerators and typewriters, for mimeograph, ditto, and adding machines, or for baking, and sewing and other reclamation equipment. These installations found it hard to requisition needed parts. At least one base was obliged as late as the beginning of 1945 to compile its own catalogues for all typewriters and bakery equipment and for several kinds of office machines.81
During 1942 and 1943 deliveries of parts for the M1937 field range were confined almost entirely to the sets of essential parts that accompanied shipments of ranges from the United States. These sets, which provided an initial stock, were made up in the erroneous expectation of a roughly equal demand for all parts and were “most wasteful of parts with little turnover and totally
inadequate for parts with high turnover.”82 In mid-1944 maintenance stocks began to arrive in slightly larger quantities. Nevertheless the Sixth Army reported in September that many units still had no field range parts and were encountering trouble in preparing meals.83 Shortages in this field indeed continued to plague troops until the very end of hostilities.
Refrigeration parts, too, were decidedly scarce. In January 1944 more than fifty refrigerators at Oro Bay were inoperative. Requisitions submitted by this base three months before remained totally uncompleted. Later in the year Finschhafen reported that its requisitions for laundry as well as refrigerator parts—requisitions which had been forwarded to San Francisco six to twelve months before—were still unfilled and that much equipment in consequence could not be used. Officers at this base, according to Captain Orr, had abandoned hope that these requisitions would ever be completed. Some relief was afforded by makeshift parts fabricated by local Ordnance troops, but many indispensable items could not be manufactured on the spot. “Cannibalization,” that is, the tearing apart of damaged equipment to obtain vital parts, was frowned upon but in emergencies was extensively practiced. From time to time conditions similar to those at Finschhafen prevailed at other Pacific bases. In October USASOS noted that small motors for electrically driven refrigerators and sealed motor units for household refrigerators were acutely scarce everywhere in New Guinea. Commercial refrigerators, brought in by the Air Forces, introduced another perplexing problem, for USASOS possessed no information about their parts and hence could not requisition them properly. Because of all these perplexities shore refrigeration, never available in adequate quantities, became still scarcer.84
Poor packing led to considerable corrosion of parts, but by early 1945 packing by Quartermaster depots in the zone of interior had improved tremendously, and parts were arriving in better condition. Those packed by manufacturers, however, were sometimes so badly corroded as to be unserviceable. This was notably true of typewriter, sewing machine, and shoe machinery parts shipped in cheap paper envelopes that went to pieces after one or two handlings.85
The problem of fairly distributing all the many parts that made up an assembled typewriter among the countless issuing and using agencies was never solved. The absence of manufacturing sources in the Pacific areas and the broad dispersion and huge numbers of typewriters mainly accounted for this failure, which at times kept hundreds of machines out of use and even interfered with the transaction of administrative business. By mid-1944 the number of unserviceable typewriters in the Southwest Pacific had grown so large and so few using agencies had means of repairing them that a spare parts depot was set up at Brisbane to rebuild worn-out machines. The protracted delays incurred in shipments to a point as distant from advance bases as Brisbane led in August to the establishment of a comparable depot at Finschhafen. Early in 1945 still
another installation was established, this time at Manila.86
In the middle of that year the concept of centralized storage was adopted for all Quartermaster spare parts, and a depot for issuing parts to the forces in the Philippines was being set up in Manila when hostilities ceased. An installation specializing in International Business Machines parts was also being established there. The QMC had thus rightly concluded that well-stocked central depots furnished a better method of promptly locating and issuing replacement parts than did scattered base installations, none of which could possibly possess sufficient stocks of all parts.87
During 1945 the scarcity of Quartermaster replacement parts was also alleviated by extending to virtually all items the practice of shipping a six-month initial supply of parts with the equipment. In July Captain Orr nonetheless pessimistically reported from Okinawa that the problem still awaited solution. Spare parts depot companies, modeled on similar units in other technical services, he thought, might at least provide the trained men needed for proper storage and identification.88 Captain Orr’s gloomy report was supported by surveys conducted by the Southwest Pacific Area and the Central, South, and Western Pacific Base Commands in May and June. These surveys showed that stocks of parts, especially for materials-handling equipment, remained far below requirements. Only in the South Pacific, where shrinking troop strength made stores, originally too small, generally ample, was the supply situation satisfactory, and even there the stock of materials-handling parts did not yet match demands.89
All the surveys urged the preparation of more up-to-date, profusely illustrated catalogues and the provision of initial stocks through the shipment of a larger number of complete sets with the equipment. One report suggested that these sets contain a one-year supply rather than the six-month supply currently furnished. The most serious objection to sets was that in the past they had included too many items seldom called for and too few items in heavy demand. The surveys agreed on the value of higher replacement factors and a working force better trained in the identification of stocks. The Southwest Pacific Area urged the creation of spare parts supply and service platoons, the establishment of centralized control and storage of parts in each area, and the employment of technical teams to proffer advice on better handling methods. Had V- J Day not come before these suggestions could be applied, they would almost certainly have mitigated the parts prob-lems.90
Class III Supply
Petroleum products, like rations, were key supplies vital to the conduct of modern war. Without these fuels, bombers and fighters could not accomplish their tactical and strategic missions, planes could not carry emergency cargoes, ships and trucks could not transport the rations, ammunition, and weapons that changed mere groups of men into fighting forces, tanks and mechanized
artillery could not be operated, generators could not furnish power for communications equipment, field ranges could not bake bread, and combat troops could not be provided with hot food or electric light.
Petroleum products consisted of various categories kerosene, fuel oil, diesel oil, lubricants, aviation gasoline, motor gasoline, and unleaded gasoline for field ranges and radar equipment—divided in turn into different grades, which were all covered by Army specifications. Because of their indispensability petroleum products generally commanded somewhat higher shipping and handling priorities than did clothing, equipage, and general supplies. Since Class III products embraced a small number of items, subject to only minor storage hazards, they presented fewer problems than did the numerous items, often fragile and susceptible to quick deterioration, which composed other classes.
Supply in the Southwest Pacific
In the Southwest Pacific Area the U.S. Army at first drew its petroleum products from the Australian Army, for supply conditions made the pooling of these items virtually mandatory. After the fall of the Netherlands Indies, the source of most of Australia’s gasoline and oil in peacetime, these products were imported from Iran and on lend-lease from the United States and South America. Since there were few military installations for handling these large shipments, they were received, stored, and drummed at commercial terminals in Australian ports. Owing to the impracticability of establishing separate stocks for both the American and the Australian fighting forces, United States organizations filled their requirements from oil company reserves and from the military supply centers of its ally. Even imports consigned to the American forces were turned over to the Australian Army. This was true not only of tanker shipments but also of U.S. Army 55-gallon steel drums, widely used for transporting and storing petroleum products. These were usually called 44-gallon drums since the imperial gallon, used in Australia, contained roughly 5 U.S. quarts, instead of 4, as did the American gallon.91
To simplify supply operations, U.S. forces at first used chiefly the same products the Australians did. As with rations, this was an unsatisfactory arrangement, for these products were poorer in quality than those furnished by the zone of interior and were available in too few grades. At times the only motor gasoline in stock contained between 12 and 15 percent of locally produced power alcohol. Though mixing gasoline and alcohol in this way relieved the shipping shortage by diminishing the importation of gasoline, it increased unduly the vapor pressure of the fuel, particularly in tropical areas, and hastened the formation of objectionable gum deposits. For these reasons blended gasoline furnished less power than did standard grades. Alcohol, moreover, because of its affinity for water, separated from gasoline if water entered fuel tanks, necessitating removal of the resultant mixture. Less but still substantial difficulty was experienced with other fuels. A partial solution of these problems was ultimately found when Australia adopted many American specifications and when the
U.S. Army reduced to a minimum the number of petroleum items it employed.92
Whereas in Australia, with its excellent commercial facilities, the storage and handling of petroleum supplies by the Commonwealth Army offered few difficulties, so that the pooling of petroleum products was applied there during the entire war period, in New Guinea U.S. forces from the beginning thought that the system worked poorly. In September 1942 a Quartermaster officer reported that at Port Moresby “no proper routine” had been set up for the issue of gasoline. Petroleum stocks in the main Australian dumps, this officer declared, were badly classified, and frequently drums bore no marks identifying the contents or indicating the date of filling. Some products, used solely by the U.S. Army, could be located and identified only by having Americans search the dumps. Moreover, no adequate means existed for determining future or even current requirements.93
In mid-1943 an especially unfavorable situation developed at Milne Bay and Oro Bay. Increasing numbers of American troops were then being scattered through these areas, but the Australian stations did not possess adequate means of transportation to deliver oil and gasoline promptly to U.S. organizations. USASOS therefore entered into an agreement with the Commonwealth Army by which the QMC assumed the entire responsibility of arranging for the handling of petroleum products for these particular organizations from the time they were shipped from Australian ports until they reached the ultimate military consumer.94 The new system applied only to limited areas around Milne Bay and Oro Bay, but a telling argument for its expansion to all New Guinea was the growing realization that supply through Australian channels gave U.S. forces no adequate control over the reserves it needed to insure constant availability of Class III products. These reserves, in fact, frequently fell below a desirable margin of safety. Mainly for this reason the two armies agreed late in the year that the QMC would distribute petroleum supplies to all American troops outside the Australian mainland.95
Under the new system the OCQM calculated all the petroleum requirements of the Southwest Pacific Area except those for the Air Forces and submitted requisitions covering these requirements to Australian sources. Base section quartermasters received the supplies from the Australian Army in mainland ports and arranged with cargo control officers for their transportation northward. In New Guinea the base quartermasters kept records of consumption and stocks on hand and each month submitted to the OCQM requisitions covering their needs during the next thirty days.96 Until
December 1943 these officers also controlled the filling, cleaning, and repair of drums, but after that date these duties were assigned to the Corps of Engineers. In New Guinea that service was already responsible for the installation, maintenance, and operation both of bulk storage tanks receiving liquid fuels from tankers and of pipelines carrying these supplies from rear to advance establishments. The Ordnance Department procured and maintained tank trucks and other vehicles for distributing gasoline, but QMC troops operated all such equipment. The Corps also obtained and distributed drums, cans, and other dispensing equipment required in moving gasoline and oil from bulk storage to using elements. The QMC brought petroleum products to Air Forces as well as other supply depots, but airmen unloaded, stored, and issued these supplies.97
In carrying out its responsibility for determining petroleum requirements, the OCQM used consumption factors based on previous use, logistical instructions, kind of operation, conditions under which future consumption would probably occur, and expected losses from enemy action. Since the elements that went into the establishment of factors varied constantly with operational plans and geographical shifts of troops, the factors themselves underwent frequent changes. The consumption factors, issued by the Chief Quartermaster in September 1944, expressed the requirements in U.S. gallons per man per day for the principal petroleum items as follows:98
| Class III Supplies | U.S. Gallons |
| Total | 1.483 |
| Motor gasoline | 0.900 |
| Range fuel for powered equipment | 0.090 |
| Range fuel for cooking | 0.090 |
| Automotive diesel fuel | 0.300 |
| Lighting kerosene | 0.020 |
| Power kerosene | 0.018 |
| Engine oil | 0.046 |
| Gear oil | 0.016 |
| Grease | 0.003 |
When the Philippines were reached, each of these factors was automatically increased by 25 percent. Later, as experience accumulated in this new area of active combat, further modifications were introduced to reflect the changed operational conditions. The revised factors, published in February 1945, were as follows:99
| Class III Supplies | U.S. Gallons |
| Total | 1.38841 |
| Fuels: | |
| – Motor (all purposes) | 0.830 |
| – Unleaded gasoline | 0.150 |
| – Diesel oil | 0.320 |
| – Kerosene | 0.028 |
| Engine oils: | |
| – OE-10 | 0.0015 |
| – OE-30 | 0.0360 |
| – OE-50 | 0.0075 |
| Lubricant, GO 90 | 0.0120 |
| Greases: | |
| – General purpose CG-1 | 0.00208 |
| – Wheel bearing WB-2 | 0.00114 |
| – Water pump | 0.00019 |
The QMC found the fair distribution of petroleum products among using elements less baffling than that of rations but a difficult task nonetheless. The most bothersome problems stemmed from the complete lack of means for bulk storage in New Guinea during the first year and a half of hostilities;
Bulk petroleum products storage tanks, shown under construction in New Guinea.
Bulk petroleum products drumming plant at Espiritu Santo.
occasional scarcities of coastal tankers for service between the northern bases; the shortage of drums; inadequate drum-filling plants; and insufficiency of cargo space for 55-gallon drums from Australia.
The unsatisfactory means of bulk distribution outside the populated regions of the Southwest Pacific forced sea-going tankers to discharge most of their cargoes at large Australian commercial terminals, which always had capacity available for military use. Normally, they could handle between 10,000,000 and 12,000,000 U.S. barrels. At the end of March 1945, their capacity totaled 11,962,839 barrels, five times the number available even then in the rest of the Southwest Pacific Area. Of this huge amount, about 4,158,922 barrels were allotted to motor gasoline, 2,746,770 to fuel oil, 2,432,774 to diesel oil, 1,598,613 to aviation gasoline, and 1,026,769 to kerosene.100
Not until mid-1943 did the construction of bulk storage tanks start at the New Guinea bases, and then only on a limited scale. Since these bases were to be used but slightly after the campaign for recovery of the Philippines had started, large, permanent facilities were not wanted. Instead the Army built small or medium-sized tanks, capable of handling 100-octane aviation gasoline, a few additional grades of gasoline, and two or more kinds of fuel and diesel oil. Where airfields were located within a radius of about twenty miles of bulk storage centers, pipelines were laid to supply aviation gasoline. At the fields themselves small bolted tanks were built for dispensing gasoline to trucks, which delivered the fuel to planes. In the islands outside Australia and the Philippines, bulk storage at the end of March 1945 amounted to but 2,068,900 barrels, less than 17.5 percent of that in Australia. Of this total 763,900 barrels were devoted to fuel oil, 760,900 to aviation gasoline, 290,850 to diesel oil, and 253,250 to motor gasoline.101
Even this restricted capacity could not always be utilized efficiently. At some ports the water was so shallow that large vessels could not approach the storage tanks; at others the tanks were so small that vessels could unload only part of their liquid cargoes. In such cases, vessels had to put in at another port. What was needed was more small tankers for movement between bases and between bases and forward supply points, and more oil barges which could be towed from Australia for delivery of cargoes in shallow harbors to tanks of limited capacity. But these requirements could seldom be wholly met.102
When the U.S. forces returned to the Philippines, the means of transshipping petroleum products from New Guinea to the new area of operations and of storing them proved unequal to the vastly increased demands. In this emergency Base K on Leyte could supply only purely local requirements. Conditions in the Philippines, in fact, bore a marked similarity to those encountered in New Guinea in the early days. In March 1945, six months after the invasion of Leyte started, only 399,500 barrels, or less than a fifth of even New Guinea’s low capacity, could be stored, and stock levels had fallen below a proper margin of safety. Extensive construction, much of it permanent and aimed at providing storage for 2,029,000 barrels, was begun in and about Manila on its reoccupation, but until the very end of
the war bulk deliveries at mast outlying points had to be made by oil barge.103
The shortage of bulk storage and pipelines everywhere in the Southwest Pacific forced the transportation and storage of most petroleum products in containers, which occupied about 75 percent more space than did an equal quantity of fuels carried by tankers. In October 1943 drummed motor gasoline was being issued at Oro Bay alone at the rate of 26,000 gallons a day, or 780,000 a month. If this huge amount could have been moved by tankers, about 5,000 ship tons would have become available for other supplies.104 A year later, after storage tanks and pipelines had been built at Milne Bay, Oro Bay, Lae, and Finschhafen, the Chief Quartermaster estimated that the new distribution system had cut requirements for motor gasoline drums from 286.000 to 133,000. In terms of shipping the saving represented 44,000 measurement tons.105 In addition to using more cargo space, drumming of petroleum products had the disadvantage of requiring the services of many more men than did the system of bulk storage and transportation.
The high priorities assigned to petroleum products normally meant that drums could be shipped promptly from Australia to advance bases. Occasionally, cargo space was indeed available in more than necessary quantities. Yet at times there were not enough vessels even for Class III supplies. In September and October 1943, for example, about 80,000 filled drums were tied up at Sydney alone. So badly crowded was the base section there that it temporarily suspended drum-filling activities. This emergency, according to the Chief Quartermaster, originated in the “congestion at unloading ports and the accumulation of vessels both at Advance Base ports and at Townsville,” where they awaited naval convoy.106 In order to save shipping and facilitate a more even distribution of oil supplies in future exigencies, the QMC recommended that units entering advance areas no longer take along the standard 60-day supply but only a 15-day supply if they were going to points with bulk storage and only a 30-day supply if going to points using drummed products. This suggestion led late in 1943 to the adoption of the principle that only troops bound for regions without established bases would be accompanied by Class III items; the exact amount would be determined by the special conditions surrounding each movement.107
Proper supply of petroleum products hinged more on the availability of 55-gallon drums than of cargo space. Unfortunately, these containers were in poor supply on account of the inadequate equipment for repairing them, the belated inauguration of large-scale shipments from the West Coast, and the small amount of Australian production. The shortage was intensified by the loss of 20 to 30 percent through rough handling and failure to replace bungs—a particularly serious omission, for it permitted the entrance of dirt and water, which rusted containers and rendered fuel unusable. Even if drums exposed to the weather were not rusted, thorough cleaning with special equipment was necessary before they could be safely used. Nevertheless this indispensable task was often neglected. As a
consequence many old containers were in unsatisfactory condition. At Lae early in 1945 Quartermaster inspectors found that most of the 21,000 drums held enough sediment, water, and other injurious substances to preclude issue to combat units.108
Because of these circumstances drums at times became so hard to obtain that prescribed replacement levels could not be maintained in advance areas. In August 1943 these areas needed more than 330,000 containers yet could obtain only 164,000, leaving a deficit of 166,000. By December the shortage had increased to 240,000. Building of more storage tanks would have reduced such deficiencies but not wholly eliminated them, for a growing proportion of available gasoline and oil had to be drummed and kept as a reserve stock for new bases and tactical organizations lacking bulk equipment.109
Not only were containers in tropical regions scarce but they had the further disadvantage of hastening the deterioration of stored gasoline, particularly high octane motor fuel, which was extremely susceptible to the formation of gum deposits. For this reason rotation of stocks was strictly enjoined in order to insure the issue of usable supplies. Some stocks nonetheless became too old for safe utilization, and in May 1944 USAFFE directed that stores six months old could not be issued until representative samples had been tested and found satisfactory.110
As petroleum needs rose late in 1943, the number of available drums, though still inadequate, also rose. At the same time cargo space was allotted on a more liberal scale. But the full benefits of these favorable developments could not be realized because of the lack of drum-filling plants. This deficiency indeed threatened to become a serious handicap to smooth supply. For some weeks it was impossible to fill all drums or utilize all assigned shipping space. Additional filling plants were hastily built at bulk terminals in Australia, and for the first time such plants were constructed in New Guinea. It was nearly a year, however, before these measures solved the drum-filling problem.111
The shortage of containers remained to the end a major difficulty despite constant efforts to increase their availability. Directives dealing with the care and inspection of drums were issued, yet heavy wastage continued. Other instructions stressed the speedy return of empty containers to filling points and, if necessary, repair points, but manpower shortages and more urgent tasks often prevented compliance. Attempts to increase the number of serviceable drums by reclamation of damaged containers were mostly nullified by want of adequate equipment.112 The construction of additional drum-manufacturing plants in Australia produced better results but still not enough containers. In this contingency
requisitioning on the San Francisco Port of Embarkation was plainly advisable, but the policy of exhausting local resources before tapping those of the zone of interior led to postponement of this action until the close of 1943, when 250,000 drums were ordered.113
Of the two principal types of 55-gallon drums—14-gauge, galvanized heavy drums and light ungalvanized drums—the heavy drums were much better. If these containers received good care, they withstood many trips and an indefinite number of re-fillings. Even in exceptionally rugged country they went through about fifteen trips before needing repairs. Light drums, on the other hand, could not endure much rough handling. They were particularly unsuitable in forward areas where most of them required general repair after three or four trips.114
Despite the scarcity and other disadvantages of 55-gallon containers, they served a greater variety of purposes in the Pacific than anywhere else. In most overseas theaters they were used simply for storage at bases, but below the equator they were also used for the much different task of supplying gasoline to motor vehicles in the field. Such employment of drums was contrary to U.S. Army policy, which prescribed 5-gallon cans for this operation. It was a practice that constantly surprised men from the European Theater of Operations, where 5-gallon cans were looked upon as the most desirable means of fueling vehicles in combat zones. This departure from ordinary procedure stemmed mainly from the lack of bulk transportation facilities. In the Pacific there were no long pipelines and no railroad tank cars, such as were used in France to bring gasoline close to the front, where it was placed in storage tanks and decanted into 5-gallon cans for issue to consumers. Service troops found that 55-gallon drums afforded the most practicable means of transporting fuels in forward areas and often in advance areas. This practice was particularly widespread in the opening months of hostilities when practically all petroleum products were received in drums. The extreme scarcity of men who could be spared for decanting fuels into 5-gallon cans at this time was still another reason why it proved expedient to use the large containers under the same conditions in which the ETO utilized the smaller ones. Comparatively unfamiliar with the handling of cans, most quartermasters came to prefer drums to cans on the ground that they quickened handling and refueling operations.115
Another reason for extensive use of the larger containers was the difficulty of procuring 5-gallon cans locally. Delivery of 300,000 cans from Australian sources was expected by 1 October 1942, but few were received on that date. Gasoline supply companies in consequence often had no containers other than 55-gallon drums and of necessity adjusted their activities to these receptacles, which they equipped with hand- or motor-operated pumps. But a special effort was made to provide vehicles outside Australia with at least eight filled 5-gallon cans as an emergency reserve. Continued employment of drums as the standard unit of supply became unavoidable when USASOS headquarters late in 1943 decided not to
order from the United States the machine tools needed to increase Australian can production—a decision based upon the already established preference for drums and the vital need of conserving local tin resources for the canning of food.116
The problem of handling bulky 55-gallon drums was solved in various ways. If winches and fork-lift trucks were available, they were used to load the containers on cargo trucks; if they were not available, drums were manually rolled onto trucks with the help of planks. Pipes, attached to the drums, drew fuel into vehicular tanks and, when necessary, into 5-gallon containers. When used for the latter purpose, each pipe was fitted with several nozzles to facilitate simultaneous fillings of more than one can.117
Early in 1945 the I Corps asked many infantry officers whether they desired the general substitution of 5-gallon cans for 55-gallon drums. All these officers, the corps reported, said no, arguing that drums were much the better containers. On a 2½-ton truck with a 1-ton trailer cans could carry only 875 gallons whereas drums could carry 1,375 gallons, or 500 gallons more, thus materially reducing the number of trucks needed in transporting gasoline. Drums also made possible comparable savings in labor, for eleven times as many small as large containers were required to load, unload, and store the 11,000 gallons daily issued to an infantry division. Use of these containers, it was claimed, cut the time for loading trucks by as much as 90 percent. Vehicular tanks, the I Corps also reported, were filled faster from drums equipped with hand-operated or motor-driven pumps than from cans to which a nozzle tube was attached to avoid an excessive and dangerous waste of gasoline. Filling the tank of a 2½-ton truck from cans took, according to the I Corps, about thirty minutes. When a drum equipped with a hand pump was used, only five minutes were necessary. The corps further pointed out that the cleaning and care of cans consumed much more time than did that of drums. Tops, for example, had to be screwed tightly on eleven times as many small as large containers in order to prevent water from mixing with gasoline.118
Because of the advantages claimed for 55-gallon drums they remained the standard containers for unit supply until hostilities ended. On Okinawa gasoline supply companies indeed “had considerable difficulty in getting units to take motor gasoline” in the 5-gallon cans included in assault shipping to meet unexpected emergencies. “Only by forcing” their issue “could stocks be reduced.”119 Except during the first few days, there was, actually, no demand for small containers. This fact was attested by the turning in of 35,000 cans at one salvage dump and 20,000 at another.
Supply in the South and Central Pacific
The distribution of petroleum products in the South Pacific did not differ essentially from that in MacArthur’s command. In New Zealand, as in Australia, local sources supplied American troops. Army forces
elsewhere depended upon products shipped in by the U.S. Navy for the use of all armed services. At the island bases the QMC performed much the same functions as it did in New Guinea, receiving the products from tankers or supply depots and issuing them to consumers. The most notable difference was the responsibility of the Corps for supplying not only Army troops but also shore-based Marine and Navy units and New Zealand ground forces. At each base petroleum products were pooled for the benefit of everyone. For this purpose Marine as well as Army storage depots were utilized.120
The Navy seldom had enough tankers or freighters for the delivery of all necessary petroleum, but the chief handicap to effective supply proved to be the shortage of discharge facilities. Throughout 1943 there were still too few storage tanks ashore to receive all the bulk gasoline delivered by water, and as in the Southwest Pacific, this deficiency was met by large movements of drummed fuels. But this expedient, too, ran into difficulties. On Guadalcanal even the means of unloading drums promptly were still lacking in October, and at Nouméa 2,500,000 gallons of packaged gasoline were being held in the harbor until the jam at Guadalcanal broke. Not until early in the following year did deliveries become easier.121
At that time a drumming plant, with a monthly capacity of 4,000,000 gallons, was built at Espiritu Santo to supply forward areas. By working three shifts a day, this installation made possible substantial savings in both delivery time and cargo space. In general, however, drum-handling capacity remained rather limited. The Guadalcanal base could unload only 1,000 drums a day and Green Island only 800. Yet the South Pacific Area, like MacArthur’s command and for much the same reasons, never experienced a truly serious shortage.
In the Central Pacific the petroleum supply situation was similar to that in its sister area to the south. Perhaps the most noteworthy difference was the continued dependence of the Army in Hawaii upon local commercial firms, which distributed gasoline to military storage tanks in the Honolulu region. Elsewhere the Navy carried out this task.
Quartermaster Units in Class III Supply
Everywhere overseas, three types of Quartermaster units were concerned largely or wholly with Class III distribution. Gasoline supply companies, trained in the zone of interior as units for filling cans and for long distance transport, were intended to receive fuels from bulk facilities maintained by the Engineers, put gasoline into 5-gallon cans, transport them to distribution points, and exchange filled for empty cans. Truck companies provided transportation from distribution points to forward areas where troops assigned to operational forces picked up the supplies. Finally, salvage repair companies reclaimed damaged or deteriorated containers.122
Gasoline supply companies, by far the most important of the three types of units, performed duties quite different from those prescribed in their tables of organization. In the absence of roads and of a regular incoming flow of gasoline and oil, storage
became an activity of tremendous significance, and these companies usually operated as depot agencies rather than as carriers and distributors.123 The 834th Quartermaster Gasoline Supply Company, stationed at Hollandia from December 1944 to the end of hostilities, reported that its actual operations differed so widely from those for which it had been prepared that much of its training proved valueless. It stored as many as 200,000 drums of gasoline, oils, and greases at one time and supplied both local issues on the base and shipments to forward areas. Yet the “company had no training whatsoever” in the receipt, loading, unloading, drumming, storage, and inventory of shipments.124 Men had to be trained for all these tasks, and a special stock record section, composed of checkers and record clerks, set up. Not all the work of the company was completely unrelated to its training. It transported gasoline and oils to outlying filling stations by 2,000-gallon tank trucks and hauled gasoline by tanker to points 20 miles from the bulk distribution center. During a 9-month period the company filled 75,000 drums at a specially built plant.
In early combat operations one or two gasoline supply platoons were attached to each task force; later, one or two companies were used. Even in tactical operations the units served more as depot than transporting agencies, usually stocking a 30-day supply for ground forces. Hauls from beaches or docks were generally short, and trailers, gasoline dispensers, and 5-gallon cans were in consequence seldom used. Not until they reached Luzon, with its fairly good road net, could gasoline supply companies be employed in their originally designated capacity of long-distance haulers.125 In practically all campaigns the companies served chiefly as operators of Class III dumps, of which two were normally maintained—one for routine distribution and another for reserve stocks. The units also issued gasoline at filling points and in 55-gallon drums, supplied all other kinds of fuels and lubricants, and often helped the Engineers operate bulk installations. In short, nearly all the major Quartermaster Class III operations were centralized in the gasoline supply companies.
During 1944 a novel Quartermaster unit, the petroleum products laboratory, appeared in the Southwest Pacific. Staffed by about three officers and fifteen enlisted men, it conducted its main operations at a semipermanent base laboratory but carried a three-ton chemical trailer, which served, when necessary, as a mobile laboratory on beachheads or at supply points.126 Before the war ended, units of this kind had been employed by the Southwest Pacific Area at several bases and in the Philippine offensives and by mid-Pacific combat forces on Okinawa. The laboratories had been created by the War Department to insure that only products of the proper quality were issued. Such units were especially needed in the Pacific. Drummed Class III supplies repeatedly arrived with identifying marks obliterated, making it impossible to know the age of the product or its octane number. Fuels and lubricants, long in storage, might contain water, rust, or gum that rendered them unserviceable. Products captured from the Japanese might have been deliberately contaminated before abandonment. Only
laboratory tests could resolve the doubts raised by these possibilities.
At bases petroleum products laboratories inspected samples of all shipments brought in by tanker, checked the accuracy of markings on incoming containers, and periodically examined stored items for signs of deterioration and departures from sound storage practices. The laboratories even examined containers at filling stations. Captured supplies were inspected not only for contamination but also for evidence of geographical origin. Insofar as their equipment permitted, mobile laboratories operated in much the same manner as base laboratories, but their more limited resources occasionally forced them to seek help from the bases in determining octane numbers.127
Some of the problems discussed in this chapter would have caused less trouble if they had been better understood at the outset of hostilities. The shortage of spare parts could almost certainly have been remedied had the Corps realized sooner how scarce they would become. If parts had been procured more aggressively in the zone of interior in 1942 and if at the same time storage of these articles had been centralized in fewer installations both in the United States and overseas, much of the trouble later encountered might have been averted. Heavy losses of supplies, too, might have been materially reduced had the principles of tropical storage been more generally disseminated and had stocks been more closely guarded in order to diminish pilferage. If more and better tropicproofing had been applied to textile and leather goods, they would have deteriorated less rapidly, but Pacific quartermasters knew little of this method of preservation and the method itself was not fully developed. Whether sized articles could have been furnished in proportions more accurately reflecting troops’ needs is doubtful. Because of their diverse national origins, U.S. troops represented nearly all the world’s peoples, and no country-wide table of sizes was likely to mirror very exactly those actually required in any one unit. The main reliance should have been put, not on country-wide, but on organization, tables. Yet even had such a shift been made, many organizations could not have compiled size tariffs in time for their special needs to be reflected in purchases in the United States. Nor would this shift have settled the distribution problems that often forced the issue of ill-fitting clothing.
Most of the more complicated supply problems dealt with in this chapter could not be easily solved. Some of those posed by recurrent shortages in forward areas were indeed so difficult that it is hard to see how the QMC could have done much more than it did to alleviate them. The roots of these problems mostly lay in causes that transcended the capacity of a single technical service to produce a solution. They were found in the world-wide character of the conflict that made it impossible for even so highly industrialized a country as the United States to furnish everywhere enough distribution facilities; in the concentration of military preparations in pre-Pearl Harbor days on the requirements of a war against Germany, with the result that full comprehension of the logistical needs of a Pacific war was achieved only belatedly; in the early decision to assign troops fighting Germany a higher supply priority than those
fighting Japan; in the extraordinary physical conditions under which the Pacific war was waged; and in the tendency, inevitable when tactical operations were carried out on a “shoestring,” to cut the number of service troops and facilities to a minimum. General circumstances, much more than the shortcomings of any military element, explain most of the supply shortages.
It is a noteworthy fact that the items quartermasters had the most trouble in distributing promptly were those which bore little or no direct relationship to combat activities and which in consequence received low handling and delivery priorities. Items recognized as vital to the successful outcome of a tactical operation offered much less difficulty. A notable illustration of this is the comparative ease with which the QMC furnished petroleum products. While the higher echelons responsible for determining priorities and providing personnel tended to neglect clothing, general supplies, and at times even food, they exerted every effort to smooth the flow of petroleum products. Chiefly for that reason, these products were usually supplied in adequate quantities. If all articles handled by quartermasters had been similarly favored, the Corps would have had fewer shortages to contend with.