Chapter 6: Liquid and Solid Fuels
A plentiful and reliable supply of petroleum products was probably the single most vital factor in establishing Allied logistical superiority over the German Army. In large measure the Allied armies were carried to victory by the internal combustion engine and the fuels with which it operated. The ebb and flow of warfare across the western desert, as the British retreated from Libya to Egypt, and then advanced from El ‘Alamein to Tunisia, could be correlated with the relative availability of gasoline supplies to Rommel and Montgomery.1 More specifically, as the American staff in London began its detailed BOLERO planning, the British War Office notified it that POL had comprised 67 percent of the daily tonnage for the campaigns in Egypt and Libya, a figure verified early in the Tunisian campaign. An American observer aptly summarized the importance of POL with the comment that “without petroleum products the war in North Africa could not be fought.” When these statistics and observations are contrasted with the fact that in World War I the number of trucks operated by the entire U.S. Army was only one-third the number of horses and mules used for riding, draft, and pack purposes, the changing nature of modern warfare becomes apparent.2
POL Administration
Because of the vast quantities of petroleum products required in time of war by the Army Air Forces, the Navy, the British, and vital elements of the civilian economy, the Quartermaster role in POL matters differed somewhat from that for other supplies. Procurement, wholesale distribution, and final issue of rations, clothing, and equipage were unbroken chains of Quartermaster responsibility. But by contrast, logistical control of petroleum products was delegated among several high-level U.S. and Allied agencies. The Quartermaster Corps was responsible for the computation of Army requirements. In the Mediterranean theater, operational details were handled by a specially designated petroleum officer in each base section, who performed the Class III duties
normally assigned to the base quartermaster. The Quartermaster Corps actively re-entered the POL distribution system at the next-to-last step where fuels were packaged into 5- and 55-gallon containers and carried to the distributing points for delivery to the ultimate consumers.
An AFHQ Petroleum Section, to handle purely military requirements, was set up on 1 January 1943. Its chief, Col. Gustave H. Vogel, and his deputy, Lt. Col. Webster Anderson, were both Americans and both members of the Quartermaster Corps, but this was not considered to be a Quartermaster function. Their requisitions were placed upon the Army-Navy Petroleum Board in Washington. Early in February control over all aspects of POL in the Mediterranean area was centralized in the AFHQ Petroleum Section and the Military Oil Subcommittee, North African Economic Board. Staffed with American and British officers and civilians these offices, both operating under G-4, AFHQ, collated the estimated requirements of the Allied forces, as well as those of vital civil agencies, and prepared a consolidated monthly estimate which was transmitted to the United Kingdom and the United States. In accordance with earlier American-British agreements, American specifications were standardized for the common supply sent into North Africa. It was also agreed that all products would be shipped from the United States until fuel became available from Middle Eastern sources such as Haifa or the Persian Gulf. This pooling system—intended to avoid duplication of stocks and facilities—opened the way for any truck, ship, or airplane of any Allied power to refuel at any depot in the North African theater.3
In the combat zone traditional doctrines prevailed, and the army-level quartermaster supervised the coordination of requirements, procurement, storage, and distribution of liquid fuels, oils, and lubricants as well as such solid fuels as coal and wood. To simplify the procedures for the handling of POL products, Sullivan appointed Maj. (later colonel) George L. Darley, the commander of the 204th QM Gasoline Supply Battalion, to serve simultaneously as Fifth Army Class III officer. By thus establishing direct contact between his headquarters and the operating units, the army quartermaster eliminated duplication of effort. Darley eventually controlled 2 tank truck companies and 2 gasoline supply companies, which operated an average of 14 POL supply points throughout the Italian cam-paign.4
For the initial landing in the south of France, CON BASE imitated the organization of Peninsular Base Section, setting up a POL Section separate from the Quartermaster Section. This POL Section remained with Delta Base Section when CONAD moved forward to Dijon, and from 1 October to 20 December 1944 the CONAD Quartermaster Section handled POL matters. By the latter date, the pipeline from Marseille had been brought into the
CONAD area, and POL responsibilities became so heavy that a separate POL Section was organized. Within Seventh Army, POL functions closely paralleled those of Fifth Army already described.5
Rates of Consumption
In World War II, in terms of pounds per man per day, petroleum products and solid fuels constituted about 50 percent of the total supplies used in an overseas theater.6 Because of this, the discrepancies brought about by small errors in planning invariably represented massive tonnages in actual operations. In the beginning Sullivan and Darley could not foresee all the factors that had to be taken into account in estimating POL requirements. British experience was only a rough guide, and U.S. experience tables were nonexistent. In planning for the Sardinia operation in 1943, Sullivan reviewed TORCH experience and compiled statistics from the Tunisian operations. Similar studies were also begun by Maj. Victor H. Moore, QMC, a member of the Petroleum Section of AFHQ and of NATOUSA, who carried his work through the experience of II Corps in Tunisia. Moore’s report came to the attention of the OQMG in Washington, which extracted considerable data from it and returned it to the field in the form of POL experience tables.7
As with ration consumption, North African operations taught Class III planners that the average rate of gasoline consumption varied with terrain and tactical conditions. As already noted, POL requirements for the TORCH landings had been based on an arbitrary calculation of 5 gallons per wheeled vehicle per day and 50 gallons per track-laying vehicle, and on that basis the assault convoys transported a 7-day supply of POL. Thanks to the short duration of TORCH, this supply was adequate until the D plus 3 convoy arrived. Yet the brevity of the fighting, both Sullivan and Moore knew, made it impossible for them to accept the validity of the 5- and 50-gallon factors. Moore therefore examined more closely all POL factors emerging from Tunisian experience.
Two types of experience tables were developed out of the Tunisian battles. One applied to cross-country marches and active combat, and the other reflected experience in the administrative movement of units.8 In the southern
Tunisian campaign, where the II Corps had lengthy supply lines, the allowance of 5 gallons per day for wheeled vehicles was insufficient while the 50-gallon factor for track-laying vehicles was confirmed. When the II Corps redeployed into northern Tunisia, fighting there for three weeks on a much narrower front, commanders made greater use of armor and the earlier experience was reversed. Actual consumption per mile in the field did not vary to any significant degree from what had been predicted by the War Department. Fluctuations in the number of miles traveled per day by various types of vehicles accounted for the variations in consumption. Nevertheless, a so-mile average operational day for all types of vehicles appeared to be valid in most combat situations, and was used in computing requirements. Variations in the length of the supply lines were reflected in the level of supply maintained at the forward POL railheads.
For operations in Sicily and at Salerno, the so-mile factor continued to serve as a basic planning figure. The AVALANCHE Plan was based on a figure of 6.25 gallons at 8 miles per gallon, plus a to percent safety factor, which made 6.875 gallons of gasoline per vehicle per day the specific planning factor. When the number of each type of vehicle ashore was known, the 50-mile operational day allowance would be 5 gallons for wheeled vehicles, 30 gallons for half-track vehicles, and 60 gallons for tanks. The requirements for engine oils were computed on a basis of 5.5 gallons for each 100 gallons of gasoline, and greases on the basis of 2 pounds for each 100 gallons—a figure subsequently subdivided into percentages for the various weights of greases to be used. When Sullivan and Darley attempted to apply the 50-mile operational allowances on a basis of gallons per day per type of vehicle, they were never able to secure an accurate figure of the number of each type of vehicle present in the command.9 On 25 November 1943 Darley established a new system. He set POL levels at 4 days for the army dump, 2 days for railheads, with 1 gallon per man per day as the basis of issue. Beginning in January 1944 the Fifth Army published its monthly POL consumption rates in gallons per man per day.
The continued experiments with different methods of calculating requirements would appear to indicate dissatisfaction with the results, even though there were no serious shortages of petroleum products in the Mediterranean war. The only overdrawn calculation—as revealed by experience—was the factor of 5.5 gallons of lubricating oils to each 100 gallons of gasoline for vehicles, a figure of July 1943 that proved to be almost double the actual consumption rate in January 1944. More significant was the confirmation in Italy of the Tunisian experience that fuel consumption varied with the terrain and tactical situation. In the late spring of 1944, when the Fifth Army jumped off from the Gustav Line, broke out of Anzio beachhead, and pursued the Germans northward toward Rome, consumption of gasoline rose from .8592 gallons per man per day to 1.280 gallons. Before the summer was over, the Germans checked the advance. U.S. armor came out of the line and into reserve where it trained. Fifth Army’s POL
requirements fell perceptibly—to a daily figure of 1.097 gallons per man in August 1944 —only to rise again to 1.514 gallons per man per day during the winter of 1944–45, when troops also used gasoline for heating purposes. As the weather grew colder, troops also burned diesel oil to keep warm and vehicles required lightweight lubricating oils. Conversely, the resumption of the offensive toward the Po River saw a declining requirement for greases and lubrications; at the same time per capita gasoline consumption soared to 1.678 gallons as armored movements ate up fuel. For the DRAGOON operation, the planning factor was 1.375 gallons per man per day.10
Decanting Operations
Because the Quartermaster Corps’ POL mission in North Africa was essentially that of a front-line retailer rather than a rear area wholesaler, the transfer of gasoline from its bulk state—in a railroad tanker, a pipeline, or tank truck—into a semiportable 55-gallon drum or a portable 5-gallon can was a responsibility with many ramifications. First of all, the inflammable nature of petroleum products meant that spacious sites had to be found. But wide dispersion was only the beginning of many perplexities in operations. Containers were often so scarce that the impetus of POL toward the railheads was seriously impeded. Drums were so heavy when filled —weighing about 400 pounds—that handlers, who often became careless through fatigue, suffered hernias and other injuries. It took a minimum of three men to load or unload a full drum on a 2½-ton truck. At best handling was a slow, dangerous, process. Because brass or bronze wrenches were not always available to loosen the bungs on the drums, wooden mallets had to be improvised to eliminate the hazard of sparks. All these factors and many more made themselves felt at the point where POL was packaged, and could often spell the difference between wasteful or economical procedure and between delayed or timely deliveries.
The widespread use of the 55-gallon drum throughout the Mediterranean theater marked a noteworthy deviation from the procedures for gasoline delivery planned for BOLERO and the TORCH operation.11 There were seldom enough jerricans in the rear areas to permit a direct bulk-to-can transfer, and demolitions hindered the movement of railroad tank cars or tank trucks into the forward areas. Moreover the attempt to extend a pipeline over semi-mountainous terrain involved a disproportionate expenditure of labor and materials and was not completed in time to support the operation. Thus a gap appeared between the forwardmost bulk delivery point and the rearmost dump where the 5-gallon can could be efficiently handled.
On the Ouled Rahmoun–Tébessa supply line the delivery system illustrates a solution which was practiced in subsequent operations. The II Corps
Emptying gasoline drums into “catch basins” in Seventh Army area, January 1945.
received its gasoline in 55-gallon drums from Eastern Base Section, but could not ship these heavy containers to railheads where both service personnel and dispensing equipment were scarce. Furthermore, the direct transfer of gasoline from drums to cans, using small inefficient portable dispensers and shifting this equipment from drum to drum, was a very slow process. Attempts to use heavy-duty trailer-mounted dispensers were unsuccessful, for they quickly overheated when subjected to this type of intermittent operation. II Corps decided, therefore, that the contents of the drums should be returned to a bulk state before canning. Satisfactory bulk containers were improvised from 500-gallon tanks taken from old railroad engines and sunk into the ground or, cruder still, deep pits were lined with tarpaulins. From these dumping vats, heavy gasoline-driven pumps forced the fuel through a network of hoses into thousands of 5-gallon cans aligned in well-dispersed rows. When rain threatened to contaminate the gasoline, each vat was covered with a tarpaulin.
In addition to wastage by spilling and evaporation, this system represented inefficient use of transportation. Carrying 120,000 gallons—the daily turnover—to II Corps, Eastern Base Section used 120 2½-ton trucks between Ouled Rahmoun and Tébessa. This round trip consumed 8,000 gallons or 6½ percent of the payload, a figure almost double the amount that would have been expended by 2,000-gallon tank trucks on the same route. But the few trucks of that type available were assigned to the Army Air Forces.12
The numerous handling operations in the three-step procedure—bulk to drum, drum to bulk, and bulk to can—required an extra labor force and put an additional strain on the dispensing equipment. Because the filled drums were too heavy to be handled manually, A-frames and grappling hooks were improvised and attached to cargo trucks to lift the cumbersome drums out of DUKWs or trucks. Meanwhile the inefficiency of the system did not end with the delivery of gasoline. The need to store the bulky drums until decanted and again until evacuated added to the space requirements at a Class III supply point. For example, the dump at Tébessa occupied three square miles. But even more important was the fact that
a special allocation of trucks had to be made to return the empty drums to the source of supply if the cycle was not to be interrupted. For all of these disadvantages, the realities of field operations demanded the use of available equipment. In the middle of 1944, the Fifth Army recommended additional personnel and equipment for QM gasoline supply companies. Sullivan called for more collapsible containers (Mareng Cells), hoses, coupling valves, sixteen 2½-ton trucks with winches, one 1½-ton fire truck, and additional gasoline dispensers. The War Department’s answer came after V-E Day with the publication of a new Table of Organization and Equipment.13
Sentiment against the use of drums in forward areas persisted throughout the Mediterranean war, and quartermasters were never loath to employ other techniques of delivery. Beginning in mid-March, gasoline from Eastern Base Section was delivered to II Corps by a motley fleet of American, British, and French tank trucks, with capacities ranging from 750 to 4,000 gallons. Even some old porcelain-lined wine trucks and trailers were pressed into service. Before II Corps shifted to the northern zone, these vehicles moved approximately 3,000 tons of POL directly from the ports of Philippeville and Bone to the canning point at Tébessa, bypassing the drum-filling station at Ouled Rahmoun.
Enjoying considerable success in Italy was the “tanker” which Darley’s battalion and divisional units improvised by equipping a 2½-ton cargo truck with eighteen empty 55-gallon oil drums and a portable dispenser. The drums were filled while on the cargo truck and the truck circulated among motor parks and airstrips, using its own dispenser to pump fuel directly into armored tanks and airplanes without removing a single drum. Although it represented a mild infringement of regulations that prohibited the filling of drums while they were aboard trucks, because of dangers from static electricity, this expedient had the advantage of providing a 990-gallon payload in contrast to the regulation 875-gallon load carried by a truck and trailer moving 5-gallon cans, or the 750-gallon load of the standard tank truck.14
Another Fifth Army adaptation, inspired by a desire to increase direct delivery of gasoline, was the American-style service station. Wherever surveys revealed a large number of casual trucks—at busy highway crossings, supply installations, or rest centers—Darley erected field dispensing units on each side of the roadway. Five such stations were located at ten-mile intervals on the highway between Leghorn and Florence. A typical station consisted of a captured German 750-gallon tank, mounted on several 55-gallon drums. A simple two-hose system fed the gasoline by gravity into the customer’s tank. Instead of military police roadside signs were posted to attract customers. Each sign was large enough to be read at a distance
and all instructions were printed in several languages. These stations served traffic moving in both directions, and simultaneously reduced the number of 5-gallon cans that would otherwise have been emptied, washed, filled, issued, and perhaps lost.15
The 5-gallon Can and Its Army Class III Home
Whether gasoline moved from a port toward the front lines by tank car, tank truck, pipeline, or drum, the 5-gallon can proved to be the indispensable container for delivery of fuel to the combat forces. Strangely enough, when the can was empty of its expendable contents, it became a nonexpendable Class II or IV item of Quartermaster supply, to be drawn from a Class II or IV warehouse. As originally conceived the 5-gallon can was designed primarily to be carried as a reserve tank, more or less permanently identified with a certain vehicle, and with a certain bracket holder on that vehicle. In theory the can was not to wander, but combat experience changed all this, and the can became a constant roamer. In Tunisia Class III officers also demonstrated that a unit’s wartime allowance tables for the 5-gallon can were ridiculous. The policy of “no can, no gas” meant that the daily demand for x gallons of gasoline required a minimum capacity in cans of 2x. If there was any depth at all to the can exchange system, the requirement might easily reach 4x or 5x. The Tunisian campaign
also showed that if the can had any temporary home it would be either in a corps (later in an army) Class III base dump where the container was cleaned and refilled or in the Class III railhead where it was momentarily stored or exchanged for an empty one.16
Adapted from a German model captured by the British in 1940, the 5-gallon can, known first to the Americans as a blitz can and later as the jerrican, possessed a number of advantages over the heavy and cumbersome 10-gallon drum used by the U.S. Army in the 1930s. The British can was an exact imitation of the captured German model; the American pattern (called ameri-can by the British) was just a bit smaller and lighter, and had a different closure.17 Because of their shape (almost identical), both cans stacked easily and did not shift or roll in stowage. Moreover, they were light enough to be handled by one man, yet durable enough for extensive use in the field, and the position of the handles made for easy transportability. The American model had a round opening for its screw-type cap, into which a flexible nozzle could be fitted. This was
needed to prevent spilling when gasoline was poured into the flush or countersunk openings of tanks on American vehicles. The true jerrican had a cam-operated locked cap and a short spout. Later in the war, it too was fitted with an adapter and a flexible nozzle. But both types of nozzles were sometimes lacking, and in that case the original model which could be opened manually and poured, after a fashion, without a funnel, was more desirable. Two additional merits should be noted for both cans: when filled with gasoline, they would float, and they were excellent for carrying drinking water.18
Utility of the 5-gallon can for amphibious operations was demonstrated when every vehicle participating in the assault landings of TORCH supplemented its full tank with from two to ten filled cans. In fact, the entire supply of combat-loaded gasoline for TORCH was similarly packaged and the assault forces theoretically had enough reserve fuel in cans to meet their needs until the cans, drums, and bulk fuel on the D plus 3 convoy were ashore, stored, and readied for issue. During the Tunisian campaign, more and more bracket attachments for cans appeared on vehicles. Fenders, bumpers, cab tops, and underbody truck space were used to house the cans, thereby increasing the cruising radius. Through use of these brackets, a disabled truck was often a source of cans to other trucks in the convoy.
The Tunisian campaign also brought the 5-gallon can to its proper place in a QM dump or railhead site. A quartermaster arranged the cans in rows of 1,000 and at a glance he could easily make up his tallies in 5,000-gallon lots. Once the can found its place in a Class III installation, a whole new method of operations began to develop around its storage and issue requirements. The system soon began to acquire standard procedures and an organization tailored to carry them out. In the HUSKY operation, the Seventh Army quartermaster observed that “all fuels for unloading across beaches must be in 5-gallon cans and use of this container should continue for a maximum of from 20 to 30 days. The 5-gallon can is the only satisfactory container in actual combat and fuel should be so packed, up to the limit of the availability of cans.”19
For field operations the 5-gallon can early demonstrated superiority over the 5-gallon disposable containers known as “flimsies.” Made of thin metals and poorly constructed, both American and British flimsies failed to withstand corrosion, shock, rough handling, or even pressure from normal stacking. Their only advantage over the jerrican was possible usefulness as sheet metal. Estimates of petroleum losses in the flimsies ranged from 40 to 60 percent. Ships loaded with the throwaway containers frequently steamed into North African ports with up to sixteen inches of gasoline in their cargo holds, and at least one vessel exploded because of this dangerous condition. Eager to discourage the use of the flimsies “at once”—in the midst of the Tunisian campaign—several American observers noted that “there was no excuse for the losses experienced from these cans,” and attributed the apparently excessive
requirements of the theater to “losses of products that never reach the vehicle.”20
The Fifth Army operated three types of Class III installations: the army base dump, in which all POL products were stored at a ten-day level; the Class III railheads (an average of thirteen of which were in operation at all times in Italy), serving the organic divisional units; and the filling stations operated in army or corps areas to serve their own units or along major highways to supply transient trucks. Elements of the 204th Gasoline Supply Battalion operated the POL installations. Darley found that elaborate camouflage of his railheads was not possible as the stacks of 5-gallon cans were issued and replaced several times a day. He placed reliance on wide dispersion, friendly air superiority, and organic or attached antiaircraft units. As a safeguard against fire, he also emphasized dispersion of the stacks of cans and drums, directing that they be at least seventy-five yards apart. His men did not ditch the ground around the stacks because the danger was not so much from flowing, burning, gasoline as from the explosion of containers and the spread of fire by flying sparks in the air. They piled dirt up and around the stacks of containers in order to cushion the shock of an explosion and force the energy upward, rather than outward.
In laying out an actual dump site, Darley instructed his gasoline supply companies to stack 5-gallon cans in rows, 2 cans high, 25 cans long, and 20 cans wide, or a total of 5,000 gallons per stack. When it was necessary to store drums within the range of enemy artillery, they were placed on the ground with their bung ends up, rather than on their sides, as exploding gasoline blew out the end of the drums. If the drums were in a horizontal position, the explosion ignited other piles in the vicinity. For fighting fires among the stacks, foam-type extinguishers were often unsatisfactory as the foamite tended to remain on the tops of cans and did not smother the fire below and between the cans. Darley recommended the use of mud and water to fight fires effectively.
Eighty-eight percent of gasoline went forward from railheads to the average infantry division in 5-gallon cans. They were issued and filled only by daylight because working at night increased the accident rate and resulted in many costly mistakes. Darley found that cans filled at night were usually too full, which caused leakage the following day while the cans were in transit or in storage at dumps, thus increasing the fire hazard. In the northern Apennines stacks of gasoline cans sometimes became completely buried under snow. Having previously marked all the 5,000-gallon caches, which were dispersed over a large area, with long poles set in the middle of the stacks, the 3840th Gasoline Supply Company experienced no difficulty in locating its stocks.21
Since the supply cycle depended on the availability of empty cans at the canning point, units were prohibited from accumulating cans beyond their allowances, and the “no can, no gas” doctrine was reiterated by Fifth Army in Italy.
So long as supply lines were short, the quantity of cans presented no serious problems, but in the summer of 1944, when the drive to the Arno was in full momentum, the shortage became acute. By mid-June, Clark announced that the supply of 5-gallon cans in Italy was “extremely critical.” In moving from one bivouac area to another, units abandoned the empty containers, which were also used for many other purposes than the intended ones. As part of the drive to make every individual “gas-can conscious,” all troops were called on to report or turn in abandoned containers. By 1 August 1944, the situation was no better; rather, it had deteriorated, but not because of carelessness or neglect. The urgent demands of another buildup in Italy—in three weeks, Seventh Army was to land over the beaches in southern France—had cut deep into Fifth Army’s inventory. Since April 1944, 250,000 full 5-gallon cans of gasoline and 25,000 cans of diesel oil had been frozen in Naples for the assault phase of ANVIL. The seriousness of the can shortage was implicit in the warning that all units operating in corps and army areas would draw their gasoline in 55-gallon drums. Clark soon issued instructions that a way be devised to make this cumbersome container easier to handle.22
In the winter of 1944–45 the shortage continued. One factor was the increased amount of time a can spent in transit from the forwardmost railhead to the using unit and in return to the filling point. Snow on high ground and mud in the valleys were serious obstacles to motor transport operations. Fortunately, the Fifth Army was able to borrow some containers from the British Eighth Army, operating along the Adriatic coast. By the spring of 1945 the situation was somewhat better. Moreover, improved weather and the extension of the POL pipeline to Raticosa Pass, halfway from Florence to Bologna, had reduced requirements. In preparation for the final Allied drive into the Po valley in mid-April, 300,000 5-gallon cans were moved up from Florence to Raticosa, and Darley was able to issue additional cans to the infantry divisions and attached mobile units.23 In the open terrain north of Bologna, units operating under conditions of mobile warfare consumed more gasoline than during any previous phase of the Italian campaign. The combat forces were supplied by decanting operations at the end of the pipeline, which was extended rapidly across the north Italian plain.24
In the south of France, pipelines were extended northward from the Marseille area as fast as technical limitations permitted, but Seventh Army’s extremely rapid advance soon left them far behind. Since tank cars were scarce, large amounts of POL were packaged and sent forward in freight cars from the
decanting points to CONAD reconsignment points, and thence to unit railheads. Supplemented by tanker barges on the Rhone and its tributaries, this system carried the southern forces all the way to the Rhine.25
Solid Fuels
Solid fuels, like POL, were of vital concern to other nations and to other U.S. agencies as well as to the U.S. Army. A combined British-American fuel section was organized in a matter of days after AFHQ was set up in Algiers. It was charged with computing, requisitioning, and allocating all coal requirements of the theater, both military and civil, except those of the Royal Navy. Moreover, it supervised the operation of coal mines in Morocco, Sardinia, and Italy. The AFHQ quartermaster represented the U.S. Army in dealing with this section, and it should be noted that, unlike POL, solid fuels were a Class III Quartermaster Corps responsibility at all levels as far as the Army was concerned. Purely military uses for coal, charcoal, and wood were largely confined to heating billets, tents, and hospitals, and the operation of military railroads, ships, and blacksmiths’ forges. The Army also became deeply interested, although not directly concerned, in measures for the relief and economic rehabilitation of liberated areas. Practical experience demonstrated that unless raw materials could be provided to the contractors, local procurement of goods and services was virtually impossible, and in the Mediterranean area solid fuels were the most essential of raw materials. Quartermasters therefore found it profitable to cooperate closely with the G-5 sections of various headquarters and with such purely civilian agencies as the United Nations Relief and Rehabilitation Administration.26
The Quartermaster contingent as part of the SOS for Operation TORCH was armed with a terse mandate to the effect that “coal and other heating fuel will be procured locally, initially.” Writing at Casablanca six months later, the historian for the quartermaster of Atlantic Base Section noted wearily that “this masks a complex problem so hopelessly entangled in political and industrial issues that it is still unsolved.”27 Before the war, Morocco’s eastern coal mines at Djerada had produced less than a quarter of its requirements, and the situation was only slightly improved after the country was occupied. Early in 1943 when I Armored Corps anticipated a major build-up in Morocco, a series of conferences took place in Casablanca, and both civilian and military needs were studied. The decision at that time, which was rather typical of Mediterranean experience regarding Class III supply, was that less than 1 percent of local coal production could be made available to the U.S. forces.
The shortages of coal and delays in the delivery of field ranges forced the Quartermaster Section of Atlantic Base Section to search for firewood to be used in cooking and heating. Because local stocks were too meager to meet civilian needs, there was some surprise when the Bureau of Forests in Rabat
welcomed the inquiries of Cola James E. Poore, Jr., who reconnoitered the area for G-4, Atlantic Base Section. Wood was available in the forests and native labor could be hired to chop the trees, but French charcoal-burning trucks were no match for the crude paths and hills over which these loads had to be hauled. This proved to be only a temporary complication. One officer, 25 men, and 10 ¾-ton trucks were sent to Koebia, on the plain between Port-Lyautey and Petitjean, where they established a shuttle system across the 6-mile gap between the forest and the railroad. While the operation lasted, 15 carloads of wood were loaded daily on the trains returning from Algiers, westbound for Port-Lyautey, Casablanca, and Rabat. By the time the forest in this area was cleared of its available wood, gasoline ranges came into general use and the need to rely on wood for cooking purposes was practically eliminated.28 Meanwhile, the British War Office assumed the responsibility for procuring coal in the United Kingdom and delivering it to designated ports in North Africa and Italy for use by American forces. By October 1943, the British had agreed to ship 150,000 long tons of coal a month and charge it to reverse lend-lease.
In planning for the Naples base the Allies agreed to maintain common stockpiles of POL products and coal. The Petroleum Section, AFHQ, had the responsibility for allocating petroleum and there was no serious problem in this field. But with coal, thorny problems had to be solved. As in the North African campaigns, Brig. Gen. Thomas H. Ramsey had over-all responsibilities for the Allied coal stocks and administered coal allocations from Algiers, except for the Royal Navy and the Ministry of Transport. In Italy, Ramsey’s deputy, a British brigadier, was chief of the AFHQ coal section. This officer received requirements from six separate military organizations and the Allied Control Commission’s coal section. Next to Canada and France, Italy had been the third largest peacetime importer of coal among the nations of the world. In North Africa a French Government-supervised cartel handled distribution for the Allies. In Italy the coal “Monopoli” was a similar cartel but Ramsey could not use its services because the headquarters and records were in enemy-occupied Rome and most of its operations centered in the Po valley. With little local coal available, Ramsey’s initial allocation problems were hard to solve. For the U.S. forces, the Quartermaster, Peninsular Base Section, submitted a monthly bid for coal to Ramsey’s deputy. Once the allocation was approved, Painter’s Class III officer was free to issue coal. Painter in turn had two major customers, the Fifth Army and the French Expeditionary Corps.
During the first few days at Naples a large coal pile reserve caught fire, but Ramsey’s agents nevertheless searched out and requisitioned some 30,000 tons. The first colliers soon arrived, but could not discharge coal at Naples because of widespread demolitions. Moreover, the Liberty ships used as colliers, because of their deep draft, could only be discharged at either Naples or Bari. Ultimately a pier of the Ilva Steel Company at nearby Bagnoli came into use. Actual consumption rates were lower
than preinvasion estimates, for the destruction of industries and utilities was much greater than had been anticipated. Likewise the amount of bagged coal used by the AVALANCHE amphibious force was small. Because rail lines and rolling stock had been thoroughly destroyed, coal was not needed for train service until the end of 1943. During November and December, the Allied stockpile received 10,000 tons, bringing the total amount handled to approximately 100,000 tons. As the tactical situation permitted, coal piers opened at Civitavecchia, Piombino, and Leghorn through which moved all the imported coal and coke used for steel, cement, gas, and power plants as well as for heating of military quarters.29
In its combat zone, the Fifth Army earmarked solid fuels almost exclusively for space heating. Because British coal was in short supply during the first winter, Sullivan restricted its use to the ward tents of field hospitals, allowing ninety-five pounds per tent stove per day. If a hospital was in a building equipped with furnaces, the coal allotment was five pounds of coal per hour per square foot of grate surface. Meriting a low priority, offices and recreation rooms were heated only by cordwood or scrap lumber.30
Through the winter months, General Sullivan sent organic Quartermaster transportation to the rear areas to obtain firewood, making purchases wherever he could and then forwarding receipts to the base section quartermaster for payment. By the end of January 1944, when troops and equipment had been diverted to Anzio, he called upon Peninsular Base Section to undertake the supply and delivery of all firewood, and asked for increased allotments of coal lest wood stocks prove inadequate. During the summer of 1944, hospitals and units operating at altitudes higher than 2,000 feet were the only approved users of fuel for space heating, but even they were restricted to periods when the temperatures fell below 50° Fahrenheit. To preserve its limited stocks, Fifth Army issued coal only when wood was not available. Under no circumstances was coal to be used for cooking and even in hospitals it was not available for heating the quarters of medical personnel.31
Early in the fall of 1944, shortly after Fifth Army headquarters moved into Florence, Sullivan initiated action to assure an adequate supply of coal for the second winter campaign. He estimated that Fifth Army would need 600 tons monthly during October and November and twice that amount in December 1944 and January 1945. Because troops were deployed in the Apennines, General Sullivan requested authorization to issue coal on the basis of five pounds per man per day to units occupying buildings heated by furnaces, and two pounds per man per day to units using stoves or fireplaces. Higher headquarters did not concur in these calculations and replied with an authorization of one-half pound per man per day. This figure provoked such a spirited debate between General Sullivan and General
Ramsey, now quartermaster of MTOUSA, that the latter requested Sullivan to “please write me a nice letter apologizing for all the mean thoughts and words used in the recent conversation.” A compromise was reached. By the end of November 1944 Ramsey and Sullivan revised the basis of issue retaining the allowance of five pounds of coal per patient per day for hospitals, while accepting the half-pound per man per day for other types of space heating. Contingent on the absence or unsuitability of other solid fuels, coal allowances were approved for such miscellaneous uses as laundry and bath installations, cooking, water-heating, and blacksmiths’ forges.32
Because Peninsular Base Section furnished only Boo tons of coal during the latter part of 1944, the Fifth Army continued to make local purchases for the larger part of its requirements. The base section quartermaster encouraged all the technical services to search for solid fuels in isolated storage dumps, at factories, and in the vicinity of any industrial activity, and to relay pertinent information to the quartermaster as to the whereabouts of fuel. In turn, Sullivan requested military government officials to release the amounts of fuel required by Fifth Army. He regulated its distribution to combat zone units whether the stocks were within the jurisdictional boundaries of the al my or base section.
Lignite, or brown coal, was obtained in sizable quantities from the Italian owners of a mine south of Florence. Wood, cut originally for the Germans, was found in plentiful quantities in a forest about five miles north of Pisa, and additional cuttings were made as needed. Because the carbon content of lignite and wood was less than that of high-grade coal, and their volatility was considerably higher, they had to be issued in quantities double that of coal. Notwithstanding this disadvantage, by March 1945, lignite and wood constituted more than 90 percent of the solid fuels handled by Fifth Army.33
Unlike Italy, France had ample coal resources, but only lignite was available in the original DRAGOON lodgment area. As 6th Army Group pushed rapidly northward, locomotive-grade fuel to keep the railway lines operating became a major problem. A preliminary Transportation Corps survey in mid-September reported 2,500 tons in the Marseille area, 13,000 tons near Lyon, and more than 7,000 tons near Grenoble. Although this meager reserve included fuels not suited for locomotives, it had to suffice until rail lines and coal mines, especially the upper Loire basin southwest of Lyon, could be rehabilitated. Stocks dwindled to an eight-day supply in November, and the British War Office agreed to make 25,000 tons available for import through Marseille. But during the same month the southern mines reached 70 percent of peacetime production, largely through the use of prisoner
of war labor. By the end of the month the vital Tarascon-Beaucaire bridge over the Rhone had been repaired and a coal supply for the Rhone line of rail communications was assured.
Solid fuels allocated for use of the troops reflected the same conditions. Late in September, local French officials in Dijon grudgingly allotted 750 tons per month to CONAD for Seventh Army and French Army B. CONAD actually received 917 tons of coal in October, 1,900 tons in November, and 12,000 tons in December. Even the last figure only amounted to approximately 1.25 pounds per man per day, a very low figure for winter combat in the Vosges highlands. Beginning in November, all solid fuel allocations were coordinated through SHAEF and paid for by the French under the reciprocal aid agreement.34
As a school of experience for subsequent operations, POL supply in the Mediterranean theater provided a variety of valuable lessons. Probably the most valuable of all concerned the supreme utility of the jerrican, and the possibility of effecting notable economies in personnel and equipment through its use. The British Eighth Army should be credited with this innovation, which antedated the TORCH landings, but the Americans developed various corollary procedures, notably a system of filling jerricans speedily by the use of powered gasoline dispensers. Mediterranean quartermasters learned a useful lesson regarding the standard 750-gallon tank truck used in the MTO. They judged this to be too small, and recommended that the 2,000-gallon semitrailer of the Army Air Forces be adopted instead. That suggestion was never adopted in their own theater, but large numbers of the bigger tankers were used in the ETO, where they proved very satisfactory. Since the Mediterranean theater was not a highly industrialized area and operations there were on a modest scale, there was little opportunity to requisition and exploit really large civilian POL installations. The few important facilities of that type had been thoroughly demolished by the Germans. Coal mines were of minor importance in the theater, and their operation was not a Quartermaster responsibility. Experience with pipelines was also limited, especially in the forward areas. By the time that Peninsular Base Section began to operate a tactical pipeline for Fifth Army in the Po valley, similar operations on a much larger scale were already under way in the European theater. For logistical planners, the most significant contribution of POL operations in the Mediterranean was the system of reporting gasoline consumption in terms of gallons per man per day.