Chapter 7: Outfitting the Mediterranean Troops
Company commanders found in their basic training manuals the statement that “no man feels that he is in the Army until he puts on a uniform.”1 The requisition, storage, and issue of the uniform was a field quartermaster responsibility no less important than furnishing daily foods and fuels to each man, and in some respects, largely because of the unknown life span of Class II or IV property, the mission was more complicated. While the different items of food numbered something less than 200, the list of Class II and IV Quartermaster articles ran into the tens of thousands. Along the shores of the Mediterranean most Class II and IV items, of simple design, of confirmed utility, and of steady replacement factors, such as web belts, wooden tent pins, pick mattocks, motorcycle helmets, canteen covers, and canvas folding cots, to mention just a few, presented no major supply problems. On the other hand quartermasters in North Africa, often assisted by observers or liaison teams fresh from home with new concepts of supply or salesman’s kits full of experimental items, found that much of their time went into studying the inadequacies of clothing articles or other items under varying conditions of battle, or terrain, or weather. Because many items were assembled to form a standard uniform, simultaneously worn by tens of thousands of soldiers, it was plain that inadequacies of clothing design would be considered far more serious by tacticians or technicians than those of the typewriter or the two-burner stove. Nevertheless, inadequacies are always relative, and quartermasters in the field were primarily concerned with shortages of clothing, rather than with its faults.
In time of war the degree of an inadequacy is always open to question, and many factors, notably those of time and space, play an important role in determining how serious the inadequacy may be. Because he is part of the chain between the national base and the front, the pipeline quartermaster, who detects and reports inadequacies to those at home who are in turn responsible for innovation, correction, and production of an item, can easily project himself into a controversy over this question. Unwittingly, his favorable or unfavorable reporting may complicate his primary mission of filling a depot system and avoiding shortages at a time when the spigot quartermaster must open his end of the supply line. Consequently, field quartermasters can always trace their deepest problems and greatest worries to difficulties associated with shortages, not inadequacies.
North African Testing Ground
As in the supply of rations, the particular location of the wearer of a uniform was an important factor to the quartermaster who hoped to institute and sustain an efficient and economical system of clothing supply. It did not matter that the soldier in support commands was closer to the scene of fighting than he was to the United States; he dressed more like his service brother at home than he did like the soldier in combat. With peace restored across Morocco and Algeria, officers and enlisted men wore service uniforms during office hours, on pass, or at formal ceremonies. At work in base sections, the out-of-doors uniform consisted of olive drab woolens, leggings, and high, russet service shoes. When, around mid-April, the weather became warm, the soldier dipped into his two well-stocked barracks bags to change into cotton khaki shirt and trousers.
In Tunisia the combat soldier, carefully selecting his favorites from a host of articles, wore only the bare essentials. His basic uniform was either the armored force winter combat suit, a two-piece combination of overall-type trouser and a tight-fitting jacket, both made of waterproof cotton lined with wool, or the olive drab wool trousers and shirt, plus the olive drab 1941 field jacket2 and the wool overcoat with roll collar. If warm weather persisted, he donned the two-piece herringbone twill (HBT) fatigue suit.
To enable the soldier to dress in his favorite service or combat uniform, quartermasters at Glasgow or Hampton Roads before the TORCH landings had issued each man two drawstring bags each containing approximately forty separate items. The eighty-piece load had been set by the War Department’s Tables of Allowances of June 1942. Immediately upon landing in North Africa, the troops divested themselves of such generous allowances, and in the wake of their decision quartermasters acquired many new depot and salvage jobs. First, the soldier turned back his impregnated clothing. Second, he discarded one or two of the three pairs of service shoes which added weight to his hand baggage. Finally, he was tempted to barter some of his superfluous clothing for native souvenirs or services.3 In the end, the man stripped down to what his backbone could bear and to his favorite and comfortable articles, clinging to each of them even though they might not last through the next battle.
Though aware of this situation, pipeline quartermasters were unable to challenge the policy of issuing ultragenerous amounts of clothing. Yet they recognized that it was a wasteful policy that aggravated depot and salvage problems.
As they saw it, it was a mistake for the ports of embarkation to issue at one time full allowances of clothing, both winter and summer, for combat and noncombat purposes.4 From the
Parsons jacket, worn by Ordnance officers in France, December 1944.
beginning of TORCH, the twin barracks bags constituted the heart of the problem. If the soldier’s second bag was not lost, diverted, or delayed en route overseas, quartermasters knew of other threats to the contents. While on the way to or deployed at the front a man was divorced from his heavy denim bag, which might lie in a native shack or dump far to the rear under guard. Frequently, these makeshift depositories afforded no protection against vermin, rain, mud, or wind, and by the time belongings were recovered they had deteriorated beyond reclamation. The shortage of means of transportation complicated hopes of recovery. One observer contended that when units got a hundred miles away the soldier had little hope of ever again seeing his items of initial issue.5 For these reasons quartermasters favored curtailing the issuance of clothing at ports of embarkation, limiting the soldier to articles he needed for his overseas trip and a short time thereafter. All other stocks, quartermasters believed, should be shipped in their original cartons and distributed in accordance with short-run tactical and climatic requirements.6
The quantity of issues was not the only clothing problem. After the II Corps entered Tunisia in January 1943 quartermasters began to receive complaints about the quality of clothing. That a desert was a sandy, dry plain, always punished by hot breezes, proved fictional in North Africa, which had been previously described by a German logistician as a “tactician’s paradise and a Quartermaster’s hell.” As the weather turned cold and the winds rose, each day and each night severely tested the soldier’s uniform and his equipment, and quartermasters heard repeated calls for improvements.7 Because of its weight
and clumsiness, the overcoat became an early battle casualty. The wool serge coat, essentially a parade ground garment after the development of the Parsons 1941 field jacket, proved unpopular since it gave no freedom of movement. Moreover it required frequent dry cleaning, an impossible service in a primitive area. So stocks of coats grew on depot shelves, or rested at the bottom of a barracks bag, and were quietly forgotten. Soldiers had long second thoughts about the coat’s field replacement, the zippered olive drab field jacket. They complained that it was not sufficiently windproof or warm, that the zipper broke, that the jacket’s cuffs, pocket seams, and collar frayed and soiled quickly, creating an untidy appearance. When washed, it faded and shrank. For combat purposes, it was too long to be a vest, too short to be a blouse. At the waist the soldier constantly tugged to keep the jacket from riding above and over his web belt, a lifeline to his canteen, first aid pouch, and cartridges. If the belt was held up by suspenders across the chest, the jacket’s slash pockets were inaccessible.
Quartermasters noted various faults in the uniform. With their pockets filled, the olive drab trousers tightened in the seat or crotch, impairing a man’s mobility. Quartermasters observed the American soldier’s preference for the British battle dress as an answer to problems of mobility, protection, and neat appearance. Service shoes encountered extreme conditions of wet and cold weather in North Africa, and the leather sole soon proved unsuitable on the wearing march over abrasive soils. Soldiers universally condemned their canvas, shoe-string leggings, which, when wet, never seemed to dry, and when dry, were always a size shorter. With metal hooks and eyes, leggings were difficult to lace in an emergency. Frequently laces broke, rendering leggings worthless. Wool socks, soldiers noted, should be heavier.
Finding convenient, comfortable, and sturdy clothing for nurses in the field was another problem.8 Nurses arrived in North Africa with service uniforms and quickly demanded clothing as functional as the soldier’s. They also wanted clothing in quantities that would permit frequent changes. But male planners had prepared the Tables of Allowances of the Army Nurse Corps. They thought of women’s dress in terms of skirts and Cuban heels for overseas duty; the nurses wanted slacks or coveralls, service shoes, and wool anklets—clothing designed for work under canvas, in ambulances, on evacuation planes, and in jeeps, not in station hospital wards. Nurses could not buy these things locally, and Quartermaster sales stores were nonexistent until after the Tunisian campaign. Nurses accordingly wore men’s clothing taken from stocks of small sizes. In this attire they were often ridiculed. On 17 June 1943 the War Department announced a special T/E 21 for nurses, listing a number of new field items with a size tariff to fit women.
Quartermasters also received recommendations for improvements in
personal and organizational equipment.9 White handkerchiefs, towels, and undergarments violated camouflage security. The dyeing of white materials had been discussed in 1917 and 1939, but nothing had been done about it. Soldiers soaked telltale white items in coffee grounds. Many other items posed difficult problems. Gloves provided no protection against blisters. And there were no wire cutters. Although seldom separated from their intrenching tool, especially if it had a hickory handle, Americans were quick to point out the advantages of a product of German ingenuity, a digging tool designed to serve as a pick as well as a shovel. They considered mess utensils an annoying companion on the march and an alarm bell on patrol. To eliminate rattles and clangs, soldiers sought a more compact meat can in which knife, fork, and spoon could be firmly anchored. They also believed that their mess kits needed a better metallic coating than galvanized zinc, which would not withstand heat over an open flame. A deeper can would allow one man to cook for several others. During nontactical marches soldiers found it practically impossible to shoulder the drawstring barracks bag, which when stuffed resembled a puffy medicine ball, because its rope cut into a man’s skin.10 To eliminate the necessity of dragging or rolling the bag, soldiers requested an improved carrier, made of sturdy canvas, complete with straps and handles, which they could easily balance on their shoulders.
Throughout North Africa by far the most prized clothing allowance was the wind-resistant, water-repellent armored force winter combat uniform. Lined with wool and providing a smooth exterior facing, particularly appropriate for crawling in and out of turrets of armored vehicles, it could be worn over woolen underwear, wool trousers and shirt, or a herringbone twill outfit as the weather demanded. Indeed, the popularity of this suit was not confined to Americans; the large number of Germans captured wearing this ensemble offered mute testimony that enemy soldiers also considered it a highly desirable piece of equipment. The first Quartermaster observers, who were sent out from Washington between March and May 43, received many demands from II Corps units for wider distribution of the armored force combat uniform.
Far from Tunisia, the Quartermaster Corps had its own plans for meeting the criticism of existing clothing.11 Since the fall of 1942, the Office of The Quartermaster General had considered the development of a single combat uniform for all combat arms and services. This ensemble would be so designed that it would suit all the varieties of climate and terrain in the several theaters of war. It would be worn over wool underwear and woolen clothing in the winter, or alone in the summer, and was
intended to make the specialized armored force and parachutist uniforms obsolete. But this was more than a simplification program. The principle of “layering,” gradually adopted by arctic explorers as a basic improvement upon the fur clothing of the natives, inspired the development of a uniform intended for the entire temperate zone at all seasons of the year. Basically, the layering principle relied upon the use of loosely woven woolens, covered by light but tightly woven windproof cotton garments capable of protecting the enclosed warm air from wind erosion. For the outer shell of field trousers and combat jacket, the material used was water-resistant 9-ounce sateen.12 On 20 February 1943, the QM Research and Development Division prepared to circulate this newly developed combat uniform and several related items of equipment among various technical boards of the War Department’s arms and services. This procedure was preliminary to command acceptance of the project. While awaiting the results of staff reports, the OQMG sent a similar kit of items, designated experimental items, M1943, to North Africa.
When the OQMG observer, Lieutenant Pounder, arrived in Africa in the spring of 1943, he brought with him an exhibit, including a preliminary version of the two-piece green sateen combat suit, a trench coat with removable lining, a high-top combat boot with uppers of reversed, flesh-out leather, a similar combat shoe, a blanket-type sleeping bag with water-repellent cover, a combination poncho and shelter half, collapsible canteens, cushion sole socks, wool gloves with leather palms, and a jungle pack with waterproof liner.13 Having demonstrated the experimental M1943 items to a group of AFHQ officers in Algiers, Pounder displayed and modeled the items in Tunisia although they were not subjected to anything resembling a field test. Nevertheless, Pounder received favorable reports on most of these articles, and in his numerous letters to the OQMG he encouraged further research and development of all M1943 items.
When fighting ended in Tunisia, several other steps had been taken on paper to improve the inadequacies of the 1942 clothing. A new type of table for QM clothing and individual equipment, T/E 21, appeared on Io March 1943.14 Because of the late start in research and development, and because of the time lag in the various phases of standardization, in the acceptance of items under either the discretionary or mandatory columns of T/E’s, and in production and delivery of new clothing and equipment, more than a year (July 1943–October 1944) would pass before base quartermasters had enough M1943 items to begin issuing them to unit quartermasters.
On TORCH’s first anniversary only a
few frugal soldiers could boast of having clung to some favorite items of their initial overseas issue. On Sardinia one air force service unit reported that it could fall out for roll call in most of its original clothing, but if the commander insisted that the men should dress similarly, each man had only one common outfit—nature’s. In reporting this situation, an OQMG observer found one uncomplaining airman who might be considered a supply sergeant’s dream. By November 1943 this soldier was wearing the last suit of the three initial sets of fatigue clothing. It was worn thin and ripped out at the seat. The soldier still had his first overcoat, but no woolen underwear, no woolen socks, and no blouse. He had a pair of olive drab woolen trousers, two wool shirts, and three blankets. He had no cot, no mattress. To point up the man’s plight, the observer wrote: “He is the type of soldier who doesn’t forage for himself and doesn’t have a hard-working sergeant to look after him.”15
Mediterranean Laboratory on Replacement Factors
At the same time that it shed light on the usefulness of Class II and IV items, the Mediterranean campaign offered quartermasters the opportunity to study the distribution and durability of these supplies under combat conditions. Even in the contrived battlefield situations of the prewar Louisiana, North Carolina, or Tennessee maneuvers, quartermasters had found it impossible to simulate the losses that would be suffered from enemy counterattacks, from bombing by enemy aircraft, or from depletion of stock by pilferage. One of the earliest commissions Middleswart carried overseas was the reminder to start immediately assembling data on replacement factors.”16 This information was essential to the success of a logistical system, for the amount of supplies, especially of non-expendable items, to be stockpiled in North African bases was governed as much by the estimated rate of consumption and replacement as by the initial requirements before a particular operation got under way.
Middleswart’s own struggle with replacement rates began in January 1943 when he was Quartermaster, Atlantic Base Section.17 By that time what had happened to most of the TORCH surpluses could no longer be traced. In gathering statistics Middleswart was also handicapped by the constant turnover of troops in Morocco. The II Corps was redeploying toward southern Tunisia, and all base sections were supporting the move. The authors of strategy at Casablanca also upset efforts to establish replacement factors since they called for additional troops—a reborn French Army—in the Mediterranean area.
Late in February 1943 Middleswart became Quartermaster, SOS NATOUSA, and with more authority and opportunity in this centralized
agency, he forwarded a few replacement factors which he considered in line with his actual consumption rates to the War Department, NYPE, and SOS ETOUSA. The first comprehensive reappraisal of factors was based on records of the 1st Infantry Division, the 1st Armored Division, and Eastern Base Section in mid-April 1943. It came none too soon. The Quartermaster Section required the data as a basis for additional requisitions on NYPE. Without such revised factors, the port commander could not properly process Class II and IV requisitions for the two new field armies, the Fifth and Seventh, which had recently been activated in North Africa, nor for a growing number of Allied troops, prisoners of war, and dependent civilian groups. Moreover, without revised factors to compare with its own, the OQMG and its administrative superior, ASF, ran the risk of erroneous calculations for both long-range and short-range procurement plans.
Middleswart and the OQMG used the same formulas to derive a replacement factor, which is merely the measure used to express the life span of an item. For example, let us say that the OQMG had found a field jacket lasted a year. Annual replacement, then, was 100 percent, and the monthly replacement rate was 83.3 jackets per thousand, 8.33 percent, or a factor of .833. The annual percentage of replacement was reached by dividing the total quantity of an item replaced in a year by the number of that item in the initial issue. If a man received two flannel shirts initially and within a year drew three more, his annual replacement rate was 1.5, or 150 percent. But for large numbers of men, varying initial issues were an additional complication. In some units men were issued khaki shirts or herringbone twill jackets instead of flannel shirts, so the actual average initial issue for 1,000 men was about 1,800 flannel shirts. As an illustration of the importance of accuracy in such factors, if Middleswart assumed that the replacement factor of an item was 50 per 1,000 men for 30 days, whereas the actual average rate was 100, production and distribution of that item would meet only half the prevailing demand, and a supply crisis in that item would be reached before many months.
Immediately after the Sicilian campaign, Middleswart and his able pupil, Colonel Poore, assembled data on combat maintenance in Seventh Army.18 In beginning work, Poore’s efforts were hindered by the absence of men experienced in statistical procedures, by the loose depot system, and by a fluid tactical situation that interfered with accurate record keeping. Another complication was that stocks intended originally as replacement supplies were often distributed as initial issues to units arriving in North Africa without their authorized equipment, forming into provisional units, re-forming under Tables of Organization and Equipment recently changed by the War Department, or regrouping and refitting in staging areas. Still another complication, Poore found, was careless record keeping throughout
North Africa, caused by the much abused assumption that there was no policy of property accountability in an overseas theater. Middleswart speedily corrected this misconception, which was based on a careless reading of Army regulations that applied only to tactical units during combat.
In reviewing records of the 1st Infantry Division’s experience in Tunisia, Middleswart found an illustration of the difficulties in gathering careful supply statistics. In the Maktar sector, the first delivery of maintenance stocks to the 1st Division contained many items that could not be used, and the II Corps ultimately received them back into stock. Records of the transaction, though undoubtedly completed, were not available to the Quartermaster Section, SOS NATOUSA, and statistical computations ended. But 1st Division records did show that field jackets and socks had been too numerous in large sizes, too few in small sizes. Generally speaking, existing stocks of clothing and equipment were too low, particularly in mid-February 1943, when one of the division’s combat teams returned from operations with the British, and its requisitions created a sudden demand on the 1st Division quartermaster which he could not meet.19
By 29 September 1943, Middleswart had completed a study entitled Seventh Army Rates of Consumption, Quartermaster Items, Sicilian Campaign, D Day (12 July) to D plus 60 (10 September 1943).20 It was based on the records of the Seventh Army quartermaster, who reminded Middleswart of the difficulties of keeping such records in the midst of amphibious and flanking operations. Because records of supplies moving over beaches and docks were poorly kept, and maintenance equipment was frequently issued without tallies or receipts, it was almost impossible to estimate inventories at the end of the sixty-day period. Nevertheless, Middleswart assembled data capable of furnishing a sketchy basis for estimating his Sicilian factors from such sources as the shortage reports submitted by each organization, fragmentary tallies of dumps or depot issues, known losses by enemy action, and a variety of consumption records which he considered fairly representative of the experience of combat and service organizations. Armed with this information, he turned to collecting strength figures of Seventh Army, breaking its total strength down into fifteen-day periods and into four major categories of troops. In order to evaluate requirements more accurately, in view of the great difference in the rate of use of Quartermaster supplies by troops on various types of duty, he restricted his study to service troops either in support areas or in the combat zone, and to combat troops either in reserve in rear areas, or fighting at the front. Manifestly, this approach represented a degree of refinement that contrasted markedly with the OQMG’s conventional March 1943 factors, which treated a theater of operations as an entity.
Middleswart’s report showed that the most pronounced attrition appeared in the combat zone among combat troops. It was no surprise that support troops accompanying the task forces suffered the second greatest supply shortages.
Among the specific items which required a higher replacement factor than those of the OQMG 1 March 1943 tables were clothing, intrenching tools, cleaning supplies, field desks, barber kits, field ranges, BAR magazine belts, flatirons, and flags. Under combat conditions clothing losses soared, largely because it was impossible to maintain adequate repair and laundry facilities to check the wear and tear of an item of clothing. Apart from losses through carelessness, waste, and enemy action, there were other causes for higher replacement rates. The constant splitting and regrouping of formations brought calls for additional flags, which were useful for identifying headquarters or assembly points. With filth and dirt encountered at every native house or building used by the troops as billets, headquarters, or warehouses, mops, brooms, brushes, and soap were expended at a tremendous rate. All organizational equipment, since it was necessarily scattered throughout many splinter groupings, had to be handled as many as fifteen different times. In the process field desks and ranges suffered a high rate of breakage and loss.
Middleswart was careful to point out that Seventh Army had been obliged to make substantial initial issues to organizations during combat. To meet campaign conditions, provisional battalions, each with a strength of 1,100 men, staging areas capable of processing 40,000 troops and many air transport headquarters had been activated. In addition organizational equipment had been issued to units which were split up to operate in a manner never intended by War Department tables. For example, bakery companies operated by sections in several locations. Quartermaster service companies split up and functioned at separate railheads. Depot companies ran dumps by segregated platoons or sections, and hospital units handled field trains or temporary installations by operating in small detachments. The situation created shortages of organizational items, and initial issues necessarily depleted maintenance stocks. In his report, Middleswart explained that it was impossible to correlate these factors, for he had no data showing the extent to which initial issue had been taken from maintenance stocks.
At the same time that Middleswart and Poore had projected their Sicilian study, the War Department, prompted by the OQMG, was eager to test the validity of its own theories for forecasting production requirements in the United States.21 As early as 21 June 1943, the War Department had asked SOS NATO-USA to prepare monthly matériel status reports, basically involving depot inventories, as a basis for determining OQMG maintenance factors.22 Set forth in Technical Manual 10-250, this method of forecasting provided that zone of interior production should equal theater demands minus local depot inventories. To solve this simple equation, the War Department wanted Middleswart to supply statistics on each of the following: initial issues, replacement rates in combat, and distribution data. As Middleswart had already noted in his operational studies, there were many variables among each of these three factors. He
also knew that before any sound scientific basis could be laid for testing this method of forecasting requirements, considerable staff work would have to be done in the theater to collect, process, and record the proper data. During July and August, at a time when operations had ceased in Tunisia but were still progressing on the islands, and when plans had been made to land on the Italian mainland, Middleswart attempted to cope with the War Department directive.
Meanwhile, a team of Quartermaster officers from the OQMG, consisting of Lt. Col. George H. Cless, Maj. Ramon Wyer, and Capt. Richard T. Bentley, arrived in Oran on 13 August to study warehousing and stock control methods in base section depots and to secure, if possible, combat rates of consumption. Using TM 10-250 as a guide, the team reviewed the nomenclature of 6,500 Quartermaster items in order to obtain a sound basis for theater-wide reporting. To simplify the work of depot quartermasters, the team revised and simplified forms and forwarded them to base sections so the preliminary paper work could begin. With this phase of the survey under way Wyer took over the team from Cless in September and began to revamp Middleswart’s report on the Sicilian operation for formal presentation to the OQMG. Realizing that the Seventh Army’s experience was sketchy, Wyer made arrangements to attach Capt. Bernard A. Courtney to the Fifth Army to develop replacement factors at the divisional level, beginning with the D-day assault at Salerno on 9 September 1943. Courtney arrived at Fifth Army headquarters on 14 October.
The arrival of Wyer’s team coincided with the dispatch of Middleswart’s first monthly status report to the War Department at the end of August. This document reviewed NATOUSA experience on 350 Quartermaster items since the end of March 1943. When asked if the report had been limited to replacement factors and initial issues to United States troops, Middleswart was unable to provide the answer because depot stock reports failed to make any distinction among issues to Allied forces, prisoners of war, and dependent civilian groups.23 To correct this situation SOS NATO-USA asked depots to keep separate reports on U.S. Army issues to Allied troops, the U.S. Navy, and other agencies.24
The limited scope of the 31 August report and the need for greater refinements made it imperative that Wyer’s team visit all North African depots before the next monthly report was compiled.25 This became all the more important when ASF announced on 30 September that T/O&E replacement factors were for use only in the initial establishment of theater reserves and maintenance levels and that thereafter NATO-USA would requisition supplies on the basis of actual issue to troops. The teams discovered considerable carelessness, insufficient training, a willingness
on the part of depot quartermasters to accept unknown, unintelligible, or nonstandard nomenclature of items without investigation, and a widespread misunderstanding of stock control principles. All these shortcomings increased the normal difficulties of keeping accurate records under complex conditions. Nevertheless the team’s December 1943 compilation was able to justify statistically the QM NATOUSA request to the War Department for higher replacement factors. Middles wart knew that his factors had been based on crude empirical observations. Now in accordance with the ASF policy of 39 September the Quartermaster Section’s requisitions would be closely edited by NYPE. On 22 December 1943, through NATOUSA, the Quartermaster Section asked the War Department for increases or decreases of factors involving fifty-three major items. Twelve items of personal equipment called for a 200 to 300 percent increase of replacement allowances over those which ASF had listed in its first tables of September 1943.26
The QM NATOUSA monthly materiel reports only reflected base depot shortages, not combat replacement experience. So far only the summer operations of Seventh Army had been recorded and there was no comparable report for a winter campaign. For it, eyes centered on the efforts of Captain Courtney in Italy.27 From October 1943 until January 1944 that officer attempted to secure combat replacement factors from Fifth Army for units below corps level, but his first reports beginning in mid-October continued to be sketchy, notably on air force experience, since many units used unauthorized reserves built up through false requisitions and the robbing of dumps. Courtney’s tables suggest that several divisions and their trains had entered Italy with large maintenance stocks. He understood that divisions kept their excesses apart from army’s normal replacement issues. Courtney also ran into the same difficulty that Middleswart had encountered in the Seventh Army. The Fifth Army constantly resorted to splitting formations and the hasty activation of provisional units, making it extremely difficult to distinguish between initial issues and maintenance stocks. Confronted with a host of statistical problems, Courtney repeatedly called on Middleswart to send enough clerks to put one man at each division. Unable to secure the needed technicians from the United States, Middleswart recalled Courtney to Oran on 10 January 1944.
Meanwhile Major Wyer, who had been assigned to Middleswart’s staff as head of a new Control and Reports Branch, decided to retrace all of his staff studies since the preceding summer, revisit all base sections and depots, including the new one at Naples, and make a fresh start in Fifth Army. As a result the January 1944 report on rates of consumption and on-hand stocks of Quartermaster supplies was a monumental document. For the logistician, it reflected the type of warfare being fought in the Mediterranean area.28 As Middleswart and Wyer
studied Courtney’s reports from Italy, covering the first thirty-seven days of the campaign, they concluded his figures were inaccurate, almost beyond calculation.29 Courtney admitted that his conclusions were broad and sweeping statements, that his figures merely reflected the availability of various items in the combat zone, and that his methods of assembling data, notably the interview method, were not being conducted according to Quartermaster manuals. Nevertheless, Middleswart acquired useful knowledge from these reports. He told NYPE and OQMG that NATO-USA’s demands for blankets would be greater than experience in North Africa indicated, that existing army stocks of woolen socks were meeting only to percent of Fifth Army’s requirements, and that all divisions were demanding armored force combat suits though they were unauthorized as a substitute for the 1941 field jacket. Shelter half maintenance in combat was high because almost every soldier had two—the extra one made an excellent wrapper for blanket rolls as well as a moisture-resistant sheet between the ground and the blankets. Italy’s rocky, mountainous terrain caused unusually high maintenance requirements for woolen clothing, intrenching tools, blankets, and tentage. Courtney had predicted that the requirements would greatly exceed Tunisian experience.
Inevitably, base and combat zone quartermasters crossed swords on the validity of their own combat replacement factors. The first crisis developed when Peninsular Base Section arbitrarily reduced quantities on Fifth Army’s requisitions for the SHINGLE operation (Anzio beachhead), demanding additional justification. Fifth Army contended that the War Department’s over-all factors for an entire theater should not be applied to a specific tactical operation. Moreover, the special-project method by which the base section proposed to supply requirements in excess of prescribed replacement factors “will not assure adequate and timely supply to Fifth Army.”30 The Middleswart-Sullivan exchanges coincided with the development of the same issue in COMZ ETO where it provoked considerable confusion and resulted in a lengthy controversy. Though unknown to Sullivan until mid-July, and only informally to Middleswart at the time, the War Department was using NATOUSA replacement tables as a guide in its debates with other theater quartermasters. This policy was without the consent of NATOUSA quartermasters, who were always careful to preface their reports with the statement that such replacement tables applied only to the Mediterranean theater. This practice was especially unfortunate since NATO-USA, where at one time five base sections acted in support of a single field army, did not represent a typical ratio of combat to service troops. Theater-wide issue statistics tended to minimize the
importance of replacement experience within a single army.31
In the early summer of 1944 after the battles along the Gustav Line and at Anzio, Middleswart and Sullivan each disagreed and continued to disagree with the statistical evidence compiled by the other. In full candor, both men expressed their points of view. After Wyer’s Control Branch had completed its full-dress survey of base section depots between January and May 1944, Middleswart felt his staff had acquired enough evidence to maintain that Sullivan’s compilations for a six-month period from November 1943 to April 1944 were neither acceptable nor complete.32 The heart of the matter was—what constituted completeness?
In Middleswart’s opinion, the Sullivan figures included data on initial issues, omitted supply reserves at Anzio, inflated all totals by including back orders on items, and failed to account adequately for returns to stock from salvage. To this criticism, Sullivan protested that he, too, had used Wyer’s experts and methods to complete Fifth Army’s set of factors. He was disturbed when Middleswart’s evidence, published as a theater circular, began to acquire a more official aspect. Sullivan was also alarmed when he compared the 24 June 1944 circular with War Department supply documents of February 1944. Sullivan’s reaction suggests a fear that Wyer’s original base depot statistics would return to the Mediterranean area carrying all the authority of the War Department. It was difficult for him to understand why so many people and machines had somehow overlooked Fifth Army’s experience. He believed that OQMG and War Department factors based on Wyer’s reports had not given sufficient weight to Fifth Army’s experience of increased maintenance for several important items. Sullivan wrote to Middleswart: “We feel our combat experience is of sufficient importance to merit study by all concerned, and we know now, if stocks are not received based on our issue experience, in many cases we will be short and the combat efficiency of the troops will necessarily suffer.”33
By October 1944, the Quartermaster Section, NATOUSA, had assembled more data to present to the War Department. The June 1944 tables were soon revised upward. Still the October revisions did not fully meet Sullivan’s needs, and much like his brother quartermasters who at the moment were fighting in France, he continued to seek higher replacement factors for Class II and IV
supply. In so doing, Sullivan hoped to avoid repeating the difficulties which the Fifth Army had experienced in its first winter campaign in 1943–44.
Problems of the 1943–44 Winter Campaign
With the advantage of hindsight, one-may argue that in the later phases Mediterranean commanders did not grasp all the implications of the stringent budget imposed on them by global planners. When resources are slender, an operation like SHINGLE may prove very risky if it can neither be quickly completed nor abandoned. Once it was clear that Anzio would remain an isolated beachhead, this became evident very quickly to Mediterranean quartermasters who had to handle more and more requisitions based on higher and higher replacement rates. Acutely aware that supply was a function of command, quartermasters were inclined to believe that attrition of Allied supply was the real objective of German strategy, and to wonder whether Allied strategy was in tune with the current situation. The unity of the German command in contrast to the very real barrier represented by the inter-Allied boundary—an arbitrary line drawn down the central spine of Italy—seemed to give the enemy an advantage. Some blamed poor staff liaison between the American and British army headquarters; others believed that placing an administrative boundary along a geographic boundary violated a basic principle of war, and that failures of coordination were inevitable.34 Whatever the explanation, the Allied advance northward was a costly, inch-by-inch affair, marked by repeated tactical failures and a very high attrition rate for Quartermaster items.
In the winter of 1943–44, the 10 March 1945 version of T/E 21 was in force. It allowed each man approximately twenty-one items of individual clothing and twenty-six items of individual equipment. But of these items, the man’s woolen undershirt and drawers, his field jacket and overcoat, wool socks, shoes, blankets, mess gear, and shelter half were the critical items of resupply. During the first winter in Italy, Middlemart and Sullivan suffered many disappointments in supplying regular and special winter clothing. As they scanned requisitions, watched replacement factors race upward, read alarming supply reports, and heard rumors that men were suffering because of the lack of clothing or its poor quality, they tried to remedy the situation with every device at their disposal, but there were many factors in the situation which neither man could influence.
During the first twelve days at Salerno, Class II and IV items were issued automatically, drawn largely from the contents of individual assault packs.35 On 21 September the requisitioning phase began as Fifth Army assumed its responsibility for supply. Immediately, the calls began to come from divisions
and regiments for resupply of stocks. Without time to consolidate all requisitions or to inventory each unit’s stocks, Sullivan on 2 October 1943 presented Middleswart with Fifth Army’s first replacement needs for 100,000 men. Meanwhile, for lack of anything better, the Fifth Army wore the same type of clothing which the II Corps had worn in the TORCH landings and across Tunisia. The men fought in overcoats, which had been criticized a year earlier as heavy and cumbersome, and in 1941 field jackets that were neither warm nor durable. Fortunately, some soldiers had combat service boots which they had tested for over four months while training in North Africa. But of the original 90,000 pairs tested, only a few remained, so that soldiers laced up their detested canvas leggings or tucked their trouser legs inside the top of their wool socks.36
As for quantities of clothing, Sullivan’s preinvasion plans failed to materialize. Follow-up convoys were delayed in unloading at Naples because of the extensive damage to port facilities or because of the higher priority which other classes of supply enjoyed for the moment. Consequently, a backlog of regular and special items of clothing and equipment was created at North African ports. But even there Middleswart could not piece together any reasonable explanation of what had happened to the M1943 items which had been displayed during the Tunisian campaign. Nor in writing Sullivan was Middleswart able to elaborate on a remark by General Somervell, currently in Oran on his way to India, that the Mediterranean area would no longer enjoy its favorable supply position. Somervell told Middleswart that hereafter Quartermaster requisitions from NATOUSA were not to leave the theater unless each one was justified. Even with such justification, Somervell warned that NYPE had already begun to sharpen its editing pencils in light of the decision on OVERLORD.37
Somervell could give Middleswart no information on the status of the M1943 experimental items, which had begun their rounds for concurrence, test, and correction among the many bureaus, training centers, and committees of the War Department as early as February 1943. Neither he nor Middleswart could foresee that on 15 December 1943, a revised T/E 21 would appear, listing many of the M1943 items for the first time, but under special headings that would restrict their use to combat operations in arctic and mountainous areas. With their use limited, it was clear that production of the items would also be limited. It would take considerable salesmanship and a liberal interpretation of the special headings under the new T/E to provide all current or projected combat troops with a complete set of the recently approved M1943 items. But this problem lay in the future and the Mediterranean theater was not concerned with production even though it was the potential customer of both regular and special winter clothing under the new T/E 21. Only one M1943 item, the sateen field jacket, was
placed in the universal and mandatory column of the December 1943 T/E 21 for issue to troops going overseas.38 In that category, the jacket had been divorced from the layering principle, and thus from the original plan for an all-purpose, universal unit of combat clothing and equipment. However, it had been authorized to replace other field jackets, notably the M1941 Parsons type, when theater stocks of nonstandard jackets had been exhausted. But in October 1943, Middleswart was still unaware of these developments and he had to concentrate on getting the Fifth Army its replacement needs based on a T/E that was over a year and a half old and on replacement factors which Wyer and his team had just begun to assemble and report.
Sullivan’s 2 October 1943 requisition indicated that the armored force winter combat suit still enjoyed the popularity it had acquired in Tunisia.39 He sought by the first available transportation 200,000 suits for equipping all infantry troops. But Middleswart had received bad news. The OQMG had declared the tanker’s uniform limited-standard in midsummer of 1943. It was no longer even being manufactured. Fifty thousand suits, which had been ordered earlier by Middleswart, were en route to Naples, but they would not fill Sullivan’s needs. Through channels, Middleswart recommended that, in addition to those already authorized under the June 1942 Table of Basic Allowances (T/BA) only three suits be issued to every two vehicles. Though this procedure was suggested in the interests of economy, cold weather created demands that could not be resisted. Tate, the Army G-4, thus authorized Sullivan to issue 10,000 armored force suits to each infantry division, with proportional allowances going to those artillery, engineer, signal, and chemical battalions which supported the infantrymen.
Through November 1943, with the average temperature and rainfall well in the wet-cold range, combat units called for mufflers, woolen underwear, and overcoats.40 Footgear was especially wanted. Studies of weather and terrain in the Fifth Army’s forward areas led Clark to fear that without additional clothing, casualties from exposure might soon exceed those caused by Germans_ Even piecemeal advances through Italian valleys were impossible unless the heights were secured first. It was on these dominating terrain features that the heaviest snow and severest cold winds were likely to be encountered. To complicate quartermaster supply further, terrain studies showed that Italian mountain strongholds, where supplies would be needed
in quantities, were the most inaccessible to quartermaster trains.
Sullivan tackled his problem immediately. By special allowances, spelled out through many hours of work under trying conditions, and by emergency shipments to his dumps, he slowly remedied the shortages. Not content to wait for staged supply to come forward, Sullivan sent trucks direct to Naples. At ship-side, the vehicles picked up clothing and returned it speedily to the Class II dump at Santa Maria near Capua. Owing to this action, quantities issued to Fifth Army units in November 1943 were triple those of October, and those for December and January were more than double those of the preceding two months. By 20 December the Fifth Army Class II stocks at Santa Maria had, in fact, reached such high levels that Tate directed Sullivan to reduce them lest the depot’s mobility be seriously handicapped in a proposed advance. Tate understood that Peninsular Base Section was ready to assume its normal supply responsibility.41
The effect of Sullivan’s activities may be illustrated by the resupply experience of one infantry division, the 34th.42 By 15 December it had received its special allowance of tanker’s uniforms. Handling his Class II allocations with tact and care, the division G-4 was also able to spread special shipments of combat boots among his regimental supply officers to meet their specific operational needs. In January 1944 the 34th Division received its first shipment of special wet-cold weather equipment in sufficient quantities. Yet the division’s resupply of regular woolen items continued to fall short. With stocks so scant, these articles had to be taken from casualties moving rearward to hospitals, then laundered and reissued. The unit quartermaster immediately sought more support from the rear, and in late January 1944 Peninsular Base Section responded.
As stocks grew in Fifth Army dumps, Sullivan, on 7 December 1943, proposed a better method of distribution.43 A month later the office of the army quartermaster asked divisional quartermasters and supply officers of separate units to submit their Class II and IV requisitions daily to commanding officers of the several ration railheads. That same evening railhead Class I officers forwarded the requisitions to army Class II and IV warehouses. The following morning deliveries were made to ration points. To insure arrival of the items, a representative of the army Class II warehouse accompanied each convoy and supervised railhead distribution.
Streamlining his procedure still further, Sullivan deposited at each railhead stocks of clothing, in lots for 10,000 men, consisting of socks, trousers, shirts, underwear, field jackets, and fatigue suits. Railhead quartermasters issued this clothing in direct exchange for worn garments or upon certification that the desired articles had been lost or destroyed in combat. For a war of attrition the system worked well, providing clothing and equipment within twenty-four hours
from the time the combat unit declared its need. In keeping his impetus of supply always forward, Sullivan unquestionably reduced the distances combat trains traveled to obtain their supplies and avoided adding to the confusion on roads in the army’s rear area.
The most acutely felt shortage in the early days in Italy had been in wool socks and waterproof footwear.44 The mud-soaked and mountainous terrain, cut by flooded rivers, shortened the life of shoes and socks. During October 1943 the army Class II officer estimated that only to percent of the Fifth Army’s requirements of socks was being filled. On one occasion, the 45th Division received only 500 pairs of socks whereas it had called for 16,000 pairs. Seeking to supply light woolen socks automatically on the basis of one pair per combat soldier per week, an allowance that exceeded the currently authorized replacement factor more than five times, the Fifth Army commander predicted that coughs, colds, influenza, and pneumonia would increase unless the extra socks were available and wet socks frequently changed. Sullivan warned that trench foot might appear. Peninsular Base Section endorsed his request for a factor that would provide four pairs of socks to 60 percent of the men in the combat area and two pairs to the remaining 40 percent in the army’s administrative area. On 19 November 1943, Colonel Painter drew Middleswart’s attention to the contrasting climatic conditions of Sicily and Italy in winter and recommended that Sullivan’s estimates be honored.45
Middleswart, recalling Somervell’s parting remark to him at Oran, urged the Fifth Army, Peninsular Base, and his own staff to provide him with reasons why a requirement of 5.16 times the generally authorized factor on socks was justified. Wyer’s Control Branch pointed to the Seventh Army’s factor of 1,260 pairs per 1,000 men per month in Sicily in contrast to the Fifth Army’s projected factor of 4,334 pairs per 1,000 men per month in Italy. Messages about socks continued to stream back and forth across the Mediterranean, but finally one from across the Atlantic ended the discussion. On 9 December 1943 Middleswart notified Sullivan that the increased factor was “not favorably considered by the War Department.” Sock replacements continued to flow to Italy at the rate of 1,680 pairs per 1,000 men per month for combat troops and as low as 840 per 1,000 men per month for support troops on normal duty.46
Arctic overshoes were so scarce that existing supplies had to be carefully
allocated.47 A priority system, established in November 1943, provided for 100 percent distribution to front-line soldiers, 75 percent to corps and army personnel, and 50 percent to base section troops. Notwithstanding this frugality, maintenance stocks dropped and replacements were unavailable. The OQMG had only 1,000 12-inch shoepacs to offer, but Clark replied that he had to have enough to carry him through the middle of January 1944. The Fifth Army received only 135,000 of the 208,000 pairs of arctic overshoes it had requisitioned; quickly issuing 134,000 of these, the army depot had only 1,000 pairs on hand, and all of these were in small sizes, 6 to 8.
Fighting their first long winter campaign of World War II in army strength —only the small force on Attu had been engaged in winter fighting and then only for twenty days during the spring of 1943—an increasing number of American soldiers were now suffering from trench foot, something which had plagued all armies obliged to fight in cold, wet weather.48 In October 1943 Sullivan’s forecast of trench foot had been largely speculative; alerted to the sudden appearance of numerous trench foot cases, medical officers by early December were anxiously watching sick lists. By January 1944 Sullivan noted in his diary that “the Medico is excited about the question of trench feet. ...” From November 1943 through February 1944 the monthly incidence rose from 371 to 1,805. One detailed report concluded that trench foot alone accounted for nearly 25 percent of the total casualties among American troops.49
Trench foot appeared after soldiers were exposed to cold water, mud, and relative inactivity. The duration of exposure before affliction varied from four to fifteen days, with an average of six days. Constant wearing of wet socks and shoes, failure to clean or massage the feet, and constriction due to footwear fitted or laced too tightly added to the risks. Studies of the earliest cases in November 1943 revealed that none had worn footwear other than the regulation service shoe (the combat boot was not worn universally until March 1944) that only one man had worn heavy woolen socks, and that forty-five men had not changed their shoes or socks during the entire period of exposure.50 In February 1944, when the epidemic was three months old and at its peak, a
The M1943 outfit. Extreme-cold version (left); outfit as tested at Anzio (right).
survey of over 100 cases revealed that none of the men understood that trench foot could result merely from inactivity in temperatures that were cold but not freezing, while wearing wet shoes and socks. Replacements for the 3rd Infantry Division had little, if any, instruction in the care of the feet. Sick call statistics could be directly related to training, or lack of it. Echoing the army quartermaster’s views, the 3rd Division surgeon summarized the proper preventative measures: “Trench foot is similar to the venereal problem ... both of them depend on the education of the individual soldier.”51
Anzio Test of New Special Items
Unaware that in the days ahead their offerings would be the subject of both praise and abuse, OQMG observers brought about thirty different Quartermaster Class II and IV experimental items to the Anzio beachhead at the end of March 1944. Each item had won a place on special headings of T/E 21, 15 December 1943, for issue to troops in cold-temperate, low mountain, or alpine areas, and had received War Department sanction to be combat tested. In light of the difficulties during the first winter in Italy and the prospect that Fifth Army might spend another winter there, the scope of the tests at Anzio took on special significance for NATO-USA quartermasters. But in retrospect the test was the halfway mark of a much broader story. It was the climax of a research and development project the OQMG had been working on since mid-1942, and the turning point of a salesmanship effort to convince many wary customers of the value of the product. As salesmen, OQMG representatives would have many questions to answer. Would the items win places in the mandatory columns of a revised T/E 21? Would theater commanders adopt the items for use in their combat zones? Would higher authorities at home interpret the special headings under T/E 21 liberally or strictly, when vital priorities with regard to raw materials, industrial production, sea transportation, and the conflicting demands of other theaters were at stake?
Quartermaster observers were not prepared to answer such questions, and indeed the final answers were largely dependent upon the size of the requisitions submitted in response to the sample offerings. The significance of Tables of Equipment in arriving at such decisions was not widely understood within the Army. These T/E’s were simultaneously catalogues of what was available and written authorizations to requisition what was listed. Until they had been seen and studied by supply officers at the grass roots level, a theater quartermaster could only offer a rough guess at what his requirements for a new item might be. Providing enough copies of a T/E for such a theater-wide scrutiny, by local printing or massive airmail shipments from the United States, was a vital step in the process. This was a responsibility of The Adjutant General’s Office, which either failed to understand the need for wide distribution or was unable to obtain priorities for tasks of this magnitude. As late as 3 November 1944, when Fifth Army called off its alpine offensive, an OQMG observer reported:
T/E 21 dated 1 June 1944 has not been distributed in this Theatre as yet with the exception of advance copies. As a result, T/E 21 dated 15 December 1943 is being used except in such instances where special attention to certain items has been drawn by correspondence and radios from the War Department. I checked with the publications depot this morning and found that the first copies of the 1 June 1944 edition were received on 21 September and to date 1,013 copies for general distribution have been received. No general distribution is made until at least fifty percent of the total required amount has been received. Eight thousand copies are required for complete distribution. ... This situation must necessarily be difficult from the point of view of computing requirements in the office and unless it is corrected, I can not see how any degree of accuracy can be attained. While at Headquarters,
Peninsular Base Section where requisitions are edited for the 5th and 7th Armies as well as the 12th AF, I found that they had only one copy of the new T/E 21 and this Headquarters [NATOUSA] has but one.52
For the Quartermaster Corps, which has on its roster both salesmen and customers of its products, the moral of this episode, unfortunately not an unusual one, was clear: there was a need to improve liaison and coordination between bureau and field organizations through a stronger technical channel. In all tests, it proved wise for both user and supplier to see the results personally rather than merely read a series of disconnected command reports based on the findings of a series of observers. For tactical commanders, whose main interest is always in the quantity of items, the lesson is equally simple—sound and prompt command decisions must speedily be channeled to support commands. Every day’s delay in making a decision hobbles production and distribution efforts.
In contrast to the few OQMG footlockers of experimental samples displayed across North Africa by Captain Pounder in March 1943, thirty-one new items of the December 1943 T/E 21 were forwarded in sufficient quantity to permit distribution to an infantry battalion.53 The OQMG had laid the groundwork for the tests in January 1944. Tacticians had been receptive to the project, and the OQMG hoped that by establishing better controls more meaningful conclusions could be reached. It was understood that troop commanders and quartermasters would consider the precious commodity of time in weighing the quality and quantity of items at stake.
Sent to Italy to supervise the tests were two officers from the Research and Development Branch, OQMG, who had come via slow convoy to assure that the experimental items were not diverted en route. Each officer had a letter of introduction, dated 28 February 1944, from Col. Georges F. Doriot, chief of the Military Planning Division, and also chief of the Research and Development Branch. Maj. Robert H. Bates, an experienced mountain climber and adviser to OQMG on cold weather clothing, and 1st Lt. Michael Slauta, a qualified parachutist with a knowledge of infantry platoon tactics, proceeded to Anzio on War Department orders. General Clark notified the VI Corps that one battalion of the 30th Infantry Regiment was to receive the shipment and test it under actual battle conditions for a month. He asked for a final report, complete with findings, photographs, and recommendations for changes in items under test. Neither Clark nor senior quartermasters, who were not present for the tests, explained to the VI Corps that the experimental items were to be compared with current T/E listings and limited standard items already in use in the theater.
On 28 March 1944 the items to be tested reached the 3rd Infantry Division, Brig. Gen. John W. O’Daniel commanding. O’Daniel ordered Lt. Col. Woodrow W. Stromberg, Commanding Officer, 2nd Battalion, 30th Infantry, to distribute
them among 932 men of his command. He also directed his own divisional reconnaissance platoon and the comparable platoons of his three regiments, the 7th, 15th, and 30th Infantry, together totaling 215 men, to test the equipment. Shoelaces and ski socks were to be tested by a hundred men of the division’s military police, and wool comforters by 43 men of the division’s quartermaster company. Nine men of the 191st Tank Battalion, attached to 3rd Division, were to test the suitability of all the items for armored force use.
The Anzio beachhead, 100 square miles between the German lines and the Tyrrhenian Sea, was the test area. Its terrain was low, wet, and muddy, and it was cut by many small streams. Large sandy areas met the sea. No hilly ground was available, but battle action and barbed wire entanglements, in the opinion of tacticians, provided a better test of the durability of the experimental items than rugged physical features. The weather was not cold, temperatures varying from 37° to 70° Fahrenheit. Winds averaged 5 to 8 miles per hour with occasional gusts up to 20 miles per hour. Showers fell on an average of one every third day, and heavy rains occurred on two days of the testing period. Despite the high average daytime temperature, excessive dampness made for chilly nights.
As for the tactical aspects of the test, it took place during a period of near stalemate. Neither side started any attacks involving many men or much armor. During the first fortnight participating units were five miles behind the front, undergoing rigorous field training. Five-mile, speed-conditioning marches, tactical exercises in scouting and patrolling, attacks against mock enemy positions, weapons training, and movement through barbed wire entanglements, all subjected clothing and equipment to stress and strain which commanders felt were comparable to those on the firing line. The last half of the test brought the 2nd Battalion, 30th Infantry, with supporting units, back to the front. During daylight hours, the lines were quiet and troops remained in their foxholes or underground shelters. At night, reconnaissance and combat patrols moved actively between the lines. On one occasion Company F with attached armor raided a German position.
The major items tested at Anzio comprised 1,567 M1943 field jackets plus 1,000 hoods, 1,373 high-necked sweaters, and 3,300 cotton field trousers. These items had been projected as an assembly in the fall of 1942, intended to be worn together over woolen underwear, shirts, and trousers, during winter in the temperate zone. That concept had been disapproved, and in T/E 21, 15 December 1943, the M1943 jacket alone was authorized for all enlisted men at all seasons, except in the tropics. The other new items (except the hood, which had not yet been standardized) were authorized for issue in arctic, Zone I (cold-temperate), and mountainous areas at the discretion of the theater commander. They were to be turned in upon permanent change of station or upon movement into an area where climatic conditions did not demand this type of clothing. Since Anzio is situated on a Mediterranean coastal plain, it cannot conceivably be regarded as an arctic, cold-temperate, or mountainous area. Clearly, therefore, this test was intended to prove the practicability of the layered
uniform in a normal temperate winter climate—the climate for which it was originally designed. If this could be demonstrated to the satisfaction of Clark and his army quartermaster, and Devers and his SOS NATOUSA quartermaster, amendment or an official reinterpretation of the current T/E 21 was highly probable.54
After the test Stromberg’s battalion rated the M1943 jacket an improvement over the 1941 Parsons jacket in appearance, camouflage, and utility. Strom-berg and O’Daniel both approved of the experimental uniform, writing that “the discovery that men could fight out of their jacket and trouser pockets” was the most important feature of the test.55 As a special modification of the M1943 jacket, Stromberg designed a rear pocket capable of carrying a day’s K or C ration, plus a poncho or blanket sleeping bag.
Several types of footwear were also tested, including a service shoe with rubber-cleated soles, a combat boot which was actually a service shoe with an attached leather cuff designed to replace the canvas legging, and a shoepac. Stromberg’s battalion received two kinds of woolen socks, one with a cushion sole and reinforced toe and heel, and the other a heavy ski sock. The combat service boot, already tested in North Africa, met with an enthusiastic reception. So did the shoepac. The latter—a high moccasin with rubber foot and leather top—was regarded as indispensable in combating trench foot in wet terrain. Infantrymen considered both types of woolen socks an improvement over the currently issued light woolen socks. They praised cushion sole socks as a companion of combat service boots and felt that the ski sock had considerable promise for similar use with the shoepac.
In an attempt to increase the comfort of the soldier who had to sleep out of doors during winter weather, several types of sleeping bags were tried at Anzio. The mountain sleeping bag, a specialized item containing down and feathers, was lauded by all who used it, and the wool sleeping bag, actually a blanket sewed in the shape of a bag, was also favorably received. If the wool bag was not available, O’Daniel’s testers recommended the heavy and bulky wool comforter for use by service troops or by troops who were completely motorized. The report criticized a washable sheet, intended as a liner for the mountain sleeping bag, on the grounds that it twisted in the bag and caused discomfort. General approval was given to the resin-coated ponchos—rectangular pieces of cloth with a hole in the middle—which had been designed originally to replace the unpopular raincoat. This item also exhibited great versatility as a ground cloth to be wrapped around a sleeping bag, as a cover over a foxhole, or as a shelter half.
Gloves, cotton caps, and suspenders were among other clothing items tested while new types of personal equipment appearing on the beachhead included 100 grenade carriers, 1,258 mountain knives, 1,373 field packs, and 950 waterproof clothing bags. Listed also on discretionary columns of T/E 21, these personal items met with varying responses:
the 30th Infantry recommended some, others required additional testing, and still others were eliminated as prospective objects of issue. The success of the Anzio test, from the Quartermaster Corps point of view, was implicit in General O’Daniel’s recommendation on 9 May 1944 that twenty-four of the thirty-one experimental items should be made authorized articles of issue by the theater commander.
A notable omission from the Anzio tests was the wool field jacket. Inspired by the inadequacy of the wool serge coat, by the recent adoption of a short jacket by the Army Air Forces, and by the attractive and functional features of the British battle jacket, this garment was later known as the ETO or Eisenhower jacket. It was finally standardized by compromise between ETO and OQMG models in April, as the Anzio tests were being made. Nevertheless, some 300,000 jackets of the ETO model had been delivered by British manufacturers by the end of 1943, and the OQMG version had reached an advanced stage of design by February 1944. The absence of the wool jacket (either version) at Anzio tends to confirm an impression that Anzio had been selected deliberately to demonstrate the suitability of the M1943 outfit for mild-temperate as well as cold-temperate climates. The complete M1943 outfit, including either a pile jacket or the wool jacket now under consideration to replace it, was clearly the proper uniform for Fifth Army troops in the more mountainous parts of the combat zone, and the pile jacket was authorized for such terrain by the current TIE 21. Presumably plans were already under way to supply the wool jacket to the Mediterranean theater. In June Colonel Doriot, one of the major proponents of the layering principle, explained the ETO jacket as a part thereof to Sullivan:
... when cold your soldiers would wear the Jacket, Field, M-43, under that, the Jacket, Field, Wool and under that, the sweater, high neck. They would wear the cotton trousers and under them the wool trousers. I think, that should give them good fighting equipment with a lot of flexibility and still the ability to look well if they want to go to the city and wear the jacket, field, wool and the wool trousers as outside garments. That is our proposal, but as you realize, the answers to those cables are made by A.S.F., not by us.56
As early as 10 May 1944 Middleswart learned that the wool field jacket would soon replace the serge coat on TAE 21 as a mandatory item. On 31 May 1944 NATOUSA submitted exploratory requisitions for several items, including 700,000 ETO wool jackets. The tentatively favorable reply received ten days later was signed “Marshall.” It appeared to be routine, but had actually been coordinated between the OQMG, the Requirements Division of ASF, and the Policy Branch of G-4. The conclusion reached was that NATOUSA could be designated as low-mountain or alpine terrain, and as such was entitled to the special combat uniform.57
Almost two months (30 April–25 June 1944) elapsed between the completion of the tests and the submission of
NATOUSA’s requisitions on NYPE. It had taken three weeks to prepare and submit O’Daniel’s final report to Clark and to place an exploratory request on the War Department for a total of twenty-six new items. Considerable paper work still had to be done. Ramsey and Middleswart had to consult the eighty-page pamphlet, entitled Table of Equipment 21, dated 15 December 1943, which gave the authorized allowances for individual clothing and equipment for combat purposes. The job was difficult because, as already noted, by June 1944 NATOUSA was dividing its forces between DRAGOON and Italy. Obviously, there could be no replacement experience rates on any of these new items. Another disturbing and time-consuming factor operating against early deliveries was a revised requisition procedure dated 19 April 1944.58 In effect, it denied any theater the privilege of requisitioning new items on NYPE until the port authorities received word from the OQMG that stocks existed or would soon be available. When NYPE received this information, the port commander would notify the theater that it was ready to accept formal requisitions. Thus considerable exploration had to be done by many commands before SOS requisitions could even be placed in the proper supply channel.
Apparently NATOUSA’s exploratory requests had no effect on the issuance of the revised T/E 21, which was dated June 1944. Contrary to most expectations, the new table did not materially broaden the basis of issue for special winter items. Nevertheless, NATO-USA’s demand for items to be used in wet-cold or extreme cold conditions soared from modest requirements for high alpine operations to a whole theater’s wants in six months. Meanwhile, the largest customer of all the theaters, ETOUSA, had received copies of the new T/E by the middle of June. In competition with this potential customer, on 25 June 1944 NATOUSA and SOS NATOUSA requisitioned on NYPE twenty-seven articles in quantities ranging from 6,000 pairs of ski goggles and 13,000 parkas to 948,000 M1943 field jackets and 1,687,000 pairs of ski socks. Certain items were requested for every individual in the theater, but in the event that complete deliveries could not be made, a list of priorities was furnished to assure the equitable distribution of warm clothing from the front lines rearward. As the receipt of the new clothing and equipment would result in NATOUSA having on hand, unused, large stocks of limited-standard items, the theater intended that these stocks should be issued to French forces and to Italian cobelligerents.59
The job of clothing troops during the summer of 1944 was comparatively simple. In the forward areas they continued to wear the woolen trousers and shirts, changing into herringbone twill fatigue suits when the weather was warm. Khaki cotton garments, traditionally worn in summer, failed to meet
Table 3: Winter Uniform and Equipment for Fifth Army
| Item | Quantity |
| T/E 21 Regular Allowances—All U.S. Troops | |
| Undershirts and drawers, wool | 2 each |
| Shirt and trousers, wool, OD | 2 each |
| Cap, jacket M1943 with hood and trousers, cotton, OD, M1943* | 1 each |
| Sweater, high neck, wool* | 1 each |
| Jacket, field, wool, ETO type* | 1 each |
| Overcoat, or coat, mackinaw. | 1 each |
| Blanket, wool, OD | 2 each |
| Bag, sleeping wool w/case (or 2 extra blankets)* | 1 each |
| Shoepacs (for combat elements) with socks, ski and insoles* | 1 pair |
| Overshoes, arctic (for service troops) | 1 pair |
| Gloves | Usual T/E allowances |
| Suits, working, HBT | Usual T/E allowances |
| Boots or shoes | Usual T/E allowances |
| Ground Combat and Service Force Combat Troops | |
| Bags, sleeping, mountain* | 50,000 (9,000 per division) |
| Overcoats, parka* | 75,000 (9,000 per division) |
| Parka, wet weather* | 5,921 (5 percent of combat strength) |
| Trousers, wet weather* | 5,921 (5 percent of combat strength) |
| Cap, field pile* | 11,842 (10 percent of combat strength) |
| Pads, insulating, sleeping bag* | 11,842 (10 percent of combat strength) |
| For Army Stock—Anticipated Mountain Operations | |
| Tents, mountain, 2-man, complete | 9,000 each |
| Skis, and ski boots | 1,150 pairs |
| Snowshoes, bear paw | 1,220 pairs |
| Axe, ice, mountain | 1,150 each |
* New items of issue.
combat camouflage standards, and appeared only within support commands.60
The Second Winter in the Apennines
Determined not to repeat the tribulations of the first winter in Italy, the Fifth Army on the eve of crossing the Tiber looked ahead to the time when the troops would need resupply of their regular winter clothing and additional sets of wet-cold weather clothing. As early as 31 May Ramsey cabled the War Department that the Fifth Army required clothing for 361,500 men by 15 August shipment from NYPE.61 After 9 June the Fifth Army transferred troops to DRAGOON, and Sullivan reduced his
call for clothing to that required for 175,000 U.S. troops. (Table 3)62
Throughout the summer as Fifth Army swept north to the Arno, Sullivan made repeated representations to support commands for the early delivery of winter clothing and equipment.63 Reports from the War Department indicated that the supply of some items would be fraught with difficulties. Sullivan replied to each message, pointing out that time was slipping by. On 4 August Florence fell, and Fifth Army made a secret lateral movement eastward toward the Florence-Bologna line of advance. Behind Fifth Army, Leghorn and the line of communications to Florence still had to be developed. The Italian summer would soon end, and by 1 October troops would change into their winter woolens. With each passing day the language of Sullivan’s messages became stronger. The first week of September passed, and, with the deadline of the 15th distinctly in mind, Clark asked Peninsular Base Section about the status of Fifth Army’s quartermaster requisitions. “... In view of lateness of new type items advise availability in PBS stocks, trousers, combat, jackets, combat, and other cold weather clothing as possible substitutes.”64 At the same time, Sullivan told Tate that Fifth Army’s stocks of winter clothing had been depleted except for 7,707 combat jackets and 2,060 combat trousers. No one knew the exact contents of each division’s reserve. With the demands of four infantry divisions and one armored division in mind, Clark asked SOS NATOUSA to keep Sullivan constantly advised as to the receipt of the various clothing items so that arrangements could be made for prompt distribution. On 9 September Middleswart presented Sullivan with a detailed account of the status of each item and when convoys could be expected at Naples. The latter were due before the end of September. Meanwhile, SOS NATOUSA alerted base sections to a critical shortage of blankets in the event that sleeping bags arrived late, and prepared to recall all surplus blankets from service troops, rest camps, staging areas, hospitals, and unit storerooms. Simultaneously, Tate queried Sullivan: “Will the delivery dates sufficiently differ from those requested ... to indicate a letter of protest through channels?”65
Early in October stocks of clothing and equipment at Naples, Leghorn, and Florence rose sharply, thus relieving the anxieties of September. These shipments reached the troops none too soon. While Fifth Army was driving toward Bologna the rains never seemed to stop falling. Roads were impassable and supply areas lay in seas of mud. At the front blankets and woolen underwear were among the first winter items to arrive. By mid-October almost enough M1943 sateen jackets, high-neck sweaters,
Table 4: Fifth Army Issues of Winter Clothing
| Item | |||||||
| Division | October 1944 Strength | Field Jackets M1943 | Wool Sweaters | Shoepacs | Sleeping Bags w/case | Wool Undershirts | Wool Drawers |
| Totals | 74,765 | 74,496 | 74,333 | 55,900 | 51,842 | 139,904 | 127,966 |
| 34th Infantry | 15,713 | 12,423 | 15,286 | 10,202 | 10,400 | 30,108 | 30,926 |
| 85th Infantry | 15,724 | 15,920 | 15,000 | 11,333 | 10,000 | 29,326 | 19,426 |
| 88th Infantry | 16,132 | 16,211 | 14,763 | 12,866 | 10,000 | 29,100 | 29,100 |
| 91st Infantry | 15,281 | 17,542 | 17,542 | 11,635 | 10,004 | 28,840 | 26,440 |
| 1st Armored | 11,915 | 12,400 | 11,742 | 9,864 | 11,438 | 22,530 | 22,074 |
and shoepacs arrived to outfit every soldier on the line. (Table 4)66
Journals maintained by divisional quartermaster companies indicated that the new supplies were issued as fast as they were brought forward by army.67 Shortages of sleeping bags, small-sized shoepacs, and woolen trousers were eased. As Sullivan watched his stock charts move upward, he suddenly learned that two U.S. divisions would pull out of the line, that they would go into tents, and that no offensive would begin until April 1945. This meant that many of the conditions which had existed along the Gustav Line, such as the retention of combat troops in the line for abnormally long periods of time, would not occur along the Gothic Line. Yet quartermasters would still have the mission of providing additional protection for troops in a few exposed positions. During November 1944 each committed unit gradually received a special allocation of heavy cold weather clothing which had been requisitioned early in August. This allocation included 280 pairs of goggles, 920 sets of wet weather parkas and trousers, 3,200 pile caps, 3,700 mountain sleeping bags, and 10,000 pairs of shell mittens with inserts for each division. Currently employed as infantry on the western flank of the Allied line, where combat after 2 November 1944 was limited but vigorous, several antiaircraft artillery battalions received proportional quantities of special winter equipment.
Because of scheduling and production difficulties in the United States, the delivery of wool field jackets, 700,000 of which had been requisitioned in June 1944, lagged. Early in November 1944 initial issues began to arrive, but Peninsular Base Section froze all stocks until wider distribution was possible. In the interim, SOS NATOUSA authorized the distribution of such pile jackets as were available to provide troops with another
layer of clothing between the sweater and the M1943 jacket. By January 1945 the ETO type of wool field jacket, originally recommended in June 1944 as one of the layered items, appeared in the field. A prestige item, suitable for dress as well as combat, it was issued on a priority basis. Approximately 5,000 jackets were given to each division during the winter months as supply permitted.68
The Fifth Army had hardly issued the new items of winter clothing before adverse comment was heard about their suitability for the alpine climate. The M1943 jacket, the shoepac, and the sleeping bag bore the brunt of the criticism. On 3 November 1944, the Italian edition of Stars and Stripes, which served as a sounding board for troops, carried the headline: “New Army Issue Doesn’t Meet Battle Test.” In contrast, the news release praised the high-neck sweater, saying that everyone from colonel to private liked his.69 Most wearers of the M1943 sateen jacket echoed the sentiments heard at the Anzio test. They praised the jacket’s large pockets, but there was evidence that the cotton sateen did not adequately resist rain and became heavy when wet. In mid-October 1944, a survey of men being evacuated through divisional clearing stations revealed dissatisfaction with the shoepac. It was too wide, and was especially uncomfortable in muddy soil, permitting the foot to slip easily inside the rubber shoe until the skin was raw and blistered. The sleeping bag was also criticized; because the front-line soldier could seldom remove his shoes, the bag quickly became mud-soaked in wet weather. An even more serious disadvantage, from the infantryman’s point of view, was the temporary helplessness of a heavy or broad-shouldered man who had to wriggle out of the tightly zippered bag if awakened by a night alarm.
Reflecting a marked sensitivity to such censure, inspectors at division and army level inaugurated their own surveys, but these only confirmed the authenticity of the adverse reports. The II Corps commander declared that one sleeping bag plus two blankets did not offer as much protection as four blankets; the latter issue, he added, made it possible for two men sleeping together in a pup tent to share eight blankets. Fifth Army therefore revised the basis of distribution for sleeping bags, issuing them to all except troops in the front lines, who slept with their boots on.
By the end of November 1944, the problem of the oversized shoepac was partially solved by redistribution so as to provide each man with shoepacs of the same size as his combat boots, and by increasing the allowance of ski socks and felt inner soles, which provided much better insulation and absorbed perspiration. Still it was found that the lack of arch support in the shoepac produced sore feet among infantrymen who trudged along in springy rubber soles on lengthy marches. Mud also stuck to the rubber cleats on the soles, adding excessive weight. In contrast, the shoepac was praised by artillerymen and others
in rear areas, where less walking was required.70
Near the end of the war, one new QM item—a Doron type, lightweight steel vest—captured the soldier’s imagination. It was not available for army-wide issue, but the word spread from the few who chanced to test it that they would never be without their bulletproof vest, if only for its psychological effect, in time of action.71
Closely related to the supply of adequate wet-cold weather clothing was the need for portable shelters and heating stoves. When the first wintry blasts were felt in November 1943 the Fifth Army made repeated calls for storage tents to replace the inadequate covering over field kitchens, for tents where men coming off extra duty could warm and dry themselves and change clothes, and for extra shelter halves to be used as ground sheets. As the weather worsened and shelter halves became scarce, the Fifth Army asked SOS NATOUSA for the recently standardized mountain tent, a two-man unit with a cloth floor and a white reversible lining for snow camouflage.72
During the second winter the supply of tentage in Fifth Army threatened to be inadequate because part of SOS NATOUSA’s stocks had been contributed to DRAGOON troops and because the Fifth Army was obliged to compete with ETOUSA demands at NYPE. Furthermore, the Fifth Army seemingly was unable to convince support commands that its consumption of tentage exceeded War Department maintenance factors owing to adverse tactical and climatic conditions. In mountain operations the constant relocation of troops was particularly hard on tentage. In heavy winds and damp air frequent pitching and striking of canvas, even when handled by a veteran, weakened the tent’s fabric. Depletion from this cause was aggravated by the heavy losses at Anzio where hundreds of tents were steadily subjected to shellfire and bomb fragments for almost four months.
By issuing a single tent to a larger group of men—in the case of pyramidal tents the basis of issue was changed from 1 for 6 men to 1 for 8 men—and by a notable improvement in SOS NATOUSA and Fifth Army salvage procedures, enough additional tents were made available to avoid an acute shortage. Another help was the stabilized tactical situation in the northern Apennines that permitted a large-scale winterization of living quarters. Buildings were used wherever possible; combat troops
transformed foxholes into reasonably comfortable accommodations; reserves lived in pyramidal tents; and hospital corpsmen provided their field evacuation tents with floors and sidewalls. In some places the engineers were able to replace tents with Nissen huts or prefabricated structures.73
Neither tentage nor improvised billets could alone provide protection from the elements in the northern Apennines, where, from December to March, temperatures dropped below freezing ten to fifteen days each month. Many stoves were needed. The Quartermaster responsibility for space heating was restricted to tents.74 To install stoves in field hospitals, which always had first priority on space heaters, in command posts, in shelters where troops dried themselves and changed clothes, in administrative offices or workshops of maintenance units, and in the quarters of nurses and Wacs, the Fifth Army calculated in the early fall of 1944 that more than 14,000 tent-type heating stoves would be required. To this estimate SOS NATOUSA offered no encouragement. Middleswart wrote to Sullivan that “Additional troops ... being dumped in our laps total considerably more than the total number in Fifth Army, so if you do not get all of the things to which you feel you are entitled, you can readily understand.”75
On 18 October 1944 Sullivan adjusted his basis of issue, reducing it to 12,500 stoves. Notwithstanding this concession and having received less than 8,000 stoves by then, the Fifth Army on 19 October sent a blunt note to Headquarters, NATOUSA:
This headquarters cannot relax its efforts to obtain the stoves ... as it is our firm conviction that the efforts of all the supply echelons to provide our men with warm winter clothing will go for naught unless facilities are provided to dry this clothing and give combat troops the opportunity to warm themselves. ...76
Over the next few weeks the Fifth Army received almost 3,000 more stoves from its Neapolitan and Leghorn bases, and Sullivan made arrangements to secure an additional 4,000 from Italian factories around Florence and Pistoia. By 20 November 1944 local stoves were being delivered, and Fifth Army, now more confident that its requirements would be met, indulged in the rare practice of voluntarily canceling about two-thirds of its stove requisitions at SOS NATOUSA.77
While the new clothing and equipment of the December 1943 and June 1944 T/E 21 were imperfect in some respects, and standard items could not always be delivered when and where they were needed, troops in the northern Apennines were undoubtedly better clothed and equipped than those who had fought in the valleys and mountains beside the Volturno and Garigliano Rivers in the winter of 1943–44. With
staged supply working to perfection out of Naples and Leghorn, the Fifth Army’s complaints subsided, replacement rates dropped, quality improved, and trench foot casualties dropped 70 percent. Such statistics were all the more impressive in view of the fact that the weather was severer during the winter of 1944–45 than in the previous one and that the number of combat troops in the Fifth Army in 1944–45 was greater by more than one division than in 1943–44.
The effect on Mediterranean Quartermaster supply of the loss of three veteran U.S. divisions to Seventh Army in France and the gain of three uninitiated divisions, arriving with new equipment, is not known. But certainly tactical factors—in contrast to those in northwestern Europe at the time—were influential in Sullivan’s improved supply situation. The M1943 items had just been issued when the Fifth Army pulled most of its strength from the line. The stabilized front from 2 November 1944 to 1 April 1945 permitted troops to dig in and construct crude but comfortable quarters from empty shell cases, food containers, and scrap materials. Rest hotels opened in Florence and Montecatini. With regrouping going on after 2 November 1944, troops rotated in and out of static front lines to reserve areas where they could obtain better food, baths, and clean clothes.78
Outfitting the DRAGOON Forces
As already noted, the three U.S. divisions that landed in southern France were all carefully re-equipped at Naples before embarking, and the Seventh Army quartermaster had provided a clothing reserve for each unit. As the divisions advanced inland, they continued to send their own organic trucks back to the beaches for rations, POL, and ammunition, but clothing and equipment were not needed in significant quantities, and are not even mentioned in unit reports. Class II and IV supplies therefore piled up at the beaches and in Marseille. By 18 September 3,198 tons had been received, and only 387 tons issued, including 121 tons to base troops. But by this time the rapid advance had carried the combat units into an entirely different climatic zone, nearly 400 miles from the coast. During the next week, 1,065 tons of Class II and IV supplies were issued from continental base section dumps. The most critical items, blankets and overcoats, were shipped by air, and by 26 September Seventh Army’s initial requirements had been filled.79
French units in southern France did not fare so well. Since some embarked from North Africa and others from British-administered ports in southern Italy, there were difficulties in inspecting the units before embarkation, and some sailed with incomplete equipment. Difficulties in coordination between U.S. agencies and French Base 901, which was theoretically responsible for supply of French units, have already been mentioned. The system whereby Seventh Army supplied 1st French Army was not very efficient, and became even less so after CONAD, an additional link in
the chain of supply, was established on 1 October. The deteriorating situation was given dramatic emphasis when, at about the same time, General de Lattre de Tassigny announced that unless wool clothing could be provided immediately for his troops he would be forced to withdraw them from combat.80 Investigation revealed that at least part of the trouble could be traced to the inexperience and dilatory operating methods of French Base pi. Although seriously understrength, that organization had been forced to split its staff between Marseille and Dijon. On 12 September Brig. Gen. Georges Granier became its new commander, and he arrived at Dijon four days later. During the following week Granier, General Wilson of CONAD, and General de Lattre de Tassigny reached an agreement. Granier would become Wilson’s deputy, and the two supply organizations would be completely integrated, except for Base 901’s special responsibilities to the French Forces of the Interior and its local procurement functions. The new combined headquarters, still known as CONAD, would support Seventh Army and 1st French Army directly, on an equal basis. Actual issues of clothing and equipment by CONAD during the period 2 October-31 December 1944 demonstrate that the Americans more than lived up to their agreement. A total of 6,144.3 long tons of QM Class II and IV supplies were issued to a force which grew quickly from 350,000 men in October to 618,775 men at the end of the year. The breakdown of issues was as follows: to Seventh Army, 1,263.3; to base troops, 1,775.8; to 1st French Army, 2,900.4; to air forces (U.S. and French), 205.8.81 Thus it can be seen that 1st French Army received more than twice as much clothing and equipment as Seventh Army. Moreover, about percent of base troops were French, and an undetermined proportion of German prisoners and Italian service personnel, also included among base troops, were supporting the French military effort. In addition to making good the shortages in initial equipment of their units, these heavy requirements undoubtedly reflect the unofficial support the French were providing to volunteer units with their army.82
Local Procurement
Along the shores of the Mediterranean, support and combat quartermasters alike had to dismiss thoughts of setting up an elaborate and centralized purchasing system for Class II and IV items. Many complications were involved in this method of supply. Since industrial facilities, skilled technicians, and basic raw materials were scarce, if available at all, quartermasters made no concerted effort to procure locally such end items as trousers, shoes, towels, and jerricans. When facilities were intact, labor was often lacking; when labor was available, raw materials might be
unobtainable. Thus, soapmakers in Casablanca had peanut oil and wood ash, but caustic soda had to be imported before quartermasters could obtain a suitable cleansing agent. Seamstresses in Bizerte made nurses’ undergarments from linen fabric, but nurses preferred silk underwear.
A factory in Tunis was capable of manufacturing bungs for 55-gallon drums, but the company needed scrap aluminum that lay miles away in a salvage yard.83 The local purchase of office furniture for Headquarters, AFHQ, was a constant source of worry to its quartermaster purchasing and contracting officer. In Algiers, special missions, planning groups, and staff sections were constantly being organized and reorganized, and the prompt delivery of furniture and office equipment was ordered rather than requested. The purchasing officer described his difficulties this way:84
Supply of many raw materials has been extremely limited and it has usually been necessary to obtain these ... with necessary releases from agencies of the French Civil Government for the manufacturers. For instance, before letting a contract for manufacture of a few items of furniture it has been found necessary to locate a manufacturer to fabricate required articles, determine kind and amount of material necessary, locate the supply of lumber, glue, nails, finishing materials, arrange release of each of these materials from individual Control Boards, provide transportation for these materials, and provide transportation for the finished products.
Suggesting that this was more typical than exceptional, the officer estimated that each of the 1,334 vouchers he had handled to date, covering the purchase of 2,000 different items and services, required an average of at least ten personal contacts.
After the invasion of Sicily, quartermasters had an added incentive to live off the shores and islands of the western Mediterranean. Strategically, their war no longer enjoyed a favorable supply priority. Quartermasters assembling at Naples in late 1943 understood this situation and more and more officers became conversant with local procurement matters. Quartermasters found that Italy was a better source for Class II and IV items than North Africa and Sicily. Naples ultimately restored fifty factories as a basis of local procurement, but only after early difficulties were resolved.
Early contact with manufacturers was essential to ameliorate such conditions. But this was difficult for purchasing agents who did not speak the language or understand Italian business methods. Interpreters with an appreciation of the urgency and size of a military purchase were hard to find. Asked to assist in locating someone to make 50,000 Fifth Army insignia, one interpreter escorted a purchasing agent into the back alleys of Naples in his search for the homes of seamstresses and the shops of tailors. Such shops, the contractor found, could each produce only ten to thirty shoulder patches in a day. At this rate delivery would be completed in three months. Fortunately, the quartermaster with this mission found a Caserta manufacturer who could make 50,000 insignia in a week. By July 1945 this company had turned out five million shoulder patches.85
A war of attrition produces a change in the attitude of a spigot quartermaster, who much prefers the routine of staged supply. While at Caserta—twenty-five miles away from Naples by the daily train—Sullivan encouraged his staff and divisional quartermasters to turn the modest resources of the countryside to their use. Graves registration officers especially, Sullivan believed, would benefit thereby, chiefly on the grounds that the added task of purchasing goods locally would prove a welcome diversion from the duties normally performed by these officers. The plan took root and more and more divisional rosters listed “purchasing and contracting officer” beside the name of the graves registration officer. As they moved around the countryside, these men under two hats cheerfully reported what items could be locally procured.
When Fifth Army was deadlocked south of Cassino and the mountains resisted even the versatile jeep, Sullivan sought packboards which would enable the soldier to carry ammunition, water, rations, and medical supplies on his back. Although the army quartermaster’s office recruited local manufacturers who during the campaign produced 45,000 packboards, the Italians first had to be supplied with canvas and wood and taught assembly line production methods. Just as caustic soda had to be imported for Casablanca soapmakers, a large Florentine cleansing agent manufacturer could not resume soap production until Sullivan supplied fats and greases from the Fifth Army’s company kitchens. Similiarly, Sullivan needed 100,000 pieces of tableware for rest camps, but the contract went unfilled until he sent several hundred tons of coal to the Sesto kilns to fire the porcelain.
By Salerno’s first anniversary, factories in Naples and Rome had been turned to full account in providing quartermaster goods and services. Each week a foundry in Naples produced 14,000 bungs for 55-gallon drums, a hosiery mill manufactured 150,000 shoulder patches and overseas stripes, and a glass works turned out 75,000 drinking tumblers. In Rome, where there were no major depots, quartermasters emphasized services to the troops, operating laundries, dry cleaning plants, and shoe, typewriter, clothing, and tentage repair shops.86
Around Leghorn and Florence various manufacturing facilities were converted to military uses and procurement opportunities were fully exploited. A few of the items obtained were hospital bed trays, mattresses, cotton thread, inner soles for shoepacs, coat hangers, military decorations, sleds, skis, and snowshoes. One stove factory turned out heating units for pyramidal tents and mess gear refinished in nickel plate. A woodworking shop replaced broken shovel handles; a steam pressing plant in Florence, supervised by an American corporal, employed more than forty women to press and patch 4,000 shirts and trousers daily. A Florentine industrialist developed a reputation for versatility and adaptability to mass production techniques by making 10,000 ice creepers for a mountain division, 45,000 cigarette lighters out of empty shell cases, 8,000 stoves, and 50,000 stovepipes. When this same manufacturer could not produce convoy flags or boxing togs, his
sister, who was better known in the community as a corsetiere, filled the order in record time.87
For a variety of reasons, local procurement of clothing and equipment for U.S. units in southern France was very nearly nil. First of all, the area had been thoroughly exploited by the Germans and was so short of clothing that AFHQ planning for the ANVIL operation had included 300,000 blankets and 350,000 sets of Red Cross relief clothing for civilian use. Clearly, any far-reaching local procurement program would have to await the arrival of imported raw materials and the rehabilitation of mines and factories. Steps were taken as quickly as possible, but before concrete results were achieved the area had come under the jurisdiction of ETOUSA, whose local procurement activities are described below. A second major consideration was the priority claimed by the French armed forces within their own territory. Supplies actually on hand were requisitioned by the volunteers who joined First French Army immediately after the landing, and proved to be quite inadequate even for these units. Moreover, such productive capacity as existed was earmarked to support the activation of additional French units, an overly ambitious program undertaken for reasons of prestige despite the opposition of SHAEF. In any event, French production never reached expectations, and while a considerable number of replacements for French units and a few new units were recruited in metropolitan France, virtually all their clothing and equipment had to be provided from other Allied sources.88
Clothing and Equipment for Allies and POW’s
The same groups drawing rations from the Americans looked to them for a certain amount of clothing and equipment. Plans to rearm and supply Allied forces were on the agenda of the Casablanca Conference in January 1943, when the decision was made to equip eleven French divisions. Subsequent conferences throughout the year confirmed the general agreement. It was understood that initial supplies for all such forces would be shipped from the United States and specifically earmarked for delivery to Allied groups. Since the French forces, to be followed by the Brazilian and Italian, were organized in conformity with American T/O&E’s, it would be feasible to provide various items of supply on the same basis and from the same supply points as those for American forces. As much as possible, AFHQ hoped that the duplication of supply channels would be obviated.89
Theoretically, this system left Ramsey and Middleswart responsible only for providing American clothing and equipment on a replacement basis, but when the special stocks from the United States were delayed these forces had to be
equipped with supplies from available reserves. In the summer of 1944 the Brazilians, for example, had to be provided with field ranges, spare parts, one-burner stoves, service caps, helmets and leggings, ammunition bags, and mattress covers.90 Because of too little demonstration in the use of quartermaster items some misuse and mishandling resulted. Instruction sheets, printed in English, meant nothing to Brazilian supply personnel. The Brazilian uniform had not been designed for the cold weather frequently encountered in northern Italy and did not include items comparable to the American wool knit caps, gloves, and sweaters. The soldier’s needs increased still more when woolen underwear and socks proved inferior and had to be replaced by American garments. Later, combat suits and kersey-lined trousers were supplied as organizational equipment, making it possible for the Brazilian commander to transfer these items as needed. By mid-February 1945 there was no longer any doubt that the Brazilians could scarcely meet their minimum needs. American quartermasters in consequence undertook to supply them with almost everything a soldier wore beneath and outside of his shirt and trousers.91
Soon after Italy’s surrender in September 1943, SOS NATOUSA prepared elaborate tables authorizing the complete supply of Italian service units with all their personal and organizational equipment, and an attempt was made to use whatever distinctive clothing was found in Italian depots. So long as the latter was available, American quartermasters provided only the items needed for specific work.92 Shortages included pyramidal and individual tents, woolen gloves, wool knit caps, raincoats, and overshoes. Since Italian hobnailed footwear was a fire hazard around POL dumps, the Quartermaster Corps furnished smooth-soled American shoes to men working at such installations. Unfortunately for the Italian soldiers, the clothing which was inadequate for the wet weather was too warm in summer. Relief was nowhere in sight, for the Italians were unable to provide a lighter substitute and the American supply of cotton khaki did not permit the diversion of any part of it to cobelligerent forces.93
Determined that assistance to the Italians should not add to the burden of imports into the theater, American quartermasters gave them mostly
secondhand items unsuitable for further use by U.S. troops or beyond the facilities of the salvage repair program. Dyed spruce green and stripped of distinctive buttons and rank and organizational insignia, such clothing was delivered to the repair installations of the Italian Army and put into the flow of Italian supply.
To a lesser extent quartermasters furnished clothing to Italian civilians who worked for the Americans.94 Just as noon meals or extra ration allowances served as incentives for recruiting native civilians in North Africa and Italy, so did blue denim suits, black wool shirts and trousers, and Class C shoes add to the attractiveness of the jobs offered. Early in TORCH planning, the Americans had foreseen the need for local labor. Thus quartermasters brought with them cotton goods to be used in partial payment for such services. As stocks of used clothing accumulated, their judicious distribution in areas where consumer goods were at a premium was actually an act of economy and enlightened self-interest.
In southern France, as already noted, some 225,000 troops of First French Army were included in the approved troop basis, and were clothed and equipped by American quartermasters. Members of the French Forces of the Interior in the DRAGOON area and young volunteers who joined the French units numbered over 100,000 more, but without proper authority it was impossible to provide them with supplies of any kind. Generals Devers and de Lattre urged that 60,000 be added to the troop basis, but SHAEF demurred. The Frenchmen all wanted to fight, but the current need was for service troops. At the end of September, the Americans provided combat equipment for 12,000 recruits, but there was no corresponding concession from the French. The distaste of their men for duty with service units was genuine, and was reinforced by the conviction that only a large French fighting force, engaged in actual combat against the Germans, could restore the damaged prestige of France. Since these troops were not being used in accordance with the wishes of SHAEF headquarters, any support they received had to come from the meager resources of liberated France. Their status was rather similar to that of the “ITI-ITI’s” already described.
Because of the shortage of French labor, the Americans enlarged their original plans to use Italian units in southern France, ultimately bringing in about 28,000 who were also employed in the north. The ISU personnel required additional clothing in the severe winters of central and eastern France. Another source of labor was German prisoners, most of whom needed to be completely re-equipped before they could be put to work. The CONAD labor force at the end of 1944 was composed of the following:95
| U.S. service units | 32,194 |
| French service units | 7,003 |
| Italian service units | 10,350 |
| POW’s | 8,350 |
| Civilian employees | 3,162 |
Securing clothing and equipment for
non-American personnel was an extremely difficult problem, and no completely satisfactory solution was ever found. The little that actually became available for this purpose was principally captured enemy material, and is discussed in Chapter 20, below.
Combat experience with clothing and equipment in the Mediterranean theater antedated similar experience in western Europe by nearly two years, and undoubtedly influenced plans and procedures in the latter area. But the lessons of Mediterranean experience were complicated and unclear, and were subject to differing interpretations, as exemplified by the Sullivan-Middleswart controversy and by later differences of opinion between the OQMG and the Office of the Chief Quartermaster, ETO. These disagreements involved replacement rates as well as basic clothing design, but the latter subject of debate always tended to be the major area of conflict. Probably the explanation is that a uniform is an extremely personal category of equipment. Under conditions of tension, an individual tends to become convinced that a particular uniform either reduces or aggravates the inevitable bodily discomforts of combat, and he often favors what he knows best. Conversely, he may have preconceived prejudices against familiar items, and accept makeshift substitutes too readily. Time and experience are the only reliable antidotes for such errors, and unfortunately there was never enough time for deliberate, thorough testing in the Mediterranean theater. In this connection, it should be noted that the M1943 uniform was not based on Mediterranean experience, but upon an appraisal of Mediterranean requirements formulated in the zone of interior. This was normal and even desirable. Most combat zone innovations are stopgaps and minor modifications. Really new ideas usually originate at research centers, and not in the heat of battle. But once conceived, a promising new concept deserves development, and especially combat-testing, as speedily as possible. To miss the opportunity for such a test through procrastination, excessively elaborate staff coordination, or niggling perfectionism is an irretrievable blunder. For Class II and IV specialists, the main lesson to be derived from Mediterranean warfare is that an overseas theater of modest size represents an invaluable testing laboratory, to be exploited quickly before the opportunity disappears.