Chapter 18: Supply of Fuels and Lubricants in the ETO
In the ETO, as in the Mediterranean theater, the Quartermaster Service was responsible for computing POL and solid fuel requirements of the U.S. Army, of Allied ground forces other than British, and of Civil Affairs (G-5) authorities. These requirements were coordinated with those of the Army Air Forces and the U.S. Navy in European waters by the Area Petroleum Office, an overseas agency of the Army-Navy Petroleum Board, which also represented the U.S. military forces in POL matters concerning the British Government. Strictly military matters concerning the Allied forces were coordinated through the POL Division of SHAEF. Total U.S. requirements in Europe for all purposes were formulated by a local U.S. Petroleum Board under the chairmanship of Averell Harriman, the President’s special lend-lease representative in London. Other members of this board included Littlejohn, Wayne Allen (the general purchasing agent), and representatives of the Navy and Army Air Forces. Harriman’s successors in 1944–45 were field representatives of the Federal Economic Administration (FEA). The Area Petroleum Office and the British War Office presented coordinated military requirements to FEA for programing on a quarterly basis. Inevitably, there was considerable duplication and functional overlapping among all these agencies. Actual requisitioning by the Petroleum and Fuels Division of the OCQM was limited to oils and greases called forward from NYPE, packaged liquid fuels requisitioned from the United Kingdom, and solid fuels locally procured both in Great Britain and on the Continent.1
Liquid Fuels
Although POL was a Quartermaster item of supply, actual storage and distribution operations demanded a great deal of cooperation among the technical services, and coordination at this level was performed by a POL section of G-4, COMZ. The Transportation Corps directed ocean tankers to specific berths where they were discharged by the Engineers into their own storage tanks or pipelines, operated by the Engineer Military Pipeline Service, or into rail tank
cars of the Military Railway Service, a Transportation Corps agency. In either case, the next link in the chain of forward movement was usually provided by Transportation Corps tank trucks, most of them operated by the Transportation Section of ADSEC. The Quartermaster Corps re-entered the picture wherever its gasoline supply companies decanted liquid fuels into 5-gallon cans or 55-gallon drums, normally for storage in a QM depot. These were forwarded as required to Class III truckheads, either in the organic trucks of the gasoline supply company or in general purpose trucks of the local base section, which were regarded as Transportation Corps vehicles. Alternatively, the packaged POL might be picked up by Transportation Corps truck companies attached to armored divisions, or by the organic QM companies of infantry divisions, which were actually truck units.
If the administrative details of Class III supply were complicated, the commodities themselves were not. POL supplies for both the British and the U.S. forces were rigidly standardized to specifications of the War Department Committee on Liquid Fuels and Lubricants. The agreement whereby both nations used 80-octane leaded gasoline (MT80) for all normal purposes in the United Kingdom has already been described. This arrangement was extended to continental operations, and the benefits from such standardization far outweighed any minor technical difficulties. Later, small quantities of unleaded gasoline (white petroleum) were procured to run special equipment, but Class III supply still consisted of only 16 items—5 kinds of grease, 3 weights of motor oil and one of gear oil, kerosene, diesel fuel, white petroleum, MT80, aviation gasoline (100-octane), coal, and wood.2
Initial Distribution Procedures
For the invasion, drawing on Mediterranean experience, the First Army quartermaster ordered that each vehicle should arrive in the beachhead with full tanks and also carry extra gasoline in 5-gallon cans. Jeeps were to carry 2 jerricans; weapons carriers and small trucks, 5; 2½-ton trucks, 10; and DUKWs 20. Tanks and half-tracks were to bring enough fuel for 150 operational miles, and this fuel was expected to last six days. Distances were short in the restricted beachhead, and these supplies were ample.3
According to plan, small coasters from British Channel ports began arriving off OMAHA and UTAH Beaches on D plus 1, and their cargoes of 5-gallon cans were discharged into the DUKWs of the engineer special brigades. The first gasoline dumps ashore were simply small piles of these cans, hastily unloaded in the fields behind the beaches by the gasoline supply companies attached to the engineer brigades. This simplified procedure was completely satisfactory as long as the narrow beachhead limited the need for gasoline. Moreover in a circumscribed area, small POI, dumps were less vulnerable to enemy artillery fire.
By D plus 6 the OMAHA Beach POL stocks had been moved inland to beach maintenance areas astride the
Ship-to-shore petroleum line. Tankers at Cherbourg after the Allied occupation were at first unable to tie up at the dock.
Tour-en-Bessin–Formigny–La Cambe road. Except for the period 20–22 June, when violent Channel storms prevented unloading on the beaches, receipts of gasoline at these dumps were always greater than issues. By D plus 7 over a million gallons of gasoline were on hand, and by D plus 21 the reserve was 27,000 gross tons, or more than 7,500,000 gallons. For two months the delivery of packaged POL was maintained largely in accordance with the plans of the OCQM, which G-4 had considered superfluous. By mid-July an average of 2,600 gross long tons of packaged fuel came ashore each day, and a total of 142,702 tons had been forwarded from the United Kingdom. This was fortunate, since plans to deliver bulk POL via pipeline were delayed about six weeks.4
The main change from the planned POL supply procedure in the beachhead was in the handling of 5-gallon cans. To keep these containers in circulation,
First Army had established the principle of “no can, no gas,” which required using units to return one empty can for each full can drawn. Crowding and heavy traffic at the POL dumps forced a modification of the published First Army SOP, consumers being directed to deliver their empty cans to collection points outside the dump area where bulk gasoline would be made available later for refilling the cans.5 Once loosened, the system of control deteriorated. Troops discarded empty cans wherever convenient, ignoring the collecting points. When the armies streamed out across France this habit became a major problem, but even in the beachhead the disappearance of cans from distribution channels presented difficulties. McNamara was forced to assign two company-sized units the mission of collecting cans.
To supplement packaged POL, the Minor Pipeline System was begun in the UTAH Beach area on D plus 7, and was completed by the end of June. By mid-July the port of Cherbourg had finally been cleared, and measures had been taken to start the Major Pipeline System, which was to become the backbone of the gasoline distribution system on the Continent. Two additional large pipelines were built later: the Southern System extending northward from Marseille, and the Northern System stretching eastward from Antwerp. By the end of hostilities all three systems had crossed the Rhine. Construction and operation of these pipelines, which were intended to be the main connecting links between the deep-water ports and the ultimate consumer, was an Engineer responsibility, but one in which the Quartermaster Service was vitally interested. In addition to providing a transportation capacity which other methods could not match, pipelines had several very desirable technical characteristics. They permitted the transmission of gasoline over the roughest terrain; they reduced congestion on roads where traffic was already heavy and limited; and they carried gasoline over long distances by day or night, regardless of weather conditions, and without the costly expenditure of gasoline in transit.6
The Role of the ADSEC Quartermaster
These techniques required administrative control as well as technical proficiency. For maximum efficiency, pipelines had to be in continuous use at full capacity. If the spigots at a pipehead had to be turned off because no containers were available, the stoppage represented a loss that could not be made good later. Holding such stoppages to a minimum was no simple matter, since the capacity of a 6-inch pipeline was nearly 500,000 gallons per day. This might be decanted into rail tank cars or tank trucks of the Transportation Corps, into drums or 5-gallon cans of the Quartermaster Corps, or into stationary tanks constructed or requisitioned by the Engineers. A normal day’s operations at a pipehead included all these operations, and initially it seemed logical for control to be exercised by a G-4 representative of the commander within whose area the pipehead was located. In practice, something far more dynamic than
staff control over the activities of several technical services was needed. On 20 August the ADSEC G-4 agreed that the Quartermaster Service should take over responsibility for all POL activities forward of the pipehead.7
Colonel Smithers, the ADSEC quartermaster, welcomed this decision, and immediately requested several highly qualified POL technicians from Littlejohn to implement it. The CQM was entirely in accord with this suggestion. He appointed Col. Lyman R. Talbot, the chief of his Petroleum and Fuel Division, as a special POL liaison officer of the OCQM, and sent him to ADSEC with several assistants. Talbot was informed that he now had a “roving commission,” and that his team would operate through the regulating stations, which Littlejohn concurrently strengthened by providing jeeps to run a courier service and expedite requisitions. Talbot’s main mission was to assume control over the tank truck companies and organize an effective, continuous operation from the end of the pipeline to the forward areas. COMZ had loaned four of these companies to First Army and two to Third Army, and was itself operating fourteen more. Empty jerricans also presented a major problem. Over 2,000,000 had been left behind in Normandy, and Talbot was made responsible for filling and forwarding them. Littlejohn arranged with the Chief of Engineers for Talbot and Smithers to select convenient sites along the pipeline where it could be tapped to fill the cans.8
On 16 July First Army began turning over its POL installations to ADSEC, which it still regarded as one of its own subordinate units. On 25 July it finally became possible to bring a tanker ship into Cherbourg, where ADSEC began decanting operations the next day. The first stretch of the Major Pipeline, twenty-nine miles south to La Haye-du-Puits, had already been laid, and on August the first large inland decanting point was opened there. It was manned by three gasoline supply companies and a service company, and was soon decanting 250,000 gallons per day.9
On 1 August Third Army became operational and began to requisition POL from ADSEC. First Army continued to control dumps near the beaches and to draw POL from them for several days, but by 15 August both armies were being supplied through daily “telegrams,” which were actually brought to ADSEC headquarters by couriers. When ADSEC moved out of the beachhead area on 19 August, it turned over to Normandy Base Section ter POL
Gasoline cans for the Third Army being transferred to trucks at Le Mans, August 1944.
package dumps and five decanting points with the following reserves:
| Gallons | |
| MT80 gasoline | 15,257,453 |
| Diesel and kerosene | 6,783,631 |
| Aviation POL | 939,355 |
| Total | 22,980,439 |
The actual situation was not as favorable as these statistics appeared to imply. POL consumption in the restricted beachhead had been very low. Vehicles had averaged thirteen miles per day in contrast to the predicted fifty, which offset the delay in clearing Cherbourg harbor, and these reserves were approximately at the planned levels. But their location was most unfavorable. Many officers were confident that the pipelines could be extended promptly, but Littlejohn was not among them. On 7 August he wrote to General Ross that the pipeline program was not keeping up with the armies, and suggested that 200 tank rail cars be shipped across the Channel to bridge the gap. But rail reconstruction was too slow to justify such a move, and trucks had to carry most of the load. A month later, when the pipelines
reached Chartres, the armies were on the German frontier, nearly 300 miles farther east.10
POL in the Pursuit
The pursuit across France was carried on at a pace that depleted the reserves of the armies in a matter of days. Third Army’s sweep westward into Brittany and south to Le Mans in early August consumed more fuel than First Army’s heavy fighting around Vire. Although Patton’s troops drew about 380,000 gallons a day compared to FUSA’s 280,000, the meager Third Army reserve was gone by 7 August, while First Army still controlled tremendous dumps in the ADSEC area. The troops detached to capture Brest were supplied from shallow-draft tankers sent into Morlaix and other Brittany ports, but the main Third Army force, though it relied partly on rail cars of packaged gasoline, depended principally on trucks, most of them coming to the various army POL supply points from La Haye-du-Puits.11 A large number of these trucks were organic vehicles of Third Army or its subordinate combat units. Under the system prevailing in that army, they were not under the control of the army quartermaster, but simply returned to their units with gasoline that was not reported as having been received. TUSA requisitions, based as they were on incomplete records of gasoline consumed, provided inadequate quantities for future consumption, and the combat units were encouraged to continue these informal procedures. Operating under such a loose system, TUSA did not appear to be alarmed when its stocks fell from 1.3 days of supply on 5 August to 0.28 days on the 19th. Meanwhile First Army stocks dropped from 10.5 to 3.9 days. Although consumption by FUSA units had exceeded receipts, a large part of this drop represented reserves that could not be brought forward and that had been transferred to ADSEC. But daily needs were being met, the tactical situation was extremely encouraging, and the 12th Army Group reported that there were no critical shortages that would affect operations. Similarly, when General Lee asked his chief petroleum officer if the decline in POL stocks was serious, the latter replied on 26 August:
This apparent drop in POL reserves is based on issues from stocks at the bases, and not consumption, hence represents the “filling” of the delivery system to the rapidly expanding occupied area. The import rate to the Continent is commensurate with vehicle population, scale of activity, and the reasonable buildup of stocks. Personal investigation shows that no shortage or failure of supply has existed to date.12
That opinion reflected both faulty reporting procedures and a reporting time lag caused by inadequate signal communications. Consumption had already increased, and was about to increase a great deal more. During the last week
in August and the first week in September Third Army’s requisitions suddenly began to reflect actual needs more closely, and thereafter gasoline receipts which averaged 260,000 gallons per day were reported as less than 40 percent of the required amounts. Even 500,000 gallons captured in the Reims–Chalons area provided little relief. Patton’s troops were virtually immobilized between the 1st and 4th of September, and Third Army reported that for the first time its enterprising Class III supply officers “could not find sufficient gasoline one way or another. The Army, at this time, was so far from the source of supply that entire dependence had to be placed on receipts against daily telegram requests.”13
By contrast, First Army relied increasingly on transportation under its own control, including 500 trucks provided by artillery and chemical warfare units, and four tank truck companies loaned by ADSEC. Between 19 and 29 August, FUSA sent its own trucks back to the Communications Zone for 90 percent of the 15,000 tons (5,500,000 gallons) of POI. received. For five consecutive days —in the period when it was supposed to be enjoying top priority for fuel—First Army received no POL whatever via ADSEC transportation.14
Meanwhile, between the first week of August and the 19th, while reserves of the armies were dropping, continental stocks actually increased from 25.8 to 27 million gallons. They dropped during the rest of the month, but on 3 September, when the shortage at the front was at its worst, the chief petroleum officer informed a Staff and Command Conference that over-all stocks were again increasing.15 The supply crisis was entirely a local one in the forward areas, brought on by the rapid increase in the depth—and also the breadth—of the combat zone. The number of combat divisions operating had decreased from 21 in mid-August to 16 in early September, but the armies fanned out after they crossed the Seine, more than doubling the 12th Army Group front as they swept up to the German frontier. Meanwhile the pipeline had reached Chartres on 8 September, and Dourdan on the 15th. This meant that the minimum distance the organic and provisional truck companies had to travel for a load of gasoline was 250 miles, always assuming that the pipeline was working at full capacity and able to supply them. ADSEC did not open its first POL installations east of the Seine—Soissons and Sommesous—until after the pursuit had ended on 12 September. Tremendous quantities of fuel were consumed by the supporting echelons. Red Ball alone, for example, was consuming 300,000 gallons daily, and reducing by that amount the supplies that it could deliver to the forward elements.16
Civil Affairs operations for the relief of Paris were supported mainly by Red Ball and rail shipments, but also required direct allocations of gasoline. Over 5,000 French volunteers in the Normandy area were organized into a provisional transportation force by G-5.
Normandy Base Section assigned them vehicles (later replaced from 1,500 Civil Affairs trucks held in England) and used the volunteer units to transport supplies to Paris. COMZ and ADSEC each authorized issuance to them of 5,000 gallons of gasoline daily. After the crisis at Paris had passed, these units were moved forward and continued to give valuable assistance to COMZ in transporting Civil Affairs supplies. All through the European campaign the issue of POL from Civil Affairs allocations for Allied vehicles contributed materially to relief operations.17
ADSEC at this time had only fragmentary records of how much gasoline was passing through, and thus was unable to effect any coordination between supplying agencies and the front. Although diesel fuel proved to be far less important than had been anticipated, each army required about 10,000 gallons per day, principally for its tank destroyer units. These requirements were frequently unfilled, and oils and greases seldom arrived in the proportions requested, causing the armies to suspect that their requisitions were being ignored, and that POL supply was, for all practical purposes, an automatic procedure. Emergency airlift relieved these small specific shortages.
Commandeering of gasoline further complicated the situation. For example, on one occasion a truck convoy of seventy-six 2,000-gallon tankers consigned to ADSEC was diverted into Patton’s forward areas. This was a normal consequence of the methods of self-help in POL supply that had been allowed to develop within Third Army. Even more serious was the practice of seizing the reserve fuel trucks carried for the return trip. Such seizures caused several convoys to be stranded and seriously hampered transport operations. By the time official action could be taken to correct this situation, POL supply was much improved, and in any case Red Ball trucks had received instructions not to make delivery forward of the TUSA rear boundary.18
The armies were not the only offenders. It took time for the newly established base sections to organize their procedures. On 24 September Littlejohn reprimanded the Loire Base Section quartermaster for failing to submit a requisition:
I judge from your conversation that you have been getting along by setting up a temporary truck train and going out and stealing from dumps. ... Naturally if you do not submit a daily telegram and let your requirements be known, a daily train cannot be shipped to you.19
In September every available method was being used to deliver MT80 to the armies except railway tank cars, which were employed mainly in moving aviation gasoline to Ninth Air Force and diesel fuel for civilian relief in the Paris area. But the 12th Army Group quartermaster declared that current tonnages did not meet maintenance requirements,
and Colonel Smithers of ADSEC requested that tank cars be assigned to supply the armies. This was attempted during October, but rail traffic was still very irregular, aggravating the problem of quick turnaround for tank cars. Storage tanks were rarely available in the forward areas. The armies could and did decant their daily needs, but they were not equipped to cope with a feast-or-famine cycle of bulk deliveries. Despite the shortage of jerricans—a problem that will be discussed presently—these containers remained the chief method of delivery to the armies.20
POL Airlift
Notwithstanding the urgent need for POL, deliveries to the armies by airlift were negligible in August. Third Army received about 100,000 gallons at Bricy airstrip near Orleans from 27 to 29 August, but the C-47 aircraft of IX Troop Carrier Command were then withdrawn for tactical airborne operations. Converted bombers were available but could not use the small forward airstrips. During the week beginning 5 September, Third Army received over 3,900 long tons of POL by air at Reims, Renneville, and Étain, or about 12 percent of all TUSA receipts for the month. All this was packaged POL, the method preferred by the AAF, but the supply of jerricans in Britain was nearly exhausted.21
On 14 September a meeting of the interested parties in London decided the details of a bulk POL airlift to the Continent. The thirteen persons present represented the COMZ G-4, the Area Petroleum Office, U.S. Strategic Air Forces, Eighth Air Force, U.K. Base, the British Petroleum Board, and CATOR (Combined Air Transport Operations Room), an agency of the Allied Expeditionary Air Forces. The Ninth Air Force, which had agreed to surrender four airfields in France and Belgium for this operation, and the ETO Engineer and Quartermaster Services, which would have to receive and store the gasoline, were not represented. Despite the cumbersome staff machinery involved, B-24 aircraft began discharging bulk POL on 18 September, and by the end of the month over 2.5 million gallons, about 7,000 long tons, had been delivered. First Army received more than half of this tonnage at Clastres, France, and Florennes, Belgium.22 Bulk delivery by U.K.-based bombers was continued for a fortnight and then was discontinued, partly because of increased emphasis on forwarding of winter clothing. It provided only 10 percent of gasoline needs for this period.23
Intermediate POL Depots and New Ports
A very stringent POL shortage continued through October. Stubborn
German resistance at Aachen and along the Moselle increased the demand for ammunition, and considerable Class II tonnage was also required to winterize the troops. The decision to bring another army, the Ninth, into the line further reduced the rail capacity available for POL, and meanwhile construction of the pipeline had been temporarily halted at Coubert, southeast of Paris. At the beginning of the month Cherbourg was still the only major discharge port for POL, with but a single exposed berth for tankers. Bad weather conditions and increased consumption had reduced continental reserves to five days of supply. There was clearly a need for reorganization in every aspect of POL supply—new ports nearer to the front, improved land transportation, new depots immediately behind the combat zone, and rigid economy by the armies while these improvements were being made.24
First Army’s efforts in support of the British operations to clear Antwerp received first priority, so that the full weight of the POL shortage fell on the Third Army. Sheer necessity forced TUSA to mend its informal ways and to give its quartermaster authority to ration gasoline. A preliminary computation in September allowed 5,000 gallons per day for each infantry division and 25,000 gallons per armored division. By early October accumulated experience in a more stable situation led to a drastic revision of these allocations. The daily allowance for an infantry division was raised to 6,500 gallons, while that of an armored division was cut 50 percent to 12,500 gallons. The total daily allocation for the 304,870 men of Third Army was 266,690 gallons of MT80 gasoline, or 0.8747 gallons per man per day, broken down as follows:25
| Army troops | 105,030 |
| Corps troops (XX Corps) | 17,500 |
| Corps troops (XII Corps) | 15,475 |
| Infantry divisions (six) | 39,000 |
| Armored divisions (three) | 37,500 |
| Attached USAAF units | 33,930 |
| Attached COMZ troops | 11,000 |
| Miscellaneous (attached) | 7,255 |
This allocation approximated average daily receipts in October and was almost exactly 67 percent of the current daily requisition-400,000 gallons. Experience confirmed that such quantities were barely sufficient to meet minimum requirements in a static situation. A significant detail was that corps troops needed more gasoline than an armored division in strictly defensive operations.
In November, the POL situation took a sharp turn for the better. The beneficial effects of discharge through new ports at Le Havre, Petite Couronne (near Rouen), and Ostend were beginning to be felt. ADSEC Engineers made plans to build a 5,000-barrel (210,000 gallon) storage tank at each army decanting site, which would give these installations a very desirable degree of flexibility. But far more important, the OCQM now gave serious attention to the development of major POL depots immediately to the rear of the combat zone. These would take over most of
the bulk decanting from the armies and also exploit all available commercial storage space.26
This plan was put into effect by bringing forward gasoline supply companies from the rear. At the end of October there were ten such companies in Seine Section, principally at the Dourdan and Coubert pipeheads, whereas ADSEC controlled but one. Since the companies at the pipeheads were only decanting 500,000 gallons a day, several of them were surplus. On 11 December ADSEC reported that it controlled nine gasoline supply companies, five at Liège and four at Verdun, but estimated that it needed six more. The development of POL facilities and operations at these two locations was slow and accompanied by growing pains similar to those experienced in the expansion of the Class I mission at the same locations. ADSEC was by training and experience a mobile organization, and its quartermasters had operated more as expediters than as depot administrators. They were not fitted for the static mission that was now thrust upon them. Littlejohn’s solution was to send forward qualified specialists. On 16 November he informed Smithers that the two young majors he was sending to the 58th and 62nd QM Base Depots were “among the most competent not only in Europe, but in the world.”27 He requested that any POL officers senior to these two majors be released for reassignment. Not unnaturally, this request was ignored, and to insure compliance with his wishes the Chief Quartermaster had to maintain Talbot and Bennison—full colonels—as his POL representatives at Liège and Verdun. Further demonstrating the seriousness of the POL situation, Littlejohn relieved Colonel Franks as DCQM so that Franks could give his full attention to his duties as chief of the Petroleum and Fuel Division.28
Packaged POL was normally stored in the open, but suitable locations were scarce. In western Europe’s wet autumn climate, paved access roads were absolutely essential, and cans could only be stacked on dunnage or well-drained hard-stands. Verdun itself had only limited storage facilities, especially for POL, which demanded elaborate fire precautions and considerable dispersion. The 62nd QM Base Depot, which was to be responsible for support of Third Army from that area, established eight Class III subdepots at various rail sidings, mostly north and east of the city. For U.S. supply purposes, Uckange became “Oklahoma City,” Chattancourt became “Titusville,” and the other depots received similar American names. In this area, more than thirty miles in diameter, over 47,000 long tons of POL were stored, and daily shipments to Third Army ran as high as 1,500,000 gallons daily. Gasoline products were peculiarly susceptible to sabotage, and POW labor could only be used in these depots under strict
Prisoners of war filling gasoline cans at Liège, Belgium. March 1945.
supervision. Five to seven gasoline supply companies were assigned to the 62nd QM Base Depot from December 1944 to the end of hostilities.29
At Liège, the 58th QM Base Depot was able to solve its POL storage problems in an entirely different way. A divided four-lane boulevard, stretching for more than two miles along the River Meuse, could be closed off because it led to a demolished bridge. This provided both an access road and hardstands for storage, with a capacity of 41,000 long tons. Nearby rail yards could accommodate 350 cars simultaneously, and on the average 190 trucks were used each day between the dump and the freight yard. But even this was not enough to support both First and Ninth Armies, and in February 1945 an even larger POL sub-depot was opened at Lutterade in the Netherlands, about thirty miles to the north. The 58th QM Base Depot operated these installations with only four gasoline supply companies, but utilized large numbers of POW laborers; 750 were employed daily at the main Liège POL depot alone. Although it successfully supported two armies, Liège only gradually accumulated reserves in excess of those held in the Verdun area. The explanation is that Liège was itself closely supported by nearby intermediate depots at Namur and Charleroi, a pipehead at Ghent, and the great port depots of Antwerp and Ostend. Logistically, this was far more efficient than the long line of communications from Verdun back to Le Havre and Cherbourg. The only
major disadvantage of the Liège site was that it was somewhat concentrated, particularly since the area was continually under attack by flying bombs. Only once, on 17 December, did these robot missiles cause a major fire in the Liège POL installation, and this was quickly brought under control by Engineer fire fighting units.30
Although Liège was in the path of the German Ardennes counteroffensive, it was far to the rear of the First Army dumps, which were more immediately threatened and rightly received transportation priorities for evacuation. Apart from filling and sending back to Charleroi all available empty cans, AD-SEC moved little POL out of Liège. Incoming trains were unloaded farther to the rear, and requisitions by the combat units drew down reserves in First Army dumps from 6.4 days of supply on 15 December to 0.8 days on 1 January 1945.31 First Army had deliberately adopted a hand-to-mouth system of supply. During January most of its POL was forwarded direct from intermediate or port depots in Channel Base Section. Meanwhile Third Army’s POL reserves had increased slightly, but not as fast as its supply responsibilities were enlarged in the changed tactical situation. Total reserves to support 12th Army Group were reduced by 6,000,000 gallons during the German attack, but still exceeded 13,000,000 gallons at the beginning of 1945. In contrast to these American statistics, Field Marshal von Rundstedt’s planners estimated that the German Ardennes operation would require 35,000 metric tons of fuel, for three armies or twenty-two divisions. What was actually made available to them was 18,000 metric tons, or about 4,750,000 gallons.32
COMZ Operations of Gasoline Supply Companies
The gasoline supply company had a strength of three officers and 125 enlisted men. It was one of the few truly mobile QM units, being provided with twenty-one 2½-ton trucks and eight other vehicles. Its organization was flexible, permitting each of its two platoons to operate separately. In the COMZ it was primarily a depot unit concerned with receiving, storing, and distributing balanced quantities of all Class III supplies, including coal or wood, and not merely with forwarding gasoline. It usually stocked can-marking tags, extra nozzles for jerricans, and spare parts for gasoline dispensers if available. It normally issued gasoline on a can-for-can exchange basis and was responsible for cleaning, refilling, and tagging the empty cans. A gasoline supply company was authorized four power-driven gasoline dispensers of 100 gallons per minute capacity, each mounted on a 3/4-ton truck. This equipment had superseded an 80-gallon per minute dispenser in the spring of 1944, and both models were in extremely short supply. Several companies came ashore in Normandy without their dispensers
and functioned mainly as truck companies to haul POL. The shortage persisted; moreover, experience demonstrated that dispensers wore out rapidly under the hard usage they received. At first spare parts were entirely lacking, and they remained critically short until the end of hostilities. It was necessary to mass-produce oversized rotors locally and rebore the housings to fit them. The companies were also equipped with 30-gallon per minute dispensers, which proved inadequate. The standard allotment of 3,200 jerricans to each company also proved inadequate. This was a capacity load (16,000 gallons) for the company’s twenty-one trucks, but operations at COMZ pipeline terminals required eight to fourteen jerricans daily for each can issued to the using units. In practice, the rotation of cans was arranged between army and depot quartermasters, and their status as organizational equipment in the gasoline supply companies was ignored.33
Although the company included fifty-six laborers, normal rear area operations were carried on by local civilians or POW’s. Under such conditions the main duties of U.S. personnel were truck driving, labor supervision, security, and supply accounting. The unit’s capabilities varied widely according to local operating conditions. If all supplies arrived in bulk and had to be decanted and no outside labor was available, the company could receive and move to storage 70,000 gallons per day. With one QM service company or other equivalent labor attached and all receipts in 5-gallon cans, daily capacity was raised to 300,000 gallons. Even this was not the maximum. In a static situation, when there was time to train U.S. service company troops in the specialized technical aspects of POL distribution, Class III personnel could be spread very thin. Examples of extreme dilution were POL dumps at Jambes Secours and Flawinne, both in the vicinity of Namur, where the 58th QM Base Depot held a total of over 1.5 million gallons of aviation gasoline in reserve for the Ninth Air Force. Each of these dumps was operated by one enlisted man and 100 POW’s.34
In Great Britain before the Normandy landings, the gasoline supply companies assembled reserves of canned POL at depots for cross-Channel operations. In the Communications Zone on the Continent, several gasoline supply companies normally operated together at a single installation. The usual complement at a pipehead was three gasoline supply companies and one service company, under the command of a mobile QM battalion headquarters. Other Class III installations might be manned by from two to seven gasoline supply companies, supplemented by service companies, POW’s, or both. As already described, the normal complement of an army was seven gasoline supply companies. The ETO was authorized eighty-seven gasoline supply companies, but only eighty-three were actually in the theater by the end of hostilities, and not
all of these were fully equipped. The Chief Quartermaster held that this number was inadequate, and without their equipment such units were of very limited usefulness. At least two companies that arrived without dispensers were equipped with extra trucks and 750-gallon skid tanks borrowed from the Air Forces, and operated as additional tank truck companies with ADSEC. After V-E Day POL specialists suggested that the gasoline supply company be re-equipped with tank trucks instead of cargo trucks, but this was not done when the T/O&E was changed on 21 June 1945. The main change at that time was the addition of four 3,000-gallon collapsible tanks for bulk storage.35
Two Italian gasoline supply companies served in southern France with the 6th Army Group, and as early as February 1945 the ETO Military Labor Service proposed to activate twenty-five similar units using German POW’s. Shortages of equipment, and also of qualified U.S. officers, slowed down this program, but all of these units had been organized by 10 May 1945. They were rated as extremely efficient, and their presence made it possible to redeploy or deactivate similar U.S. units; only nine American companies were retained for occupation duties in Germany for a force of 400,000 men.36
Petroleum Products Laboratories
The assembling of packaged POL reserves for OVERLORD began in the summer of 1943 at the POL depots. Since U.S. units in Britain used bulk gasoline except during maneuvers, there was little turnover in these canned reserves. The cans therefore had to be checked for gum formation, a service that was at first performed by commercial laboratories. As the workload increased in the fall, the OCQM ordered a mobile testing laboratory from Baird & Tatlock, Ltd., a London firm which had already made similar equipment for the U.S. units in the TORCH operation. Initially, this laboratory was manned by casual QM personne1.37
Meanwhile American equipment for the same purpose was under development, and a T/O&E for a regular QM unit was authorized on 25 May 1943. Two such units, minus equipment, arrived in the theater in January and February 1944 and received training in the British-procured laboratory. In March 1944 these units were reorganized, each being split into a base and a mobile detachment under composite T/O&E 10-500. Before D-day the U.S. equipment had arrived, and in mid-June the 926th and 927th QM Petroleum Products Laboratories (Mobile) were attached to the First and Third Armies respectively. These mobile detachments, designated FB teams on the
composite T/O, were used in armies and advance sections of COMZ to test POL products for accidental contamination or sabotage, and to test captured POL for type and serviceability. The FB detachments, each with a strength of one officer and five enlisted men, were both operationally and administratively subordinate to their respective base detachments, sending POL samples to the latter for detailed analysis. Base detachments, designated FA’s, were used in ports and base sections to check the quality and water content of POL arriving by ship or pipeline, inspect bulk storage facilities, make detailed analyses of any POL product, and provide inspection service for all POL activities. Each FA detachment had a strength of two officers and ten enlisted men. Since the two detachments were often separated by distances of several hundred miles, the arrangement whereby FA detachments controlled FB teams had both administrative and technical disadvantages. In July 1944 Littlejohn pointed out to The Quartermaster General the advantages of the British-type laboratory. It was a completely mobile, self-contained, nine-man unit, yet capable of performing all the tests made by the standard U.S.-type base detachment. Unfortunately, the British were able to produce only a very limited number of these laboratories. The final U.S. troop basis included six FA and six FB units. After V-E Day, Colonel Talbot recommended that future POL laboratory equipment consist of augmented mobile detachments, able to move anywhere and to serve any headquarters.38
Experience in the theater indicated that water contamination was a major problem for POL laboratories. Surprisingly little water was in the gasoline pumped ashore from tankers. Investigation showed that the water used as a seal to combat evaporation in commercial-type storage tanks often entered the pipelines, partly because of the inexperience of the operating personnel, and partly because such storage was not standardized, and even skilled operators needed special instructions on the characteristics of each installation. Rapid distribution of POL made it very difficult to trace such contamination even after it was detected. Rail tank cars and tank trucks were not drained off frequently enough, and spread the contamination. The problem was eventually solved by strict control at the source, including careful instruction of the gaugers at the tank farms.39
The Jerrican
In the British Isles, gasoline was distributed to U.S. units by civilian agencies of the British Government, much of it being issued at commercial-type filling stations. Combat-type distribution involving jerricans was only practiced to a limited extent during maneuvers, and few of the difficulties that materialized in actual combat operations were experienced. There was no indication that in combat the fighting units
would find it difficult, or even impossible, to return 5-gallon cans for refilling. Early in the campaign Littlejohn noted that a base depot company, several salvage companies, and several gasoline supply companies in the Le Mans area ignored the thousands of jerricans abandoned along the roads by combat troops, and took no action to collect them until specifically directed to do so.40 Clearly, the elaborate training given to these units in the United Kingdom had not prepared them for what actually came to be one of their major duties. An even greater problem arose when army dumps displacing forward were forced to abandon large stocks of empty cans. Such cans were too bulky to form an efficient pay load for a vehicle, and whenever large quantities were assembled, it was usually more desirable to move bulk POL to fill the cans, rather than transport the empty cans to a source of bulk POL. Littlejohn and Talbot repeatedly set up temporary decanting points solely to fill and forward such cans, especially for Third Army. First Army initially controlled more tanker trucks, and was seldom in this predicament.41
By the end of August the supply of jerricans had become a critical factor limiting the forward supply of POL. Littlejohn directed that Talbot make the solution of this problem the first order of business in his new assignment. He also informed the quartermasters of the newly organized base sections that jerricans left behind during pursuit phases should be collected, filled, and sent forward. Littlejohn pointed out to the Normandy Base Section quartermaster on 2 September that such action was vital and that there were over a million empty cans scattered across the Normandy area. When three weeks had gone by and the only visible reaction had been a request from Normandy Base Section for still more cans, he expressed his irritation as follows:
From what I can gather, since you have no super-duper staff on POL, your office assumes that all responsibility in operations are to be assumed by me here in Paris ... complaints have been coming in from your end about no cans. We will take the appropriate action here. However, it is up to you in your office to see that cans in your base section are filled and ready for return to the front. ... You have got three Base Section Depots, each with a very substantial staff, any one of which is more than ample to do the job.42
Toward the front, the situation was somewhat different. Since there were not enough jerricans, part of the requirements of the armies was sent forward in bulk, and naturally a considerable reserve of cans was kept on hand for local decanting at every location where bulk deliveries were expected. There was an inevitable conflict of interests, and Littlejohn was at first inclined to believe that it should be settled in favor of the pipehead decanting points. On
24 September he wrote to Colonel Smithers at ADSEC:
I have been listening to bellyaches for some days for the failure to ship cans from the front. Just good common horse sense would tell anybody that an empty can ought to go back to the town pump. Several rumors have been brought to me that somebody in ADSEC had issued orders that trucks going to the rear would not carry empty cans. ... I asked G-4 to send an order to ADSEC insisting that empty cans move to the rear.43
The final solution was a compromise. Decanting at pipeheads was reduced, and gasoline was moved forward from the pipeheads by rail tank cars or tank trucks to decanting sites located in ADSEC. From these points, whatever requisitions could not be filled with packaged POL were made good by sending forward bulk to a minimum number of destinations in each army area. Reducing the number of decanting sites made it possible to reduce the reserves of empty cans. Early in November, a definite daily allocation of bulk POL to each army was set up, to be supplemented by packaged fuels to make up the daily requirements. Since most decanting points were now either in the army areas or in ADSEC immediately to the rear, the turnaround time for cans was considerably reduced.44
Early plans had allowed for a 5 percent monthly loss of cans after D plus 30, and it was estimated that by September 800,000 new cans would be required each month to compensate for such losses and to provide for a troop build-up. In July, requisitions were placed with the British War Office to furnish 500,000 cans monthly to the QMC and 310,000 to the Army Air Forces. The latter organization promised its cans to the QMC after their first trip, since it was AAF policy to put aviation gasoline in new containers to reduce deterioration.45 These commitments were quickly nullified by the unexpected tactical developments of August and early September. The Ninth Air Force, operating from forward airfields, required increased fuel reserves and could not release jerricans on schedule. In Montgomery’s army group the need for gasoline was almost as great as in Bradley’s, and methods of distribution were equally dependent on 5-gallon cans. The War Office advised that, with difficulty, it might be able to furnish 221,000 cans per month of the 500,000 requested. Brig. Gen. Howard L. Peckham, the director of the Fuels and Lubricants Division, OQMG, who was currently in the ETO, somewhat rashly offered 7,000,000 cans, which he believed to be surplus, to Littlejohn. The latter snapped them up eagerly, but it appeared that Peckham’s figure had been overoptimistic. Littlejohn was willing to settle for 2,000,000 and suggested to General Feldman and Colonel Evans that the cans might be sent over empty, as filler or deck cargo. This seemed the only promising method of speedy delivery at a time when the QM tonnage allocation was threatened with a drastic cut, and when Littlejohn was
trying to increase his imports of winter clothing.46
But the Area Petroleum Service confirmed the need for 7,000,000 cans, and an official requisition for that quantity was submitted. Illustrating the intricate chain of command on POL matters, the Army-Navy Petroleum Board in Washington informed the Commander, Naval Forces Europe, that the OQMG recommended reducing this requisition to 5.4 million. Because of obligations to other theaters and because can production had meanwhile been suspended, the board doubted that American production could exceed that figure by the end of 1944. The resumption of production would be handicapped by the shortage of manpower, and deliveries delayed by the 120 days required for production and shipment.47
So long as the supply of new cans, either by procurement in Europe or replenishment from the zone of interior, was uncertain, field quartermasters made every possible effort to collect empty cans and to employ every expedient for economy. To pry 5-gallon cans loose from COMZ installations, on 1 November the OCQM directed that a system of requisitioning civilian service station sites and equipment was to be established wherever feasible. Vehicles habitually using such facilities were to turn in their basic allowance of cans. On 25 November, the OCQM issued a directive that all requisitions from base sections would be filled either with bulk POL or by supplying 55-gallon drums. Such drums, weighing 412 pounds when filled with gasoline, were regarded as inconvenient and even dangerous to handle by the combat units, which normally received their fuel at temporary forward dumps where handling equipment was rarely available. These objections did not apply to permanent depots in rear areas. Nevertheless, the use of drums was laborious and time consuming, and COMZ installations used commercial facilities as much as possible.48
Special efforts were made to recruit French civilians as well as soldiers, children as well as adults, in the sweeping search for lost jerricans. Editorials on the subject appeared in Stars and Stripes, and press, movie, and radio appeals for jerricans were made through the Allied Information Services, the United States Information Service, and the French Ministries of Education and of the Interior. By the end of December Littlejohn credited these efforts with the return of over a million containers, in addition to those collected by QM units
or recovered from abandoned POL dumps.49
Meanwhile, in view of limited jerrican production in the United States, the British agreed to make extraordinary efforts to increase their production. By early December they were able to assure the U.S. forces that 546,000 cans per month would be available to them during 1945. This number seemed sufficient at the time, when added to the 5,400,000 due from the United States, and to the number of cans expected from continental production. But manufacture of jerricans in France and Belgium was considerably delayed, and it was fortunate that the British were able to exceed their commitments. During the period January-30 May 1945 they supplied the U.S. forces with 4,124,810 jerricans and 194,949 fifty-five-gallon drums.50
In December 1944, the French assured the Chief Quartermaster that they could produce 12,000,000 jerricans during the coming year if sheet steel was supplied from the United States. The OCQM placed a requisition on NYPE for 64,000 long tons of sheet steel, enough for 9,420,000 cans. By the end of March, 10,500 cans had been produced in France, and the amount on demand had been reduced to 7,500,000. Littlejohn estimated that only 15 percent of this amount could be completed by 1 July, but felt that the contract should not be canceled even if the war in Europe ended very quickly. The cans could be used to equip troops deploying to the Pacific, and cancellation would have a bad effect upon Franco-American relations. But by 11 May, three days after V-E Day, the Chief Quartermaster had received word from OQMG that, apart from basic T/E allowances, jerricans for the redeployed troops were to be supplied from the United States. Production contracts were to be canceled immediately, and local requirements were to be met by rehabilitating worn-out cans, principally in Germany. About 10,000,000 cans were involved, to be repaired at the rate of one million per month. When the contract with the French Government was canceled on 30 May, 287,450 new jerricans had been delivered. About 15,000 tons of sheet steel became surplus and was transferred to the Army-Navy Liquidation Commission. A contract with Belgium for 795,000 new cans was not canceled, but deliveries were not completed until the following year.51
Early in April 1945 Littlejohn reported that, if the Germans did not surrender until 1 July and the Allied troop
buildup continued as planned, his maximum requirement for jerricans would be 19,186,000, based on the needs of five American armies and one French army at full strength. These figures were based on a seventeen-day reserve for an average army of 346,000 men, supported by 204,000 COMZ troops. Such a force would require 3,197,666 jerricans.52
No actual need for 19 million jerricans ever developed, but the above requirements per army were based upon ten months’ experience and remained valid until the end of hostilities. The exact number of jerricans used by the U.S. forces during the European campaign is unknown. Littlejohn estimated that there were 15,500,000 cans on hand at the time of the landings, that one-third of these had been lost or worn out in ten months of combat, and that the number on hand at the end of March was still 15,500,000. This would imply that about 21,000,000 cans were in use in the ETO before V-E Day. Colonel Talbot estimated the number as 19,000,000.53
In the combat zone, the U.S. forces computed the maintenance factor for jerricans at to percent per month. The British estimate, 5 percent per round trip in an average of 13 days, was very slightly higher. Littlejohn was in agreement with these figures. In his letter of 2 April, he stated that all the older jerricans still on hand were near the end of their useful life; in fact if the fighting continued, he expected 10,000,000 cans to become unserviceable during the next 90 days. For posthostilities conditions, he recommended a factor of 3.3 percent per month.54
Consumption Rates
The logistical factors used in forecasting POL requirements for OVERLORD have already been described. (See Table 9.) They called for 1.9081 gallons or 15.4788 gross pounds per man per day. Gross figures were used because initial POL supply was to be in jerricans. These statistics were equivalent to 10.756 net pounds per man, or 214 net long tons of POL per day of combat for a division slice of 40,000 men. Late in May 1944 radically different experience factors, amounting to 150 net tons per division slice of 45,000 men, were received from the Mediterranean theater. Requisitions for three months of combat had already been submitted, but new logistical factors, strongly influenced by the AFHQ reports, were prepared by the OCQM in June and were the basis for forward requisitioning on the British War Office by the Area Petroleum Office.55
The new figures, amounting to 153 tons daily per division slice of 40,000 men, also included certain changes in the proportions of various POL products. These changes were based on the specific troop and organic vehicle population of the ETO. In August, the first
month in which comprehensive figures for continental consumption were compiled, the new over-all estimate appeared to be very accurate, but it was already apparent that the allowance for diesel fuel was too large. In September, when the pursuit across France had to be supported almost entirely by truck transport, daily consumption figures increased abruptly to 248.3 tons per division slice. October consumption was considerably lower (197.2 tons), but the Area Petroleum Office was convinced that a new trend had been confirmed and requested a revised logistical factor at the end of that month. On 27 November Colonel Franks submitted a new factor of 1.9535 gallons per man per day, more than the original OCQM estimate of the preceding January, but suggested that this be used with a division slice of 35,000 men (190.6 tons). Apparently the suggestion was ignored, for the Area Petroleum Office reported the new factor to Washington as 217.6 tons per normal division slice. But December consumption was only 164.2 tons, and another revision was necessary.56
The OCQM accepted the standard 40,000-man basis and submitted a figure that was an average of all continental consumption experience to date. This amounted to 192.1 long tons per division slice or 14.088 gross pounds per man per day. The OCQM used the latter figure for the first time to compute levels of Class III supply on hand in its mid-January situation report, and apparently the Area Petroleum Office began to estimate future requirements for POL on the same basis very shortly thereafter. Late in April that office reported an average factor for combat conditions, derived from ten months’ experience, of 1.5968 gallons per man per day, or 177 tons per division slice. This was stated to be the equivalent of 11.7 pounds per man, a mixed figure neither gross nor net, which presumably represented actual tonnage unloaded in ETO ports, where both bulk POL and filled jerricans were discharged. There is no evidence that the OCQM ever accepted this computation. At the end of hostilities it was using a factor of 12.993 gross pounds per man per day, exclusive of Civil Affairs requirements. This amounted to 182.1 long tons per division slice. No breakdown of components is available.57
Summarizing the experience of the European campaign in November 1945, the OCQM recommended an over-all planning figure for future combat operations of 13.48 gross pounds per man per day, broken down into 12 pounds of gasoline, one pound of other liquid fuels, and 0.48 pounds of lubricants. For more detailed planning, the OCQM recommended use of the same figures that had been developed in January 1945.58
Meanwhile, the field forces were having somewhat similar difficulties in establishing a basis for their short-term requisitions for specific tactical units. In theory, a combat zone division slice was 30,000 men, and its rate of consumption was assumed to be somewhat greater than 75 percent of the theater’s 40,000-man slice. Initially, the First Army rejected the OCQM figure of 15.4788 gross pounds per man, and insisted on a factor of 24 pounds. The 12th Army Group at first concurred in this figure but in August decided to conform to the original OCQM estimate. This proved quite satisfactory in a rapid pursuit, provided that only organic and officially attached combat units controlled by an army headquarters were counted. In other words, an arbitrary and very low strength figure had been balanced by an equally arbitrary and excessive consumption figure. There was something to be said for this method of calculating. The official field strength of an army was a fairly stable statistic and easily obtained, while its actual strength fluctuated and was often inaccurately reported. Franks had attempted to apply such a procedure to the theater as a whole, but was unable to oppose the concept that a theater level division slice must add up to 40,000 men. When the tactical situation stabilized and gasoline consumption decreased, it became necessary to revise field forces factors, and there was inevitably an urge to use the more complete personnel statistics which had recently become available. Going to the opposite extreme from Franks, 12th Army Group statisticians based their computations on the ration strength of the armies plus 20 percent for miscellaneous units attached to the army group, and in March 1945 proposed a factor of 1.0831 gallons (6.7584 net pounds) per man per day. Neither the OCQM nor the Area Petroleum Office favored this figure. The difficulty in all such computations was not the total POL consumption in the combat zone, which was known with considerable accuracy by early 1945, but the adoption of procedures that would give meaningful and useful forecasts.59
A report prepared by the Statistics Section, G-4 SHAEF, cast some light on this problem. Total POL consumption by four U.S. armies and one French army was shown for a twenty-eight-day period (24 February-23 March 1945), and pounds per man per day were reported in terms of both field strength and ration strength. This report demonstrated conclusively that field strength was inferior to ration strength as a basis for reporting POL consumption. The latter method gave results more compatible with the theater level statistics of the OCQM and the Area Petroleum Office. Moreover, since the strength of attached units varied from about 4 percent in the 1st French Army to more than 30 percent in Third Army, a statistical approach which ignored these units gave distorted results and exaggerated the variations among the individual armies. Even figures based on ration strength varied so greatly from one army to another that averages for the whole combat zone seemed to be of doubtful validity. The extremes reported were 7.222 pounds per man in 1st French Army and 10.445 pounds in Third Army, the average being 9.294
pounds per man per day, or 123.974 tons daily per division. A similar report was prepared for the following month, when German resistance had been broken. Combat zone POL consumption increased sharply in April, repeating a similar trend in August 1944, but the variations among the consumption rates of individual armies persisted. Average consumption was 175 long tons per division slice per day, but the extremes were 113 tons in 1st French Army and 202 tons in Third Army.60 The major conclusion appears to be that a theater level quartermaster needs experienced representatives in each army if he is to succeed in preparing even a rough forecast of theater POL needs.
Solid Fuels
The supply of coal and wood to the U.S. forces was a subordinate QM Class III responsibility in the ETO, and one that followed normal supply channels. OVERLORD plans provided that coal supplies during the first 90 days on the Continent should be delivered by the British. During the first 41 days, it was expected that 14,000 tons of sacked coal and 855 tons of bulk coal would be landed. After D plus 41, all incoming shipments were scheduled in bulk.61 Actual delivery involved numerous difficulties. Sacked coal came to the Continent three weeks later than expected, and Quartermaster stocks were reduced by the unexpected obligation to supply coal to keep factories and public utilities operating in Cherbourg and Paris. Imports continued to be limited by shipping shortages and inadequate discharge facilities. Contrary to expectation, the mines had not been demolished by the enemy, but rehabilitation of the continental coal industry in liberated countries was materially hindered by obsolete equipment, inadequate transportation, reduced manpower, labor unrest, shortage of pit props, and an active black market.62
During the summer, the armies’ requirements were small and captured enemy stocks filled their needs. At Givet, just a few miles from the Belgian border, ADSEC seized 16,000 tons. In October, SHAEF assumed control of all Belgian coal mines, just as the weather was turning colder. ADSEC obtained permission to procure coal directly from the mines within its geographical boundaries, and in turn granted similar permission to the using units, which resulted in considerable economies in transportation. Since established policy forbade the transportation of coal across international boundaries, units obtained their supplies from the country within which they were located, and not always from the nearest source. Thus the Ninth and First Armies were adequately supplied in Belgium, but until the end of November, the Third Army to the south encountered shortages. These arose partly from French transportation shortages, and partly from production difficulties at the mines, where pit props
and other equipment, and also food for the miners, were in short supply.63
The Quartermaster Service was responsible for computing U.S. military requirements for solid fuels and made issues from Class III depots and special coal dumps. Wood and coal were not items of major importance in the combat zone. The submersion water heaters of bath and laundry units, the ovens of mobile bakeries, and the stoves in every unit kitchen were all designed to burn POL. Tent stoves could burn fuel oil, coal, or wood, but oil was usually made available in the combat zone. Consequently, solid fuels were used more in the Communications Zone, and in rear installations maintained by the armies, than in the front lines. The following daily authorizations, which Littlejohn made to the Normandy Base Section quartermaster in November 1944, were typical for the use of coal:
| Hospitals | 12 lbs. per bed |
| Coffee roasters | 400 lbs. per bakery co |
| Bakeries (static) | 4,000 lbs. per installation |
| Bath (static) | 1,000 lbs. per installation |
| Laundries (static) | 2,000 lbs. per installation |
| Troop billets | 4 lbs. per mart |
Hospitals were to be supplied with coal if possible, but all other users were to substitute firewood if available. The weight allowance of firewood was double that of coal.64 These authorizations, it should be noted, did not imply any guarantee of deliveries. They were merely the maximum amounts that might be issued, if available, during the winter months. Quartermasters were also responsible for supplying the locomotives and tugs of the Transportation Corps and the forges and steam equipment of the Engineers. Locomotives were by far the most important coal-burning equipment in the theater. In January 1945 the OCQM estimated strictly military coal requirements on the Continent each day as 10,449 long tons, broken down as follows:
| Transportation | 4,823 |
| Hospitals | 661 |
| Personnel | 4,752 |
| Miscellaneous | 213 |
In the spring when the personnel allowance was reduced from four pounds of coal per man to one and a half pounds, the proportion allotted to transportation loomed even larger.65
In the combat zone, the monthly requirement of coal for the three northern armies plus Ninth Air Force and 12th Army Group overhead was about 82,000 tons during the winter of 1944–45, but actual deliveries were considerably less. SHAEF approved a monthly allocation of 18,000 tons to Third Army, which actually issued 8,297 tons in December 1944 and 9,264 tons in February 1945. These issues amounted to about 1.67 and 1.8 pounds per man per day respectively.66
Since coal was extremely scarce, the highest priorities went to those railroads supplying the armies, even to the extent of diverting fuel earmarked for hospitals. It appeared that little coal would be available for heating troop billets during the coming winter, and the OCQM began an extensive wood procurement program in August .1944. The French allocated 372,500 cords of cut wood to the U.S. forces, but this was not enough, and a separate U.S.-administered woodcutting project was quickly organized. Consideration was also given to cutting and drying peat in Normandy, but this idea was quickly abandoned when the cost in money and manpower was weighed against the low thermal value of the fuel.67 With regard to woodcutting, the Procurement Division of the OCQM made detailed arrangements with the governments of France, Belgium, and Luxembourg, and the base sections organized and administered the POW logging camps. By early September, the first two camps were cutting wood in the Cerisy Forest of Normandy with conspicuous success. Although twelve more camps had been opened in the Brittany, Loire, and Oise Base Sections by mid-December, they could not boast similar achievements, and in January 1945 total firewood production had only reached 36,000 cords of the one million required. Thereafter, performance improved somewhat. By 1 June 138,000 cords had been procured, and nearly 100,000 cords had been issued. Of even greater importance, despite the small quantities involved, was the supply of wooden pit props for the coal mines. By the end of 1945, 63,400 cords of pit props had been produced.68
The disappointing results of the woodcutting program could be attributed to lack of cooperation between military and civilian officials, inadequacy of tools, equipment, and transportation, and shortages of supervisory personnel. In remote areas it was also very difficult to provide the POW woodcutters with housing that complied with the terms of the Geneva Convention.69 Wood, like peat, was expensive in terms of time and manpower as compared with coal. Producing one cord of wood required three man-days while one ton of coal required one man-day, and in terms of fuel value wood required twice the transportation facilities needed for coal. Finally, whereas coal was ready for use when received, wood required six to eight months of seasoning to give maximum fuel value. Despite all these disadvantages, the wood procurement program was considered worthwhile because of the extreme shortage of coal.70
Some of the reasons for the shortage of solid fuels have already been mentioned. The mining program on the Continent, dominated by the civilian governments of the liberated countries,
was inadequate to meet combined military and civilian requirements, and was further handicapped by labor shortages and inefficient management. Meanwhile imports actually declined during the campaign, partly because of a worldwide coal shortage. Since first priority was given to military uses and second to local industry, private civilian consumers suffered extreme privation, and inevitably a large black market flourished. The civilian authorities were not very zealous in stamping out this traffic, and were sometimes inclined to divert coal earmarked for the U.S. forces to their own nationals. The OCQM was obliged to send units into the mining areas to supervise deliveries. Even this was not the final difficulty. The prewar coal trade of western Europe had been based on inland waterways. Since these were the last transportation facilities to be restored to operation, most of the coal for the U.S. forces during the winter of 1944–45 had to be carried on the already overburdened railroads.71
POL in the Final Offensives
Early in January 1945, as the German salient in Belgium was being reduced, measures were taken to increase POL supplies and improve procedures to support the projected campaigns into Germany. All gasoline supply companies were directed to organize “alert units” of twelve 2½-ton trucks and trailers which could be hastily dispatched to fill spot demands within a radius of 150 miles. The depots at Liège and Verdun assumed the major responsibility for delivery of packaged gasoline to 12th Army Group, and their decanting activity rose sharply from 5,700,000 and 4,200,000 gallons, respectively, in January, to 25,300,000 and 10,200,000 gallons in March.72
This was part of the plan for a system of supply in depth. Of the 53,000,000 gallons of packaged fuel to be set up as a reserve for the northern armies, only 4,000,000 gallons were to be situated in the rearward base depots; 13,000,000 gallons were to be located in the army areas, 24,000,000 in the advanced areas, and 12,000,000 gallons in the intermediate area. The stores of bulk gasoline, on the other hand, showed an opposite pattern, with supplies increasing from front to rear: the advance depots (Maastricht, Liège, Trooz, Nancy, and Thionville) were to hold 4,000,000 gallons, intermediate depots (Charleroi, Reims, Soissons, Cambrai, Epernay, and Paris) 8,000,000 gallons, and port storage (Antwerp, Le Havre, Petit Couronne, and Cherbourg) 57,000,000 gallons. These reserves amounted to some 440,000 gross long tons, or over sixty days of supply for the 12th Army Group. Meanwhile, at the end of February CONAD imposed an embargo on POL shipments to Seventh Army and 1st French Army, since both were holding more than their authorized eight days of supply.73 In a
Heavy duty dispensers and large tank trucks here speed up the decanting of gasoline into jerricans at the Ninth Army dump in Wegberg, Germany. March 1945.
further attempt to expedite the forward delivery of gasoline, in March the Communications Zone gave ADSEC the privilege of withdrawing bulk gasoline from the pipeline and shipping it forward without prior COMZ clearance.74 This measure came at a time when combat elements were crossing the Rhine and gasoline expenditures were rising with a rapidity reminiscent of the preceding summer.
With the unexpected capture of a Rhine bridge at Remagen, First Army reported that the “crust of enemy resistance” was broken, and in its subsequent rush eastward switched the supply priority from ammunition to gasoline. To bring fuel to the advancing forces demanded the utilization of every resource. First Army promptly called for delivery of 200 tank cars per day to the west bank of the Rhine and a large-scale airlift of gasoline. The Third Army, speeding toward Frankfurt, received bulk gasoline at the forward supply points both by air and by tank truck. On 30–31 March alone, Third Army obtained more than a half million gallons
of MT80 at forward airstrips. Seventh Army, with three armored divisions spearheading the attack via Mannheim on Nuremberg, was consuming similar quantities of gasoline. On 12 May the OCQM reported that a one-day requirement on the Continent of gasoline alone amounted to 4,466,000 gallons, other POL products being required in the usual proportions.75
POL requirements on such a scale could only be moved by pipeline, and plans for the final offensive had included extending the pipeline systems already mentioned into Germany itself. In mid-March the pipehead of the Northern System was at Maastricht, where it served both First and Ninth Armies. An extension northward, to serve Ninth Army only, had reached Roermond but was not yet in operation. The Major System from Cherbourg had been extended via Coubert (near Paris) to Thionville, where it supplied Third Army. The Southern System supporting the 6th Army Group up the Rhone valley had reached Saaralbe. As the armies crossed the Rhine all these pipeheads were still some distance to the rear, and as quickly as possible four short independent pipelines, one to serve each army, were laid across the river itself. These might be termed tactical pipelines, since they were built by army engineers primarily to reduce truck traffic over the Rhine bridges. The pipeline crossing for the Ninth Army at Wesel was linked to the Northern System immediately on completion on 28 March, and never operated independently. A line serving the First Army, laid on an infantry footbridge at Mehlem near Remagen, was completed the same day. It was filled with gasoline brought partly by tank truck from Maastricht, and partly by rail from Antwerp. A similar pipeline crossing for Third Army at Mainz was in operation by 8 April, and was linked to the Major System extending from Thionville two weeks later. By 20 April the Southern System had a terminal east of the Rhine at Sandhofen, north of Mannheim. None of these systems were extended farther toward the east. The fuel that was not carried in tank cars to support the armies was stored in tanks that had been captured or erected on the east bank of the Rhine, and later at Giessen and Alsfeld. As the advance into Germany progressed, tank cars brought bulk fuel to forward decanting points at such eastward locations as Gutersloh, Hannover, Würzburg, and Nuremberg.76
Pipehead and decanting point operations in this period ran into a variety of difficulties. Supplies were ample but transportation was not. The sporadic arrival of tank cars, the inability of the armies to return sufficient empty jerricans, and the loss of time because of frequent forward displacement of decanting operations all worked against effective use of the pipelines’ entire capacities. Even in the final week of the campaign, when the tactical situation was becoming static and cause for optimism was increasingly evident, these factors were contributing to a threatening
situation which was on the verge of becoming critical.77
The XYZ mission of the 518th Quartermaster Group was a good example of the role of motor transport in this supporting operation. On 15 April the 518th, with two battalion headquarters and fourteen truck companies, or about 700 trucks, launched its mission of delivering a half-million gallons of bulk gasoline daily from Mainz to Third Army decanting points at Hanau and Alsfeld. Hanau was a sixty-mile round trip from the pipehead, while Alsfeld involved a one-hundred-and-fifty-mile turnaround. Col. Donald C. Foote, commanding officer of the group, established a statistical section in his headquarters to schedule the loading and dispatching of vehicles, and to formulate hauling plans. Proper scheduling was the key to successful movement of MT80 by truck. Its basic requirements were the maintenance of an even rate of loading and unloading, familiarity with turnabout times of different types of vehicles, and knowledge of the hours during which gasoline was available at railheads and pipeheads. The group fell slightly short of its objective in the first week of operations, but by the second week of May, the average daily load had increased to 686,000 gallons. On its best single day, 6 May, the group delivered 1,098,000 gallons—enough gasoline to move six armored divisions and six infantry divisions one hundred miles.78
The April airlift of gasoline amounted to almost 10,500,000 of the 58,000,000 gallons delivered by ADSEC to 12th Army Group.79 In response to the requests submitted by the armies, the 73rd Quartermaster Base Depot at Metz, whose activities may be considered as illustrative, hauled packaged gasoline to several airstrips on the outskirts of the town. Twenty-four hours after being alerted, the depot made available for loading six hundred tons of MT80. Italian service companies handled loading promptly and efficiently by locating the containers in 590-can piles (roughly five plane loads each), and little more than a plane’s length apart on the perimeter track of the airfields. The average daily shipment to the Third and Seventh Armies from this source alone approximated 75,000 gallons. In one instance at least, gasoline was lifted to a unit which had encountered unexpected enemy resistance. When the 10th Armored Division broke through in the Crailsheim area, the enemy blew the Neckar and Jagst River bridges, interdicted the temporary bridges, and stranded the division. The local airfield at Crailsheim was under steady enemy fire, but this did not deter the delivery of 20,000 gallons (plus rations and ammunition) by C-47’s with only the loss of a single plane.80
Situation After V-E Day
In the period immediately after the German surrender, redeployment movements actually increased the demands
for POL. Meanwhile imports decreased rapidly as the ETO became a low priority theater, and the liberated countries clamored for return of their tank cars and commercial storage tanks. It became clear that whatever POL was stored in these facilities, which had a total capacity of some 570,000 tons, would have to be moved forward promptly into Germany or surrendered to the local civilian governments. Because the advance sections of COMZ had been disbanded in mid-June, supplies had to be transferred directly to the Third and Seventh Armies, the senior occupation headquarters in Germany. These units were not prepared to undertake major logistical POL operations representing many times their authorized levels of supply. Nevertheless, they finally agreed to do so, and very large reserves were concentrated at Giessen and Mannheim for Seventh Army, and at Nuremberg for Third Army. Thereafter, the Marseille–Sarrebourg pipeline was transferred to the French Government, and the other pipelines were dismantled. It was originally intended to ship them to the Far East but after V-J Day they were disposed of locally as surplus property.81
Meanwhile a permanent base POL depot for the occupation forces was established at Farge—a port between Bremen and Bremerhaven—where the German Navy had built about 230,000 tons of underground storage. The first tanker arrived at Farge on 15 June 1945, and distribution from that point began a month later.82
Summary
By V-E Day, the dispersion of American military forces throughout western Europe clearly demonstrated the significant role of petroleum in successful ground war. A war of mobility had been waged, and the heavily motorized armies which landed in Normandy and Provence had figuratively floated to Germany on a sea of tetraethyl-leaded gasoline. By and large, the Quartermaster Corps had operated effectively as a retailer of this product. While responsibility for many of the POL difficulties experienced in the ETO was shared with other technical services, the Quartermaster Corps had to shoulder the major responsibility for occasional shortages arising from an inadequate jerrican supply. Reviewing Quartermaster operations during the European campaign, the USFET General Board emphasized the advantages of the 5-gallon container for the distribution of packaged gasoline, and warned of the detrimental effects of jerrican shortages on combat operations.83
That evaluation, of course, applies only to the European campaign. Procedures in the Pacific theaters, where combat troops rejected 5-gallon cans in favor of drums, demonstrated that the jerrican was not indispensable. But ETO experience confirmed the flexibility and convenience of the smaller container in a deep continental combat zone where trucks were the primary
means of transportation. Jerricans made it possible to transport POL in any motor vehicle, without special handling equipment of any kind, and to establish forward dumps without shelter and with a minimum of camouflage. But these containers also had inherent disadvantages. They reduced the net pay load by 25 percent, and empty 5-gallon cans made an extremely bulky, inefficient load for standard vehicles.84
Rapid filling of jerricans presented a particularly difficult problem. It could only be done quickly with heavy-duty power dispensers which were bulky, noisy, and required continual repair. The nature of this equipment, which was completely unsuited for use in the forward areas, goes far to explain the slow tempo of the refilling cycle, and the excessive number of jerricans that were required to maintain a steady flow of POL to the combat troops from decanting sites far to the rear. It seems clear that, in the future, every improvement in dispensers will reduce the requirement for jerricans. Improvements in pipeline techniques and in the design of bulk transporters, including airborne tankers, will have the same effect. The ultimate result, if this trend continues, is that jerricans, along with other manually operated equipment, will disappear entirely in a completely mechanized combat zone.