Chapter 13: Observations and Conclusions
Viewing U.S. Army overseas transportation operations in retrospect, one may discern certain broad influences that affected their development. The diverse transportation requirements of the overseas commands, the adjustment of operations to various environments, and the basic problems of organization, personnel, and equipment invite comparison and appraisal. Discussion of these themes, it is hoped, will serve to provide a broad background against which transportation activities in the several overseas commands can more readily be related and evaluated.
The nature and extent of transportation operations varied with the overseas command. In ETO, the scene of the principal Allied effort against the most powerful enemy nation, the major tasks involved the accumulations of vast manpower and materiel resources in the United Kingdom for an invasion of northwestern France; the assembly, mounting, and delivery to the Continent of assault and build-up forces; the landing of troops and supplies first over beaches and then at captured ports; and the movement of these forces and supplies to the interior across lengthening lines of communication. Although there had been well-developed ports and railroads on the Continent, many had been severely damaged by Allied action or enemy demolition. The extensive port reconstruction required at Cherbourg, coupled with the delay in capturing the major Brittany ports, necessitated continued operation of the invasion beaches for a protracted period. The lack of sufficient deepwater ports encouraged the practice of using vessels as floating warehouses from which cargoes were selectively discharged, and led to the accumulation of a growing backlog of shipping awaiting discharge. The development of minor ports in Normandy and Brittany and the opening of Le Havre and Rouen provided some relief, but it was not until the huge and relatively undamaged port of Antwerp was opened in late 1944 that the bottleneck impeding the flow of men and materiel into the Continent was broken. Railroads were extensively rehabilitated, and great numbers of trucks were required to clear the ports, provide base transportation, and make long hauls. Long truck hauls were necessary not only to fill in until the railways could be placed in full operation but also to provide flexible means of transportation that could follow close behind the rapidly advancing combat forces.
To fulfill these requirements, port troops and equipment were assigned to take over the operation of major continental ports; MRS troops were placed on duty to supervise and augment local civilian railway forces, and rolling stock, motive power, and other rail equipment were provided;
and drivers and trucks were supplied. To relieve the heavy load on rail and motor transport, the Army assisted in reviving inland waterway operations in France and Belgium, and toward the end of the war took over supervision of barge traffic on the Rhine and Danube Rivers, providing supplementary Army harbor craft companies and equipment.
Many of the problems that arose in France and Germany had been encountered in North Africa, Sicily, and Italy. All these campaigns had involved amphibious landings and port, rail, and truck operations. In the North African invasion experience was gained in the techniques of conducting an amphibious operation. The necessity for more detailed advance planning for the development and operation of ports and for the packing and marking of supplies were among the lessons passed on for the benefit of later campaigns. Initially, the shortages of naval escorts slowed the shipping cycle and impeded the support of the campaign. After some early confusion, American-operated ports in West and North Africa were able to unload the shipping that arrived, and as the forces advanced eastward additional ports were opened. After supplies were landed, they still had to be moved inland over obsolete, poorly equipped French railroads. With American assistance and supervision, the railroads were developed to a point where they proved capable of bearing the brunt of interior transport. Motor transport was used chiefly for short hauls within Army base sections and for carrying supplies to combat forces from forward railheads. When the German break-through at Kasserine disrupted forward rail operations, motor transport became a critical factor. The arrival of a special convoy from the United States carrying rail and motor equipment made a vital contribution to operations in the later phases of the campaign.
In Sicily and Italy the assaults served as experimental laboratories for the use of new landing craft and amphibian vehicles, providing valuable experience for the Normandy invasion. For the first time, it was necessary to cope with extensive destruction of port and rail facilities of the type later encountered in France and Germany. Palermo, Naples, and other ports, as well as rail equipment, tracks, and structures had been battered by the Allies or systematically demolished by retreating German armies. Ports and railroads required extensive rehabilitation by Army Engineer and Transportation Corps forces. In the long and arduous Italian campaign, American port, rail, and truck operations proved essential to the support of Allied forces. As in North Africa, port operations were moved forward to shorten supply lines of advancing Allied forces. In Sicily and in the latter stages of the Italian campaign, mule pack trains proved valuable in operations over rugged mountains inaccessible to vehicles. The experience gained by Transportation Corps officers and troop units in North Africa, Sicily, and Italy was of inestimable value during the invasion of southern France.
Unlike the transatlantic theaters, action in the Pacific was concentrated largely in coastal areas and on islands scattered across a vast expanse of ocean. Troops and supplies had to be moved over great distances by water to occupy or capture relatively small, isolated islands and to develop them into forward bases that could bring new enemy islands under attack. Motor transport was used chiefly for port clearance, and there were few railroads. Movements were dependent on shipping
and port operations. The primitive nature of the Pacific island bases required extensive construction of port, storage, and other facilities, a task rendered difficult by the lack of local labor and resources and the area’s secondary priority for men, supplies, and equipment. Until adequate port and storage facilities could be provided, shipping tended to outrun discharge capacity, resulting in the delayed release and turnaround of shipping. This was particularly true in the South and Southwest Pacific, where shipping congestion tended to move forward as new bases were taken and placed under development. The shipping tie-up was no sooner cleared up at Nouméa, when it developed at Guadalcanal, which was being built up as the advanced base for the movement into the northern Solomons. Similarly, ship congestion moved successively northward from Milne Bay to Hollandia to Leyte. The restricted beach and pier capacity of advanced bases in the Pacific acted as a deterrent factor in the efficient handling of shipping throughout the war. Manila had been a fairly modern port, but extensive destruction of its facilities and the large volume of shipping directed to it in preparation for the invasion of the Japanese mainland resulted in port congestion that continued well beyond V-J Day. In the Ryukyus, the failure to take Naha on schedule was an important contributory factor in the build-up of the large backlog of vessels awaiting discharge at Okinawa in May and June 1945.
The limited native facilities, equipment, and manpower at forward bases in the Pacific necessitated the employment of all available resources. In both SWPA and POA combat troops were used extensively in port operations, although an increasing number of port and other service units were provided in the last years of the war. In POA, where Army, Navy, and Marine Corps units were intermingled, effective utilization of supplies and transportation was made possible through the development of joint logistical action, including unified direction of cargo handling at forward ports.
As theaters dependent almost entirely on water transportation, SWPA and POA required a large number of vessels for intratheater traffic and floating equipment for lighterage and short hauls. These requirements were met in part by the War and Navy Departments and in part by local purchase and contract. Later in the war the Army was able to augment intra-theater fleets with an increasing number of small, shallow-draft freighters designed to meet local conditions, but SWPA and POA still did not have an adequate number of vessels and were forced to retain transoceanic ships to make up the deficiency. Refrigerated vessels were never available in sufficient quantity, resulting in severe rationing of perishables and the use of such field expedients as the placing of reefer boxes on cargo vessels.
The movement forward of troops and equipment from inactive rear bases constituted a chronic problem in the Pacific. With most intratheater shipping devoted to current operations, few vessels could be made available to go on long voyages to lift excess supplies from rear bases. Moreover, it was far easier to rely on the regular supply line from the United States than to move forward from rear bases supplies and equipment that were in various states of disrepair and disorganization. Forward ports, generally congested with ships from the zone of interior bringing in supplies for base development and operational requirements, could receive only
limited shipments of excess materials from rear bases. In practice roll-up tended to be
carried out slowly, with some vessels provided by the receiving command and others diverted from transpacific service, and with a low level of efficiency in the utilization of shipping as a prevailing condition.
Like the Pacific, other overseas areas were adversely affected by low priority. Each of the areas, however, presented distinctive transportation problems. In China–Burma–India the central task was the development of the port of Calcutta and the Assam Line of Communications to a point where they could handle the flow of supplies and equipment for the support of the Hump airlift and the Burma campaigns, which were designed to re-establish land communications with China. This was accomplished by the assignment of American port and rail troops and equipment, the imposition of an effective system of movement control over the Assam LOC, and British and American construction of pipelines from Calcutta and Chittagong to Assam. As the Ledo Road was pushed into Burma, American motor transport provided support to construction, base, air, and combat operations. Combat troops fighting in the jungles in advance of the road carried their own supplies by mule pack trains and were resupplied by airdrop. With the opening of the 1,079-mile Stilwell (Ledo–Burma) Road in January 1945, one-way delivery of vehicles to Kunming, China, was begun, and ultimately more than 32,000 vehicles and trailers were sent into China. Additional aid to China was provided in mid-1945 by the completion of a pipeline from Assam along the Stilwell Road to Kunming.
Before the road was opened only limited American participation in transportation operations within China was possible. In an effort to provide support to Fourteenth Air Force fields in east China, the U.S. Army had undertaken a project in early 1944 to improve the operations and maintenance of Chinese trucking fleets on the Kunming East Line of Communications and to fly in a small supplementary force of Army drivers and vehicles. These measures brought a significant increase in traffic eastward from the Kunming air terminal, but the accomplishment was wiped out in the latter part of the year by the loss of the eastern airfields to the Japanese. The arrival of vehicles and additional American trucking units via the Stilwell Road resulted in greatly improved operations. American driver units, supplemented by Chinese drivers and American-controlled Chinese military units, greatly increased the eastward flow of supplies in support of advancing Chinese forces. As the general transportation situation improved in the first half of 1945, the Army was able to give increased aid in the form of technical assistance to the small railways still in Chinese hands, and successful efforts were made to increase the use of local inland waterways.
In contrast with CBI, where major transportation activities centered in the development of long interior lines of communications, Alaska was predominantly a water transportation theater. With the exception of central Alaska, where the Army assisted in a railway operation and conducted minor trucking operations, principal transportation activities involved the operation of a large number of isolated ports scattered from Annette Island to Nome and Attu. Supply was usually provided directly from Seattle and its sub-ports to the individual port, generally for
the support of the local garrison and airfield. As in the Pacific, inadequate facilities made necessary port and other base development. River transportation, feasible only during the brief open navigation season, was limited to the supply of otherwise inaccessible stations, and tractor-train operations were confined to emergency hauls.
The maintenance of uninterrupted sea communications between the United States and Alaska made the use of the Alaska Highway unnecessary for the supply of the Alaska Command, but the road proved valuable in effecting its immediate mission, the supply of the airfields, as well as the support of highway, Canol, and other construction and service forces along the route. To facilitate the movement of men and materials into western Canada, the Army took over operation of the port of Skagway in southeastern Alaska and leased the railroad linking Skagway with the highway. The return of Alaska to the status of an inactive defensive area after the Aleutians campaign was followed by a general decline of transportation activities in both Alaska and western Canada.
The Persian Corridor was unique in that the entire Army command was assigned a transportation mission—the delivery of lend-lease materials from the Iranian ports to Soviet transfer points in the north. The command took over the major ports and the Iranian State Railway from the British and established a trucking service to supplement existing British and Soviet carriers. Large-scale shipments to the Persian Gulf in advance of the troops and equipment assigned to handle them, delays in transferring the American force to Iran, and the necessity of transferring control from British to American hands acted as severe handicaps. Initially, ports were unable to discharge promptly all the shipping that arrived, and the limited interior transport facilities were unable to move forward the supplies landed. Climate, terrain, the lack of local resources, and the necessity for dealing with the varied and often conflicting interests of the British, Russians, and Iranians added to the difficulties. After a disappointing showing in the first months of 1943, major bottlenecks were broken, and by the fall of the year targets for deliveries to the Russians were being met and exceeded. American port, rail, and motor transport troops and equipment, augmented by large native labor and operating forces, were able to develop the Persian Corridor into a major Russian-aid supply line. British and American road construction also proved of assistance. Large-scale deliveries continued through late 1944, when the accessibility of shorter and more economical routes resulted in a progressive scaling down of operations and the termination of the command’s wartime mission on 1 June 1945.
Among the most spectacular operations of World War II were the amphibious landings. Made possible by the employment of large numbers of landing craft and amphibian vehicles, movements of men and equipment to and across beaches were effected on an unprecedented scale. The Transportation Corps assisted in planning and mounting amphibious operations, but it was nowhere responsible for initial landings or cargo handling on the beaches as it was for later port operations. After the consolidation of beachheads by assault forces, control of cargo handling at the beaches was generally assumed by Engineer special brigade groups, brigades, or battalions, depending on the size of the operation, in Sicily, Italy, ETO, SWPA,
and at Angaur and Okinawa in POA. In other POA campaigns, the responsibility was given to shore parties headed by Marine Corps, Navy, or Army officers.
Transportation Corps troops were used as supporting or supplementary forces. In Sicily, Italy, the Marianas, Normandy and the Rhine crossings, the Palaus, the Philippines, Iwo Jima, and the Ryukyus, Transportation Corps amphibian truck (DUKW) companies engaged in the assault, carrying artillery, ammunition, other high-priority supplies, and personnel ashore and evacuating casualties. In many of these campaigns Transportation Corps port troops arrived with assault and early support convoys, assisted in unloading the vessels, and then moved ashore to work under the control of the Engineers or the shore party. Although port personnel were usually provided in company or battalion strength for participation in the early landings, the 11th Port arrived on OMAHA Beach during the assault phase with attached port battalions and DUKW and truck companies and worked a sector of the beach alongside the Engineer special brigades. Transportation Corps tugs also rendered valuable services during the cross-Channel invasion, towing units for artificial harbors, moving landing craft on and off beaches, and performing sea rescue work.
After the initial assault and supply phase, the Transportation Corps often assumed major responsibility for cargo-handling operations. In North Africa, Sicily, Italy, and the ETO, organized Transportation Corps ports were provided to take over and operate newly captured ports. In SWPA, USASOS base port commands took over beach and port operations, Transportation Corps units generally relieving Engineer troops. In POA, garrison forces were organized in advance of an operation. When the Army provided the garrison force, it included a port troop command or transportation section. Arriving in the assault or early support echelons, the port troop command worked under the shore party commander until the garrison force assumed responsibility for base operations. The troop port command then took over control of Navy, Marine Corps, and Transportation Corps and other Army personnel engaged in cargo-handling activities.
The execution and support of amphibious operations were characterized by a host of new techniques. With regard to ocean shipping, assault forces were combat loaded to permit ready unloading of troops and equipment when and as needed. Prestowage of supporting cargo vessels in ETO and block loading in the Pacific were developed to permit unloading balanced stocks of supplies, and commodity loading enabled commands to get at individual types of supplies immediately required. LSTs, LCMs, LCIs, and other landing craft delivered assault forces and equipment directly to the beaches, while LVTs and DUKWs were able to span the water gap and make deliveries across the beaches. Cargo-handling activities on the beaches were facilitated through the use of mobile cranes, tractors, standard Army cargo trucks, and A-frames mounted on DUKWs and other vehicles. Palletized supplies, although wasteful of shipping space and occasionally hard to handle, lent themselves to easy movement across beaches and were extensively used. In the Pacific, ponton breakwaters and piers made possible rapid port development on islands such as Saipan and Tinian. In ETO, where major emphasis was placed on rehabilitation of existing
ports, the need for artificial port facilities was limited. The American artificial harbor at OMAHA Beach, built for temporary use only, was wrecked by high winds and heavy seas before its utility could be determined, but the GOOSEBERRY, formed by sinking blockships, provided an effective refuge for small craft.
Keenly aware of the importance of transportation in overseas operations, the Chief of Transportation in Washington sought to make his organization immediately responsive to the needs of theater commands. As head of an operating service, General Gross was responsible not only for the movement of troops and materials to overseas commands, but also for the provision of Transportation Corps units and equipment necessary for intratheater transportation operations. As transportation officer on General Somervell’s staff, Gross also exercised considerable influence on plans for and the support of operations overseas. In both capacities, Gross instilled in his staff and his field installations a deep sense of urgency. He established an Overseas Operations Group to expedite the processing of requests from overseas commands and to coordinate the efforts of the several divisions that had to act on them. Gross made a number of visits to active theaters to observe operations at first hand and sent his principal assistants as well as members of his port installations on overseas inspection trips. Wherever possible, too, Gross corresponded informally with chiefs of transportation overseas in order to keep in close contact with their problems and requirements. In many cases, notably in ETO, the support rendered by him to the over-sea transportation organizations proved invaluable.1
Throughout the war, General Gross constantly sought to bring home to over-sea commands the desirability of centralized coordination and direction of transportation operations. He preached the need for chiefs of transportation to be placed high in the theater organization and to bear both staff and operating responsibilities. Acting as transportation officer on the theater commander’s staff and as a service head, the theater chief of transportation could give central direction to the planning, management, and operation of nontactical transportation, including shipping, port, rail, highway, and inland waterways activities, and exercise movement control over air and pipeline shipments. This doctrine was nowhere applied in its totality, although in time it was approximated in some commands.
To a certain extent, the failure to develop overseas transportation organizations with the authority and functions desired by Gross was rooted in the late establishment of the Transportation Corps. The Corps did not come into being until eight months after the United States entered the war, and there was considerable delay before it received proper recognition in some overseas commands. During an inspection trip in the fall of 1943, General Gross found that the Transportation Corps was virtually unknown at many South Pacific bases.
Much of the difficulty was due to the absence of official definition of the status of the Corps in the overseas commands. Field service regulations in effect when most theater organizations came into being had been issued before the war. They assigned responsibility for planning
for and coordination of transportation to G-4. Water transportation was the responsibility of the Quartermaster Corps, rail and inland waterway transportation were responsibilities of the Corps of Engineers, motor transportation was the responsibility of the Motor Transport Service, and air transportation a responsibility of the Air Forces. This archaic doctrine remained on the books until October 1943, when a revision was made that came closer to Gross’s concept, but not until December 1945 was an official manual published that adequately set forth the functions and authority of theater chiefs of transportation. In these circumstances, overseas transportation organizations tended to vary with local conditions and the personal preferences of theater commanders.
In practice, overseas transportation organizations differed greatly in authority and functions, depending on the nature of the command, the distances involved, the character of the communications, the resources available, and the theater commander’s concept of its place in his organization. In most areas, SOS organizations, more or less patterned after their counterpart in the zone of interior, were in time established to direct logistical operations. Chiefs of transportation were appointed within SOS, usually with both staff and operating functions. But this did not automatically result in centralized control of Army operations. In areas of Allied or unified command, Army transportation quite naturally was subject to coordination and control from general headquarters. Moreover, there tended to be a multiplicity of agencies dealing with transportation at various levels of the Army command. G-4 and other General Staff offices often retained many staff and operating functions relating to transportation; transportation officers were sometimes appointed on the special staffs of theater commanders quite apart from the SOS transportation agency; and, particularly in areas where distances were great and communications poor, direction of transportation operations was often decentralized to base commands, SOS base sections, island commands, or even individual stations. Pipeline construction and operation continued to be the responsibility of the Engineers, and, with the exception of screening requests and setting priorities for movements on nontactical aircraft, activities relating to air transportation remained the responsibility of the Air Forces. The multiplicity of agencies at all echelons handling transportation led occasionally to confusion and conflict, making difficult the development of central control.
A major factor retarding the development of effective transportation organizations in all overseas commands was the shortage of qualified transportation officers. Established after the outbreak of war, the Transportation Corps could draw only limited numbers of experienced officers from other branches of the Army and had to rely heavily on drafts on private industry to staff zone of interior establishments as well as to meet requests from overseas. Demands from the theaters consistently outran the supply of available Transportation Corps officers, and by early 1944 General Gross found that their ranks had been seriously depleted. General Thomas Wilson, then engaged in establishing his Transportation Service in CBI, was unable to secure enough officers and complained about “misfits” provided him by the Office of the Chief of Transportation. Ross made similar reports from
ETO.2 Lacking sufficient Transportation Corps officers, many areas assigned transportation responsibilities to tactical and other service officers, who had to learn on the ground. In USAFPOA, a theater-wide shortage of qualified officers delayed the organization of the Transportation Section for half a year. Eventually the shortage was relieved somewhat through transfer from Gross’s own staff and field installations and the increasing output of the Transportation Corps officer candidate schools, but it was never completely overcome.
The officer shortage was more than matched by the shortage of Transportation Corps units in the overseas commands, particularly in the early years of the war. During 1941 and early 1942, emphasis on combat readiness and the failure to foresee the extent to which service troops would be required for overseas operations led the War Department to make inadequate provision for service troops in its troop basis. In the Pacific the paucity of local facilities and labor created an abnormal demand for service troops. The assumption of important line of communications projects in western Canada and the Persian Corridor created unanticipated demands for port, rail, and truck units.
In the North African campaign further requirements for Transportation Corps and other service organizations arose. Even in the United Kingdom, which had highly developed transportation facilities and an industrialized population, it proved necessary to provide a substantial number of port and other service units. Since the necessary troops were neither on hand nor in training, emergency demands were met by overdrafts on the troop basis, hasty activations, and hurried equipping and shipment abroad. Inevitably lower-priority areas such as the Pacific, Alaska, and CBI were slow in receiving port and other service personnel. More adequate provision was made for service troops in the War Department’s troop basis in late 1942, thereby permitting advance procurement, training, and equipping of service personnel, but not until the fall of 1943 was it possible to provide an adequate number of service troops to overseas commands without hurried activation and training.3
These developments retarded the provision of an adequate number of Transportation Corps units to the overseas commands. In the Pacific, where port and other service personnel were at first in extremely short supply, tactical troops were put to work as longshoremen, truck drivers, and the like, assisted by such native labor as was available. In August 1942 SWPA and SPA together could boast only three organized Army port headquarters, two port battalions, and one locally activated port company. A more equitable proportion of port and other service troops to tactical personnel was not attained until the latter part of 1943. Even after 1943 it was frequently necessary to supplement Transportation Corps port troops with details from ground and other tactical forces at such places as Honolulu, Saipan, and Tinian. Much the same situation obtained in Alaska, where garrison troops either directly handled port operations or supplemented Transportation Corps port troops.
Transportation operations were also retarded by the shortage of Quartermaster
trucking units. The lack of two regiments required for the Persian Corridor, together with the secondary priority given the motor transport operation, delayed for over five months the completion of the project to bring trained drivers into Iran. To meet urgent requirements for the Red Ball Express in ETO, it was necessary to activate provisional trucking units with combat troops. In the India–Burma Theater, as preparations were made to open the Stilwell Road in late 1944, it was found that there were no Quartermaster truck units available in the command for through deliveries to China and little prospect of securing a significant number from the United States. As a consequence, deliveries of vehicles to China were begun with inefficient, hastily trained Chinese drivers, Chinese and American units moving on change of station, and American volunteers from all over the theater. Not until Indian driver units were found for base hauls and short hauls was it possible to divert a significant number of American trucking units from other operations to China deliveries.
The delay in providing for an adequate number of service troops also affected the proficiency of Transportation Corps and allied units assigned to the overseas commands. The demand for personnel in excess of the available supply led to hurried activation and training. This explains in part the frequent references to “green” and inexperienced Transportation Corps port organizations and DUKW units. Much the same can be said of Quartermaster trucking units, for, with the exception of the two truck regiments for the Persian Corridor that were in part recruited through the American Trucking Associations, most truck units contained a large proportion of men with little or no civilian experience in driving trucks. Experienced ex-civilian longshoremen, truck drivers, and other technicians were the exception rather than the rule, and deficiencies in educational and technical backgrounds could not be completely overcome during necessarily brief technical training. Inexperienced port, DUKW, and truck troops often did remarkable work, but it was usually necessary for officers and enlisted men to learn under pressure in the midst of operations. On the other hand, Military Railway Service organizations, in large part drawn from the ranks of American railways, had a high proportion of ex-civilian railroaders in both officer and enlisted positions. On the whole, their high technical proficiency was reflected in their performance overseas.
In an effort to provide sufficient personnel for operations, native labor and operating forces were utilized to the greatest possible extent. The sparse and primitive population in many areas of the Pacific greatly limited this resource, but even there the employment of native manpower was necessary insofar as it was available. Local labor was used in longshore operations on Nouméa, Guadalcanal, New Guinea, and in the Fijis, and more extensively in more developed areas such as Hawaii, Australia, New Zealand, and the Philippines. In the United Kingdom, the Army naturally relied heavily on British civilian longshoremen and on local rail transport. Native labor and operating forces were used extensively in port operations in the Persian Corridor, India–Burma, North Africa, Sicily, Italy, and northwestern Europe. In the Persian Corridor and in China, American truck drivers were heavily supplemented by native drivers and mechanics. In the case of rail
operations, full use was made of native supervisory and operating forces. In India and Iran, American military railway troops were superimposed on far larger civilian forces, making possible greatly expanded operations with the employment of relatively few Americans. Throughout the North African campaign, rail operations depended basically on French civilians working under MRS supervisory control and reinforced by Allied military personnel and equipment. Similar reliance was placed on local civilian railway personnel in Sicily, Italy, and France. Without the large-scale employment of native labor and technicians, the job of landing and transporting the huge volume of men and supplies within the overseas commands would have been well-nigh impossible.
The utilization of native or local civilian manpower, while essential, created a new set of problems. In Australia and the United Kingdom, for example, well-organized longshoremen did not readily accept the necessity for dropping leisurely peacetime practices and working at the pace the Army deemed necessary. Inevitably, too, unfavorable comparisons were made by American troops between their pay and that received by civilians working beside them. In other commands language difficulties had to be overcome, and in backward areas such as Iran, CBI, and North Africa labor, while plentiful, was poor in quality and unfamiliar with most machinery. In these areas, port operations were adversely affected by the inefficiency and inexperience of native labor and pilferage became a serious problem, but it was found that with experience on the job and close supervision, native labor could be used effectively. In the Persian Corridor Iranians, many of whom had never operated a vehicle before, were trained, through interpreters, as drivers. Although the program resulted in a high accident rate, a large number of competent drivers were ultimately developed.
Where American military operations involved the supervision or control of large civilian forces, it was necessary not only to secure their cooperation but also to adjust to unfamiliar and often inefficient operating, business, and personnel procedures. In North Africa and India such practices as the use of “paths” and the maintenance of “debit wagon balances” presented obstacles to the immediate acceleration of traffic. In Iran MRS officials found it necessary to enter the fields of labor relations, food distribution, and accounting in order to keep trains moving. Then too, although American practices were more efficient, it was generally found easier to adapt American troops to local practices than to adapt native forces to American methods. In general, local rail operational practices were retained, and greater efficiency was attained through close supervision of dispatching and loading, improved track and equipment maintenance, and the augmentation of motive power, rolling stock, passing tracks, and water, yard, and terminal facilities.
Closely related to the problem of providing personnel for overseas commands was the provision of adequate equipment to accompany them. In the first year of the war, there was a favorable balance of troopships over cargo vessels. Moreover, troopships were much faster than cargo ships, and therefore troops usually arrived in advance of their supplies and equipment.4 This was most marked in the
Persian Corridor, where there was a lag of months before port, rail, and truck troops received the equipment necessary to do their job properly. Similar instances also occurred in ETO, North Africa, and CBI. These incidents pointed up the desirability of shipping equipment in advance of or together with units wherever possible.
In addition to organizational equipment and tools, it was necessary to provide large stocks of transportation equipment to supplement existing facilities or to establish new operations in the overseas commands. The Transportation Corps was responsible for providing cargo-handling and marine equipment and, after November 1942, rail equipment. As in the case of personnel, demands far exceeded the supply, and it was some time before procurement and production could begin to redress the balance. Moreover, the Transportation Corps, created after the outbreak of war, did not have the advantage of established procurement, cataloguing, and other supply procedures developed by the older technical services. Until an effective supply system could be set up, provision of equipment to theaters tended to be on a hand-to-mouth basis, with the Transportation Corps meeting urgent requests for equipment as they arose.
In the case of tugs, barges, and other floating equipment required for the over-sea commands, the Chief of Transportation had to initiate a procurement program in the face of serious handicaps, since shipyards were already heavily burdened with merchant vessel contracts and the naval ship building program. Purchase of, or contract for, locally available equipment helped partially to meet over-sea requirements, but it was not until the latter part of 1942 that new production made it possible for the Transportation Corps to begin providing the commands with relatively large numbers of tugs, barges, lighters, and other craft. Although a total of 7,791 small Transportation Corps boats of various types was ultimately assigned to the overseas commands, the shortage was relieved only gradually, and in areas such as SWPA, where requirements were particularly urgent and heavy, large numbers of small vessels and craft had to be acquired or constructed within the theater.5
Despite the delay in meeting the large order for 400 BOLERO locomotives for use in Great Britain and later transfer to the Continent, less difficulty was generally experienced in providing motive power and rolling stock to overseas commands than other equipment. Plants were able to maintain production of railway equipment, although there was some conversion of railway production to tanks and other war materiel. Despite differences in gauge and other difficulties, adjustments were fairly easy. Moreover, requirements for new production for the military were lessened somewhat by the early placement of lend-lease orders for areas where American MRS troops were later assigned. Most of the 91 American lend-lease Mikado steam locomotives and a large number of railway cars ordered by the British for the Iranian State Railway arrived or were placed in operation after the Americans took over. Lend-lease motive power and rolling stock were also provided for the MRS-operated railway in India. By 30 June 1945 a total of 5,578 locomotives, 106 locomotive cranes, and
83,875 pieces of rolling stock, built in the zone of interior for the MRS and lend-lease, had been exported for use by U.S. military forces or their Allies.6 Other equipment was purchased from American railroads, including 58 diesel locomotives for Iran and narrow-gauge equipment for the White Pass and Yukon Railroad in Alaska and western Canada.
Deficiencies in Transportation Corps supply operations were by no means confined to the zone of interior. As previously related in the account dealing with the European continent, the newness of Transportation Corps depot and other supply activities adversely affected the requisitioning, storage, and distribution of Transportation Corps supplies. Without previous experience in this field Transportation Corps depots had few trained personnel able to handle technical equipment and lacked such standard basic data as stock catalogues, parts lists, maintenance factors, and standard nomenclature lists. These limitations made difficult the attainment of a smooth flow of supplies to and within the theater and provided a constant source of difficulty in depot operations.
The procurement of motor transport equipment, a responsibility of the Ordnance Department, involved the problem of the type as well as the number of vehicles to be provided. At the outbreak of war the 2½-ton Army truck was the heaviest type of cargo vehicle immediately available in quantity and being produced in volume. While the vehicle proved an admirable work horse for the Army and experience demonstrated that it could carry up to five tons, it was found to be lacking in several respects. It could not carry bulky items, its use required more drivers, maintenance, and shipping space than heavier vehicles, and it was not particularly efficient in over-the-road operations. But other trucks were not immediately available, and there was an inevitable lag between procurement of heavier vehicles and their production.7 During the greater part of the war the 2½-ton truck, often used with the 1-ton trailer, was the standby for overseas highway operations. These were supplemented by such heavier vehicles as the 4-5-ton truck-tractor-semitrailer combination, the 2½-ton truck-tractor and 7-ton semitrailer, and the 10-ton Mack diesel truck. In ETO, where long hauls played a vital role in transportation, heavy vehicles, particularly 10-ton truck-trailer units, were requested before the invasion, but they were late in arriving. Well over half the truck companies under the technical supervision of the Motor Transport Service on the Continent were functioning with 2½-ton trucks in December 1944, and the theater never received all the heavy-duty cargo-hauling equipment General Ross considered necessary.
Maintenance of equipment proved troublesome in virtually all theaters. Rough operating conditions, overwork of equipment, inadequate maintenance and repair facilities, abuse by inexperienced operators, unsuitable equipment, and a shortage of spare parts all contributed to the rapid deterioration and the large-scale deadlining of rail, marine, and motor transport equipment. In ETO, some 50 to 60 percent of the trucks available for port
hauling in the OMAHA District were dead-lined by the fall of 1944 because of constant use, poor roads, inadequate maintenance, and the lack of spare parts. Railway shop troops in India and other areas were compelled to manufacture parts or to cannibalize deadlined equipment to keep trains rolling. The use of DUKWs for inland transport to make up for the lack of trucks in the Philippines and the employment of unsuitable craft for barge operations on the Brahmaputra River in India resulted in rapid obsolescence and breakdowns. In Alaska, the lack of marine repair facilities and personnel in 1942 and 1943 made inroads into the inadequate supply of floating equipment. In these circumstances operations in theaters, already handicapped by shortages in initial issues, were further circumscribed by the inability fully to utilize the equipment on hand.
Of the various factors adversely affecting the maintenance and repair of transportation equipment none was more universal or persistent than the lack of spare parts. Although complaints regarding the spare-parts shortage in some areas tended to diminish in intensity after 1943, the supply of spare parts in ETO was considered inadequate throughout the war period. Insofar as items of Transportation Corps supply were concerned, the shortage was in part attributable to the late organization of the Corps. Late in arriving on the scene, it placed major emphasis on the procurement of the basic items, with a consequent lag in spare parts. Then, too, the shortcomings in Transportation Corps supply operations overseas, already discussed in connection with equipment, undoubtedly impeded effective distribution of available parts to and within theaters.
The problem of providing spare parts for vehicles, an Ordnance Department responsibility, lies outside the scope of this work. Nevertheless, some tentative observations appear justified in view of the effect of spare-parts shortages on MTS operations overseas. Since one type of truck alone might contain as many as 7,000 separate parts, the procurement and distribution of spare parts proved a complicated task. According to General Somervell, spare-parts production did not at first keep pace with the production of new motor units because of inadequate provision in early appropriations, but by the fall of 1942 steps had been taken to increase the output of spare parts with each vehicle, to ship a year’s level of spare parts with each vehicle, and to provide a monthly flow thereafter.8 Apparently spare-parts production improved during the following year, for in early 1944 there was little difficulty in obtaining delivery of parts of most types from production. Nevertheless, overseas commands continued to report major problems of repair arising from shortages of spare parts. According to an Ordnance Department account, such shortages were usually due to faulty distribution, arising from a lack of central parts control, inadequate parts identification, and delays in shipping.9 It may also be suggested that the shortage tended to become relative rather than absolute, since inadequate maintenance, poor roads, driver abuse, and employment of unsuitable vehicles could result in excessive mortality of specific parts.
Problems of organization, personnel, and equipment should serve to emphasize
rather than detract from the achievements of the U.S. Army’s overseas transportation operations. Despite these difficulties and often in the face of adverse geographic, climatic, and other operating conditions, American rail, port, truck, inland waterways, and traffic regulating troops accomplished the missions assigned them. World War II experience demonstrated the indispensable role played by transportation in logistics and the need for a continued awareness of its significance in the planning and conduct of any future military operations.