Chapter 28: Military Supply to Liberated and Latin American Nations
By the very nature of the situation, lend-lease supplies for the war against Germany had to be concentrated very largely on the British Commonwealth and the USSR. The other European powers originally in the lists—France, the Netherlands, Belgium, and Norway in the west; Poland, Czechoslovakia, Greece, and Yugoslavia in the east—lay under the yoke of the Axis until well past the middle of 1944. As early as 1940, the British began to arm escapees and Colonials of occupied countries, incorporating them usually as units in Commonwealth forces. These refugee units were small, the most important elements being the Free French Forces under General Charles de Gaulle and the Polish Army Corps evacuated from the USSR through Iran in 1942. In addition, small quantities of arms were provided by airdrop to resistance groups under combined British-American auspices.
The liberation of Axis-held territory, beginning with the invasion of North Africa in fall 1942, opened up new sources of manpower for the Allied armies. Yet only in the case of French North Africa did liberation come in time to permit the organization and preparation of a force that could play any significant role in the war. A start was made toward organizing and equipping units in Metropolitan France, Belgium, and the Netherlands, but V-E Day overtook the program before it was more than barely started. Eastern Europe, with the exception of Greece, fell to Soviet armies, not to the western Allies. The British effort to re-equip patriot forces in Greece received little American support.
The problem of equipping liberated manpower, resistance, and patriot groups was treated from the first as a combined Anglo-American problem, except for the forces that formed parts of the British Army. Although the Americans furnished 90 to 95 percent of the material for French rearmament, decisions on the scope of the program were rendered by the CCS and not by the U.S. Joint Chiefs alone. The Munitions Assignments Boards, Washington and London, made their assignments to conform to CCS directives, which normally spelled out exact numbers and types of units to be organized and sources from which supplies were to be drawn.
The North African Rearmament Program
The basis for the North African Rearmament Program was the agreement reached at Casablanca between President Roosevelt and General Henri Giraud,
commander of French Forces in North Africa, to provide modern equipment for 11 French divisions (8 infantry and 3 armored), and planes for a rejuvenated French Air Force.1 Though the CCS did not definitely ratify the 11-division commitment until QUADRANT (owing to both a difficult shipping situation and British opposition) the United States went ahead during the intervening period to complete one phase of the program2 and definitely schedule another, making up between the two phases about half of the rearmament materials for ground forces promised by Roosevelt at Casablanca. These steps were taken directly as a result of pressures brought by Giraud, but the pressures would not have been so successful had they not appealed to American self-interest. Arming French divisions would save the personnel shipping required to move an equivalent number of American ones; moreover, the final reduction in the U.S. Army’s mobilization goal to 90 divisions was definitely made with the 11 French divisions in mind.3
Nevertheless, shortages of matériel, shipping, convoy escort, and port capacity in North Africa forced the Americans to move slowly. Control over the detailed formulation of the program and the rate of shipment was entrusted to the Supreme Allied Commander in North Africa, General Eisenhower. Eisenhower was forced initially to limit rearmament materials to 25,000 tons per monthly convoy, out of which 4,000 tons had to be used for maintenance of French units, armed with old weapons, who were already in the Allied battle line. The Joint Rearmament Committee, a Franco-American agency set up in AFHQ to run the program, drew up its plans on this basis, but under pressure from General Giraud a way was found to provide a special convoy in March 1943 that carried more than 100,000 tons of rearmament materials. By the end of April 1943 the French had on hand in North Africa the major portion of the equipment necessary for three infantry divisions, part of an armored division, and the numerous supporting units necessary to place one expeditionary corps in the field.
The American commitment was made entirely to Giraud, but it was clear from the start that Giraud’s bitter rival, General de Gaulle, leader of the Free French Forces, would also have to be reckoned with. A modus vivendi between the two was reached on 3 June 1943 with the formation of the French Committee of National Liberation (FCNL) with Giraud and de Gaulle as co-chairmen, an agreement which provided a semblance of unified control for Frenchmen everywhere fighting the Axis. It was, nevertheless, only an uneasy truce, and no steps were taken at the time toward fusing the British-equipped Free French Forces with the new French army being re-equipped with American arms.
Following completion of the first phase in April 1943, French rearmament languished for a period of nearly three months. The British and American members of the CCS, after failing to reach agreement in March on the scope of the program or the priority to be accorded it, at the TRIDENT Conference simply accepted a commitment to proceed “as rapidly as the availability of shipping and equipment will allow, but as a secondary commitment to requirements of British and United States forces in the various theaters.”4 No specific mention was made of the 11-division program nor was any strategic plan adopted for employment of French troops. This low priority in a period when feverish preparations were under way in North Africa for launching the invasion of Sicily (HUSKY) left little available shipping in convoys for French rearmament materials and even less port or internal transport capacity to handle them. AFHQ was reluctant to accept French requisitions for a second phase of the program. And, since the theater delayed in sending requisitions, the MAB did not make any new assignments after March. In May and June 1943 only the backlog of equipment for the first phase was sent, and monthly shipments fell well below the 25,000-ton allocation. “There appears,” noted the ASF Planning Division diary in mid-June, “to be a definite lethargy insofar as the program is concerned”; and Colonel Magruder, director of that division, with some pique characterized French rearmament as “a hand-to-mouth procedure in which the basic directive is vague and its execution unmanaged.”5
The impetus for a second phase of French rearmament came again from General Giraud, who visited the United States in July 1943. While Giraud was on the high seas, at the War Department’s request, Eisenhower’s headquarters on 4 July cabled new requisitions calling for equipment for the rest of the first armored division and the nucleus of a second, for elements of another infantry division, various corps and service units, and for units of the French Air Force and Navy. Eisenhower stipulated that these requirements must be met within the 25,000-ton allocation. Then on 6 July, anticipating that Giraud would press for substantially more, the Allied commander warned the War Department that port capacity in North Africa was severely limited, and that no substantial increase in French supplies could be handled until the load on Casablanca was relieved and the French allowed to take over operation of that port—an event he estimated could not take place before 1 November 1943.
Despite Eisenhower’s pessimism, Giraud’s requests, presented in a 10-day round of conferences beginning on 7 July 1943, got a very sympathetic reception. The French commander, as expected, went beyond Eisenhower’s recommendations and requested materials sufficient to equip a second French corps to operate beside the first—that is, to complete two full armored divisions, two additional infantry divisions, and corps and service troops. An ASF study revealed that shipping would be available to transport the necessary supplies if spaced over the July, August, and
September convoys and that the only bottleneck would be port capacity in North Africa. Marshall and Somervell consequently promised Giraud approximately what he asked for, with the time schedule to be dependent upon Eisenhower’s evaluation of reception capacity. Once the invasion of Sicily had been successfully launched, the theater was able to revise its earlier predictions, informing the War Department on 16 July that plans for the use of Casablanca had been adjusted to permit accommodation of 200,000 tons of French rearmament materials in August and September. Giraud was informed, before he returned to North Africa, that Somervell’s schedule could be substantially fulfilled.
Phase II shipments were, in fact, considerably accelerated, and almost all materials, some 230,000 tons, had cleared American ports by the end of August.6 Their arrival in North Africa provided the French with most of the equipment necessary for four infantry and two armored divisions as well as some of the supporting units necessary to make up two army corps, though shortages of numerous specific items remained.
As a corollary to Giraud’s visit and the Phase II shipments, and under pressure from Eisenhower and the CCS, de Gaulle’s British-equipped Free French Forces were finally brought into the rearmament program. Though they were allowed to keep the British equipment they already had, they were to be issued no new British equipment, and were to become part of the consolidated forces under the French Committee of National Liberation to be rearmed mainly from American sources. Under the new arrangement, General Giraud became commander in chief of all French armed forces fighting the Axis and continued as co-president with de Gaulle, of the FCNL. Giraud’s pleas that the French program be increased as a result of this accretion of manpower from the Free French Forces was turned down by Eisenhower; AFHQ did agree, however, that the program should be revised to include 7 infantry and 4 armored divisions, rather than 8 infantry and 3 armored as agreed at Casablanca.7 Giraud continued to press for an addition of one division to the program, and for a considerable time maintained one Free French division, with its British equipment, outside the rearmament program.
The heavy Phase II shipments heralded the end of the major logistical barriers to the fulfillment of the entire French rearmament program. The old bottlenecks—scarcity of matériel and limitations on convoys, shipping, and port capacity—were rapidly disappearing. At the QUADRANT Conference in August 1943 the JCS presented a definite, detailed program for completing the equipment of the 11-division force by the end of the year, and the British Chiefs approved it subject to the proviso that its fulfillment should not “interfere with operations scheduled previous to the ... Conference.”8 The CCS also approved AFHQ’s design to use the reequipped French forces in an assault
on Corsica in September, in larger operations in Italy, and to explore the possibility of using them in an invasion of southern France.
The 15 August plan set up a schedule for shipping equipment for one infantry and one armored division in September, for another infantry division in October, for a third in November, and for the last armored division in December. Each monthly slice was to include matériel for the necessary supporting combat and service units. All shipments would be made to Casablanca, which port would be turned over to the exclusive control of the French in September. Initial shipping requirements, totaling 630,000 tons, were considerably reduced by transfer to the French of American equipment left by four U.S. divisions scheduled to move from North Africa to England to participate in OVERLORD.
Phase III of French rearmament got off to an auspicious start. Approximately 140,000 tons of matériel were shipped in the September slice, and the October slice (something over 50,000 tons) was assigned and moved to port by the end of that month.9 At this point Phase III was interrupted. The first move toward curtailment came as a result of Presidential objections to the growing political ascendency of General de Gaulle, who early in September 1943 moved to displace Giraud from his position on the Committee of National Liberation, but there is no reason to believe that the ultimate decision was made on anything other than military grounds. When President Roosevelt suggested a possible curtailment to check de Gaulle, General Marshall’s staff was already moving in that direction for the different reason that the French were proving unable to provide the necessary supporting combat and service units to make an 11-division army self-sufficient.10
By early September 1943 the Joint Rearmament Committee had worked out a plan providing in detail for those supporting combat and service units—258 in all. AFHQ soon learned that the French would not be able to organize the units from available manpower. There was a marked shortage of technically proficient personnel in North Africa. Skilled Europeans were already spread thin to provide officers, noncommissioned officers, and technicians in combat forces. Giraud from the start placed his entire emphasis on the fighting divisions and placed the support troops, particularly those designated to perform service functions, in low priority for activation, almost completely ignoring Eisenhower’s repeated warnings that the French Army must be self-supporting. Giraud took the position, not altogether untenable, that it would be bad policy to break up units capable of efficient combat operations to form semi-efficient service units. He argued that the French did not need as large-scale service support as U.S. troops and that, in the last analysis, it would be wiser and easier for the Americans to provide service support to the French than to train and ship new combat units. But neither Eisenhower nor Marshall had any intention of furnishing U.S. service units to support the French, however much they may have respected the
“old gentleman.” General Smith, Eisenhower’s chief of staff, recommended that the rearmament program be limited to six infantry and two armored divisions, a plan that would provide better balance between armor and infantry and at the same time free personnel from the combat forces to form necessary supporting units. Since the French continued to delay any definite response on what they intended to do about the supporting units, and since in the meantime their embryo supply organization seemed to be incapable of ingesting the quantities of American equipment already shipped, at Eisenhower’s recommendation the JCS in early November suspended further shipments pending re-examination of the whole program.11
While the issue thus hung fire, the main body of French troops already armed were committed with the U.S. Fifth Army in Italy where they acquitted themselves well. At SEXTANT in December 1943 the CCS decided that most of the French Army, after receiving battle experience in Italy, should be used as the main follow-up force in the invasion of southern France. This plan called for an immediate decision on size and composition. The National Defense Committee of the FCNL finally, but reluctantly, agreed on 11 January that two infantry divisions should be disbanded to provide supporting units for the rest, and though Giraud, as commander-in-chief, made a final desperate appeal to General Marshall to preserve the entire 11-division program and furnish American service support, in the end he was forced to acquiesce. And it was not long afterward that de Gaulle forced him into retirement. The new program, officially agreed to in North Africa on 23 January and approved by the CCS on 3 March,12 still included on paper 6 infantry and 4 armored divisions; however, one of the infantry divisions remained in cadre only, and one armored division was deferred indefinitely. It also included 245 supporting organizations, of which 210 were units included in the former plan and 35 were new additions. What really remained was a self-supporting 8-division force, of which 5 infantry and 2 armored divisions were expected to provide a balanced force for ANVIL. The third armored division would be employed in the immediate follow-up of OVERLORD and participate in the liberation of Paris.
The 23 January plan was the final word on North African rearmament, except for minor adjustments, and the 8-division program was established as the practical limit on French ability to mobilize manpower in North Africa. A fourth phase of French rearmament got under way in February 1944 in fulfillment of the plan and continued through October, largely a matter of rounding out the 8-division force by filling shortages, equipping supporting units, and adjusting the whole program to the necessities of Operation ANVIL. The basic equipment for eight divisions, with certain exceptions, was already in the theater in February either in the hands of the French or as surplus in theater stocks. On paper the sole remaining problems were those of equipping 81 support units and filling shortages. In
reality, more serious problems had emerged during Phase III as parts of the rearmed French army were committed in combat. The Americans learned during this period the manifold difficulties of raising, equipping, and supporting an army in liberated territory where the de facto government had few real resources at its command. The actual arming and training of combat forces proved the easiest task, the provision of an adequate system of support the most difficult.
The initial American approach to French rearmament involved elements not completely compatible. A compact French striking force was to be formed to operate under the strategic direction of the Anglo-American CCS in conjunction with British and American forces. At the same time, this French striking force was not to be supported directly as a part of an American or British command, but was to be made as self-reliant as possible. Supplies would be furnished the French in bulk under lend-lease arrangements in accordance with CCS plans, and the French would be expected to develop their own supply organization, paralleling the American one operating in the same theater. There would be American advice and guidance in the operation of the French supply system as there would be in the equipping and training of the striking force, but not direct American management. French military lend-lease was to be treated as nearly as possible like British and Russian with the minimum of allowance for the fact that the French political and military organization in North Africa was not a really going concern but at least a semi-dependency of the Allied military command.
The War Department accepted from the start the obligation to furnish maintenance and replacement supplies for the American equipment issued to the French units in the approved program, and in fall 1943 set up a system for discharging this obligation. All assignments of initial equipment included a provision for thirty days’ maintenance and six months’ supply of spare parts. Beyond this the French were expected to submit timely requisitions for additional maintenance and replacement requirements to the Joint Rearmament Committee in North Africa for submission to the MAC (G) in Washington for assignment and shipment through normal lend-lease channels, though in emergencies the theater commander was authorized to make issue directly from theater stock. Approved units ready for, or actively engaged in, combat with an American command were authorized replacement and maintenance on the same scale as U.S. troops operating in the same theater, and those remaining in North Africa on a U.S. zone of interior basis.13 The French were expected to provide subsistence for all their forces either from indigenous North African production or from food supplies shipped under the civilian supply program. In either case, they would themselves be responsible for storage and distribution of the supplies available to them from both America and indigenous sources. Lend-lease supplies were shipped to North
Africa consigned to the American theater commander rather than to the French, but the turnover in the theater was usually automatic and, indeed, after the French took over the port of Casablanca, they received most of these supplies directly.
Such a system presupposed the existence of a central French SOS organization in North Africa capable of performing the tasks of sorting, storage, distribution, and stock control as efficiently as the American theater SOS, and French willingness to in fact confine their distribution to the narrow limits set down in CCS directives. Neither supposition was valid. As a first step toward self-reliance, the French in September 1943 established a central SOS organization for handling American matériel—the Service Central des Approvisionnements et Matériels Américains (SCAMA). But even under expert American tutelage, SCAMA’s progress was slow and always handicapped by language difficulties, shortage of trained personnel, materials, inadequate depot establishments, and unfamiliarity of French personnel with American equipment and American methods. And while SCAMA was suffering growing pains, the supply problems it was supposed to handle were getting out of hand. Moreover, while rearmament supplies were supposed to be issued only to approved rearmament units, AFHQ had no effective control over diversions. In addition to approved units, the French maintained around 200,000 troops in their Territorial and Sovereignty Forces charged respectively with operation of the supporting military establishment in North Africa and with defense and internal security. There were other units also, which, though not approved under the rearmament program, were participating in active combat operations in Corsica and Italy. Because equipment for rearmament units normally arrived far in advance of the actual activation of the units, some of it was inevitably diverted to nonprogram troops.
The chaotic condition of the French supply system became evident once the French troops were committed in Italy. The initial plan provided that French requisitions should be processed by Fifth Army to SOS NATOUSA, which would then call on the French military authorities for the desired material (to be furnished out of lend-lease or indigenous stocks). Should an emergency arise, the theater commander was empowered to make direct transfers out of theater stocks to be replaced later by lend-lease assignment. The French were expected, in the meantime, to be preparing their timely requisitions for maintenance and replacement for submission by the Joint Rearmament Committee to Washington for assignment by MAC (G).
It is doubtful if such a highly complicated and cumbersome procedure could have worked even had the French possessed an efficient supply organization. Since they did not, it broke down almost immediately. The first French troops sent to Italy were not even issued their full initial allowances before leaving North Africa, and U.S. Fifth Army soon found itself forced to resort to emergency measures to fill these shortages, disregarding the finer points of lend-lease procedure. Similarly, SOS NATOUSA frequently found it necessary to invoke the theater commander’s emergency powers in order to provide timely maintenance and replacement to
meet Fifth Army’s requisitions for the French, either because the French had already diverted material to other units or could not locate it in depot stocks. Even in the case of rations, the theater SOS found it necessary to supplement French stocks heavily. When they did meet SOS requests the French frequently took the materials out of the only ready reserve available—the equipment shipped for rearmament units not yet activated—thus laying the basis for future shortages and confusion. Moreover, they seemed unable to anticipate future replacement and maintenance requirements properly, partially because they had no adequate inventory of the stocks they already possessed, and so delayed the submission of requisitions for new shipments from the United States.
Even apart from the inadequacy of the French supply system, it was clearly wasteful to ship supplies from the United States to North Africa, place them in French stocks, then withdraw them later for transshipment. The red tape involved was frightening, and there was obvious duplication in the maintenance of two separate reserve stocks in the theater for the support of troops fighting in the same command and receiving their supplies ultimately from the same source.14
Finally recognizing the need for American management to follow lend-lease supplies, on 26 December 1943 Eisenhower recommended direct American support be substituted for complicated lend-lease arrangements. With little dissent, this idea was accepted by the War Department and MAC(G); it was placed into effect in supplying French forces in Italy in January 1944. After the usual refinements, the new system was formally promulgated by the War Department on 8 March 1944. Approved French units were authorized maintenance and replacement supplies on the same basis as before, but these supplies for units ready to move to, or already in, actual combat zones under American command were to flow entirely through American channels. Only French garrison forces and forces operating independently or as part of a British command were to receive them through military lend-lease channels. American commanders were to include French forces serving under them in their Monthly Matériel Status Reports (MMSR) to the port of embarkation, and forward requests for supplies for the French outside the MMSR as a part of their consolidated requisition on the United States. These consolidated requisitions were to include the balance of the French ration, which the theater SOS could not secure from the French themselves.15 To provide data on which after-the-fact assignments could be made by the MAB and lend-lease accounts drawn up, commanders were to estimate the proportion of their requisition for each article that was for French forces. This system of accounting proved entirely too burdensome for the theaters concerned, NATOUSA and ETOUSA, and in 1945 it was abandoned in favor of a straight per diem charge for each French soldier maintained.
Under this arrangement, the French supply organization in North Africa was relieved entirely of the burden of supporting French troops in Italy and
France. All that was left to it were the tasks of storing and distributing rearmament supplies in North Africa, providing the housekeeping services for the entire French military establishment there, and furnishing support for the all-French operations on Corsica and Elba. This simple solution, nonetheless, was not without its complications. It left the French without enough resources to support adequately the part of their military establishment outside the rearmament program. One problem, that of nonprogram troops serving in the combat zone, was generally solved by July 1944 by blanketing them under the rearmament program, but still left were the Territorial and Sovereignty Forces in North Africa (all together about 200,000 men) with a minimum of American support. This was a continual source of trouble, since the development of a French communications zone in North Africa was largely dependent on these American supplies. The CCS did agree, in January 1944, to furnish certain supplies and materials for the Territorial Forces but the provision was, in French eyes, inadequate. The Sovereignty Forces received an even smaller allotment. Both forces were, in fact, always poorly supplied, and the result was almost inevitably that diversions of material from units in the rearmament program continued, despite American efforts to prevent them. These diversions contributed to the appearance of unforeseen shortages in French units in both Italy and southern France that had to be met from theater stocks or by emergency order on the United States.
The French were never able to activate all the supporting units provided in the CCS plan of 3 March 1944, despite the reduction in the scope of the program and the disbandment of two infantry divisions in February 1944. The need for combat replacements and the continued shortage of skilled personnel militated against it. The 7-division force that participated in the invasion of southern France was reasonably well rounded, but it never was able to meet the goal of self-containment the Americans set for it. Thus, both in Italy and in southern France, the Americans had to provide a measure of service support to the French forces operating with them. To the obligation of providing maintenance and replacement supplies through their own channels, the U.S. Army had to add the provision of port and base services. A French base section (Base 901) was organized and sent first to Italy, then to southern France, but in neither place was it able to stand entirely on its own feet.
Despite these difficulties, the French North African Rearmament Program generally achieved the purposes for which it was designed. It provided a rejuvenated 8-division French Army which played an important role in the campaigns in Italy and in the liberation of France, and it obviated the necessity for activation and deployment of eight additional American divisions.
The Metropolitan and Liberated Manpower Programs
By October 1944 the North African phase of French rearmament had come to an end, and the scene of action had shifted to Metropolitan France. The shift of control of the 6th U.S. Army Group, of which the French 1st Army formed a part, from SACMED to
SHAEF in September 1944 brought a shift of control over French rearmament soon afterward. Most of the personnel of the Joint Rearmament Committee moved from North Africa to France in October to form the Rearmament Division of the SHAEF Mission (France). Meanwhile, the CCS had begun to wrestle with the problem of arming French manpower available in Metropolitan France.
In October 1943 the French Committee of National Liberation presented to the War Department a grand scheme to enlarge the rearmament program to 36 divisions and 2,800 first-line aircraft by the end of 1945, recruiting of manpower to begin as soon as the Allies entered Metropolitan France.16 The FCNL urged that this large-scale rearmament of French manpower would be necessary to enable the French to discharge their obligations “to fight the Axis in Europe to the finish, to contribute to the occupation of Axis territories and the maintenance of security in Europe, to assist in the war against Japan, and to restore French sovereignty to all territories of the French Union.”17
This proposal went far beyond anything the Americans were willing to contemplate. The JCS took the position that rearmament of French forces should be limited to those that could be profitably used in the war against Germany; the creation of a French army for postwar purposes or even to aid in the war against Japan, they thought, involved political considerations beyond their jurisdiction. At QUADRANT, they had already taken the position that the equipping of French forces after the invasion of the Continent should be limited to those required for garrison and guard duties.
During the first four or five months following an initial assault..., all available port and beach capacity will be required for the build-up and maintenance of United Nations forces ... a minimum of six to eight months will be required between the start of reorganization and re-equipment of French Army units ... and their initial employment. Thus it would appear that no continental French Army units could be employed for ten to thirteen months after the initial assault.18
The FCNL proposal was therefore quietly slipped into the discard.
The British were eventually to take the view that liberated manpower should be used to create national armies in Europe to insure postwar stability and relieve the occupation burden on American and British troops, but this view did not emerge full-blown in the councils of the CCS until August 1944. In the interim they agreed to limit the question, as the JCS desired, to what contribution European liberated manpower—French, Dutch, Belgian, Danish, and Norwegian—could make toward winning the war in Europe. Even when so limited, there were important issues to be resolved, but the CCS had made little progress in resolving them before the Normandy invasion. The only conclusion reached, and it was tentative, was that 172,000 men should be organized into internal security battalions, 175 (140,000 men) to be raised by the
French, 50 (32,000 men) by the Dutch and Belgians, all to be supplied with either captured equipment or equipment in the hands of the British.
Meanwhile, a considerable effort was devoted to furnishing supplies to resistance groups, particularly in France. This program had begun in 1941 under the auspices of the British Special Operations Executive (SOE), and it was joined in later by its American prototype, the Office of Strategic Services (OSS). The operation continued to be predominantly British until shortly before the Normandy invasion in 1944 when the OSS sponsored several large-scale airdrops in an attempt to dispel a common French illusion that their aid was coming entirely from the British. Even previously the SOE had procured many of its supplies under lend-lease, through a special procedure whereby its requirements were screened by OSS before submission to the War Department for procurement.19 All in all, the airdrops provided only small quantities of light equipment—rifles, machine guns, ammunition, explosives, radios, and articles of clothing—and, while they contributed greatly to the effectiveness of the French Forces of the Interior (FFI), they could not provide the heavier equipment needed for an organized army.
After the Normandy invasion, as long as the beachhead in France continued small, the bulk of supply for the French continued to take the form of SOE-OSS assistance. Meanwhile, a welter of conflicting voices sought to point a way to some definite program for a new phase of French rearmament. The French continued to press for the program of October 1943, but to little avail. After the combat successes of July and August, the American commanders concerned, Generals Eisenhower and Devers, indicated it would be better to limit re-equipment of French combat troops to small units that could be quickly trained and put to use. On 2 August 1944 the CCS definitely authorized the organization of the 172,000 men into liberated manpower units for rear area work as planned earlier, but took no action on the question of combat forces. When the matter came up again for consideration on 22 August, the British presented their view that an 8-division French army should be created to promote postwar stability in Europe and suggested the United States should assume responsibility for equipping such a force, while they themselves would provide equipment for the smaller forces of other western Allies. The JCS, however, held to their view that postwar armies were a political question “which should be subject of agreement between the governments concerned.”20 The JCS recommended, in keeping with the Eisenhower-Devers view, that 39 separate battalions of French combat troops be formed at the discretion of SCAEF (General Eisenhower) and SACMED (General Wilson). They thought fullest possible use should be made of captured equipment, of U.S. equipment previously transferred
French patriots with guns parachuted in by the Allies
to the United Kingdom and no longer required in the prosecution of the war, and of surplus equipment in U.S. theater stocks, and that the rest should be supplied from the United States, the United Kingdom, and Canada by agreement between the British Army Staff in Washington and the War Department. The British did not finally agree to this American proposal until December 1944, though the Americans went ahead and shipped equipment for eleven infantry battalions at Eisenhower’s request.21
The French, in the meantime, showed no inclination to confine their military organization to a congeries of small units for internal security and piecemeal use in combat. The internal security units took shape but slowly, and the FCNL almost immediately began to organize the FFI into divisional organizations to the extent it was able to do so. General Alphonse Juin, French Chief of Staff for National Defense, personally appealed to General Marshall for equipment for five French divisions, and on 31 October told SHAEF that the French would not furnish units to be used as part of British or American commands
but would insist that any new units formed be included “within the framework of a newly rebuilt French Army.”22
It was less the attitude of the French than the turn of military events that finally forced Eisenhower’s hand. With the Allied armies stalled on the German border, on 1 November Eisenhower recommended to the CCS that the mobile military labor, security, and other liberated manpower units be increased to 460,000 men, 243,081 to be recruited from France and the rest from the Netherlands, Belgium, Norway, and Denmark, and that two additional French infantry divisions be raised, since he now believed they could be readied in time for participation in the war. The program, tentatively approved in Washington, was soon absorbed within a broader one that the French worked out with SHAEF and Brig. Gen. Auguste Brossin de Saint-Didier, head of the French Military Mission in Washington, presented to the CCS on 18 December 1944. Under this proposal the French would organize eight new divisions, six infantry, one mountain, and one armored, with 213 supporting units, one army and two corps headquarters, in addition to the security and labor units already authorized. Saint-Didier emphasized that the plan was “one of active participation in the war ... not a postwar plan, the present establishment of which seems premature.”23 The activation of troop units was to be phased in accordance with the availability of French manpower, and as much equipment as possible was to be furnished by French industry, now on its way toward rehabilitation. Phase I would consist of three divisions, Phase II of two, and Phase III of three more. It was hoped that the five divisions in Phases I and II would be ready by 1 May 1945, those in Phase III by August 1945. The French hoped to provide their own equipment for the divisions in Phases I and III, except for clothing and individual equipment, tentage, heavy engineering equipment, and most of the vehicles and artillery. The United States would have to supply these deficiencies, also furnish complete equipment for the two divisions in Phase II, and for all the supporting corps, army, and service units of all three phases. Equipment the British had immediately available might be used in training the divisions first activated and, in some cases, to provide part of the French share for Phases 1 and III.
General Eisenhower, now faced with the serious crisis in the Ardennes and fearful lest he should be short of manpower for the fighting in 1945, approved the program in all its essentials, but insisted SHAEF should carefully supervise its execution. The CCS accepted it in principle on 28 December along with the enlarged Liberated Manpower Program and instructed the CAdC to make a further study of the sources from which equipment should be drawn.
The wheels were thus set in motion for an 8-division Metropolitan Rearmament Program. Requirements were hastily computed by the ASF, items supposedly available from French or British sources deducted, and a phased shipping program arranged providing for the rapid fulfillment of the American share of the 8-division commitment, save only
for a few scarce items in too great demand for U.S. forces.
Hardly had the shipments begun, in January 1945, before the program was revised. General Somervell, on a tour of the European theater, quickly perceived that not enough service units had been planned for to make the 8-division force self-sufficient, and ETOUSA soon raised the proposed number of those units from 213 to 1,128, bringing the proposed division slice up from 25,000 to 37,500 men, a figure roughly equivalent to what experience in the North African Program had proven necessary.
Having revised the program, the theater then proposed that shipments be rephased to place the service units in first priority, but the French objected that this would disrupt their plans for activation of units and the ASF that it would disrupt the procurement program and delay shipment of matériel. The upshot was that the January, February, and March phases were shipped much as planned, providing the major portion of materials for three divisions and 167 supporting units; shipments for the later months were rescheduled so as to defer the other five divisions until after the matériel for the supporting units had been shipped. In the theater Eisenhower placed the service units in highest priority, particularly those still needed to complete the supporting organization for the French 1st Army, though again he ran into opposition from the French, who showed the same propensity they had in North Africa to favor combat divisions.24
The difficulty over service troops was not the only one that plagued the Metropolitan Program. The British promptly furnished the equipment they had promised (most of it obsolescent), but it turned out that the French had been entirely too optimistic in their predictions of both availability of manpower and the rapidity with which their own industry could begin to produce war materials. In mid-February they reported that because of unexpected power shortages they would not be able to furnish in time most of the materials they had proposed to supply for the three divisions in Phase I.25 The activation and training of units—at least those Eisenhower asked for—also lagged, and the Supreme Commander retained much of the equipment shipped for them in U.S. stocks. Similar problems afflicted the Liberated Manpower Program. At first no service troops were provided to support the internal security units. The initial scale of individual equipment furnished by the British proved inadequate, and Eisenhower had to ask for an increase. The British War Office, without a definitive CCS decision on responsibility for supply of either the original equipment or the requested increase, delayed action. The problem of control of the units caused difficulty. Recognizing all these problems, Eisenhower recommended, and the CCS approved, a reduction in the total liberated manpower to be mobilized from 460,000 to 400,000 men.
It was this revised program—8 French divisions with 1,128 supporting units and 400,000 men in Liberated Manpower units—that the CCS definitely accepted on 7 April 1945 (on the recommendation of the CAdC) with the significant qualification that “any units ... which have not been equipped by the time active hostilities with Germany cease will not be equipped.”26 The United States was to underwrite the entire Metropolitan Program, the British, the Liberated Manpower Program. The British would, in addition, equip 6 Belgian infantry brigades and a new Polish division, all without increasing their lend-lease requirements on the United States. Rations and POL for Liberated Manpower units were to be furnished by the national force, British or American, with which they served.
The definitive CCS decision came as an anticlimax. With the end of the war in Europe clearly in sight, the pressures that had been behind French rearmament in December 1944 were dissipating. However much the British and French might feel that forces should be created to promote postwar stability in Europe, U.S. opposition to any such course had become inflexible. The very solicitude of the French to protect their interests in the postwar settlement provoked incidents that forced Eisenhower to suspend issue of equipment for either the Metropolitan or the Liberated Manpower Program even before hostilities ended. The Liberated Manpower Program was suspended early in April, when the French Provisional Government refused to permit use of units organized under it to support U.S. or British troops outside France until a French zone of occupation was settled. The Metropolitan Rearmament Program ground to a halt at the end of the same month, when French troops refused to withdraw from Stuttgart at the order of General Devers. These incidents were finally resolved to the satisfaction of all, to be sure, but by that time Germany had surrendered, and the qualification in the CCS decision had been invoked. As of V-E Day the only American support still going to the French took the form of maintenance supplies to units partially or wholly equipped under either the North African or the Metropolitan Program.
The net results achieved in the Metropolitan Rearmament Program were therefore small. Three infantry divisions and about forty supporting units were partially equipped by V-E Day, but almost none entirely, and only very limited combat use had been made of any of them. The units had received most of the equipment promised by the British, but virtually none of the equipment the French had hoped to be able to supply for themselves. Of the American equipment shipped for the Metropolitan Program, only about one-third had been issued by SHAEF to the units for which it was designated.
Epilogue to French Rearmament
French rearmament came to a virtual end on V-E Day.27 On 20 April 1945, in anticipation of the imminent German collapse, the JCS agreed that “equipment which cannot be used against German forces will not be shipped from the
United States to complete the French Metropolitan Rearmament Program,”28 and so informed General Eisenhower.
The question of issue of material already shipped but still in SHAEF stocks remained. The French protested vigorously against SHAEF withholding any of this material, but to no avail. The JCS finally agreed to the issue of equipment for twenty-two service units certified by Eisenhower as necessary to support French occupation forces, and to two railway operating battalions and one railway grand division needed to aid in redeployment of American troops, but ruled against even completing the equipping of the three partially outfitted divisions. Replacement and maintenance supplies for French forces already equipped was continued until 30 September 1945 in accordance with the President’s interpretative memorandum on lend-lease on 30 July,29 but ETOUSA divested itself of the responsibility for direct support through American channels and these supplies were furnished the French in bulk.
Some consideration was given in the meantime to equipping a French force for use in the war in the Far East. The French had suggested this as far back as October 1943 with Indochina evidently in mind, but the Americans gave their requests little consideration until after V-E Day. The War Department then finally agreed in principle to the use of French troops in the Pacific, planning, in accordance with Eisenhower’s recommendations, that they should be organized strictly according to U.S. TOE’s, placed under U.S. operational control, and supplied entirely through U.S. channels. At first the JCS proposed to use the French troops in the Pacific. At Potsdam, however, the British suggested that they might best be used in Indochina, an area within SEAC, and the CCS finally approved a 2-division project with the provision that it should serve either under British or American command and in any area the CCS should determine. The two divisions were to be equipped as far as possible from matériel already provided under the North African and Metropolitan Programs; they could hardly be committed before the spring of 1946, the CCS said, because of shortage of shipping to move them to the Pacific.30 The French protested that all equipment already in their hands was needed for occupation forces, but before they received an answer to this protest the end of the war with Japan was in sight and the Americans dropped the plan. They had, in fact, shown little enthusiasm for it at any time. The French return to Indochina therefore had to be carried out with resources available to the Provisional Government of France.
Italian Military Forces
In September 1943, following Italy’s surrender, that nation took its place among those at war with Germany, but not as a member of the United Nations, only as a “cobelligerent.” Italy declared war on Germany on 12 October 1943. The use of Italian manpower by Allied commands in the Mediterranean had begun even earlier. Within the limits
permitted by the Geneva Convention, cooperative Italian prisoners captured in North Africa and Sicily were used for rear area work, at first simply individually or in groups as day laborers. Then in November 1943, after the surrender, Italian POW service units were organized under special tables of organization. These units, when serving with U.S. forces, were supplied through American channels and served as substitutes for U.S. service units. The British made similar arrangements for Italian prisoners of war serving as part of their commands.31
The Italian Army, which the new government under Marshal Badoglio brought over to the Allied side and which numbered some 551,000 men, was in a different category from the prisoners of war, since there were no restrictions on its use under the Geneva Convention. The situation in fall 1943 resembled that in North Africa in late 1942 when Admiral Francois Darlan had placed the French Army at Eisenhower’s disposal. The American reaction in this case, however, was quite different. The United States would approve no extensive program for Italian participation in the war, except insofar as the Italians could so participate using their own indigenous resources. The United States position was that as an ex-enemy country Italy should not be declared eligible for lend-lease, nor given more than a minimum of support through other channels. The British, who favored a more liberal policy in rearming Italian forces, did not have the resources to do it themselves and could not overcome American opposition to it as a combined project.32
The Allied command in Italy learned soon after the surrender that it needed the cooperation of the Italian Army to preserve internal security, provide essential services, and bolster Allied fighting forces. In view of this need, Eisenhower informed the CCS in fall 1943 that he would require monthly shipments of 12,600 tons of subsistence and clothing to carry Italian forces through the winter, and that indigenous and captured stocks would be insufficient. Some emergency shipments were made from the United States in answer to Eisenhower’s request, but the whole question of policy was placed before the CCS with a recommendation from the U.S. Joint Chiefs that the British assume responsibility for Italian armed forces (other than prisoners of war) in the same way the Americans had for the French. The British, however, could do so only if they could be assured of receiving many of the necessary supplies under lend-lease, and by this time the general prohibition against lend-lease retransfers had been put into effect.33
The rations required were the same the United States was already furnishing the British, and U.S. stocks of used
clothing were available for the Italians. Considering these facts, the Combined Administrative Committee recommended to the CCS in December 1943 that responsibility for supply should be split—the United States furnishing subsistence; the British, medical supplies and fuels; and each country contributing clothing according to its agreed capacity as determined by established assignments procedures. Supplies should be limited to these categories, and furnished only to those Italian troops who were effectively contributing to the Allied effort. Combat equipment should come only from Italian sources. The CAdC also suggested formation of a theater agency similar to the Joint Rearmament Committee to be responsible for supply to the Italians, its authority to be exercised through the theater commander but with “the duly authorized representative of the country of ownership concurring in the establishment of requirements and disposition of supplies and equipment, under the principle that the country of ownership should control the distribution of its assets,” an obvious attempt by the Americans to guarantee that the British would not control distribution of U.S. equipment.34
Provisions for shipment of subsistence, clothing, and so forth, were immediately agreed upon and placed into effect. Clothing was pulled together from a miscellany of sources, the United States furnishing old Civilian Conservation Corps stocks of green mackinaws and caps, Army class X shirts, cotton socks, and comforters, the United Kingdom supplying battle dress, boots, and pullovers from surplus Middle East stocks.35 There was some delay in agreement on the whole CAdC paper since the British objected to the conditions placed on the theater commander’s control of the program (British General Wilson succeeded Eisenhower as Mediterranean theater commander in January 1944), and the over-all policy was not formally accepted and the theater notified until late February 1944.36
By that time both General Wilson and General Devers, the new U.S. theater commander in the Mediterranean, had gone ahead with plans of their own that envisaged fuller use and support of the Italians than the CCS policy explicitly sanctioned. Devers’ interest was in the use of Italian service troops. He was preparing, he informed the War Department on 3 March, a project for equipping additional Italian military service units on the same basis as the POW units, and it would require more equipment from the United States. Wilson had broader plans for forming an Italian combat force of three divisions, one of them to be committed to action as early as possible. He thought these divisions essential because many U.S. and French troops were soon to be withdrawn from Italy. He proposed to equip them to the maximum extent possible from Italian sources, but some necessary items of armament, transport, and ammunition
could not be secured in Italy and he asked CCS approval for procurement from the United Kingdom or the United States.37
The CCS immediately replied that there could be “no deviation from the decision ... that combat equipment is to be provided only from Italian sources.”38 They withheld decision on the matter of service troops pending further information from the theater, but informed Wilson that provision of such heavy equipment as trucks and bulldozers would be practically impossible, and suggested that Italian units be organized to use the simplest available tools. This CCS reply, dictated by the CAdC, undoubtedly reflected almost entirely American views. In further CCS deliberations on the subject the British pressed for some effort to supply the Italian combat forces under Wilson, arguing that all forces “which are capable of making a contribution to the defeat of Germany should be considered in principle as eligible to receive such share of combined Allied resources as will ensure that the maximum impact on the enemy is achieved.”39 The U.S. representatives were at first willing to make concessions only as regards service troops, and even those were rather limited. In the theater the British and American armies had both adopted as one solution to the problem the “dilution” of their own service units with Italian personnel, thus making them eligible for supply through national channels. The CAdC in July 1944 recommended approval of the practice, and proposed further that all-Italian service units operating under U.S. command be loaned equipment that would be returned at the end of the war, a system similar to that under which issues had been made to the POW units.
The British still pressed for a more elaborate program and finally won some additional concessions. In August 1944 the CCS formally approved the equipping of the three combat divisions, stipulating that equipment might come, not only from Italian sources, but also from other captured equipment or from stocks available without prejudice to other requirements of higher priority. Any U.S. equipment furnished under this authorization was also to be on a loan basis to be returned at the end of the war. A new division of supply responsibility with the British was made whereby they were to assume support of Italian ground combat forces to a limit of 63,000, Italian air forces to a limit of 22,000, naval forces to a limit of 75,000, and service forces operating under their command to a limit of 100,000. The United States would assume complete responsibility for service troops operating with its own command to the limit of 90,000 men. The two countries would continue as before to share the furnishing of subsistence, clothing, fuel, and medical supplies to independent Italian forces, some 124,000 men, charged with internal security and administrative functions.40
The concessions to the British proved of minor importance. The Italian combat
forces were never welded into an effective fighting unit. The main Italian contributions continued to be in service units and in maintaining internal security, and the American commitment was consistently limited to that of supplying troops essential to the operations of U.S. commands plus miscellaneous subsistence and clothing for internal security units remaining under Italian command. The British, within the resources available to them, were unable to make much progress in Italian rearmament, however much they may have wished to do so. The real key to the failure to make more extensive use of Italian manpower lay in the American refusal to make Italy eligible for lend-lease.
Military Aid in Eastern Europe
Though Greece, Yugoslavia, Poland, and Czechoslovakia were all declared eligible for lend-lease very early in the war, circumstances prevented the delivery of anything more than the most minute quantities of supplies to any of those countries. Until the very last stages of the war, delivery to resistance groups could only be accomplished by airlift or, as in the case of Greece and Yugoslavia, by submarine or small surface craft, and was handled under SOE-OSS auspices. Refugee forces, such as Lt. Gen. Wladyslaw A. Anders’ Polish Corps, the Czechoslovakian Armored Brigade, and miscellaneous Greek units, were all under British sponsorship, and any aid furnished them was a part of the bulk allocation to the British. By a practical working agreement, during the first part of the war these countries were assigned entirely as responsibilities of the British. In accordance with American policy developed in 1943 affirming the right of all independent anti-Axis nations to submit direct requests for lend-lease, requests were received from Eastern European refugee governments as well as from resistance groups, and some efforts were made to arrange delivery to them through OSS and American theater channels. However, insofar as both Poland and Czechoslovakia were concerned, apart from the sheer difficulty of delivery, the United States and Britain were both reluctant to furnish supplies to forces that seemed to fall more properly into the Soviet sphere of influence.41 The largest OSS-SOE deliveries were made to Yugoslavia, the next largest to Greece. Delivery of supplies to Yugoslavia was made a direct responsibility of the British theater commander in the Mediterranean, but, as far as possible, assignments of U.S. materials to Yugoslavia were made direct. They were shipped to the U.S. theater commander in the Mediterranean, who then arranged delivery, normally through channels provided by the British.
At first most of the supplies to Yugoslavia went to Col. Draza Mihailovic, but the British soon learned that Marshal Josif Tito’s forces were making the most effective fight against the Germans. They eventually concentrated their support on Tito and persuaded the Americans to do likewise. At the Cairo Conference in December 1943 the CCS directed an intensification of the effort to supply the Yugoslav partisans. Since the operation proposed by the British to open a port
on the Istrian coast never came off, the supplies continued to be OSS-SOE sponsored. In the end, the Red Army occupied Yugoslavia, as it did Poland and most of Czechoslovakia. American and British aid, which had played such an important part in sustaining Tito, as a consequence, was almost entirely cut off early in 1945. The British entered Greece in 1945, and proposed to organize and equip a Greek army to restore order in that disturbed country, but the JCS ruled that American resources could not be made available for the purpose because liberated manpower units in western Europe must have first priority. They approved the British action only on the same condition as stipulated for the Belgian brigades—that it would result in no increase in British requests on the United States.42
The extent to which the USSR used American supplies to arm liberated forces in eastern Europe can only be conjectured. Upon several occasions the United States informed the Soviet Union that lend-lease retransfers must have prior American approval, but the Russians ignored the notes. They did, in April 1945, approach General Deane on the subject of re transfer of vehicles of lend-lease origin to four Czechoslovakian divisions Stalin had agreed to equip, but they never made any formal request on the U.S. Government. Presumably, with the end of the war in Europe the Soviet Union was able to furnish vehicles of its own manufacture. It may well be assumed, nevertheless, that the USSR made whatever disposition it desired of lend-lease supplies within its own sphere of influence since the United States had little means of controlling that disposition or of even knowing what it was.43
Military Aid to Latin America
Lend-lease to Latin American republics did not figure greatly in American plans after Pearl Harbor. All of these republics, except Argentina and Chile, followed the lead of the United States and broke off diplomatic relations with the Axis Powers; but, save for Brazil and, to a lesser extent, Mexico, their role in the war was purely defensive. As the United Nations passed from the defensive to the offensive at the end of 1942, assignments of military equipment to Latin American republics of necessity got a very low priority. Though these assignments were made by the combined machinery in the same manner as others, British participation in decisions thereon was largely perfunctory and they were treated as almost exclusively within the American province. The U.S. State Department maintained a close surveillance over all Latin American programs and assignments on the grounds that their raison d’être was more diplomatic than military.
The basic program for military lend-lease to Latin America was drawn up in mid-1941 by the Joint Army-Navy Advisory Board on American Republics and provided for a total of $400 million in aid, about 75 percent of it to consist of Army equipment. An arbitrary division of this sum was made among the Latin American nations, generally in accord with their population and strategic importance. In line with this program, the State Department, between 1941 and 1943, negotiated lend-lease agreements with each of the Latin American countries save Panama and Argentina, the former being excluded because it was already under the protective jurisdiction of the United States, and the latter because of its pro-Axis leanings. In each agreement the credit to be granted was stated, the final total reaching $425,890,000, all but $100,000,000 for Army equipment. Brazil received an allocation of only slightly less than 50 percent of the total, a recognition of that country’s strategic position and also its willingness to take an active part in the war. Military lend-lease to Latin America was not to be totally gratuitous. Each nation was to be expected to pay a percentage of the cost of the material it received in proportion to its ability, the percentages varying from 2.73 in the case of Paraguay to 69.23 in that of Nicaragua.44
The lend-lease agreements were, in effect, small protocols, but they carried no time schedule for deliveries and each one contained a clause providing that they might be terminated when the defense needs of the Western Hemisphere would no longer be served by their continuance.45 Under these dispensations the U.S. military authorities controlled the flow of munitions to Latin America, much as they did to other countries, in the light of strategic need, making political concessions only when they posed little or no threat to the fulfillment of programs considered more vital to the prosecution of the war. Until mid-1943, the general scarcity of munitions for all purposes held back the allocation of any sizable quantities to Latin America; after mid-1943 when munitions became available in greater quantities, the danger of attack to the Western Hemisphere had largely passed, and the United States formally adopted a policy of limiting military supply to Latin America for purely defensive purposes.
By June 1943 munitions of a dollar value of 165 millions ($125 million Army; $40 million Navy) had been allocated to Latin American republics, some 70 percent to Brazil and Mexico. At this point the State Department recommended formulation of a new policy in the light of the improved strategic situation of the United Nations, and in mid-August this policy was formally agreed by the War, State, and Navy Departments. It provided that allocations of military equipment to the Latin American republics would be limited in the future to that necessary for (1) forces required for joint employment with forces of the United Nations in antisubmarine and other military operations in defense of common interests;
(2) training and equipping of Latin American forces to be employed in overseas offensive operations; (3) repair and maintenance of existing equipment and that to be furnished in the future; (4) continued development of an interest in American munitions and training doctrine to the exclusion of foreign materials and influences; (5) maintenance of internal security in those countries whose governments continued to support the United States.46
In September 1943 the Joint Advisory Board on American Republics was reinstated and assigned the task of refining the policy and working out new programs in consonance with it. The board’s recommendations, in substance, asked for abrogation of the old agreements and cessation of arms deliveries to all save Brazil and Mexico while new programs were developed for the postwar period—programs whose goal was to be complete conversion of Latin American armies to U.S.-type arms and organization in the interests of hemisphere solidarity. What remained in the wartime program were the provisions for supply of Brazil and Mexico, the nations that formed the most important links in the Atlantic antisubmarine defenses and that proposed to send small expeditionary forces overseas. Further allocations to other republics after mid-1943 were inconsequential.47
The Brazilian project was the larger and more important. In April 1943 President Getulio Vargas of Brazil proposed the formation of a Brazilian Expeditionary Force made up of a maximum of three infantry and one armored or motorized division with suitable supporting troops and a small air force, all to be equipped by the United States. The Brazilians suggested that, for training purposes, only sufficient equipment for one division need to be sent to Brazil, this to be used to train the divisions in rotation. OPD decided to cut this requirement in half and in July 1943 MAC (G) assigned to Brazil 50 percent of the equipment for one division. In January 1944 further assignments were made of tanks and armored cars for training armored units, though the JCS still withheld decision on the size of the Brazilian force to be used overseas. Finally, in April 1944, they decided to limit it to one infantry division and one fighter squadron to be used in the Mediterranean theater. Agreement was obtained from the British Chiefs early in May and the wheels set in motion for detailed arrangements for movement and support. The Brazilian troops took only individual equipment with them, the rest was supplied directly from the United States and issued to them on arrival in Italy. The training equipment initially furnished was left in Brazil. The first Brazilian regimental combat team arrived in Naples in July 1944 and by fall the whole division had taken its place in the line with the U.S. Fifth Army. Maintenance and replacement were furnished through U.S. channels in the same way as for French forces. Naturally problems arose—of language, of unsuitability
of U.S. rations, of provision of personnel replacements, and of divers other matters involved in supply and administration of a separate national force in a theater already possessed of the most polyglot forces ever assembled. Most of them were settled satisfactorily, but their existence undoubtedly contributed to the decision to make no further effort to exploit the manpower available in Brazil.48
The Mexican Government furnished one fighter squadron that was sent to the Pacific in early 1945 and supported through American channels.
War Department lend-lease supplies for Latin America totaled $323,710,000 in dollar value by the end of the war, close to the amount promised in the separate lend-lease agreements. Brazil received 71 percent and Mexico 10 percent, the former considerably exceeding its allotment. The other Latin American nations received proportionately less, and it must be remembered that, owing to the general rise in prices during the period, the dollar values do not truly reflect the extent to which these smaller nations were disappointed in their anticipations. Taken all in all, lend-lease to Latin America constituted only about 1.5 percent of the total military aid furnished Allied powers during World War II.49