CMH - Pub - 1-6 Global Logistics
CMH - Pub - 1-6 Global Logistics
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Foreword
This volume examines how and how well the United States Army overcame the tyranny of logistics in the major operations of World War II against Germany and Japan. As in the companion work to which it is a sequel, the authors stress the interrelationship and interdependency between strategic aims and logistical means. By spring 1943 the United States and its allies had achieved clear superiority over the Axis Powers both in manpower and in war production. How to bring the weight of this superiority to bear across oceans and invasion beaches was the problem, and, as this work reveals, transport and assault shipping came very near to being the principal factor in its solution. Much more was involved than the deployment and support of American troops. The Army had also to support Allied forces, including those of the Soviet Union, in huge measure, and it had to provide minimum sustenance to civilian populations in order to maintain stability behind the fighting fronts. Writing from the point of view of the high command in Washington, the authors trace the intricacies of balancing resources in a massive two-front war, and in the process provide a unique account of the Army's logistical support of the war against Japan. Both military and civilian students of war should find this volume a worthy source of information and guidance, as they have already found its predecessor of similar title, Global Logistics and Strategy, 1940-1943. Its appearance also marks completion of the War Department subseries of the UNITED STATES ARMY IN WORLD WAR II. Washington, D.C. 15 June 1967 HAL C. PATTISON Brigadier General, USA Chief of Military History
vii
The Authors
Robert W. Coakley received the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in History from the University of Virginia. He has taught at that university, and at Tulane University, the University of Arkansas, American University, the University of Maryland, and Fairmont State College, West Virginia. After serving as a noncommissioned officer in the field artillery in World War II, he became a member of the Historical Division of ETOUSA and USFET. Except for a brief period when he served as historian of the Defense Supply Agency, Dr. Coakley has been with the Office of the Chief of Military History since 1948. In 1965 he was appointed Chief of the Current History Branch, OCMH. Richard M. Leighton, who received the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in History from Cornell University, has taught at Brooklyn College, the University of Cincinnati, and The George Washington University. Commissioned in the Quartermaster Corps during World War II, he served as a historical officer in the Control Division, Headquarters, Army Service Forces, writing various studies of the organization and administration of that command. In 1948 Dr. Leighton joined the Office of the Chief of Military History where he was engaged in the preparation of this volume and its predecessor (published in 1955) and other historical projects. Since 1959 he has been a member of the faculty of the Industrial College of the Armed Forces.
viii
Preface
This volume, like its predecessor, Global Logistics and Strategy, 19401943, treats the logistical problems of the U.S. Army in World War II from the point of view of the high command and staffs in Washington. Its attention is focused on the myriad problems connected with the division of resources among nations and theaters of war in a global conflict, on the delicate relationship between logistics and strategy, and on the logistical organization and processes involved in the formulation and execution of strategy during the last two years of World War II. This broad approach results in the same omissions that characterized the first volumethe book does not cover detailed logistical operations at lower levels, it does not treat internal logistics in overseas theaters except as necessary to establish the context for decisions at the center, and it is primarily concerned with ground force logistics. The omitted areas, we believe, have now been almost fully covered in other volumes in the UNITED STATES ARMY IN WORLD WAR II Series, in the seven volumes of the Army Air Forces in World War II, and in various publications sponsored by the Office of Naval History. We have drawn heavily on these volumes in preparing our own and owe a large debt to them. Chronologically, the book picks up where Global Logistics and Strategy, 1940-1943 left off, just before the TRIDENT Conference in May 1943, with only a moderate amount of overlap. It ends with the surrender of Japan. With a manuscript already too bulky, it was impossible to extend it to treat the various logistical issues involved in repatriation, occupation, and disposal of surplus in the aftermath of war. In this second volume, we have adopted a topical approach to a greater degree than in the first. Supply organization and procedures, and lend-lease and civilian relief, have been treated in sections separate from the main narratives covering the relationship of logistics and strategy. These narratives also move for the most part in separate compartments in covering the two main spheres of the war, that against Germany and that against Japan, though we hope we have succeeded in showing the essential interconnection. This arrangement seemed most logical to us, since after long consideration we could arrive at no satisfactory and meaningful pattern for weaving all these diverse elements into one single chronological narrative. We cannot deny that this organization also owes something to the dif-
ix
ferent conditions of collaboration that existed in the final stages of the preparation of this second volume. It has been long in fruition. We began work on it many more years ago than we now like to contemplate, and much of the basic draft was completed in April 1959 at the time that Dr. Leighton left the Office of the Chief of Military History for the Industrial College of the Armed Forces. Since that time the main burden of completing the volume has fallen on Dr. Coakley, though he too has been able to devote only a fraction of his time to it and was also absent from the Office of the Chief of Military History for fourteen months in 1962-63 while serving as historian of the Defense Supply Agency. Physical separation of the authors has prevented the same kind of dayto-day consultation in the preparation of the final draft that characterized the first volume. It is still, however, a work of collaboration and we have freely exchanged criticism and suggestions, editing, and substantive data to the extent that circumstances permitted. Though Coakley performed most of the work of condensation, revision, and rearrangement in preparing the final draft, the portions of the book treating Anglo-American strategic planning, merchant ship construction and allocation, and the vital landing craft problemthat is, Chapters I-III and VII-XVare in substance and in their final writing the work of Leighton. The sections dealing with supply organization and procedures (Chapters IV-VI), the war with Japan (Chapters XVI-XXII), the logistical problems of the last stages of the war (Chapters XXIII-XXV), lend-lease and civilian supply (Chapters XXVI-XXXI), and the concluding chapter ( X X X I I ) , as well as the tables in the appendix were all written by Coakley. Since he was responsible for the final chapter organization, Coakley also shoulders the responsibility for whatever defects may have arisen from his efforts to meld the work of his coauthor with his own. The volume has benefited greatly from the assistance of a large number of persons over the long years it has been in preparation. During the early years, Dr. Kent Roberts Greenfield, then Chief Historian of the Army, patiently encouraged our labors. Since his retirement in 1958, his successor, Dr. Stetson Conn, has persevered in pushing the volume to publication in the face of discouraging delays. During the preparation of basic drafts, two research assistants, Dr. Mae Link and Mr. Charles Owens aided in gathering materials for, respectively, the chapters on the invasion of Sicily and the war in the Pacific. Our editor, Mrs. Frances R. Burdette, and copy editor, Mrs. Stephanie B. Demma, have assisted greatly in the attempt to make this a readable book, in standardizing our footnotes, abbreviations, and other terminology, and in preparing a glossary of the mass of alphabetese without which some parts of the text and certainly the footnotes would be incomprehensible to the lay reader. Our index is the painstaking work of Mrs. Muriel Southwick. Miss Ruth Phillips selected our photographs, and our maps were prepared by Mr. H. C. Brewer, Jr., working under the supervision of Mr. Elliot Dunay. Personnel of various federal records centers
have been of immeasurable assistance in helping us to sift through the voluminous masses of logistical records. The specific contributions of our colleagues in the Office of the Chief of Military History, past and present, during the long years this book was in preparation have been shown in the footnotes and bibliographical note. In particular, we owe much to Dr. Maurice Matloff's special competence in the field of strategic planning, though his tenacity, in argument has not prevented us from drawing independent conclusions that differ in some respects from his own. Many others have given generously of their time in reading and criticizing large sections of the manuscript; we would like especially to thank Maj. Gen. Patrick H. Tansey (Ret.), Dr. Theodore Ropp, Col. Leo J. Meyer (Ret.), the late Dr. John Miller, jr., Dr. Harold F. Underhill, Col. Louis G. Mendez, Jr., and Col. Paul P. Hinkley, and again Dr. Matloff and Dr. Conn, for the care with which they read the manuscript and the helpful suggestions they made. Errors of fact and interpretation, however, remain the responsibility of the authors.
Washington, D.C. 15 June 1967
xi
Contents
Part One: Backdrop
Chapter Page
I.
LOGISTICS AND STRATEGY, SPRING 1943 . The Aftermath of Casablanca . . . . . . . Assault Shipping: Tool of Amphibious Strategy Divergent Strategies. . . . . . . . . . .
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3 6 10 25 31 32 39 41 44 48 51
II.
HUSKY A N D BOLERO . . . . . . . . . . . . Contrivance, Ingenuity, and a Favorable June Moon. The Final Assault Plan . . . . . . . . . . . T h e Final Movements . . . . . . . . . . . . T h e Administrative Achievement. . . . . . . . Effects of Husky on Bolero . . . . . . . . . . . Cargo Shipping and the Preshipment Plan . . . .
III. TRIDENT . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . The American Program for Europe. . . . . . The British Program: Mediterranean Now, Roundup Maybe . . . . . . . . . . . . How Large an Assault? . . . . . . . . . . The Trident Decisions on Europe . . . . . . T h e Other W a r . . . . . . . . . . . . . The "Not Unmanageable" Cargo Shipping Deficit
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57 58
63 66 70 76 81
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Chapter
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McCoy Board and Richards Committee . . . . . . . The 1 February 1944 Army Supply Program. . . . . . Theater Requirements and the Supply Control System. .
135 135
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143 146
Levels o f Supply.
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160 166
173 173 178 181 186 189 193 198 198 205 213
222 223 226 229 236 240
246 246 247 252 259 262
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X . SHIPS, LANDING CRAFT, A N D STRATEGY . Shipbuilding: A Record-breaking Year . . . Twenty-One Million Tons for 1944. . . . . Combat Loaders f o r t h e Pacific. . . . . . . More Landing Craft: The "Percentage Game". Lobbying f o r Overlord. . . . . . . . . .
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Chapter
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X I . T H E CAIRO-TEHRAN CONFERENCE . . . . . . . .
Perfidious Albion and Inscrutable Ivan. . . Bush-League Strategy in the Mediterranean. Rhodes Versus Buccaneer . . . . . . . Enter Anvil, Compromise on Overlord. . . Second Cairo: Scratch Buccaneer. . . . . Acceleration i n t h e Pacific . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
271
272 277 280 284 290 294
XII.
INVENTORY A N D AFTERMATH . . . . . Shipping: The Deficits Vanish. . . . . . . Assault Shipping: The New American Program. Postscript: The Tribulations of Shingle . . .
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XIV.
T H E OVERLORD-ANVIL BUILD-UP . . T h e Logistical Outlook . . . . . . . The Final Build-up for Overlord. . . . The Uncertainties of Anvil . . . . . . Atlantic Shipping on the Eve of Overlord
THE AFTERMATH OF OVERLORD N e w Logistical Problems. . . . . Follow-up . . . . . . . . . . Anvil Versus Italy . . . . . . . Dragoon and Its Aftermath. . . . Portents of a New Shipping Crisis . . . . . . . . . . . . .
XV.
XVII.
JOINT LOGISTICS IN PACIFIC OPERATIONS: T H E CONTINENTAL SYSTEM. . . . . . . . . . . The Nature of Pacific Logistics. . . . . . . . . . .
xv
Chapter
Page
The Problem of Joint Logistics. . Joint Planning and Procurement. The Basic Logistical Plan . . . The West Coast Establishment. . The Joint Priority List. . . . .
XVIII.
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JOINT LOGISTICS IN THE PACIFIC THEATERS Joint Logistics in SWPA. . . . . . . . . . . Informal Co-operation in the South Pacific . . . . The Central Pacific System . . . . . . . . . .
XIX. SHIPPING IN THE PACIFIC WAR . . . The Crisis of Fall 1943. . . . . . . . Shipping Congestion in SWPA. . . . . The Cargo Shipping Shortage of Mid-1944 The Deficits Become Unmanageable. . .
XX.
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SUPPLYING THE ARMY IN PACIFIC THEATERS . . Procedural Problems . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Improving t h e System. . . . . . . . . . . . . . New Methods of Shipment . . . . . . . . . . . . Engineer Supplies and Special Project Material. . . . . Water Transportation Equipment . . . . . . . . . Landing Craft in SWPA. . . . . . . . . . . . . Service Troops. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . CHINA, BURMA, A N D INDIA . . . . . . . . . . The Trident Decisions and Their Aftermath . . . . Quadrant: A Logistical Charter for the CBI . . . The ASF Follow-up on Quadrant . . . . . . . . N e w A i r Projects. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Sextant: The Plans Disrupted . . . . . . . . . Matterhorn . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . The End of the Assam Bottleneck. . . . . . . . . The Problem of Air Transport. . . . . . . . . . Airlift, PAC-AID, and the East China Crisis . . . .
XXI.
. 500 . 502 . . 506 . 509 . 513 . 515 . 519 . 522 . 524 . 525
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Chapter
Page
555 560
563 565 570 573 577 579 584 591 594
XXIV.
LOGISTICS OF A ONE-FRONT WAR . . . . . . . . Procedures, Policies, and Problems in Army Redeployment . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . The Army-Navy Shipping and Supply Conference. . . . Efforts to Resolve the Shipping Issue . . . . . . . . Outlines of a New Pacific Logistical System. . . . . . The Execution of Redeployment . . . . . . . . . . Arrangements for Logistical Support of Olympic a n d Coronet. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . The Success of the Roll-up . . . . . . . . . . . . The Last Year in the CBI . . . . . . . . . . . . .
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XXVI.
XXVII.
AID TO THE USSR IN THE LATER WAR YEARS . . Formulation of the Third Protocol. . . . . . . . . The Swelling Flow of Aid to the USSR . . . . . . . The War Department and the Protocols . . . . . . . T h e Deane-Spalding Mission . . . . . . . . . . .
xvii
Chapter
Page
Milepost: Supply for the USSR's War Against Japan . . The Soviet Aid Program After V-E Day . . . . . . .
687 694
XXVIII.
MILITARY SUPPLY TO LIBERATED AND LATIN AMERICAN NATIONS . . . . . . . . . The North African Rearmament Program . . . . . The Metropolitan and Liberated Manpower Programs. Epilogue to French Rearmament. . . . . . . . . Italian Military Forces. . . . . . . . . . . . . Military Aid in Eastern Europe . . . . . . . . . Military Aid to Latin America. . . . . . . . . .
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XXIX. LEND-LEASE TO CHINA, 1943-45 T h e Stilwell Program. . . . T h e 33-Division Program. . . T h e Final Phase. . . . . .
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THE ARMY AND CIVILIAN SUPPLYI . The North African Prelude. . . . . . Military Assumption of Responsibility. . Combined Arrangements . . . . . . . The Problem of Rehabilitation Supplies. The First Phase in Sicily and Italy . . .
XXXI. THE ARMY AND CIVILIAN SUPPLYII T h e Combined Plan . . . . . . . . Operational Procedures . . . . . . . The Food Crisis in Italy. . . . . . . Northwest Europe and the National Import Termination of Military Responsibility . Civilian Supply in the Pacific. . . . .
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xviii
Appendixes
Page
A. SHIPPING TERMINOLOGY AND PLANNING DATA: 1943-45 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 821 1. Weight, Space, and Distance Measurements . . . . . . . . . 821 2. Conversion FactorsShort Tons to Measurement Tons. . . . . 822 3. Initial Cargo Shipping Requirements for Selected Units: 1945 . . 823 4. Initial Supply Requirements by Theater . . . . . . . . . . 824 5. Maintenance Requirements, European and Pacific Areas,
World War II . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
B . LANDING CRAFT . . . . . . 1. Principal Types of Allied Landing Used in Operations: 1943-45. . 2. U.S. Production of Major Types of 1940-45 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Craft, Ships, and Vehicles . . . . . . . . . . . . Landing Ships and Craft: . . . . . . . . . . . .
825
826
826
829
830
C . ARMY PROCUREMENT . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1. Estimated Value of War Department Procurement Deliveries: January 1942-December 1945 . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2. Deliveries of Selected Items of Munitions to the Army: 1942-45 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
830
832
834
D. OVERSEAS DEPLOYMENT AND SUPPORT . . . . . . . 1. Army Personnel Movement Overseas by Theater of Destination: December 1941-August 1945. . . . . . . . . . . . . 2. Army Cargo Shipped Overseas by Theater of Destination: December 1941-August 1945. . . . . . . . . . . . . 3. Army DeploymentContinental and Overseas: July 1943September 1945 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4. Deployment of U.S. Army Divisions Overseas by Theater: July 1943-August 1945. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5. Troop and Cargo Flow to the United Kingdom for Overlord: January 1943-July 1944 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . E. THE DIVISION AND AIR GROUP SLICE . . 1. Divisional Force Analysis of Actual Army Strength 2. Division Slices for Theaters . . . . . . . . 3. Air Group Slices for Theaters . . . . . . . . on . .
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834
835
836
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837
838
. . . . . . 30 June 1945 . . . . . . . . . . . .
F . MERCHANT SHIPPING . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1. United Nations Merchant Shipping Dry Cargo Gains, Losses, a n d Construction: 1941-45 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2. Growth of U.S.-Controlled Tanker Fleet: December 1941-October 1945 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3. Ships in Army Service . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
843 844
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Page
G . LEND-LEASE . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
845
1. Value of War Department Lend-Lease Transfers: 1941-49 . . . 845 2. Value of War Department Lend-Lease Shipments to the United Kingdom, USSR, and Others by Six-Month Periods: 1941-49 . . 846 3. Number of Vessels and Cargo Tonnage Shipped From the United States to the USSR: 1 July 1943-31 August 1945 ... 847
H . CIVILIAN SUPPLY . . . . . . 1. U.S. Shipments of Civilian Supplies: 2. Civilian Supply Shipments to Areas July 1943-September 1945 . .
849 849
850
851
858
866
INDEX
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871
Tables
No.
1. Proposed Distribution of U.S. Landing Craft: September 1942 ... 21 2. Proposed Allocation of U.S. Landing Craft to United Kingdom: September 1942 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 21 3. Requests Versus Allocations of U.S. Landing Craft to British: January-April 1943 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 22 4. Estimated Assault Shipping Requirements for HUSKY (at Casablanca Conference) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 34 5. Assault Shipping for HUSKY . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 41 6. Troop Build-up Convoys for HUSKY: April-June 1943 . . . . . 42 7. Requirements and Availabilities of Major Types of Assault Shipping f o r ROUNDHAMMER (TRIDENT) . . . . . . . . . . 72 8. Allocation by Month of Major Types of U.S. Landing Craft (TRIDENT): July 1943-June 1944 . . . . . . . . . . . . . 75 9. Planned U.S. Build-up for ROUNDHAMMER (TRIDENT) . . . . . . 77 10. The U.S. Shipping Budget: Spring 1943 . . . . . . . . . . . 85 11. Summary of Ground Army Strength, Victory Program Troop Basis: 22 November 1943 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 125 12. Comparison of Elements of Distribution for Classes II and IV Supplies, Army Supply Program . . . . . . . . . . . . . 126
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No.
Page
13. Authorized Levels of Overseas Supply: January 1944 . . . . . . 14. QUADRANT Landing Craft (Major Types Only) Allocations From U.S. Production: September 1943-March 1944 . . . . . . . . 15. Planned Deployment (Major Types) of U.S. Assault Shipping a t QUADRANT . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16. Planned U.S. and British Contributions of Assault Shipping for OVERLORDTRIDENT and QUADRANT Conferences . . . . . . . 17. U.S. Cargo Shipping BudgetQUADRANT Conference . . . . . . 18. U.S. Shipping for British ProgramsQUADRANT and TRIDENT Budgets . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 19. Planned U.S. Troop Movements (QUADRANT Conference): August 1943-June 1944. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 20. LST's in the Mediterranean: September-December 1943 . . . . . 21. Shipbuilding for 1944Evolution of the Program in 1943 . . . . 22. Requirements Versus Allocations, Assault Shipping for OVERLORD: 30 September 1943 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 23. Admiral King's Bonus for OVERLORD: 5 November 1943 . . . . . 24. Planned U.S. Troop Movements (SEXTANT Conference): January-September 1944 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 25. British Shipping BudgetSEXTANT Conference . . . . . . . . 26. U.S. Cargo Shipping BudgetSEXTANT Conference . . . . . . . 27. Planned Deployment of LST's for SHINGLE and ANVIL: January 1944. 28. Washington Planners' Estimates on Availability of Assault Shipping for OVERLORD and ANVIL: 6 February 1944 . . . . . . 29. Distribution of Selected Types of Assault Shipping: 1 June 1944 . . 30. Operational Shipping Requirements for OVERLORD . . . . . . . 31. Planned Deployment of U.S. Divisions Assuming Germany Not Defeated: 11 June 1944 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 32. Pacific Shipping Requirements and Availabilities: MayDecember 1944 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 33. Distribution of Hump Tonnage Carried Into China: JanuaryDecember 1944 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 34. Schedule of Redeployment Troop Movements . . . . . . . . .
158 212 213 214 216 217 220 235 258 264 269 299 304 305 317 329 349 356 371 466 528 586
Charts
No. Page
1. 2. 3. 4. 5.
The JCS Organization on 1 April 1945 . . . . . . . . . Organization of the Army Service Forces: 15 August 1944 . . . Original 1943 Procurement Plans and Actual Accomplishments Overseas Requisitions for Noncontrolled Items . . . . . . Overseas Requisitions for Controlled and Materiel Status Items
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xxi
Maps
No. Page
1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7.
U.S. Supply Lines in Sicilian Invasion . . . . . . . . . . . . American Transoceanic Supply, 1943-45 . . . . . . . . . . . The Mediterranean (1943) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Possible Routes of Advance in Planning War Against Japan (1943) . The Pacific Areas, 15 June 1944 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . China-Burma-India Line of Communications, July 1945 . . . . . Planned Sources of Civilian SupplyPlan A . . . . . . . . .
Illustrations
Page
Attack Troop Transport (APA) . . . . . . . . . . . . . Cargo Ship, Attack (AKA) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Attack Troop Transport, Modified (XAP) . . . . . . . . . High-speed Attack Transport (APD) . . . . . . . . . . . Landing Ship, Tank (LST) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Landing Ship, Medium (LSM) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Landing Ship, Dock (LSD) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Landing Craft, Infantry (Large) (LCI(L)) . . . . . . . . . . Landing Craft, Tank (LCT) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Landing Craft, Mechanized (LCM) . . . . . . . . . . . . Landing Craft, Vehicle a n d Personnel (LCVP) . . . . . . . . 2-1/2-Ton Amphibious Truck (DUKW) . . . . . . . . . . . Landing Vehicle, Tracked, Amphibious Tractor (LVT) . . . . . L t . Gen. Brehon B . Somervell . . . . . . . . . . . . . . L t . Gen. Joseph T . McNarney . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Maj. Gen. LeRoy Lutes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Maj. Gen. Lucius D . Clay . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Troops a n d Supplies, Oakland, California . . . . . . . . . . L t . Gen. S i r Frederick Morgan . . . . . . . . . . . . . . An LCT Being Lifted From Its "Piggy-back" Berth on an LST, Oran, Algeria . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . The Ruined Port of Naples. General Dwight D. Eisenhower and L t . Gen. Mark W . Clark . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . General S i r Henry Maitland Wilson . . . . . . . . . . . . . Liberty Ship a n d Victory Ship . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Josef Stalin, Franklin D. Roosevelt, Winston Churchill . . . . . Ships Under Construction at Los Angeles . . . . . . . . . .
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12 13 12 14 14 13 12 15 13 15 16 15 14 45 103 104 105 145 183 191 225 226 249 286 301
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Page
General S i r Bernard L . Montgomery . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Bailey Bridge Sections and Other Engineer Supplies, Ashchurch, England . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Deck-loaded Tanks . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . L t . Gen. Jacob L . Devers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Scuttled Liberty Ships Form Breakwaters at OMAHA Beach . . . . . . General Douglas MacArthur and Admiral Chester W. Nimitz . . . . Floating D r y Dock With Ship Under Repair . . . . . . . . . . . Liberty Ship Unloading a t O r o Bay, N e w Guinea . . . . . . . . . Sheepfoot Roller a n d Maintenance Grader, N e w Guinea . . . . . . LVT's Operating Over Reefs in the Central Pacific . . . . . . . . Landing Craft Assembly Plant, Milne B a y . . . . . . . . . . . . L t . Gen. Joseph W . Stilwell . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Maj. Gen. Claire L. Chennault and Generalissimo Chiank Kai-shek . . Ferry Pushing Truck-loaded Barges Across the Brahmaputra River Assam, India . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Coolies Pulling Sampans Loaded With Supplies, Wu River. . . . . . Port Congestion a t Manila. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . The Undergrowth Encroaches on Abandoned Quonset Huts, Tinian Island. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . The Big Three and Their Advisers at the Potsdam Conference . . . . Liberty Ship i n Port o f Khorramshahr, Iran . . . . . . . . . . . French Patriots With Guns Parachuted in by Allies . . . . . . . . Lend-Lease "Trade Goods" in a Department Store Window, Casablanca . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Herbert Lehman . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Italians Await Food a t a n Allied Soup Kitchen . . . . . . . . . Frenchmen Receiving Their Bread Ration . . . . . . . . . . .
323 354 358 364 373 398 422 463 484 490 492 501 503 505 529 571 620 669 677 712
The illustration on page 490 originally appeared in Yank. All other illustrations are from the files of the Department of Defense or the National Archives.
xxiii
CHAPTER I
create a fund, or pool, of multipurpose ingredientsfinished munitions, supplies, ships, organized and equipped manpoweralong with the capacity to replenish or enlarge it. From the pool, it was hoped, specific needs could be met as they arose. To create a pool of troops and supplies took time. And even as it grew it had to be repeatedly drained of trained units and of matriel for the support of operations overseas. The year 1942 was one of emergencies and ad hoc decisions. Although both Secretary of War Henry L. Stimson and Chief of Staff General George C. Marshall ardently wished to keep other commitments to a minimum and concentrate resources for an early invasion of the Continent of Europe, the march of events defeated their purpose. First, defensive positions in the Pacific had to be manned and supplied, and British and Russian Allies provided with matriel under lend-lease. Then, the whole strategic concept of concentration for invasion was abandoned for the time being when President Franklin D. Roosevelt forced upon the War Department the decision to invade North Africa late that same year. As a concomitant, more resources were committed to the Pacific to support limited offensives there, and to the Middle East to support British operations
and establish a secure supply line to the USSR through the Persian Gulf. This "scatterization" of American resources to various parts of the globe undermined the Army's best efforts to plan its operations and requirements at long range, and to provide an orderly system for training, equipping, and deploying its forces overseas. Since, by decision of the Combined Chiefs of Staff (CCS), theaters of operations had first call on supplies and equipment, there was a chronic shortage of matriel for the growing pool of troops in training, who as late as spring of 1943 still had only half, or less, of their full allowances of equipment. At the same time, uncertainties created by a shortage of shipping played their part in unsettling strategy. During 1942 capacity to deliver fighting power overseas set the primary limitation on every proposed Anglo-American strategic move. In the Atlantic German submarines continued until late in the year to send Allied ships to the bottom faster than shipyards could build new ones; thereafter the balance began to shift, but the drain on shipping and the consequent uncertainties continued. Surface and air protection had to be provided on the sealanes, and the system of convoys and circuitous routing developed in the Atlantic to counter the submarine menace constituted a bottleneck for overseas deployment as restrictive as the shortage of shipping itself. In the Pacific, though the submarine threat was inconsequential, the length of supply lines and the lack of facilities at the end of them imposed even greater limitations upon the size of military forces that could be supported. The high logistical cost involved in bringing large forces to bear against Japan
ning lead time. This basic fact had been underlined when the North African operation, decided upon only three and a half months before it was launched in November 1942, had to be mounted with landing craft designed and produced for operations in the Pacific and the English Channel. The limitations thus imposed on the military machine were flexible enough to give the strategic planners a wide range of choice in the areas and timing of operations. The pool of trained men, munitions, aircraft, and ships was to prove sufficiently abundant to meet most demands placed upon it. Strategists would be able to plan and carry out offensives on many fronts against enemies who did not have the strength to defend themselves at all points. Yet limitations were implicit in the very character and distribution of this abundance and in the
rate at which particular critical items became available in the general pool. Merchant shipping, for example, would never become so abundant as to permit redeployment of either troops or supplies from one theater to another at will; or,
for that matter, to permit movement of troops to any active theater as rapidly as they could be trained. Nor for a long time to come would equipment be so plentiful as to permit prestockage in overseas theaters while meeting the minimum needs of troops in training and claimants under lend-lease. Again, because of limitations on American manpower, overwhelming air power could be created only by placing a perilously low ceiling on the number of ground divisions, with ominous implications for the time when the U.S. Army would finally come to grips with the Wehrmacht and the troops of Japan on their
own soil. The immense U.S. battle fleets that came into being in 1943the magnified products of pre-Pearl Harbor "two-ocean" planningwere destined by their nature and capabilities to provide their own argument for accelerating the primarily seaborne war against Japan. Finally, failure to make provision in 1941 and 1942 for a large and versatile fleet of amphibious shipping would, until late 1944, constitute the most persistent and restrictive single limitation on a war in which all the principal avenues of advance lay over water.
strategy, was to proceed as rapidly as possible, but was to be subject to several prior claimsoperations in the Mediterranean, the Pacific, and the Far East, as well as an enlarged program of aid to the Soviet Union. In consonance with the strategy of unremitting pressure on Japan, the United States also secured from its allies a tentative commitment to attempt the reconquest of Burma late in 1943 in combination with offensive operations by U.S. forces in the Pacific aimed at reducing Rabaul, ejecting the Japanese from Attu and Kiska in the Aleutian Islands, and opening a new drive across the Central Pacific. The Aftermath of Casablanca In these ambitious programs the Allies At the Casablanca Conference in Jan- were reaching, as events proved, too far uary 1943 the British and American and too fast. Abundance was in prospect, leaders tried to mark out the main but not yet in hand; and plans were still directions of the effort of the western at the mercy of contingencies. ParticuAllies in the period of relative plenty larly rash were the assumptions as to ahead. Under the general principle of availability of merchant shipping. The imposing "unconditional surrender" on Casablanca Conference was held during Germany and Japan, announced by a lull in the war at sea while most of President Roosevelt at Casablanca, the the U-boats were refitting or waiting the Allied leaders reaffirmed the decision abatement of winter weather, and the made at the conference in Washington decisions of the conference reflected the in December 1941 (ARCADIA) that Ger- short-lived optimism inspired by this cirmany was to be defeated before Japan, cumstance. Ship sinkings had diminished together with the corollary principle that during December and January after rec"unremitting pressure" should be main- ord losses in November, only to multiply tained against Japan. Other than the again in February 1943. The U-boats continuing antisubmarine campaign, now hunted in packs, concentrating in which was assigned a "first charge" pri- the north Atlantic on the mid-ocean gap ority, the only specific operations ap- that lay beyond the reach of existing proved for the European theater at shore-based aircraft. By March more than Casablanca were completion of the cam- a hundred U-boats were again constantly paign in North Africa, the invasion of at sea, and in that month ship sinkings Sicily (HUSKY), and immediate initia- reached an appalling total of over a miltion of a bombing offensive against Ger- lion dead-weight tons, just short of the many from the British Isles. The assem- November 1942 record. Under the impact of shipping losses bling of an Allied invasion force in Great Britain, a key objective of U.S. and military reverses in North Africa
lude. By the beginning of April it was plain that Prime Minister Winston S. Churchill and the British Chiefs of Staff wished to write off ANAKIM, at least for 1943. President Roosevelt, attracted by Maj. Gen. Claire L. Chennault's promises to produce greater results at smaller cost through the use of air power in China, seemed to be leaning in the same direction. The U.S. civilian shipping authorities were reluctant to commit more merchant tonnage to so distant a theater, thus leaving the U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff (JCS) and their theater commander, Lt. Gen. Joseph W. Stilwell, as the only convinced defenders
to almost nothing.
Meanwhile, at the Pacific Military Conference held in Washington during March, theater representatives assessed the cost of continuing the advance toward Rabaul so high that hopes of reaching that objective before the end of 1943 had to be abandoned despite substantial increases in planned deployment of
of ANAKIM.
In the midst of the general deterioration, the British Chiefs on 12 March 1943 submitted new estimates of the amount of additional American merchant shipping that would be needed to carry out their share of approved operations in the Mediterranean and Burma and to arrest an alarming decline in their both ground and air forces to the South domestic imports. This British dmarche, and Southwest Pacific. The Navy's plans insofar as import requirements were confor a parallel advance through the Cen- cerned, was backed by a commitment tral Pacific were still undefined. Sympto- President Roosevelt had made to Churchmatic of the general lull in the Pacific ill the preceding November. Its impliwar was the fact that the major project cations had been grossly underestimated under way in spring 1943 was the final by the American staff at Casablanca, assembly of forces for the reoccupation where it was only briefly alluded to, and of Attu, essentially a mop-up operation awareness of them dawned on the staff at the far northern edge of the theater. only slowly in the weeks that followed. At Japan's back door in southeast Asia, So massive were the tonnages now reprospects of launching a major offensive quested that, as the alarmed staffs hastily in Burma (ANAKIM) in accordance with assessed the cost, meeting the British the Casablanca plan were also receding. requirements could very well reduce In March the British campaign on the planned American deployment in 1943 Arakan coast bogged down short of its by almost half. Since this in turn could objective at Akyab, and the British decid- virtually suspend active operations until ed to cancel the Chindwin Valley offen- the latter part of the year, the military sive, to which it was to have been a pre- staffs took a strong stand against meet-
ing the British requirements for domestic imports. In the crisis President Roosevelt, acting on the advice of Harry Hopkins and Lewis Douglas, Deputy
War Shipping Administrator, decided 2 otherwise. On 29 March, without consulting the Joint Chiefs of Staff, he assured Anthony Eden, Great Britain's Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs, that British import requirements would be met. The question of operational needs had still to be threshed out between the military staffs and the civilian shipping authorities.3 Thus, at the end of March 1943 the Allied military program for 1943 seemed on the brink of disaster. Reflecting a widespread sense of accumulating misfortunes, the Joint Strategic Survey Committee (JSSC) late that month gloomily concluded: "the overall strategic situation, or more exactly the capability of the Allies to control that situation," had badly deteriorated, mainly because the planners at Casablanca had "overestimated prospective resources, particularly shipping, and underestimated the demands on them."4 Because of the shortage in shipping, the committee thought, the planned invasion of Sicily would have to be reconsidered, possibly even
2
"The Army Air Forces in World War II," vol. II: Europe: TORCH to POINTBLANK, August 1942 organization, under Rear Adm. Emory S. Land, to December 1943 (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1949) (hereafter cited as Craven and Cate, Chairman of the Maritime Commission and War AAF I I ) , pp. 384-95. (2) Samuel Eliot Morison, Shipping Administrator. 3 "History of United States Naval Operations in World The British import crisis is covered in detail in War II," vol. I, The Battle of the Atlantic: SeptemRichard M. Leighton, "U.S. Merchant Shipping and ber 1939-May 1943 (Boston: Little, Brown and Comthe British Import Crisis," in Kent Roberts Greenpany, 1947) , ch. XIV and app. I. (3) Frederick C. field, ed., Command Decisions (Washington, 1960), Lane and others, Ships for Victory: A History of pp. 199-223. See also Leighton and Coakley, Global Shipbuilding Under the U.S. Maritime Commission Logistics 1940-43, chs. XXV-XXVII. 4 JSSC 11, memo by JSSC for JCS, 22 Mar 43, title: in World War II (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins Press, 1951) (hereafter cited as Lane, Ships for Victory), p. Survey of Present Situation, ABC 382 (9-24-41) Sec 4. 203.
(there were two other deputies) for the War Shipping Administration, and in effect the head of that
Each of these signal victoriesover the Afrika Korps and over the U-boatscarried its own portents for the future. The Allied victory in North Africa broke the German hold on Britain's historic lifeline through the Mediterranean, and in May 1943 the first through cargo convoy from Gibraltar since early in the war arrived at Suez. Only one further stepthe conquest of Sicilyhad to be taken before troop and cargo shipping would be able to move freely through the Mediterranean to destinations in the Red Sea, Persian Gulf, and Indian Ocean area, a route 8,000 miles shorter than the long trip around Africa. This achievement promised immense savings in shipping. To break the Axis hold on North Africa had required a tremendous investment in men, supplies, and shipping, which forced a postponement of large-scale preparations for a cross-Chanrequirements. The volume of outbound nel invasion. On the other hand, the troop movements showed little indica- investment had produced a handsome tion of being undermined by diversion returna new base of operations against of cargo shipping to nonmilitary pro- German-dominated Europe. The Allies grams and support of British forces. had now to weigh the relative advantages Movements to England picked up; those of a further advance in the Mediterranto the Mediterranean climbed to record ean against the risk that progressive comheights; and deployments to the Pacific mitment of resources in this region might proceeded more or less as planned, in- retard the build-up in the British Isles cluding the large task force to Alaska for and cause further postponement of the the landings on Attu. Encouraging mani- cross-Channel invasion. As far as the shipping problem was festations of the improved situation were also emerging in Tunisia, where the concerned, however, the victory over enlong-prepared Allied offensive had finally emy submarines was the more significant gotten under way. By mid-April Axis achievement. Combined with the outforces had been driven back into a tight pouring of new tonnage from American perimeter less than 50 miles deep in the shipyards, it presaged the end of the northeastern tip of the country. On the long stranglehold of shipping on the 19th the Germans began to evacuate scale of overseas operations. To be sure, troops by air to Sicily, and by the end of both cargo and troop shipping would the first week of May their debacle was remain critical, and their allocation and complete. use would continue to be the prime con-
10
sideration in planning every operation. In the Pacific, because of the length of supply lines and the fact that even within theaters almost all transportation had to be by water, the shipping shortage would continue to be of greater consequence than in the Atlantic. Yet even in that area, once general objectives had been tailored more closely to the availability of resources, shipping was soon to become a less stringent limitation on strategy than the service troops and facilities needed to discharge and handle cargoes. On the eve of the TRIDENT Conference
The tools of amphibious warfare had had no place in the Victory Program of 1941 or in any other prewar plan for industrial mobilization. Production officials as well as military leaders had failed to foresee the need for a massive arsenal of amphibious equipment. The impetus for production of assault shipping conheld in Washington in May 1943, the prospects of establishing a realistic blue- sequently grew out of specific needs to print of a strategy for ultimate victory fulfill specific operational requirements over the Axis that would make use of the that the planners began to foresee only mushrooming resources of the Allied dimly in 1942. production machine and the growing The three major categories of U.S. pool of trained manpower were far assault shipping used in World War II brighter than they had been at Casa- were combat loaders, landing ships and blanca a few months earlier. Yet if the craft, and landing vehicles. Combat loadlimitations in shipping and other re- ers were ocean-going transports and carsources that had resulted in dissolution go vessels, armed and specially equipped of much of the Casablanca program were to accommodate entire combat units receding, a new and significant factor with their essential weapons, vehicles, and was emerging that was to weigh heavily other gear so loaded that men and equipin determining the strategic blueprint. ment could all be discharged in fighting In the Pacific and in Europe the initial trim on a hostile beach. They carried stage of every major advance required on davits the small craft by which troops, that troops land on hostile shores, and equipment, and supplies were discharged in Southeast Asia amphibious assaults over the beaches in ship-to-shore operawere regarded as an indispensable ad- tions. The most common American types junct to land and air offensives to drive were attack troop transports (APA's); the Japanese from Burma and Malaya. attack cargo auxiliaries (AKA's); modiThe basic tools of amphibious warfare fied attack troop transports (XAP's); were the specialized vessels needed to old destroyers used as high-speed attack bring an assault force into position off transports (APD's); and, on occasion, a hostile shore, put the troops ashore merchant cargo ships converted for spefully equipped and ready for action, and cial uses in amphibious operations. supply them over the beaches until ports Landing ships and craft included a wide could be secured. The availability of as- range of vessels: ocean-going types such
11
as the landing ship, tank (LST), land- strategy. Only three notable amphibious ing ship, medium (LSM), landing ship, assaults had been undertaken during dock (LSD), and the misnamed landing 1942the landings in the Solomon Iscraft, infantry, large (LCI ( L ) ) ; beachlands, at Dieppe in northwestern France, ing craft such as the landing craft, and in North Africa; the first and third tank (LCT), landing craft, mechanized of these had been successful, the second (LCM) and the landing craft, vehicle a disastrous failure. All three operations and personnel (LCVP), and even rub- had been on a modest scale, and in none ber landing boatsall with the common had the availability of assault shipping capability of beaching without injury. been a critically limiting factor. NeverLanding vehicles were amphibians; they theless, the landings on Guadalcanal and could "swim" ashore and, without stop- in North Africa involved such hasty imping, propel themselves over land on provisations as the rapid conversion of wheels or endless tracks. The two most old merchant ships and destroyers to perwidely used types in World War II form the tasks of combat loaders, and of were the 2-1/2 ton amphibious truck old oilers, originally built to sail on the (DUKW) and the amphibious tractor, shallow waters of Lake Maracaibo, Venor landing vehicle tracked (LVT). 6 ezuela, to substitute for LST's. Neither Procurement of amphibious equip- operation might have been successful ment of all types except the DUKW and against determined and well-organized other wheeled amphibians had been opposition on the beaches similar to that made a Navy responsibility by the end encountered at Dieppe. The great amof 1942. By agreements with the Army phibious assaults of the war still lay in February and March 1943, the Navy ahead, and the doctrines and weapons also took over responsibility for training of amphibious warfare were new and all amphibious crews and manning all still for the most part untested. landing ships and craft except those enThe Navy's primary interest, in 1942, trusted to the Army engineer special was in amphibious equipment for shipbrigades in the Southwest Pacific area.7 to-shore operations, and involved for the In spring of 1943 the Allies had not most part combat loaders and their acyet embarked upon the period of what companying small craft. The initial promight be called offensive amphibious gram for combat loaders developed by the Navy, and apparently agreed to by the Army, provided for enough vessels (1) For detailed characteristics of U.S. landing for a 3-division lift, to be obtained mainships and craft in World War II, see Navy Departly through conversion of existing hulls of ment, ONI 226, Allied Landing Craft and Ships, 7 standard merchant vessels. The requireApr 1944, and Supplement 1, 1945; also Appendix ment was raised in August 1942 to a B-1, p. 828, below. (2) The best general work on the subject is Jeter A. Isley and Philip A. Crowl, 4-division lift and as computed by the The U.S. Marines and Amphibious War (Princeton, Navy at the end of the year amounted N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1951). (1) Leighton and Coakley, Global Logistics, to a total of 56 APA's and 20 AKA'san 1940-1943, pp. 408-09. (2) Chester Wardlow, The amount calculated to provide equal inTransportation Corps: Movements, Training, and crements for operations and training in Supply, UNITED STATES ARMY IN WORLD both the Atlantic and the Pacific areas. WAR II (Washington, 1956), p. 463.
6 7
16
ships actually available, plus 14 converted destroyer transports in the Pacific and 8 old converted merchant ships in the Atlantic, survivors of the North African landings. Though the numbers of the combat loaders in the Pacific16 APA's, 5 AKA's, and the 14 APD'soutweighed the strength in the Atlantic area, the Navy's deployment plans still contemplated a relatively equal division between the two major theaters of war by the end of 1943. The American complement in the Atlantic and Mediterranean11 APA's, 8 AKA's, and 8 XAP's was supplemented by a British force of about 18 combat loaders that bore the designation, in British amphibious terminology, of landing ship, infantry (LSI). The American combat loaders were either permanently assigned to the Navy or placed under the control of the Joint Chiefs, who assigned them as needed either to ferry Army troops or to perform tactical missions for the Navy. The War Shipping Administration (WSA) at first objected strenuously to the assignment of such a sizable pool of shipping to
17
sults were not impressive, even in the small boat category, until August. The first large personnel carrier (LCI (L)) was not produced until September and the first LST did not come off the ways until October, too late to take part in the North African landings. The real surge in production came in November 1942 and continued through February 1943, dropping off markedly thereafter. In the twelve months from May 1942 through April 1943, 8,719 landing craft totaling 512,333 light displacement tons were produced, almost three-fifths of them in the November-February period. They included 214 LST's, 302 LCI (L)'s, 470 LCT's, 2,052 LCM's, 3,250 landing craft, personnel (LCP), 690 landing craft, vehicle (LCV), 1,799 LCVP's, and 998 LVT's.9 The abortive planning for a crossChannel operation in 1942 or 1943 thus left as one of its legacies a large pool of landing craft either in being or in production. The crash program compensated, at least partially, for earlier failure to plan for adequate quantities of amphibious equipment in the general munitions and shipping pool. Yet its effects were clearly disruptive of other naval building programs and created within the Navy an aversion to any further
9
Craft and the War Production Board, prepared by George E. Mowry (War Production Board, Special Study No. 11) (rev. ed., Washington, 1946) (hereafter cited as Mowry, Landing Craft and the War Production Board), pp. 6, 21, 23, 72. (2) Civilian
Production Administration, Industrial Mobilization for War: I, Program and Administration (Washington, 1947) (hereafter cited as CPA, Industrial Mobilization for War), pp. 535, 609. These two studies,
42) Sec 4. (4) JCS 249, 27 Mar 43, title: Strategic Deployment of U.S. Forces for 1943, app. A. (5) Col. A. T. Mason, Special Monograph on Amphibious Warfare, ch. II, pp. 88-91, History of the Joint Chiefs of Staff in World War II, sec. II-D, Part III, MS, JCS Historical Sec. (6) Leighton and Coakley, Global Logistics, 1940-43, pp, 397, 615-23.
as well as other standard works, perpetuate the legend that the 1942-43 landing craft program originated in the decision to invade North Africa. (3) Leighton and Coakley, Global Logistics, 1940-43, pp. 376-82.
18
emergency programs of the kind. As a relief to Navy officials. The spectacular 1943 ROUNDUP, the original reason for output of craft during the winter of the program, receded into the limbo of 1942-43 had been achieved by the strenimprobability, in mid-September 1942 uous methods of a crash program. BeAdmiral King launched a move in the hind the impressive production figures JCS to cut back construction of the lay the inevitable costs of haste and larger landing craft. The JCS agreed to waste, trial and error, and diversion of the extent of eliminating 100 LST's and effort and resources from other pro48 LCI (L)'s, reducing the total LSTgrams. From the Navy's point of view, program from 490 to 390 and the it had been forced to execute the landLCI (L) program from 350 to 302. Othering craft program at the worst possible reductions were not practicable because timewhile straining to rebuild Americonstruction was already so far advanced can sea power in the Pacific and at the in most categories that speedy comple- same time fighting the submarine mention offered the best promise of clearing ace in the Atlantic. In its use of steel the ways for escort vessels and the other and other materials the program had types the Navy wanted most.10 threatened to interfere to some degree The Navy was far from asserting that with almost every category of war prono more landing craft were needed. The duction, but most particularly with the cuts were made only in the larger types building of other combatant vessels that that interfered directly with other naval were dearer to most admirals' and, in building; simultaneously, with an eye to the case of escort vessels, many generals' future ship-to-shore operations, Navy hearts. A Navy spokesman commented officials were planning a considerable bitterly in April 1943 that the high expansion of the small boat program. In rate of landing craft construction had any case, even before landing craft pro- been achieved "only by cutting across duction reached its peak, the program every single combatant shipbuilding began to lose its official urgency. Late in program and giving the amphibious 1942 it was dropped from the President's program overriding priority in every Number One Group of war production navy yard and every major civilian shipprograms, and toward the end of March building company. The derangement 1943 it fell to fourth place on the Navy's suffered from this overriding amphibiShipbuilding Precedence List. By the ous program will not be corrected for end of April 1943 most of the individ- about six months."12 With the submarine menace assuming ual crash programs had substantially achieved their targets or were severely terrifying proportions in February and cut back.11 March 1943, Army and Navy officials The tapering off of the landing craft alike were eager to terminate this comprogram was a source of considerable petition between amphibious craft and (1) Min 33d mtg JCS, 15 Sep 43; 25th mtg JCS. other naval construction. That the current U-boat offensive would prove to be 29 Sep 42. (2) CCS 105/2, 27 Sep 42, rpt by CPS, title: Transportation of Ldg Cft and Recommended New the dying gasp of German sea power
10
Allocations. 11 Mowry, Landing Craft and the War Production Board, p. 72.
JPS 152/1, 3 Apr 43, title: Production of Ldg Cft, ABC 561/1 (19 Mar 43), Sec 1A.
12
19
and 156 LCT (5)'s. Only for small craft leaders were anxious to accelerate con- were rates of production to stay high.15 struction of escort vessels as much as The American landing craft pool and possible. However, the escort building program were supplemented by a much program was not given the overriding smaller British contribution. The Britpriority that many thought it needed, ish had pioneered in the development largely because such action seemed likely of various types of landing ships and to "do more harm to other essential craft, including the LST, but their proprograms than it would do good to the duction facilities were inadequate for a escort vessel program."13 Even so, escorts program of the size needed for the crossremained first on the Navy's Shipbuild- Channel invasion. After producing about ing Precedence List through the early part half a dozen of a fast, long-range model of 1943, when only a few categories of LST (the LST (1)), the British agreed landing craft stood as high as third. Late that the building of LST's henceforth in March escorts were placed second, would be restricted mainly to a newer while landing craft fell to fourth place model, the LST (2), more suitable for and lower. Output of escorts rose stead- mass production. Production of this ily through the first half of 1943.14 craft, along with that of most other types Landing craft schedules, by contrast, needed for a cross-Channel invasion, were cut back. Navy plans early in 1943 would be concentrated in American provided for production of 15 LST's per shipyards. The British proceeded, howmonth, beginning in April 1943, until ever, with construction of their own the reduced program total of 390 units models of LCT's and various types of was completed in March 1944. There- small and support craft, using facilities after production would be only 3 or 4 that could be spared from their regular per month to replace losses. With the naval and merchant shipbuilding proLCI (L) program for 302 units comgrams. The whole effort was incapable pleted in April 1943, the Navy con- of much expansion and depended on sented to place orders for a monthly American production of engines for output of 16 up to a total of 192 addi- many types. The British, always more tional craft. New construction of LCTimpressed than the Americans with the (5)'s was also scheduled at 10 per month difficulties of landing on a well-defended beginning in July. These low planned hostile coast, placed more emphasis on output levels contrasted with peak incorporating armor and gunfire support monthly production figures in the ear- in their amphibious equipment. Their lier program of 61 LST's, 70 LCI (L)'s, principal small landing boat, for instance, the landing craft, assault (LCA), equivalent to the American LCVP, was (1) Ltr, CPRB to CCS, 28 Jan 43, Incl to CCS 137/3, title: Construction Program of Escort Vesmuch more heavily armored and
13
sels. (2) CCS 137, 28 Dec 42, same title. 14 (1) Civilian Production Administration, Official Munitions Production of the United States by Months, July 1, 1940-August 31, 1945, Special Release, May 1, 1947 (hereafter cited as CPA, Official Munitions Production). (2) Mowry, Landing Craft and the War Production Board, app. D.
15 (1) Memo, Rear Adm Charles M. Cooke, Jr., for Dir Reqmts SOS, 13 Feb 43, folder 18 Shpg File, vol. III, Case 28, ASF Plng Div. (2) JPS 152/1, 3 Apr 43, title: Production of Ldg Cft, ABC 561/1 (19 Mar 43) Sec 1A. (3) For characteristics of the LCT(5) see Appendix B-1, below.
20
mounted more guns. They also had sev- craft were concerned, mostly to those eral types of armored support vessels of proposed for operation by British crews larger size, such as the landing craft, in the original ROUNDUP planning. support (medium) (LCS (M)), and the (Tables 1 and 2) landing craft, gun (large) (LCG (L)) Around these proposals a running conall of which mounted machine guns and troversy developed in the combined planmortars. The U.S. Navy, in contrast, per- ning staffs, continuing through the Casahaps because of its early orientation blanca Conference. The British argued toward ship-to-shore operations in the stubbornly for larger allocations and for Pacific, placed its major reliance for sup- resumption of the original program for porting fires "primarily on Naval gun- assembling landing craft in the British fire, delivered from positions offshore Isles for a cross-Channel operation as by combatant ships."16 soon as the immediate needs for the Since the original American landing Pacific and Mediterranean had been met. craft program was drawn up in terms They also proposed a pool of U.S. and of the SLEDGEHAMMER-ROUNDUP strategy, U.K. amphibious resources in the Attentative allocations set in mid-1942 as- lantic and standardization of replacesigned most of the craft for use in a cross- ment, maintenance, and training allowChannel invasion, including 200 Amer- ances by the two countries. The American-produced LST's, 300 LCI (L)'s, and icans, on the other hand, obviously fear340 LCT (5)'s. These allocations had ing the accumulation of a large body of not stipulated assignments of landing assault shipping in the European area craft by country, but the agreement on at the expense of the Pacific theaters and U.S. production for use by both countries the possibility of British control of whatled the British to believe that they would ever pool might be created, resisted these receive generous allocations under lend- proposals. They finally took their stand lease or other arrangements. With the on the ground that allocations should be demise of the initial invasion strategy, made for specific operations as they were the Americans decided otherwise, pro- approved by the CCS, and that the probposing in September 1942 a complete lem of overhead allowances could be revision of allocation schedules to pro- more expeditiously handled by arrangevide greater quantities for the Pacific, ments between the naval staffs of the two the Mediterranean, and the Navy's Am- countries, also as specific needs arose.17 phibious Force in the Atlantic at the expense of further accumulations in the The controversy may be followed in: (1)CCS British Isles. Allocations to the British 105/1, 18 Sep 42; CCS 105/2, 27 Sep 42; and CCS 105/3, 4 Nov 42; all titled: Transportation of Ldg were to be restricted, as far as the larger Cft and Recommended New Allocations, ABC 561
17
(1) Memo, Adm Cooke for Brig Gen Albert C. Wedemeyer, 24 Apr 43, sub: Support Guns and Antiaircraft Artillery on Ldg Cft, ABC 561 (31 Aug
43), Sec 1B. (2) Gordon A. Harrison, Cross-Channel
16
(2-19-42) Sec 2. (2) Min, 42d mtg CCS, 2 Oct 42; 4oth mtg, 18 Sep 42; 47th mtg, 6 Nov 42. (3) Min, 32d mtg CPS, 11 Sep 42; 38th mtg, 26 Nov 42. (4) CPS 42/3, 1 Nov 42, rpt by British JPS, title: Ldg
Cft Reqmts and Allocations; CPS 42/5, 24 Nov 42,
Attack, UNITED STATES ARMY IN WORLD WAR II (Washington, 1951), pp. 60-61. (3) ONI 226, Allied Landing Craft and Ships, 7 April 44.
rpt by subcom, title: Transportation of Ldg Cft. (5) Min, 33d mtg JCS, 15 Sep 42; 35th mtg, 29 Sep 42; 40th mtg, 3 Nov 42. (6) OPD Notes on JCS 35th mtg, 29 Sep 42, ABC 561 (2-19-42) Sec 2.
21
a b c
All totals except for LCP/LCV represent scheduled production through February 1943; the LCP/LCV total is of listed allocations. This figure reflects a proposed cut of 56 in the current program, 8 more than the number finally canceled. Production not yet scheduled; total scheduled production through February 1943 at this time was 4,836. Source: CCS 105/2, 27 Sep 42, title: Transportation of Ldg Cft.
TABLE 2PROPOSED ALLOCATION OF U.S. LANDING CRAFT TO UNITED KINGDOM SEPTEMBER 1942
Includes craft already delivered to the United Kingdom, as indicated in parenthesis. All would presumably have to be manned by British crews, since original plans to send U.S. boat crews to the United Kingdom had been suspended. b No British crews were in prospect for these craft. Source: CCS 105/2, 27 Sep 42, title: Transportation of Ldg Cft.
In the negotiations at the Casablanca Conference, the JCS stuck to this principle. The invasion of Sicily was the only specific amphibious operation in Europe agreed to at Casablanca, and provision of adequate lift for that undertaking absorbed most of the planners' attention, although the Americans also agreed to underwrite the assault shipping requirements for the amphibious operation in Burma. British requests for allocations, representing sizable reductions in their earlier requests but geared to a prospect of large-scale operations late in the year,
were deferred and no final decision was rendered until early April 1943. These final decisions drastically scaled down the British requests for the larger craft, LST's and LCI (L)'s, while meeting in full requests for LCT's and smaller craft. As opposed to the request for 150 LST's by the end of August, the Americans promised 84. (Table 3) Meanwhile, in making their own allocations between the Atlantic and the Pacific for 1943, the Americans assigned the greater proportion to the Pacific117 of 201 LST's expected to be available by 1 August 1943,
In a strict sense, the term allocation was used to mean the allotment of future production; assignment referred to allotments of finished items. Relatively few of the craft here indicated as allocated before the Casablanca Conference had been actually assigned by then, and fewer still had been delivered to the British. b At Casablanca the allocation of LSD's was left indefinite, though 7 of the 15 scheduled for production were earmarked for the British. In January it was expected that the first LSD to be produced, scheduled for May 1943, would be assigned to the British. Memo, Col Ray T. Maddocks for ACofS OPD, 24 Jan 43, sub: Availability of Ldg Cft for a Certain Opn, Exec 3, Item la, Case 6. c Decided upon after the Casablanca Conference. 230 of the LCVP's were to be delivered to the United Kingdom by 1 August. Source: (1) Paper by Br COS, Reqmts of U.S. Built Ldg Cft for Opns in 1943, 13 Jan 43, ASF Plng Div folder Landing Craft. (2) Table atchd to min, 67th CCS mtg, 22 Jan 43. (3) CCS 105/4, rpt of CPS, 9 Apr 43, title: Transportation of Ldg Cft, ABC 561 (2-19-42) Sec 2.
96 of 150 LCI (L)'s, and 180 of 281 Pacific. The allocations, together with LCT's. The British had to content them- the cutback in production, left the amselves with the verbal assurances of Rear phibious resources in prospect for any Adm. Charles M. Cooke, Jr. (Assistant such operation dangerously low, as the Chief of Staff to Commander in Chief planners were to learn by bitter experiU.S. Fleet), that the needs of any pos- ence in the ensuing year. Nevertheless, sible cross-Channel assault would be neither Army nor Navy officials were met. 18 willing to reappraise production schedAllocations made at Casablanca and ules in the spring of 1943. When in afterward were obviously motivated both March the British asked that the United by the determination of the Navy to States re-examine the possibility of incut back production of larger landing creasing production of LST's and LCT's craft, and by the American suspicion to ensure adequate provision for a crossthat British proposals for long-range al- Channel invasion in 1944, the request locations for a cross-Channel invasion aroused suspicion that the British were represented an attempt to amass landing merely trying to use the shortage of landcraft in the British Isles for an operation ing craft as a pretext to avoid launching that, at best, could only be executed in an invasion at all. The Americans counthe distant futureand at the expense of tered by proposing that the British take operations elsewhere, particularly in the stock of their own resources in barges and other miscellaneous craft to be used in the follow-up. Reflecting the prevailLeighton and Coakley, Global Logistics, 1940ing aversion to a new accelerated pro43, pp. 682-86.
18
23
Tactical schemes of maneuver that would permit detailed specifications of requirements were lacking in spring 1943 for anything beyond immediate operations. Without them the planners could only speculate, and all too frequently disagree. The problem was as acute in relation to the peculiarly American sphere in the Pacific as it was to Anglo-American planning for the assault on Fortress Europe. The prospective needs for the Pacific war were but dimly foreseen in spring 1943, and allocations made to the Pacific at that time seem to have been based on an appraisal of general rather than of specific needs. The role of the combat loader as a vessel especially adapted to transporting troops over the long distances involved in Pacific island warfare, and the consequent need for many more of them in the Pacific, was hardly recognizedthe combat loader program was kept small with a
20 JCS 311, 15 May 43, rpt by JWPC, title: Mobility and Utilization of Amphibious Assault Craft.
19
24
low priority. Almost entirely unforeseen upon by the naval staffs should then be was the successful use of the amphibian processed formally through the Munitractor (LVT) in crossing coral reefs tions Assignment Committee (Navy) at Tarawa and in later Pacific opera- and the Munitions Assignments Board. tions. Requirements for both the LVT This procedure left the Navy still in 21 and the amphibian truck (DUKW) effective control. were seriously underestimated. In one brief spurt of industrial effort, Because of these unknowns, and be- then, the United States in 1942 and early cause the Americans wanted to preserve 1943 had created a fund of landing craft their freedom of action in production that hopefully would be enough in planning and in the Pacific war gener- combination with the products of a ally, the JCS did not, either at Casa- much smaller continuing program and blanca or in the weeks following, present the modest combat loader programto to the British any justification for their carry out whatever amphibious operaPacific allocations in terms of specific tions might be decided on during the scheduled operations. As these Pacific next two years. During the winter of allocations had been developed to begin 1942-43 and into the spring of 1943, with in the context of a ROUNDUP- for reasons that seemed compelling at centered strategy, they understandably the time, the JCS postponed really funaroused British suspicions that the Amer- damental decisions on the future proicans were sending the bulk of their am- duction and use of assault shipping. Straphibious equipment to the Pacific for tegic plans were unsettled, and even the operations that had been jointly agreed Casablanca Conference failed to produce should be secondary to the war against firm agreements on sequence or timing, Germany. Yet the U.S. Navy was not and in some cases even choice, of specific ready to discuss allocations in these operations in 1943-44. Amphibious
broader terms, and in the weeks after technology and doctrine were changing
connection with the final allocations for 1943, the JCS secured the agreement of their British colleagues that in the future allocations would be handled by agreement between the naval staffs of the two countries and not by the Combined Staff Planners, who had previous-
for the fixed premises on which any detailed staff planning must be based. Mutual distrust between British and American staffs further complicated the issues. Finally, U.S. Navy officials had an almost obsessive aversion to large increases
in the landing craft production program. These circumstances were to complicate immensely strategic-logistical planning
21 (1) CPS 42/8, 5 Apr 43, title: Transportation of Ldg Cft. (2) CCS 105/4, 9 Apr 43, same title. (3) Min, 80th mtg CCS, 16 Apr 43. (4) On the assignments machinery, see Leighton and Coakley, Global Logistics, 1940-43, pp. 270-94; and below, Chapter XXV.
ly been wrestling with them, or by the machinery of the Munitions Assignments Board, which handled the allocation and assignment of other items. A protest by Army Service Forces representatives against this procedure was met
by providing that allocations decided
LOGISTICS AND STRATEGY, SPRING 1943 for the great amphibious operations of 1943 and 1944.
Divergent Strategies
The British and American positions on allocation of scarce assault shipping reflected a long-enduring divergence in strategic outlook. In spring of 1943 these differences, reduced to their simplest terms, centered in the division of effort and resources, worldwide between the two spheres (or hemispheres) of the global war and, in Europe, between the Mediterranean front and preparations for a cross-Channel assault. The Americans wanted to place more emphasis on the war against Japan and to allocate a larger proportion of Allied resources to it; in Europe they insisted that preparations for a cross-Channel invasion should go full speed ahead at the expense of further operations in the Mediterranean once the conquest of Sicily was accomplished. The British, interpreting the primacy of the war against Germany more literally, seemed willing to postpone major offensives against Japan until after Germany's defeat. In Europe they were determined to make the main effort in 1943 in the Mediterranean, profiting from the momentum of the expected victory in Sicily. If this much can be stated positively with regard to national strategies for 1943, the British position on an invasion across the English Channel in 1944 cannot be determined with the same degree of certitude. The theory that the British actually espoused what many American writers have described as a "peripheral" strategythat is, one southward oriented in which the Mediterranean campaign would be continued into 1944 as the
25
main effort in Europe and a cross-Channel operation would be carried out, if at all, only as a coup de grce after Germany had been drained of her strength is one that has been developed and sustained largely in American memoirs and other accounts published during and since the war. It reflects also the strong convictions of many, perhaps most, American military strategists and officials at the time, including so distinguished a figure as Secretary of War Stimson. British publications on the war, while not supporting this view, have not conclusively refuted it, eitherin part, at least, because British strategists and their interpreters, starting from the premise that the Mediterranean had a legitimate and useful role to play in the European war, have candidly argued the case for Mediterranean operations on its merits, thus providing ammunition for those predisposed to believe that any defense of a Mediterranean strategy must ipso facto betray a Mediterranean orientation of European strategy. It is also worth noting that British official historians, with access to the records, have not (unlike their American counterparts) revealed in their published accounts the processes of debate and compromise through which agreed British positions were arrived at. Since American historians do not have access to British staff records, they cannot know what British positions on strategy actually were or whether they were, in fact, something other than what responsible British spokesmen represented them to be.22
22 For a "revisionist" interpretation of British European strategy, see Richard M. Leighton, "OVERLORD Revisited: An Interpretation of American Strategy in the European War 1942-1944," American Historical Review, LXVIII, 4 (1963), 919-937.
26
clear enough. As put to the Americans in the spring of 1943, the official British position stressed the importance of retaining the initiative and moving ahead in the Mediterranean during 1943 in order to sap German strength in prepa-
ration for a cross-Channel invasion by then irrevocably deferred to 1944. Among the British leaders and staffs there was, of course, considerable divergence of opinion as to how much could be accomplished in the Mediterranean and when the invasion of France should be launched. It is reasonable to assume that many hoped, and some expected, that vigorous prosecution of the Mediterranean campaign through 1943, the effects of blockade and bombardment, and the drain of the war in the Soviet Union would bring about a German collapse, or would open up a southern avenue of advance less costly than a frontal assault from the northwest. Entertaining these hopes and expectations, the British were unmistakably reluctant as yet to set a firm target date for the cross-Channel invasion. They believed, however, that in the meantime preparations for a 1944 invasion should go forward with full vigor and in a priority second only to the urgent needs of current operations in the Mediterranean. British strategy, in short, was candidly
opportunistic both as to time and as to
place, in contrast to the rigid American insistenceas British leaders saw iton immediate and overriding emphasis on preparations for a definitely scheduled, large-scale cross-Channel invasion in spring of 1944. The candid opportunism of the British, together with their emphasis on the difficulties and risks of any cross-Chan-
LOGISTICS AND STRATEGY, SPRING 1943 and with limited commitment of re23 sources.
In approaching these major issues,
27
particularly that of a Pacific strategy, the British were at a serious disadvantage. The relative abundance of resources in prospect was largely American abundance. The British war effort was
already approaching its peak in early
1943, and was incapable of much expansion. The American economy was just
beginning to show its full potential. The
ticipation in the formulation of plans for U.S. industrial production.24 British members kept their places on the Munitions Assignments Board, which was responsible for the country-by-country allocation of American munitions, but their voice in these allocations was restricted in a number of ways. One method of restriction was the growing tendency of the Americans to make allocations on a national service level, excluding the
British from participation in the detailed calculations of requirements and availa-
British, by virtue of their earlier entry into the war, their greater experience, and their participation in the arrangements for handling lend-lease, had won for themselves a place in the planning of the American production effort and
the disposition of its products. In a num-
bility. A second way was through the principle introduced in late 1942 and effectively used in the landing craft controversythat allocations of matriel should be made only for specific operations approved by the CCS. This gave the U.S. Chiefs an effective lever of control over the pursuit of any independent
British strategic design even in theaters
over which the British Chiefs exercised tankswhile assuming they would con- strategic responsibility.25 tinue to participate in shaping American The British suffered the greatest disproduction and allocation plans. In re- advantage in matters concerning the war turn the British could and did offer in the Pacific. Strategic responsibility for bases, troopships, various supplies and Pacific areas was assigned to the U.S. services and, above all, military forces Joint Chiefs of Staff, and the Pacific war, larger and better equipped than they by and large, was sustained by U.S. recould otherwise have been, for use in sources. The contributions of Australia and New Zealand were appreciable, but the common cause. Yet the very nature of these arrange- these dominions naturally tended to ments weakened the British position in share American rather than British views combined councils. As American strength on the war against Japan. The British grew, Americans began to chafe under had no "Pacific" of their own. Even in
the real or fancied influence of the British in shaping strategy, production plans, and allocation of matriel. An important step was taken in the fall of 1942 when the Americans announced their intentheaters formally within their strategic jurisdictionthe Middle East, India, and
tion of excluding the British from parArthur Bryant, The Turn of the Tide (New York: Doubleday & Company, Inc., 1957), pp. 492-93.
23
28
The only real influence the British could exert on the scale of American effort in the Pacific was in developing general formulas for worldwide distribution of resources, a function reserved to the CCS and the heads of state. Disagreement at those levels tended to focus on the wording of formally agreed statements of policy and principle, and did not involve the kind of detailed analysis of operational requirements that attended deliberations on strategy in Europe and southeast Asia. Lacking an effective bargaining lever, the British usually approached discussions of the Pacific gingerly and by indirection. Their strong feeling in spring of 1943 that American allocations to the Pacific of critical resources needed for the war in Europe jeopardized what they regarded as the essential strategy for an early defeat of Germany, did, in fact, generate one of the very few really sharp, though still generalized, debates of the war period on the question of the relative scale of American support for the two major sectors of the global war.26 By contrast, this underlying difference came to focus both sharply and frequently in discussions of operations in southeast Asia where the British exercised primary strategic responsibility. They considered the American scheme for an early invasion of Burma as not logistically feasible and of a piece with the demand for a premature invasion of northwestern Europe. The issue of global strategy was joined in April 1943 when the Joint Chiefs attempted to pin the British down to a formula that would ensure a more generous allotment of Allied resources to
26
the Casablanca decisions on the conduct of the war in 1943, the JCS proposed that operations in the Pacific and the Far East be on a scale sufficient not merely to "maintain" (the word used at Casablanca) but also to "extend" unremitting pressure against Japan. With the formula, the JCS submitted a suggested list of priorities to govern the allotment of resources for operations in Europe and in the Far Eastsignificantly omitting the Pacific theaters, and thus serving notice of an intention to keep their prerogatives unfettered in those areas. First, second, and third priority were given to operations in Tunisia, Sicily, and the Combined Bomber Offensive, respectively; fourth priority went to the invasion of Burma and fifth to the build-up for a cross-Channel invasion
(BOLERO). 27
The British protested that the statement was a revision, not a clarification, of the Casablanca decisions. They charged that the new formula"maintain and extend unremitting pressure" was tantamount to giving "pride of place" to the Pacific war, and that the effect of relegating BOLERO to the lowest priority, together with the new definition of the scale of effort against Japan, might be to starve the build-up in the British Isles and so make a cross-Channel operation in 1944 impossible. The British levelled their strongest protest, however, at the implied exclusion of all further action in the Mediterranean
CCS 199, 19 Apr 43, title: Survey of Present Strategic Situation (Clarification of Casablanca Decisions).
27
29
after HUSKY, reminding the Americans In March Lt. Gen. Sir Frederick Morof the Casablanca agreement that efforts gan had been appointed Chief of Staff would be made to eliminate Italy and to to the Supreme Allied Commander create a situation favorable to Turkey's (Designate) (COSSAC), charged with intervention.28 Full debate on these planning a cross-Channel operation, and issues was postponed until the TRIDENT he had begun forming a combined staff Conference in May 1943. for the purpose. Late in April the BritMeanwhile, the exchange served to ish proposed that the CCS directive to emphasize a fact already evident in the General Morgan be revised. The revicourse of the landing craft controversy: sion would have suspended all planning the existence of a certain anomaly in for cross-Channel operations in 1943 the American and British positions with other than that for feeler raids, and respect to preparation in 1943 for a cross- would have left the main operation withChannel operation in 1944. The Ameri- out a target date except a vague "in cans, supposed champions of the opera- 1944." The JCS in reply insisted that tion, were reluctant to commit themselves the emergency return to the Continent definitely to a large-scale build-up; while be retained on the agenda, and only the British, supposedly hostile or luke- reluctantly agreed to abandon a prelimwarm toward it, pressed the Americans inary bridgehead operation. On the quesfor a commitment. One need not seek tion of timing, they grudgingly accepted far for an explanationit can be found a compromise phrase: "in 1944 as early in the twin pressures on American re- as possible."30 sources created by British plans for furThese developments nourished the ther advances in the Mediterranean and suspicion among the American staffs demands generated within the U.S. staffs that the real aim of the British in pressto speed up the Pacific war. The require- ing for acceleration of the invasion buildments for the Sicily operation absorbed up in the United Kingdom was to proall resources the Americans felt could be vide a pool of resources that could be committed to the war in Europe without used to support operations in the Mediunduly depriving the Pacific.29 terranean, while the cross-Channel invaMeanwhile, new indications of far- sion for which it was ostensibly intended reaching British aims in the Mediter- would be postponed to the Greek karanean and of a lukewarm attitude to- lends. This suspicion strengthened the ward a cross-Channel invasion were argument, of which Admiral King was emerging. Early in April Prime Minister the most forthright exponent, that these Churchill, in an exuberant message to President Roosevelt, confided his hopes (1) CCS 169/S/D, 23 April 43, title: Organizathat the conquest of Sicily would open tion of Comd, Control, Plng and Trng for Crossup manifold opportunities for profitable Channel Opns, (2) Msg, Prime Minister to President, 6 Apr 43, OPD 381 Security, II. (3) Harrison, action throughout the Mediterranean. circa Cross-Channel Attack, pp. 48-49. (4) L. M. Guyer,
30
(1) CCS 199/1, 23 Apr 43, title: Survey of Present Strategic Situation. (2) Min, 81st mtg CCS, 23 Apr 43. 29 See below, ch. II.
28
Section III: The War Against Germany and Its Satellites, ch. VIII, Part A, pp. 147-53, Part B, pp. 109-208, in History of the Joint Chiefs of Staff in World War II, MS, JCS Historical Sec (hereafter cited as Guyer, The War Against Germany, History JCS).
30
resources might better be sent to the Pacific. On the other hand, the continued reluctance to commit resources definitely to Europe raised questions in British minds as to American willingness to strive wholeheartedly for the common cause in that theater on any but American terms; it also provided justification to the British for their own unwillingness at this stage to accept a fixed date and a fixed scale for an invasion that might prove to be either unnecessary or infeasibleor something in between when the time came. The American staffs, while not unanimously or unreservedly enthusiastic about expanding the war against Japan, were united in
rejecting a strategy of pure containment in that war while the issue was being decided in Europe. Such a strategy would not only be unacceptable to the American public, but would offer no useful employment for the growing American battle fleets. The determination of the Americans to prosecute the global war vigorously on both fronts, with a major part of the total effort and resources devoted to the Pacific, by early 1943 had become a fixed and fundamental tenet of U.S. strategy and, in new guises and under new circumstances, would help to perpetuate the constraints that logistics had imposed on strategy during 1942.
CHAPTER II
32
operations would be radically different in concept but not in the size of the force employed. Arrangements for support from the United States, meanwhile, because of their timing, had to be made largely in terms of the initial plan. The timing of HUSKY had been the subject of a spirited debate at Casablanca, culminating in a decision by the combined staffs to set the operation for 25 July, when the moon would give light for an assault from the sea shortly before dawn. This period of the "favorable" moon in July (as then defined) received the grudging sanction of the President and the Prime Minister, but Contrivance, Ingenuity, and a with the stipulation that strenuous efFavorable June Moon forts must be made by "contrivance and The invasion of Sicily, as initially ingenuity" to advance the date to the planned, was to be a two-pronged oper- same period in June.2 ation, with five British divisions landing Achievement of a June date seemed along the eastern and southeastern coasts to depend on two factors: the time reof Sicily, three U.S. divisions along the quired to wind up the campaign in northern and southern coasts at the west- Tunisia, thus freeing forces, material, ern end of the island. Including follow- and launching ports, and the time needup forces in both sectors, up to ten divi- ed to mount the operation. For the most sions with their supporting armor and part, the Allied planning staffs in the services were to land during the first theater arbitrarily assumed that Tuniweek, spaced around some two-thirds of sian operations would end by late April Sicily's total circumference of about 500 or early May, an assumption in which miles. The plan for the widely dispersed they persisted even through the dark landings was dictated by the supposed days of February and early March. They necessity of securing at the outset all the decided, therefore, that one of the best island's main ports and airfields (except ways to accelerate the timetable and Messina, in the northeastern corner, too meet the prescription of a June date far from Allied air and naval bases), in would be to bring into the Mediterranorder to neutralize enemy air power op- ean before D-day a larger proportion of erating from Italian bases and to ensure the assault forces than had been contema rapid build-up and subsequent sup- plated at Casablanca. These forces could port of forces adequate to overpower (Washington, 1965), ch. III. (2) CCS 161, 20 Jan 43, the defenders.1 As finally executed, the memo by Br JPS, title: Opn HUSKY. (3) Richard M.
(1) Lt. Col. Albert N. Garland and Howard McGaw Smyth, Sicily and the Surrender of Italy, UNITED STATES ARMY IN WORLD WAR II
1
the war in Europe, made resumption of the build-up in the British Isles impossible. The build-up for the Combined Bomber Offensive (SICKLE) lagged badly; that for an early invasion of the Continent (BOLERO) came to an almost complete halt. The only really heartening developments in the first four months of 1943 were the fading of the cargo shipping shortage in April and the appearance of a plan for reviving the 1942 scheme for preshipment of equipment to the British Isles for the invasion force that would be required in 1944.
Leighton, "Planning for Sicily," U.S. Naval Institute Proceedings (May, 1962), pp. 90-101. 2 Leighton and Coakley, Global Logistics, 1940-43, p. 673.
33
be trained and equipped in the United tain training appeared to be out of the States or United Kingdom while the question. For lack of escorts, no more fighting was still going on in Tunisia. fast troop convoys were scheduled after Thus, early in February, Lt. Gen. UGF-8 in late April except for the one Dwight D. Eisenhower, commanding carrying the combat-loaded 45th.4 Since Allied forces in North Africa, informed the 82d Airborne Division was scheduled the CCS that he would need an extra to move in UGF-8, the 36th could only division from the United States over be fitted in, if at all, in UGF-7, sailing and above the 45th Infantry and the a month earlier. Working feverishly, the 82d Airborne Divisions, the two already staffs developing convoy schedules mancounted on. He also wanted the extra aged to build up UGF-7 and UGF-8 to division and the 45th to have three weeks some 40,000 troop spaces each, and tenof mountain training, as well as their tatively scheduled UGF-9 (with a potenamphibious training, before sailing for tial capacity of 45,000) to sail about 17 the theater.3 May. UGF-9 was to accommodate the It soon appeared that the primary 82d Airborne in case the 36th displaced obstacle to a June launching date would it from UGF-8.5 be the time required to carry out the While the planners were still wrestling necessary training, and to move these with the convoy problem, the first real reinforcements with their accompanying crisis arose over the movement schedsupplies and the requisite assault ship- ules for assault shipping. Estimates of ping from the United States to the thea- assault shipping requirements for HUSKY ter. Matters were further complicated had been made at Casablanca. (Table 4) by existing limitations on the size and The Navy objected at first to providing frequency of convoys, the shortage of the combat loaders (most of them to be both cargo and personnel shipping, and used to carry the reinforced 45th Infana concomitant increase in requirements try Division from the United States to for troops and supplies to conclude the North Africa and then onto the assault Tunisia Campaign. area) believing it would require diverThe 45th Division presented no par- sions from the Pacific, but the necessary ticular problem. It was scheduled to sail vessels were found in the Atlantic and late in its own amphibious transport, Convoys to the Mediterranean from the United and could probably work in the mounStates were designated UG convoys, with the added tain training and still arrive in the thea- letter "F" to identify "fast" or troop convoys, or ter in time to participate in final rehear- "S" to identify "slow" convoys composed of cargo sals for a June D-day. But training and ships. They were then numbered in sequence. Thus UGF-8 designated a fast troop convoy, UGS-8 a shipping of the additional division with- slow convoy composed of freighters. A similar sysin the time specified raised seemingly tem for identifying convoys from the United Kinginsurmountable problems. The 36th In- dom to the Mediterranean used the designations KMF and KMS. fantry Division, which had already re(1) Msg 2231, Marshall to Eisenhower (eyes only), ceived some amphibious training, was 4 Feb 43, with related corresp, OPD Exec 3, Items chosen for the task, but to give it moun- 1-b and 12. (2) Memo, Maj Gen Thomas T. Handy
4
5
Msg 8885, Eisenhower to Marshall (eyes only), 4 Feb 43, OPD Exec 3, Item 1-b.
Plng Div ASF. (3) Diary of a Certain Plan, 18, 20, 21 Feb 43 entries, Plng Div ASF.
34
Equivalent to U.S. APA's. Source: CCS 161, 20 Jan 43, memo by Br JPS, title: Operation HUSKY.
assigned to HUSKY. The allotment in- als another four. Moreover, ships and cluded 8 old XAP's that had survived craft arriving in the theater always TORCH, 9 APA's, and 6 AKA's; also, needed repair and refitting. The launching date, Eisenhower asserted, could be 68 LST's, 90 LCI (L)'s, and 100 LCT's were assigned to mount the American no earlier than mid-July, and he stubportion of the operationall together bornly maintained this position in the somewhat more than the U.S. quota in face of vehement protests from Churchill and suggestions that training and rethe original plan. 7 The critical problem, as far as a June hearsals be telescoped. General Marshall supported Eisendate was concerned, was not the supply of craft but the timing of their move- hower: "A landing against organized and ment. The Navy's movement schedules, highly trained opposition," he argued, announced in early February, provided "is probably the most difficult underthat only 16 LST's would reach the thea- taking which military forces are called 8 ter by early April; the rest of the landing on to face." He thought the risks of craft would not arrive until late April skimping on training and rehearsals or early May.6 Determined to avoid the would far outweigh any possible gains expedients and improvisations that had to be expected from launching the attack marked the North African landings, in June. Admiral William D. Leahy, Eisenhower told the CCS on 11 February personal Chief of Staff to the President, that this belated movement would make and Admiral King felt that a June date it impossible to launch HUSKY in June. was at least worth shooting for. Under Amphibious training required six weeks; pressure from Roosevelt, prompted by redeployment, loading, and final rehears- a personal appeal from Churchill, the
(1) Memo, COMINCH for CofS, USA, 5 Feb 43, sub: APA, XAP and Ldg Cft for HUSKY, OPD Exec 3, Item 1-a, Case 7. (2) Other corresp on these arrangements in OPD Exec 3, Items 1-a and 12. (3) LST's and LCI(L)'s moved to the theater under their own power. Each LST carried an LCT piggy-back; other LCT's were shipped as deck loads; some were already in the theater.
6 7 (1) Msg NAF 144 (No. 325), Eisenhower to CCS, 11 Feb 43. (2) Msg 1400, Eisenhower to Marshall, 17 Feb 43. Both in OPD Exec 3, Item 1-b. (3) Winston S. Churchill, The Hinge of Fate (Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company, 1950), pp. 723-27. (4) CCS 177/1, 16 Feb 43, title: Date for Commencing Agreed Opns. 8 Memo, CofS USA for JCS, 17 Feb 43, sub: Date for Proposed Operation, OPD Exec 3, Item 1-b.
35
misgivings. To provide the transports would require sacrifice of troop movements to other theaters. Only one fast U.S. transport of the six not already scheduled on the North African run was uncommitted. Troop movements to the Pacific were behind schedule and Admiamounted to an ultimatum of his own: ral King adamantly refused to divert the If HUSKY were to be launched in June, two transports engaged in that service. he asserted, all his current and prospec- President Roosevelt would almost certive force requirements, other than the tainly frown on any diversion of transcombat-loaded 45th Division, must some- ports from the movement of service how be crowded into the two troop troops to the Persian Gulf for developconvoys, UGF-7 and UGF-8, then sched- ment of the supply line to the USSR. uled for March and April, respectively. On the other hand, the British were The list included the 36th Infantry and willing to make available some of their 82d Airborne Divisions, supporting arms large transports engaged in ferrying U.S. and services, line of communications and Canadian troops across the Atlantic, troops, additional Navy and Army Air in return for American help in moving Forces personnel, replacements for the British troops to the Middle East and current fighting in Tunisia, and more American acquiescence to shifting the replacements for the coming battles in Queen Mary back to the Atlantic from both Tunisia and Sicilysomething like her current assignment on the run around the Cape of Good Hope to India. 120,000 men in all.10 Even though the total number of Tentative arrangements were worked troops was 38,000 more than the two out along these lines, placing most of fast convoys, expanded to maximum safe the burden of moving Eisenhower's adcapacity, could carry, there was no dis- ditional 38,000 troops on three British position in Washington either to deny transports (Andes, Empress of Scotland, Eisenhower the troops he requested or and Pasteur); U.S. vessels released after to abandon hopes for a June D-day. In arrival of UGF-7 would move about the atmosphere of urgency created by 10,000 British troops as far as Capetown the German break-through at Kasserine on the Middle East run, thus sacrificing Pass, the CCS wrestled with the problem a good part of the tardy UGF-9, which for some two weeks. The only real solu- was to have been made up of returning 11 tion appeared to be to move the 38,000 UGF-7 transports. troops in fast transports sailing without (1) CCS 182, 25 Feb 43, memo by CofS USA, title: escorts, an expedient that Admiral King Increase in Size of UG Convoys. (2) CCS 182/1, 26 was prepared to sanction, but with some Feb 43, comments by COMINCH, same title. (3) Min,
11
CCS on 19 February notified Eisenhower that a final decision would be postponed until 10 April, but that he must in the meantime work "with greatest vigor" to achieve a target date during the favorable moon period in June.9 Eisenhower responded with what
(1) Msg FAN 98 (No. 2574), CCS to Eisenhower, 19 Feb 43. (2) Msg 857, Eisenhower to Marshall, 14 Feb 43. Both in OPD Exec 3, Item 1-b. (3) Min, 72d mtg CCS, 19 Feb 43. 10 Msg 2387, Algiers to AGWAR, 22 Feb 43, OPD Exec 3, Item 13.
73d mtg CCS, 26 Feb 43. (4) Msg 2927, Marshall to Eisenhower, 26 Feb 43, OPD Exec 3, Item 12. (5) Diary of a Certain Plan, 27 Feb 43, Plng Div ASF. (6) Memo, Maj Gen Charles P. Gross for Lt Gen Brehon B. Somervell, 27 Feb 43, sub: Increase in Troop Lift to N Africa, OPD Exec 8, Book 7. (7) The Mariposa was later substituted for the Pasteur.
36
GLOBAL LOGISTICS AND STRATEGY: 1943-1945 10,000 British troops on the first leg of their transfer from England to India, and to send two British transports, Aquitania and Mauretania, with U.S. troops to the same theater. The general feeling among the Combined Chiefs seemed to be that the sacrifices to BOLEROSICKLE involved in an accelerated buildup could be accepted if HUSKY could somehow be launched in June.12 Yet, by 5 March a June date was probably already impossible. Movement
schedules had undergone various practical modifications at the working levels during the course of the CCS discussion, and by the time the decision was handed down they provided for the bulk of the movement to be spaced over the last half of April and the first half of May,
Under these arrangements, the cost in reduced or abandoned troop movements to other theaters could either be distributed fairly equally between deployment programs to India and the British Isles, or be charged wholly to the latter.
Neither option held much attraction for
the U.S. Joint Chiefs, who, even though committed to HUSKY, considered vigorous prosecution of the war in ChinaBurma-India and northwest Europe
more important than any action in the Mediterranean. Of the alternatives, however, they were inevitably impelled toward the second by the President's avowed interest in accelerating the buildup of U.S. air power in China and their anxiety to avoid giving the British any excuse to slacken their own effort in
Burma. The CCS had to decide, then, whether a gain of four weeks or less in the movement of 38,000 troops to North Africa would warrant further delay in the already lagging BOLERO-SICKLE build-
a period extending a full three weeks past the sailing date of UGF-8, supposedly the last regular troop convoy for HUSKY. Whether these arrangements would meet the timetable for a June up. Lt. Gen. Henry H. Arnold, Com- assault was very doubtful; the Chiefs of manding General, Army Air Forces, and Staff, however, appear not to have been
apprised of any apprehensions, and the implications of the working schedule may well not have been fully appreciated 13 at that level. Meanwhile, the arrangements taking shape for supporting cargo shipments also seemed difficult to reconcile with a June target date. And by mid-March the mounting cargo shipping crisis, precipitated by the German U-boat campaign in the Atlantic and British demands for their import program, overshadowed all
12 (1) CCS 182/2, 3 Mar 43, title: Increase in Size of UG Convoys. (2) Min, 74th mtg CCS (Suppl), 5 Mar 43, with apps. A, B. (3) Msg 3340, Marshall to Eisenhower, 5 Mar 43, OPD Exec 3, Item 12. 13 (1) Memo, Gross for Somervell, 27 Feb 43, sub: Increase in Troop Lift for N Africa, OPD Exec 8, Book 7. (2) CCS 182/2, 3 Mar 43.
his Chief of Air Staff, Maj. Gen. George E. Stratemeyer, argued heatedly against a cut in BOLERO, pointing out the consequent delays in mounting the Combined Bomber Offensive. The members of the Joint Strategic Survey Committee (JSSC), who had opposed HUSKY from the beginning, urged that the operation should be definitely and finally postponed until July. In the end the Combined Chiefs overruled them, partly as a result of a British agreement to accept a delay in the movement of Canadian ground troops to England so as to provide shipping for some of the needed AAF personnel. This proviso was written into a CCS decision of 5 March, along with directions to use U.S. shipping to move
37
other questions and threatened the exe- facilities from Casablanca and Oran eastward were still poor. The theater wanted cution of HUSKY on any date. The escalation of the demand for sup- as many shipments as possible to come plies in North Africa had already forced to the eastern portsAlgiers, Philippethe Navy to insert an additional slow ville, Bougie, and Bnewhence HUSKY UGS convoy into the regular 25-day cycle would be mounted, but the capacity of in both February and March. Eisen- those ports was limited, and shipments hower's request on 22 February for accel- to them added 1,400 nautical miles to erated troop movements generated a re- the round trip. Whether the theater quirement for 38 more cargo ships to be could absorb shipments any faster, whatcrammed into the HUSKY schedulepre- ever the implications for a June date,
sumably during the same period as the troop movements. At Admiral King's behest and following earlier precedents, it was decided to send the 38 ships as a separate convoy, UGS7, instead of enlarging the regular slow convoys. Then, early in March, at the theater's request, the Navy extended the whole schedule into May by adding another convoy, UGS-8, to sail in the middle of that month. The cargo build-up schedule now comprised four slow convoys, UGS-7 (29 March) through UGS8 (13 May), running at 15-day intervals with about 145 ships distributed more or less equally among them.14
was a serious question. 1 5 Finding ships seemed a matter of far greater moment during March than the limits on port capacity. With the rumblings of the British demand for shipping in the background, on 5 March the War Shipping Administration somewhat apprehensively promised to furnish 149 vessels against Eisenhower's requirement for 145. Eisenhower immediately demanded 30 more cargo ships to sail in UGS-8 and UGS-8. Without them, he warned, he would have to reduce maintenance allowances and cased gasoline to dangerously low levels, eliminate all shipments of backlogged equipment for units already in the theater, and cut equipment of units still to come. The total requirement for the four build-up convoys now stood at about 175 ships. Eisenhower's new demand arrived just as the long-simmering March cargo shipping crisis came to a boil. With the
The theater's motive in extending shipments on into May appears to have been a desire to avoid congestion in its own ports and line of communications. Though the aggregate capacity of North
African portsCasablanca, Oran, Algiers, and smaller ports in the vicinity of each of themwas ample, inland clearance
(1) CCS 182, 25 Feb 43. (2) CCS 182/1, 26 Feb 43. (3) Msg 2927, Marshall to Eisenhower, 26 Feb 43. (4) Msg 3328, 3 Mar 43. (3) and (4) in OPD Exec 3, Item 12. (5) Msg 3641, Algiers to AGWAR, 1 Mar 43, OPD Exec 3, Item 13. (6) Diary of a Certain Plan, 27 Feb, 2 Mar 43. (7) Memo, Gross for Somervell, 5 Mar 43, sub: UGS Convoys. (6) and (7) in Planning Div ASF. (8) Min, Conf, Douglas with Gross, 1 Mar 43, Folder Army Reqmts, WSA Douglas File. (9) Leighton and Coakley, Global Logistics, 1940-43, p. 472.
14
larger issue of military versus war economy requirements about to be joined in Washington and the fate of HUSKY itself in doubt, meeting the demand seemed not only impossible but unimportant.
15
toApr 43, with related papers in WSA Douglas File, NAfrica. (2) Memo, Col G. C. Stewart, CofT, NATOUSA, for DComdr, NATOUSA, 14 Mar 43, sub: Allocation of Convoys . . . , folder Shpg, III, Tab 45, Plng Div ASF.
38
For the present, the theater was told, it would have to get along with no more than 149 ships. Meanwhile, in its general reappraisal of strategy at the time, the U.S. Joint Strategic Survey Committee recommended, among other things, that the attack on Sicily be delayed, modified, or even canceled.16 While the broader issue was being fought out on the higher levels, the dayto-day struggle to find ships for all the convoys continued. Meeting the North
tional distance warranted. Accordingly, schedules were revised to provide for only 15 cargo ships for the eastern ports in each of the four convoys and for landing at least half of the 1.5 million measurement tons of cargo destined for the HUSKY build-up at Casablanca, Oran, and their satellites, even though it would eventually have to be transshipped to eastern Algeria and Tunisia.17 By this and other expedients, from the middle of March onward ends and African theater's growing appetite for means drew closer together, and the shipping would depend, as Lewis Doug- shipping crisis gradually dissolved. By las told Maj. Gen. Charles P. Gross, the 29th, Douglas was able to assure Army Chief of Transportation, at the Roosevelt unequivocally that both Britbeginning of March, partly on whether ish import requirements and essential ships came back at the same rate as they military needs could be met, even though went over. During March, for various the Army might not get the full number reasonsand apart from the toll levied of ships it wanted. On the basis of this by enemy submarinesthey seemed not assurance, the President ordered WSA to be doing so. For lack of drydocks and to make available to the British the shipother facilities, they were being held for ping requested. 1 8 As Douglas had weeks or months in the theater awaiting warned, for a while the situation was repairs. Many ships, arriving in North "very, very tight." UGS-7 sailed on 1 Africa with heavy bottom cargo instead April, a little late, with only 34 cargo of ballast, had to call at several ports ships instead of the 45 planned (3 were after their cargoes had been discharged lost in crossing), and the departure of to pick up phosphates, iron ore, manga- UGS-7, on the 14th with only 36 ships nese, or whatever else they could find left a requirement of 79 for UGS-8 and for return ballast. Ships loaded with coal UGS-8, if the mid-March goal of 149
as bottom cargo could unload it only at
Oran and a few other places. The frequent use of incoming UGS ships, after discharge, to transship cargoes to eastern ports sometimes delayed their return by as much as six weeks. All figures indicated that the turnaround time to the eastern ports was longer than the addi16 (1) See above, ch. I, and Leighton and Coakley, Global Logistics, 1940-43, pp. 690-702. (2) Msg 3339, Marshall to Eisenhower, 5 Mar 43, OPD Exec 3, Item 12. (3) Msg 6164, Algiers to AGWAR, 12 Mar 43. (4) Msg 7715, 19 Mar 43. Last two in OPD Exec 3, Item 13.
reasonably clear that the necessary cargo shipping could be made available to meet the theater's full demands, if the convoys would accommodate the ships,
(1) Msg NAWS 89, Slater to Douglas, 10 Apr 43, with related corresp, WSA Douglas File, N Africa. (2) ASF Monthly Progress Rpt, sec. 3, Transportation, 30 Apr 43. (3) Msg 3466, Marshall to Eisenhower, 7 Mar 43, OPD Exec 3, Item 12. 18 See above, ch. I, and Leighton and Coakley, Global Logistics, 1940-43, pp. 698-700, for full treatment.
17
HUSKY AND BOLERO though the schedule could hardly be geared to a June D-day for HUSKY.19 Meanwhile, the problem of HUSKY'S launching date had been resolved in an unexpected manner. About the middle of March the theater planning staffs came around to the view that a "favorable" moon phase would be governed mainly by the character of the supporting airborne assault, not the seaborne landing. The airborne assault would require moonlight at the time of the drop and for about four hours thereafter in order to develop the attack. The seaborne assault, on the other hand, should be made in darkness about two hours before dawn. Favorable conditions for the airdrop would occur, in June and July, about the 10th rather than the 25th of the month. So early a date in June being already impossible, resistance to a July date forthwith evaporated. As Churchill observed with pleased surprise, it meant a delay of only a fortnight, not a month. On 13 April, after lengthy correspondence and discussion, the CCS finally approved an early July launching date for HUSKYan empty gesture since the relentless, impersonal course of administration had long since taken the decision out of their hands.20
39
dispersed forces an enemy holding the advantage of interior lines. In midMarch General Sir Harold R. L. G. Alexander, Eisenhower's British deputy in command of Allied ground forces, decided that the British landings on Sicily's east coast must be strengthened by one more full division to insure early capture of Syracuse and Augusta. To avoid having to sideslip the whole lineup along the southeastern coast, he asked for additional assault lift to mount the extra division, which was available in the Middle East. Almost simultaneously,
Eisenhower's American commanders decided that they would need another armored command for their sector together with assault shipping to mount it. The full demand in assault lift for both
British and American forces seemed to amount to almost two more reinforced divisionsabout a 25 percent increase over that already allotted.21 The British were all for giving Eisenhower his additional lift provided the Americans could supply it. In Washington, councils were divided, and there were doubts whether the additional lift was really needed. The requirements were scaled down markedly in the course of a lengthy exchange with the theater. By the end of March the Washington staffs could finally discern from the cables that the equivalent of one combat team lift asked for would be saved in
(1) Msg NAF 182, Eisenhower to CCS, 20 Mar 43. (2) Garland and Smyth, Sicily and the Surrender of Italy, ch. III. (3) Field Marshal the Viscount Alexander of Tunis, Despatch, 9 October 1946, published as "The Conquest of Sicily from 10th July 1943 to
21
17th August 1943," in the Supplement to the London Gazette of Thursday, February 12, 1948 (cited hereafter as Alexander Despatch), pp. 1-2. (4) Msg 7645, Algiers to AGWAR, 19 Mar 43; Msg 6683, 15 Mar 43; both in OPD Exec 3, Item 13.
40
the total lift by a corresponding shrinkage in other formations. By slashing allowances for training and in-transit losses, by increasing the rated capacities of combat loaders, LST's, and LCT's, and by adding 10 LST's to the allotment, they were able, at least on paper, virtually to wipe out the vehicle lift deficit and to reduce the personnel lift
deficit to approximately one regimental
combat team. To absorb the latter deficit, the Navy agreed to set up a special convoy of 3 APA's, 3 XAP's, and 2 AKA's 22 to sail about 10 May. Washington informed General Eisenhower of these decisions in mid-April, adding that if any more assault shipping were needed the British would have to
the air and naval commanders, Montgomery had his way, and on 2 May 1943 Eisenhower scrapped the plan for a twopronged attack in favor of more concentrated landings on the southeastern and eastern coasts of Sicily. The CCS approved the new plan on 12 May.25 provide it. As it happened, the British In its final form the HUSKY plan prohad already decided to do just that- vided for landings along some 150 miles making available for HUSKY, at the ex- of the eastern and southeastern coast pense of training and planned amphi- lines, with the U.S. Seventh Army asbious raids on the Atlantic and Channel signed the western sector and the Britcoasts, almost their entire reserve of un- ish Eighth Army the eastern sector. The allotted assault shipping. It included 5 general scheme was to crush resistance small attack transports (LSI (S)'s), in 8 the eastern end of the island and to advance rapidly on Messina, isolating LST's, 49 LCI (L)'s, 6 small support craft (LCS (S)'s), and up to 48 British- enemy forces in the west and preventing 23 built LCT's. (Table 5) their evacuation. Eight divisions, infanThese final allotments of assault ship- try and armored, were to assault abreast, ping fixed the aggregate strength of the supported by predawn airdrops in apSicily landings. Still, the uneasiness of proximately divisional strength. Elethe commanders in the theater over the ments of the U.S. assault forces, equivaplanned dispersion of the landings in- lent to one division, were to be held creased as a result of mounting indica- back in floating reserve, and each army was to maintain a one-division reserve in Africa. In length of front and num(1) Corresp and cables in OPD Exec 3, Items 10ber of assault divisions simultaneously 13. (2) ABC 381 HUSKY (1943) Sec 2. (3) OCT HB
22
Wylie File BIGOT I. (4) Folder, Current Opns, Plng Div ASF. 23 (1) Msg, Brigadier H. Redman to Brig Gen John R. Deane, 14 Apr 43, with related corresp, OPD 560, Security I, Case 28. (2) Bryant, Turn of the Tide,
p. 486. (3) Msg 031647, COMINCH to COMNAVNAW, 12 Apr 43, with related papers, OPD Exec 3, Item 11.
(1) Quoted in Bryant, Turn of the Tide, pp. 543-44. (2) Msgs, NAF 182 and NAF 201, Eisenhower to CCS, 20 Mar and 7 Apr 43, OPD Exec 3, Item 13. (1) Garland and Smyth, Sicily and the Surrender of Italy, ch. III. (2) Msg FAN 121, CCS to Eisenhower, 12 May 43, OPD Exec 3, Item 8.
24 25
41
APA's and 8 small converted transports (XAP's). One of the XAP's that sailed in the 10 May contingent (see p. 00 above) was used as
a headquarters ship, and presumably is included under that heading in the table. The table also includes one more APA than are mentioned in the arrangements discussed on page 40. b Only 16 were large LSI(L)'s. Most British attack transports were converted passenger liners of various sizes. c Some of the attack troop transports carried cargo. d Seventh Army History lists only 74 actually used. e British types. f Both American and British types. Source: CCS 244/1, 25 May 43, Implementation of Assumed Basic Undertakings . . . , app. A to Annex V.
engaged, HUSKY was to be the largest 26 amphibious operation of the war. The plan involved considerable logistical risk. Syracuse and Augusta in the British sector would be the only ports of even moderate capacity through which supplies could be brought in the early stages. The whole U.S. contingent would have to be supplied over the beaches for an indeterminate period. (Map 1) The judgment of the logistical staffs that they could be so supplied rested mostly on the promising but still little-known capabilities of the American-designed and built DUKW's, of which more than a thousand were to be allotted to the operation, some arriving on the very eve of the assault.27
Garland and Smyth, Sicily and the Surrender of Italy, ch. III. 27 (1) Corresp in OPD Exec 3, Items 6, 7, 8, and 9. (2) Diary of a Certain Plan, entries for May, June 1943, Plng Div ASF. (3) H. H. Dunham, U.S. Army Transportation and the Conquest of Sicily, 1943, TC Historical Monograph 13 (hereafter cited as Dunham, Transportation and Sicily), pp. 77-78, MS, OCMH.
26
42
by squeezing still more troops into the special convoy of combat loaders that sailed on 10 May, and by using the fast unescorted transports to their full capacity. The U.S. 36th Infantry Division sailed for the theater in UGF-7 early in April, somewhat less schooled in mountain operations than General Eisenhower desired; the 82d Airborne sailed near the end of the month in UGF-8. On 8 June the combat-loaded 45th and attached units sailed as scheduled in UGF-9. Another troop convoy and added unescorted sailings in June
brought the grand total of HUSKY troop deployment from the United States by the end of the month to about 186,000, and the strength of U.S. forces in the Mediterranean to 520,000120,000 more than contemplated five months earlier at Casablanca.28 (Table 6) Cargo shipping schedules underwent the same sort of escalation. By the end of March the theater, alert to hints that more ships might be available, boosted its requirements. It restored earlier cuts
(1) Strength of the Army Report, STM-30, 1 Jan 48. (2) Corresp, OPD Exec 3, Items 10, 11, 13.
28
43
be shifted to UGS-9, scheduled to sail at the end of May. When UGS-8 acfact, that the Army-Navy Petroleum tually sailed on 14 May, it consisted of Board said they were "out of all rea- 57 cargo ships, 9 tankers, and 11 LST's son."29 By the end of April the allot- the only convoy to exceed the Navy's ment of cargo ships and tankers to 60-vessel limitationand, with the 44 UGS-7 had grown well beyond the freighters that had sailed in UGS-8 on Navy's prescribed limit of 60 vessels. To 28 April, brought the total number of reduce it to anything like manageable cargo ships in the four build-up convoys size, 10 freighters and 3 tankers had to to 168. As a result of setting the HUSKY 29 target date in July, the build-up inDiary of a Certain Plan, 26 Mar 43, Plng Div
ASF.
44
ater on 20 June, two days before the can sector, was that LST's were to be arrival of UGF-9 bringing the combat- tied down in logistical ferrying opera30 loaded 45th Division. With the 47 cargo tions long after the initial assaults. ships of UGS-9, plus 7 more sent in fast UGF convoys, the HUSKY build-up abThe Administrative Achievement sorbed a total of 215 sailings, carrying Despite the difficulties, support for well over 2 million measurement tons of cargo exclusive of bulk gasoline. Most HUSKY from the United States was adeof the theater's requests were filled, even quate by any standards and, in some the bulk of gasoline requirements orig- respects, very probably excessive. The inally labeled "out of all reason." The smoothness with which movements were more than ample supply support for executed, once convoy schedules had HUSKY was one evidence of the fading jelled, was in marked contrast to the cargo shipping shortage, which in March confusion that had characterized the had seemed an insuperable barrier to mounting of TORCH. It gave evidence of a new maturity in the administrative all overseas operations in 1943. The movement of American landing echelons, particularly in Lt. Gen. Brecraft to the theater got slightly ahead hon B. Somervell's Army Service Forces (ASF), which carried the main burden of schedule at the beginning only to fall behind later, the last of the LST's trick- of execution. ling in through May and early June, Until convoy schedules did begin to but they all arrived in time for a July crystallize early in March, however, the operation. Contrary to Washington es- staffs had to relive some of the confusion timates, the assault shipping allotments of TORCH. The Operations Division (OPD) was reluctant to inform either proved something less than generous the Army Service Forces or the Army for landings on the scale of HUSKY. The estimates had taken personnel strength Ground Forces (AGF) of high-level deas the principal yardstick for require- cisions or to provide much other informents, but vehicle capacity proved to mation needed for intelligent logistical be the limiting factor. They had failed planning. ASF had therefore to proceed to make adequate provision for the large during February on the basis of its own displacement of ordinary vehicles that best guesses, largely independent of resulted from loading as many as 400 guidance from above, in anticipating tanks on LST's. As a result, 32 Liberty special requirements for HUSKY and in ships had to be especially fitted to bring assembling supplies and equipment at vehicles, drivers, and cargo ashore in U.S. east coast depots. Somervell's hopes the immediate follow-up. Yet, despite (1) Papers, OPD Exec 3, Items 8, 11, 13. (2) Diary all expedients to increase vehicle lift, of a Certain Plan, entries for April, May 1943, Plng vehicle allotments had to be pared down Div ASF. (3) Joseph Bykofsky and Harold Larson, The Transportation Corps: Operations Overseas, in a manner reminiscent of the cuts UNITED STATES ARMY IN WORLD WAR II made in the North African landings. (Washington, 1957), p. 193. (4) Samuel Eliot Morison, One of the prices that had to be paid "History of United States Naval Operations in World War II," vol. IX, SicilySalernoAnzio, January for the cuts, and for the subsequent 1943June 1944 (Boston: Little, Brown and Comdelay in capturing ports in the Ameri- pany, 1954), 30-32.
30
45
GENERAL SOMERVELL
With convoy schedules firm, the atmosphere of preparations changed almost overnight. Early in March, almost two months before UGF-8 was due to sail with the 82d Airborne, ASF had a complete (though of course still tentative), troop list for all the HUSKY buildup convoys, including the combat-loaded 45th Division. At about the same time the slow cargo convoy schedules began to shape up. The staffs immediately began developing their own schedules for movement of units to staging areas
CsTechSvcs, 2 Mar 43, sub: Reserves of Amphibious Supplies and Equipment, OPD 475 (Equip of Troops), Sec 1, Case 21. (4) Memo, Gen Somervell for Maj Gen LeRoy Lutes, 22 Feb 43, folder, Opns SOS 1942-43, Hq ASF. (5) Robert R. Palmer, Bell I. Wiley, and William R. Keast, The Procurement and Training of Ground Combat Troops, UNITED STATES ARMY IN WORLD WAR II (Washington, 1948), p. 580. (6) Capt. T. P. Govan, Training in Mountain and Winter Warfare, AGF Study No. 23, p. 9, MS, OCMH. (7; Charts, Convoys to N Africa, Stat Sec, Overseas Supply Div, NYPOE.
46
and ports and filling equipment shortages. ASF promptly produced a detailed
forecast matching prospective cargo space set up with its own estimate of the theater's cargo requirements; this forecast became the basis of the transatlantic
debate in March and April over the 32 theater's shipping needs. New York port officers remembered the movement of which UGF-8 was a part as one of the biggest and most smoothly executed operations of their wartime experience. For days troop trains rolled
endlessly into staging areas and through New York City to shipside in carefully planned sequence and on time. Units were up to strength, equipment was in order. Within 24 hours upwards of 80,000 troops filed aboard ship in New York harbor, and early on the morning of 29 April 19 transports carrying almost 60,000 troops headed for the rendezvous point to pick up their escorts for the trip to North Africa.33 Mounting the 45th Division task force posed special problems because, unlike the other forces sent from the United States for HUSKY, it sailed in combat loaders directly (except for a short layover for rehearsals at Oran) to the assault. For this very reason, however, the preparation of the force did not become seriously entangled in the problems of convoy scheduling from which most of the administrative confusion of February stemmed. Its movement, in any
32 (1) Task Force Chronology, 6 and 13 Mar 43. (2) Diary of a Certain Plan, entries for 1 and 2 Mar 43. Both in Planning Div ASF. 33 (1) Interview, Leo J. Meyer, former Troop Movement Officer, NYPOE, with authors, 30 Jul 57. (2) W. Forrest Dawson, ed. and comp., Saga of the All American (Atlanta, Ga.: Albert Love Enterprises, 1946), prepared under auspices of 82d Abn Div Assoc., Inc.
47
instructions as long as three months in advance of the sailing date. The 45th's movement orders came out on 21 April, and had been preceded a week earlier by a basic directive issued by OPD containing a firm list of units of the force and special requirements for equipment and supplies, fixing levels of supply to accompany the force (21 days, and 7 units of fire), and assigning responsibilities. The date for concentration at Camp Pickett was set as on or about 10 May. Unlike the orders for Western Task Force, in which units had been broken down and rearranged by transport loads and subtask groups, the 45th Division movement orders were of the "normal" type, issued for the force as a whole under a single shipment code. By this method movement orders could be sent out six weeks before the sailing date (as against three weeks for Western Task Force), and well before loading plans began to take form. Detailed assignments to ships were made after the force reached the staging area. Also "normal" was the procedure of issuing orders for shipment of bulk supplies at the same time as the troop movement orders, thus giving the technical services ample 36 time to ship them to port. To staff officers who had lived through the chaos of loading the TORCH forces, the loading of the 45th Division was a summer idyll. Planning began in midApril and, though temporarily unhinged
36 (1) Copies of basic directive and movement orders are in History of Mobilization Division, ASF, prepared by Mobilization Div, ASF, vol. 4, sec. 2, MS, OCMH. (2) Maj. W. R. Wheeler, The Road to Victory, A History of Hampton Roads Port of Embarkation in World War II, 2 vols. (Newport News, Va., 1946), I, 85. (3) Dunham, Transportation and Sicily, pp. 51-55. (4) Leighton and Coakley, Global Logistics, 1940-43, pp. 441-42, 646-48.
48
in May, proceeded without serious delay or interruption. Markings on freight shipments to the port were relatively simple all bulk supplies and equipment, for example, were shipped under two codes, one for Newport News, the other for Norfolk and freight movements into the port area were carefully controlled. Inevitable last-minute shipments to the port, some of which had to be flown in to meet the deadline, did complicate loading. The division posted a staff officer at the port to reroute them by truck to the staging area in order to have them checked off the final shortage listsa procedure that would not have been feasible had distances been greater. Loading plans for individual vessels, drawn up by the transport quartermasters, came in too late for the port staff to have bulk supplies on hand to fill unused space in deep tanks and lower holds, with the result that the ships had to sail lightly loaded. Loading itself proceeded smoothly in two installments. One group of vessels was loaded from 25 May to 29 May; the other was loaded from 31 May to 4 June, and included the five AKA's of the assault convoy and the eight Liberty's that were to sail with UGS-10 a few days later. The 21,000 troops of the task force embarked in a single day, and in the early morning of 8 June the transports set sail. It was the last combat-loaded convoy to leave the United States from the Atlantic coast during World War II. 3 7
37
success of HUSKY produced the desired results. Sicily was overrun in a spectacularly successful 39-day campaign in July and August. In the meantime, the commitments of troops, supplies, naval escort, and assault, personnel, and cargo shippingall well above the scales agreed at Casablancalevied heavy costs on the already reduced build-up in the British Isles, delaying the Combined Bomber Offensive and dashing any lingering hopes that Allied forces might seize even a small bridgehead in France in 1943. Events seemed to have conspired to force upon BOLERO-SICKLE all the sacrifices entailed in either shipping shortages or increased demands from theaters where active operations were in progress. The British, convinced that great opportunities were opening up in the Mediterranean, supported demands for Sicily without a murmer. The U.S. Joint Chiefs, much more sceptical about this operation, nevertheless felt compelled to yield to the requests of an American commander. In doing so, they still sought to keep the build-up in Pacific and Far
Eastern areas on schedule, thus leaving
HUSKY absorbed very nearly all the assault shipping then available in the Atlantic. The final British contribution almost wiped out the reserve of landing
(5) Memo, Lutes for Somervell, 5 Jun 43, sub: Weekly Summary Major Current Operations, Lutes File. (6) Chart, Convoys to N Africa, Strategy Sec, Overseas Supply Div, NYPOE. (7) Diary of a Certain Plan, entries during Apr 43, Plng Div ASF.
56-58. (2) Wheeler, Road to Victory, I, 86-88. (3) Maj. M. C. Nicholl, SOP for Future Combat Loaded Movements, copy in Log File, OCMH. (4) Memo, ACofT for Dir NTS, 11 Jun 43, OCT 563.5 Afr 1943.
49
In the uncertain atmosphere of February and March, deployment estimates for the rest of 1943 had to be made without a solid foundation in either a strategic plan for the invasion of western Europe or a realistic appraisal of the shipping situation. General Somervell's estimate at Casablanca that 1,118,000 U.S. troops could be supported in the British Isles by the end of 1943 rested on the expectation that, although cargo shipping would be tight until about midyear, declining losses and mounting construction thereafter, together with savings in turnaround resulting from the hopedfor opening of the Mediterranean, would probably make enough tonnage available in the Atlantic to support any deployment to England for which troop transports and escorts could be found. Somervell's proposed program, which the CCS adopted at Casablanca as a basis for logistical planning, consequently scheduled almost three-fourths of the entire U.S.-to-U.K. troop movement in the last half of the year when cargo shipping was expected to be relatively plentiful. 40 Back in Washington after the conference, Army strategic planners began to have second thoughts. Somervell's program allowed for only 172,000 AAF troops, a figure air planners declared completely inadequate for the full-scale bombing offensive against Germany ordered at Casablanca. It also seemed imperative to amass a balanced force of six American ground divisions in the United Kingdom by midsummer to take advantage of any sudden deterioration of GerWORLD WAR II (Washington, 1953), p. 118. (2) Leighton and Coakley, Global Logistics, 1940-43, pp. 486-87. 40 CCS 172, 22 Jan 43, note by Gen Somervell, title: Shpg Capabilities for BOLERO Build-up.
50
man strength. Working toward these objectives, and virtually ignoring the indicated limitations on shipping, Army planners late in February 1943 produced a new deployment program that envisaged movement of more than 300,000 troops to Great Britain in the second quarter of the year and almost as many in the third quarter. At the end of 1943 the schedule tapered off rapidly to a terminal strength of 989,000 men, almost 130,000 short of the Casablanca goal, partly in recognition of the first-quarter deployment lag, but also reflecting increased commitments to the Pacific. More than one-half of the total forces scheduled to be sent to England in 1943 were to be AAF troops.41 Somervell, who had lowered his sights since Casablanca, bluntly characterized the OPD program as unrealistic. If the expanded and accelerated air force buildup was to be carried out, he told OPD early in March, no large movement of ground troops to England would be possible before midyear, and the total build-up would fall well short of 900,000. Even that could be accomplished, he stated, only by heavy cuts in the volume of American shipping committed to the British Import Program. His estimate for the second quarter of 1943 was that available cargo shipping, supplemented by diversions from the British program, would support the movement of 123,000 American troops to the British Isles in April, May, and June, as opposed to a Casablanca estimate of 169,000, and the 42 300,000 estimate of the OPD program.
Memo, ACofS OPD, for Com, 23 Feb 43, sub: Deployment of U.S. Army Forces in 1943, with attached com rpt, ABC 320.2 (3-14-43) Sec 1. 42 (1) Memo, Somervell for ACofS OPD, 3 Mar 43, sub: Scheme of Deployment for U.S. Army Forces in 1943, folder ACofS OPD 1942-44, Hq ASF. (2) Leigh41
and (4) in OPD Exec 3, Item 10. (5) Msg 5967, Algiers to AGWAR, 21 Apr 43, OPD Exec 3, Item 11. (6) Memo, Brig Gen Robert H. Wylie, ACofT, for OPD, 3 Mar 43, sub: Lift for U.K. During Mar and Apr, OCT HB, folder Plng Div Studies. (7) Leighton and Coakley, Global Logistics, 1940-43, app. E. (8) Ruppenthal, Logistical Support, I, 129.
HUSKY AND BOLERO American resources that, pending a more thorough study of shipping capabilities, the JCS approved the OPD deployment program despite its obvious lack of realism. The program was to remain the official statement of American deployment objectives, though a dead letter as far as actual deployment planning was concerned, until some time after the TRIDENT Conference in May.44 Cargo Shipping and the Preshipment Plan The impact of the enlarged HUSKY supply program upon cargo movements to the United Kingdom is much harder to assess. It can hardly be doubted that without it the build-up of American material in England would have been resumed on a far greater scale in spring 1943. On the other hand, from April onward the shipping authorities were able to provide more space for cargo than the Army could fill. The conclusion seems warranted that HUSKY'S impact on BOLERO cargo movements, at least after April 1943, could be measured more accurately in terms of dislocations and diversion of supplies than in any real shortage of cargo space for transatlantic movements. The ASF staff could not foresee these developments in February and March 1943. They did, however, begin to explore the possibility of expanding the flow of material to the United Kingdom, regardless of the dwindling flow of troops. The scheme for "preshipment" of equipment and supplies had been an integral part of the original BOLERO plan of 1942.
44 (1) JCS 249 (Rev), 12 May 43, title: Strategic Deployment of U.S. Forces for 1943. (2) Leighton and Coakley, Global Logistics, 1940-43, pp. 702-05.
51
Though the experiment had not been a notable success at that time, the conditions under which it was undertaken hardly permitted a fair trial.45 Convinced of the essential soundness of the idea, the ASF staff sought to revive the plan. The most compelling argument for preshipment was the advisability of shipping as much cargo as possible across the Atlantic during the spring and summer, when port operations in the United Kingdom would be least affected by darkness and enemy air activity. In the winter the capacity of both ports and the inland transportation system in the British Isles could be expected to shrink; while later, as D-day approached, movements of troops, vehicles, and freight into the ports, preparatory to the Channel crossing would impose drastic limits on incoming traffic. Presuming that the ultimate goal was to amass the largest possible force in the British Isles, it seemed imperative to start at once to move across the Atlantic the mountains of material that would be needed to house, service, equip, and support it. The heaviest troop flow (the official deployment program notwithstanding) seemed likely to occur late in 1943 and early in 1944. A large cargo movement before that time would therefore necessarily involve advance shipment of much of the equipment and supplies that normally accompanied or followed troops, as well as construction equipment and materials needed for reception and storage facilities and for troop housing. The European Theater of Operations (ETOUSA) was already advocating preshipment, less because of concern over
45 See Leighton and Coakley, Global Logistics, 1940-43, pp. 368-76.
52
GLOBAL LOGISTICS AND STRATEGY: 1943-1945 be found for a really large stockpiling program in Great Britain over and above the needs of other theaters and of the still-expanding forces in training in the United States. Production had increased mightily since the summer of 1942, but so had the scale of both overseas operations and zone of interior (ZI) training. Whether the depot system in England had matured sufficiently to handle a massive build-up posed another serious question. Theater officials stressed their need for more service troops, and the prospects were not bright for sending any appreciable number in the foresee47 able future. An even more basic objection was the uncertainty that still beclouded the strategy of the European war. Without a reasonable assurance that a major crossChannel invasion would be carried out in 1944, OPD officers did not want to sanction the stockpiling of material in England that might eventually have to be reloaded and shipped to another theater. Moreover, the shipping crisis in mid-March seemed to render the whole question academic. The American staffs hastily calculated that if all requested support was given to the British, no cargo shipping at all would be available to support troop movements to England in the second quarter, and only enough for an estimated 39,000 troops in the third quarter.48 Despite the gathering gloom, the ASF continued to prepare for an early re(1) Memo, Gen Lutes for Maj Gen Wilhelm D. Styer, 5 Mar 43, Notes on Lutes File, OCMH. (2) Msg R-6661, OPD to CG ETO, 14 Mar 43, folder U.K. Security, 1 Jan 43 to 15 Apr 43, Plng Div ASF. (3) Bykofsky and Larson, The Transportation Corps: Operations Overseas, p. 99. 48 See Leighton and Coakley, Global Logistics, 1940-43, pp. 690-702.
47
the long-range problems of the build-up than because of a desire to receive individual and organizational equipment well in advance of the troops who would use it. As were other theaters in early 1943, ETOUSA was having its troubles in marrying up troops and equipment under the existing system whereby troops on fast transports normally arrived at their destinations far ahead of the slow freighters carrying their equipment. Preshipment in this sense aimed at more efficient administration of the process of equipping and training the individual soldier and troop unit after arrival overseas, rather than at large-scale stockpiling of material in the theater, the goal of the ASF staff. Yet the two concepts tended to merge in practice and the term pre46 shipment was usually applied to both. While on an overseas tour following the Casablanca Conference, General Somervell collected a sheaf of complaints in several theaters about equipment arriving late, and on his return to Washington he pressed OPD for a policy decision on the European theater's requests. Early in March OPD ruled against a change in established troop movement procedures because of the continuing shortages of many categories of equipment, the uncertain outlook for shipping, and the lack of firm troop movement schedules for the next few months. The difficulties argued for themselves. There was no assurance that enough material could
(1) History of the Planning Division, Army Service Forces (2 vols. Text and 10 vols. Documentary Supplement) prepared by Planning Div, Office Dir Plans and Opns, ASF (hereafter cited as History Planning Div ASF), Text, I, 97-98, MS, OCMH.
46
(2) Ruppenthal, Logistical Support I, 133. (3) Bykofsky and Larson, The Transportation Corps: Operations Overseas, pp. 98-99. (4) On preshipment generally, see below, Chapter VI.
53
sumption of large-scale cargo shipments tives. Part of what Douglas had in mind to Britain, and on 16 March OPD, with regard to the build-up in the Unitthough still hoping for an increase in ed Kingdom had become apparent earlitroop lift during the summer to permit er in the month when he had proposed a balanced flow of troops and cargo, to General Gross, Chief of Transportareversed its earlier position by agreeing tion, that military and commercial carreluctantly and cautiously to ship equip- goes be pooled and efficiently distributed ment in advance of troops if necessary. among ships sailing to Britain on WSA, Thus encouraged, ASF directed the tech- British, and U.S. Army account. Douglas nical services to begin procurement and held that millions of cubic feet of space stockpiling of certain categories of ma- were being wasted each month in comterial for a force of about 900,000, and mercial sailings in the North Atlantic began to press OPD for a firm troop for want of suitable measurement cargo, basis on which supply requirements while at the same time ships allocated could be calculated in detail. Meanwhile, to the Army on the BOLERO run had inon 10 March General Somervell submit- sufficient weight cargo to bring them ted to the War Shipping Administration down to their Plimsoll lines. He concargo shipping requirements for 42 sail- tended that each commercial loading ings on Army account to the United could be "full" as well as "down," while Kingdom in April and slightly more in Army BOLERO shipments could be loadeach of the two succeeding months. This ed "down" as well as "full"that is, uswas almost three times the volume of ing full weight and cubic capacity in shipments planned in March.49 both cases.50 General Gross enthusiastically apWSA was therefore well aware of both proved, and the British proved more the BOLERO requirements and the increased schedules for HUSKY when Lewis than willing for U.S. Army cargo to be Douglas assured the President on 29 pooled with British imports, provided March that enough cargo shipping would the distribution of incoming cargoes did be available to meet the actual, though not overtax the capacity of ports and inperhaps not the stated, military shipping land transportation. Meanwhile, in keeprequirements in April. Obviously, Doug- ing with his views, Douglas' immediate las suspected that the stated military re- response to Somervell's request for 42 requirements, allegedly threatened by BOLERO-SICKLE ships in April was to ofthe British demands, concealed so many fer, as an advance, the equivalent of allowances to cover errors, contingencies, about 82,000 measurement tons of space and waste that they could be drastically in commercial sailings for March while reduced without danger to vital objec- he looked into the April requirement. 51
(1) Chronology in Memo, Col. Richard D. Meyer for Gen Wylie, ACofT, 9 Apr 43, folder Cargo, OCT HB Wylie File. (2) Memo, Lutes for Dir Distr SOS, 6 Mar 13; (3) Memo for Dir Pls Div, SOS, 16 Mar 43. (2) and (3) in Notes on Lutes File, OCMH. (4) Memo, Somervell for Douglas, 10 Mar 43, folder Army Reqmts 1 Jan 43, WSA Douglas File.
49
(1) Douglas Diary, Notes on Conf with Gen Gross, 1 Mar 43. (2) Memo, Douglas, 9 Mar 43. Both in folder Army Reqmts 1 Jan 43, WSA Douglas File. 51 (1) Ltr, Gross to Douglas, 11 Mar 43, with related material in OCT 563.5 England Jan-Apr 43. (2) Memo, Douglas for Somervell, 11 Mar 43. (3) Msg, Harriman to Douglas, 27 Mar 43. Last two in folder Army Reqmts 1 Jan 43, WSA Douglas File.
50
54
Whatever complications and headaches these arrangements involved for theater receiving agencies, they promised to provide a considerably greater amount of cargo space for BOLERO shipments, probably as much as a million measurement tons during the rest of 1943. Of the 42 sailings Somervell had requested for April, Douglas hoped to 52 find the equivalent of 10 this way. While he was trying to line up the other 32 ships, the requirement itself began to shrink as WSA apparently had expected. It soon became evident that the Army had little cargo to offer in March to fill commercial space, and shipments in that month actually totaled only 115,000measurement tons, not much more than in February. At the end of the month, when Douglas informed the President that military requirements for April could be met, the BOLERO requirement was set officially at 18 ships plus 100,000 tons of measurement cargo to be loaded on commercial sailings, a total of approximately 280,000 tons.53 The ASF failed to provide enough cargo to meet even this reduced goal. The cargo theoretically available simply did not materialize at New York and Boston, or came too late to be loaded aboard ship by the end of April. The reasons were many and varied. OPD was not yet firmly enough committed to the preshipment principle to allow organ52 These requirements for sailings were normally expressed in terms of "notional" vessels possessing a theoretical capacity of 10,000 measurement tons, or approximately the equivalent of a Liberty ship. 53 (1) Memo, Keating for Douglas, 13 May 43, folder Army Reqmts 1 Jan 43, WSA Douglas File. (2) Ltr, Gross to Douglas, 30 Mar 43, OCT 563.5 England Jan-Apr 43. (3) Gross requested that WSA furnish 3,000 tons of steel or other "close stowing cargo" to fill each of the 18 Army ships.
55
did not rate high. The Air Forces buildup (SICKLE) was subordinate to operations in the Mediterranean, and bracketed with current operations in the Pacific; the BOLERO program ranked even below preparations for the Burma operation. Preshipment had to compete with troops in training for supplies and equipment, and Army Ground Forces constantly complained that training allowances 57 were inadequate. On 16 April, with the prospects of BOLERO cargo in May so poor that a responsible Transportation Corps official wanted to limit the request to WSA to ten sailings for that month, General Lutes personally sought a decision from Brig. Gen. John E. Hull, Chief of OPD's Theater Group. He learned that OPD had decided to steer a middle course. Only a few days earlier OPD had, over the remonstrances of other General Staff divisions, turned down a plea from Lt. Gen. Lesley J. McNair, commanding general of Army Ground Forces, for an increase in established training allowances. But it was not ready to authorize large-scale stockpiling in the United Kingdom at the expense of McNair's needs for training. In response to Lutes' representations, Hull authorized advance shipments of all general purpose vehicles, Class IV supplies and equipment, and 45 days' combat maintenance against the entire 1943 ETOUSA troop basis; also, shipment of all organizational equipment of units definitely scheduled to sail for the ETO 30 days in advance of their sailing date. Hull insisted, however, that advance shipments must not involve either taking equipment from troops in training or result
57
56
GLOBAL LOGISTICS AND STRATEGY: 1943-1945 for making the predictions that this involved. On 21 April ASF officials working up preshipment plans on the basis of the existing JCS projection of 900,000 men in England by the end of the year were abruptly told by OPD that the target would have to be lowered to 650,000 "in view of certain overall develop60 ments." A week later, an ASF staff paper noted "it is currently understood that there is to be a major change in the entire strategic plan. . . the idea of crossChannel operations is to be abandoned, and the ground forces in the U.K. are to be reduced ... to approximately one reinforced corps. . . "61These developments, reflecting the current doubts Army strategic planners were themselves feeling about BOLERO, threatened to undermine the whole basis of the preshipment program. ASF was permitted to proceed with arrangements for May shipments but the reduction in target troop strength, if carried out, would obviously require modification of plans for shipments beginning in June. Thus, despite the dissolution of the cargo shipping crisis, BOLERO continued in a state of limbo pending resolution of the strategic uncertainties surrounding it.
Diary, Theater Br, 21 Apr 43, Plng Div ASF. Paper, Summary, BOLERO, 27 Apr 43, folder Current Opns, Item 3-a, Plng Div ASF.
61
in preventing them from receiving their authorized percentage allowances at successive stages. And the "troop basis" against which shipments were to be projected was purely a stopgap, based on the existing outdated joint deployment plan.58 It was thus a much watered-down preshipment policy that took form in the spring of 1943. Nevertheless, ASF was able to issue its first preshipment directive on 17 April and to expedite cargo for May shipment considerably. By the end of April it appeared that some 460,000 tons might be available and the Transportation Corps, cautiously this time, asked WSA for 34 BOLERO ships on Army account for May in addition to cargo space on commercial sailings.59 Any long-range planning under this makeshift directive and troop basis proved impossible. OPD promised a more definite troop basis in response to General Lutes' urging, but, considering the strategic uncertainties of the period before the TRIDENT Conference, the time could hardly have been less propitious
58 (1) MFR with Memo, Lutes for Stock Control Div ASF, 17 Apr 43. (2) Memo, OPD for G-4, 14 Apr 43, sub: Equipment for AGF, with related papers in OPD 475 Equip of Troops, Case 25.
59
Water Div TC, 15 Apr 43. (3) Memo, Vissering for CofT, 29 Apr 43, sub: Daily Rpt of U.K. Cargo for May. (2) and (3) in OCT 563.5 England Jan-Apr 43.
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CHAPTER III
TRIDENT
With victory in Tunisia all but com- were striving to end both wars the plete and preparations for the Sicilian whole waras quickly as possible. Britinvasion moving into the final stages, ish strategy, in disturbing contrast, was the leaders of the Western alliance met represented as being narrowly European again in Washington, 12-25 May 1943, in its orientation and, within that framefor their third great wartime conference, work, dangerously addicted to politicalTRIDENT. The occasion seemed auspi- ly motivated "periphery-pecking" entercious. As Churchill declared in his open- prises in the Mediterranean, while posting remarks, the Allies for the first time poning indefinitely the decisive test of could sense "the authority and prestige strength in northwestern Europe. As for of victory," and feel that now it was the war against Japan, the committee possible, as it had not been at Casa- warned: blanca, "to grasp the fruits of our sucMuch can happen between now and the cess."1 defeat of Germany to blunt the British To do so required resolution of the willingness to undertake an "all-out" war differences in outlook between British against Japan. The British have consistently and Americans and agreement on a long- indicated a surprising lack of concern about range strategy for the global war on the Far East. They may be counted upon which to base allocations of resources to perform the letter of their commitments in this connection, but they are traditionally and firm logistical plans. Yet the sense expert at meeting the letter while avoiding of common purpose was overlaid by a the spirit of commitments. . . .2 deepening mutual distrust. The U.S. American distrust was reciprocated. Chiefs of Staff came to TRIDENT convinced that if the course of action urged About to leave for the conference, Field by the British were adopted, Allied re- Marshal Sir Alan Brooke, Chief of the sources would be frittered away in an Imperial General Staff, noted in his indecisive area of Europe while Japanese diary, "Casablanca has taught me too power grew unchecked on the other side much. Agreement after agreement may of the world. The divergence between (1) JCS 283, rpt by JSSC, 3 May 43, title: Current U.S. and British strategy, according to British Policy and Strategy in Relation to That of a committee analysis endorsed by the the U.S.; approved by JCS at 78th mtg JCS, 8 May JCS on the eve of the conference, was 43. (2) See also Min, 83d mtg CCS, 13 May 43, between a "global" strategy and an essen- Annex A, Global Strategy of the War, Views of U.S. of Staff. (3) Fleet Admiral William D. Leahy, tially parochial one. The Americans Chiefs I Was There (New York: Whittlesey House, 1950),
2 1
pp. 157-58.
58
be secured on paper, but, if [the Americans'] hearts are not in it, they soon 3 drift away." To Brooke, the anxiety in Washington over reports of growing Japanese power, the increasing flow of American shipping and material to the Pacific while the build-up in Great Britain dwindled to a trickle, American reactions to the recent British import and shipping crisis, and the recent squabble over priorities between the European and the Pacific war, all formed an ominous pattern. "We are just about back where we were before Casablanca," he had written on 15 April. "Their hearts are really in the Pacific and we are trying to run two wars at once, which is quite impossible with our limited resources of shipping. All we can hope for is to go all out to defeat Italy, and thus produce the greatest dispersal of German forces and make the going easier for the Russians."4 Brooke saw two somewhat conflicting drives in American strategic thinking, personified in General Marshall and Admiral King, respectively one, an obsession with a cross-Channel invasion that could not be mounted before 1944 at the earliest, the other, an emotional commitment to the war in the Pacific heightened by an exaggerated notion of Japanese strength. The first blinded the Americans to opportunities for fruitful, possibly decisive, action in the Mediterranean during 1943; the second undermined their adherence to the agreed "Germany first" strategy. Unlike the ebullient Churchill, Brooke went to the meetings at Washington in a pessi3 Diary entry for 4 May 43, p. 496, quoted from The Turn of the Tide by Arthur Bryant, copyright 1957 by Arthur Bryant. This and later quotes from this book are reprinted by permission of Doubleday & Company, Inc. 4 Ibid., diary entry for 15 Apr 43, p. 493.
TRIDENT Eaker, commanding general of the U.S. Eighth Air Force in England.7 In approving this program, the JCS had rather cavalierly brushed aside logistical calculations by the Army staff that raised serious doubts as to the feasibility of an invasion in spring 1944 cast in the heroic image of the original ROUNDUP plan. That the JCS had such an image in mind is clear enough from their use of the old code name and from the terms in which they discussed it. But two factors combined to rob the image of substance. First, owing to the general uncertainty of the outlook for shipping in March and April 1943, and, in particular the concentration of British and American troopships on the North Africa routes and of escorts on the convoys
to North Africa and northern USSR, it appeared that the movement of U.S. troops to the United Kingdom would depend mainly on unescorted British troopships, primarily the Queens, until late in the summer. In consequence, the Army staff in April and early May could foresee a build-up of American forces in the United Kingdom to only 850,000 or 900,000 men by the end of 1943 and only 1,150,000 by 1 April 1944in each case about 200,000 fewer than envisaged at Casablanca.8 The second factor in the new equation was the impact of recent plans for
7 (1) JCS 286/1, 8 May 43, memo, Adm Leahy for President, title: Recommended Line of Action at Coming Conference. (2) Min, 78th mtg JCS, 8 May 43; 79th mtg (Suppl), 10 May 43; 80th mtg, 12 May 43. (3) JCS 290, 7 May 43; JCS 250/1, 8 May 43, titles: Conduct of War 1943-44. (4) Guyer, The War Against Germany, ch. VIII, Part A, p. 163, History JCS. (5) Craven and Cate, AAF II, ch. XI. 8 For arrangements to use British transports see: (1) Corresp, folders Alloc Gen and BMSM Misc, WSA Douglas File; (2) folder BIGOT I, OCT HB Wylie File; and (3) Memo, Col Marcus B. Stokes for Gen Somervell, 9 May 43, folder Agenda, Hq ASF.
59
an augmented influx of air force and service elements. With the AAF buildup under General Eaker's plan expected to reach 380,000 men by April 1944 in a total of 1,150,000, and additional service troops needed for the whole U.S. establishment in the United Kingdom, OPD planners concluded that the maximum U.S. ground force that could be assembled by D-day would be 20 divisions, including the 29th Infantry Division already there and the 5th Infantry Division to be moved from Iceland. This was only one more division than the number figured on at Casablanca for the end of 1943. Moreover, divisions arriving after the first of the year would probably not be operational by 1 April. All these calculations caused some of the OPD planners to conclude late in April 1943, that the total forces available by spring 1944 would not be enough for a decisive cross-Channel invasion, and that a major invasion could not be undertak9 en until 1945.
For deployment estimates see (4) Plng Div OCT Table, 24 May 43, OPD Exec 6, SYMBOL, TRIDENT (Rev) vol. I (1 May 43), Tab C, Troop and Troop Shpg; (5) JMT 13/2 (Rev), 7 May 43, title: Shpg Necessary for Troop and Cargo Lift for 1943; (6) JPS 160/1, 8 May 43, same title; (7) JCS 266 (Rev), 11 May 43, same title; (8) JCS 249 (Rev), 12 May 43, title: Strategic Deployment of U.S. Forces for 1943; (9) Memo, Gross for Somervell, 10 Apr 43, sub: Army Cargo Reqmts for 1943, folder 18 Shpg File, Plng Div ASF. 9 (1) SS 54/1, 8 Apr 43, and SS 54/2, 12 Apr 43, sub: U.N. Courses of Action, folder Preps for U.S.Br. Stf Conf, Plng Div ASF. (2) SS 79, 28 Apr 43, sub: Global Estimate of Situation, Tab D, Strat SYMBOL, TRIDENT (Rev), vol. I (1 May 43), OPD Exec 6. (3) Memo, OPD for CofS, 6 May 43, sub: Transfer of Troops N Africa to U.K., ABC 337 TRIDENT, Sec, C. (4) JMT 13/2 (Rev) 7 May 43, title: Shpg Necessary for Troop and Cargo Lift 1943. (5) Memo, Wedemeyer for Marshall, 17 May 43, sub: U.K. Build-up 1943-44, with Tabs, Exec 8, Book 9, Case 72. (6) See Leighton and Coakley, Global Logistics, 1940-43, pp. 687-90.
60
Rejecting this evidence, the Joint War Plans Committee (JWPC) concluded early in May that a decisive invasion could be launched by April 1944. This was the view that the JCS adopted on 8 May, having already (on the 4th) given the go-ahead to the Eaker bombing plan with its spring 1944 culmination date. The position papers taken to TRIDENT forecast a total of 20 U.S. and 16 British and Canadian divisions in the United Kingdom by 1 April 1944, assuming full consummation of British plans for transforming defensive into offensive formations. Only about 14 of the 20 U.S. divisions were expected to be operational, although in the position papers this was not made explicit. The remainder would be fed into the crossChannel movement in subsequent weeks as they completed their equipment, training, and rehearsals. If adequate port capacity could be developed in Great Britain and on the Continent, forces on the far shore could be built up to 54 divisions by the end of 1944 and to 100 divisions within a year. The Washington staffs had vigorously debated the question whether some of the invasion forces should be brought from the Mediterranean, and if so, how many. The question had, of course, a crucial bearing on what was to be done in that theater after the conquest of Sicily. Distances from Mediterranean and U.S. ports to the United Kingdom were approximately the same; savings in shipping therefore were not a consideration. Some of the Army staff urged, however, that forces in the Mediterranean area should be reduced to the bare minimum necessary to maintain the status quo, arguing that this would permit sending many battle-seasoned veterans to Britain
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61
Indeed, in their whole strategy for Europe the JCS, no less than the British Chiefs, were evidently adjusting to the consequences of TORCH and, though perhaps not consciously, were sloughing off the heritage of BOLERO-ROUNDUP. The new ROUNDUP, despite its name, was clearly something lessthough in its context morethan the original conception of a one-front, one-shot, all-or-nothing effort to crush an undiminished German Army in the West. Unlike the original, the ROUNDUP of 1944 would have to share honors with a subsidiary front in the Mediterranean and with a U.K.-based strategic bombing offensive of a power, intensity, and duration hardly foreseeable in spring of 1942depending on both together for the attritional and diversionary preparation necessary to ensure its own success. Most obviously, the new ROUNDUP with 30, or even 36, divisions was not the 48-division ROUNDUP originally projected for 1943. The U.S. Chiefs left their preconference briefing of the President on 8 May apparently under the impression that they now had his full support. Even more strongly than in their formal position papers they had stressed the importance they attached to limiting American liability in the Mediterranean after the conquest of Sicily. They had suggested that at the forthcoming conference U.S. representatives should be prepared to discuss very modest operations in the Western Mediterranean only (e.g. Sardinia) as bargaining counters to win a definite British commitment to a 1944 ROUNDUP and as alternatives to more risky Mediterranean ventures. Such limited operations should be portrayed as "of an emergency nature," defensible only to the degree that they
sions. On an assumption (based on what proved to be underestimates of British strength) that only 25 Allied divisions in all would be in the theater, these calculations held out little hope for heavy withdrawals to the United Kingdomor, for that matter, for further offensives in the Mediterranean. Somervell's staff, figuring on moving out six divisions, could think of no more profitable employment for the remaining five divisions than to occupy Sardinia and Corsica, or perhaps to seize a foothold in the Dodecanese.11 The JCS made no effort, in fact, to spell out a post-HUSKY program for the Mediterranean, beyond a reference to "limited offensive operations" aimed presumably at Sardinia and Corsica, and use of air power to destroy Italian war potential. They did stipulate conditions: after Sicily nothing must be undertaken that might interfere with the build-up for SLEDGEHAMMER and ROUNDUP; no American ground or naval forces should be committed "east of Sicily"; forces in the theater must not be reinforced; and an unspecified number of troops should be withdrawn for use in the cross-Channel operation. They stressed their antipathy to an invasion of the Italian mainland, but left the door open to discussion.12
(1) SS 54/1, 8 Apr 43. (2) OPD Paper, 12 May 43, sub: Heretical Thoughts on One Phase of 1943 Strategy, OPD Exec 8, Book 9, Item 60. (3) SS 79, 29 Apr 43. (4) Memo, Somervell for Marshall, 14 May 43, sub: Study of Opns for Italy and Turkey, folder Agenda, Hq ASF. (5) Memo, ACofS OPD for CofS, 6 May 43, sub: Transfer of Troops N Africa to U.K., ABC 337 TRIDENT, Sec C. (6) JCS 293, 7 May 43, title: Limited Opns in Mediterranean 1943-44. (7) Guyer, The War Against Germany, ch. VIII, Part B, pp. 290-322, History JCS. 12 (1) CCS 219, 14 May 43, memo by U.S. CsofS, title: Conduct of the War 1943-44. (2) JCS 286/1, 8 May 43.
11
62
GLOBAL LOGISTICS AND STRATEGY: 1943-1945 The JCS and the British received a
clear intimation of Roosevelt's position
might support Russia. The President was warned to be wary of such British
conference tactics as attempting to avoid discussion of ROUNDUP by restricting the agenda to strategy for 1943, and denying or glossing over the intimate relation between the war against Japan and the war in Europe. Against such tactics and any other unacceptable proposalsspecifically, for operations "east of Sicily," or heavy commitments in the Mediterranean generally, or for abandonment of ANAKIM the JCS urged a single response: the United States would then feel obliged to intensify its pressure and expand its commitments in the Pacific.13 In reality Roosevelt was far from going along with this strong line in its entirety. He accepted readily enough the idea of pressing for an invasion in 1944 (which there is no reason to believe he had ever abandoned), but he was not prepared to jeopardize relations with the British by taking the hard line on Mediterranean strategy that the military were pressing upon him. "No closed minds," he scribbled at the top of his copy of the JCS recommendations, and his other marginal notations indicated a positive interest in the eastern Mediterranean that would have shattered the optimism with which the JCS were then contemplating the approaching confron14 tation.
13
during his opening remarks at the first plenary meeting of the conference at the White House on 12 May. He began by stressing two cherished features of British Mediterranean strategythe attritional effect of the North African campaign on German power, and the prospects of Turkish intervention leading to possible "combined operations toward the Adrianople line, thus threatening Bulgaria, and inducing that country to 15 withdraw from the war." He then proceeded to the cardinal point on which he and the JCS agreed, aversion to "putting large armies in Italy," but softened this, in turn, by suggesting as an alternative, not the attack on Sardinia favored by the JCS, but an occupation of the southern part of the peninsula. Following these conciliatory remarks, Roosevelt firmly stated the American desire for a definite decision on a crossChannel invasion in spring of 1944 and for an immediate resumption of the
sia"; question marks opposite two statements concerning U.S. non-involvement in the eastern
Mediterranean; and a sceptical or derogatory "This is conversation" opposite a long paragraph about Russian suspicions of British designs on the Dardanelles and about British ability to dominate the Straits from bases in the Dodecanese. The admoni-
them in the five-page memo) were largely ignored, except for a heavy question mark opposite one and (1) Memo, Leahy for President, 8 May 43, sub: a "topsy turvy" opposite another. The assertion that Recommended Line of Action at Coming ConferU.S. public opinion would be impatient of eastern ence, Franklin D. Roosevelt Library, Hyde Park, Mediterranean involvement, in the light of the N.Y. Also published as JCS 286/1, 8 May 43. Japanese threat in the Pacific, elicited a cryptic (2) Admiral Leahy's memoirs state rather ambigu"Spinach." ously that at this meeting the President agreed to 15 (1) Min, 1st White House Mtg, CCS, TRIDENT, press for a cross-Channel invasion "at the earliest 12 May 43. (2) For the characterization of Roosepracticable date" with preparations to launch it "by spring of 1944." Leahy, I Was There, p. 157. velt's agreement at this time to press for a 1944 cross-Channel invasion as "one of the most far(3) Matloff, Strategic Planning, 1943-44, pp. 124-25. 14 Memo cited in note (1) above. Other notations reaching decisions of the war" see Matloff, Strategic included: "Turkey . . . Taking the weight Planning, off Rus- 1943-44, p. 125.
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build-up for it. Then, in characteristically offhand fashion, he added that if either SLEDGEHAMMER or ROUNDUP were to be executed at that time, the conference should reach a decision to undertake one or the other.16 By thus bringing into the open at the beginning of the conference what the JCS had studiously excluded from their position papers in defiance of staff calculations, the real uncertainty surrounding the feasibility of mounting a cross-Channel operation on the scale of the original ROUNDUP by spring of 1944, Roosevelt neatly undercut the position with which the Joint Chiefs had hoped to confront the British. Once again, as at Casablanca, it was apparent that the Americans did not speak with a single voice. While the records show no detectable reaction to the President's remarks on the part of the U.S. Chiefs of Staff, the latter were well aware as the conference proceeded that he would not tolerate a rigid and doctrinaire approach to British proposals on Mediterranean strategy. As for northwestern Europe, it was significant that, as the staffs got down to the knotty questions of what could and what could not be done, the problem was discussed in terms of the vivid dichotomySLEDGEHAMMER versus R O U N D U P i n which Roosevelt had couched it.17
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The British Program: Mediterranean Now, Roundup Maybe
The central theme of the British program for Europe was, in fact, the necessity of maintaining undiminished momentum in the Mediterranean following the conquest of Sicily. "The mere capture of Huskyland," Churchill had declared early in April, "will be a paltry
and unworthy result for the campaign of 1943." In the wide spectrum of opportunities he foresaw opening up with the capture of Sicily, his first and major ob-
jective was the elimination of Italy. This, he was sure, "would cause a chill of loneliness over the German people, and might be the beginning of their
doom."18 The British thought Italy could probably be knocked out by air and naval
action followed by landings on the "toe" and "heel" of the peninsula, the task to be completed by November at the latest. With Italy out of the war, 7 Italian divisions in France and Corsica and 32 in the Balkans would have to be replaced by German units on something
like a one-for-two ratio, and the over-
extended Luftwaffe would somehow have to make up for the loss of 1,400
Italian aircraft. Loss or neutralization of the Italian Fleet would release pow-
(1) Min, 1st White House Mtg CCS, TRIDENT, 12 May 43. (2) For discussion of this episode see Kent Roberts Greenfield, American Strategy in World War II: A Reconsideration (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins Press, 1963), pp. 63-64. 17 (1) See, for example, Brooke's assertion that without an aggressive Mediterranean campaign in 1943, "at best only a SLEDGEHAMMER could be undertaken" in spring of 1944, Min, 85th mtg CCS, 15 May 43. (2) OPD notes on JCS mtg, 17 May 43, OPD Exec 5, folder 1, Item 10.
16
erful British naval units for service against Japan. Turkey would become amenable to persuasion, and might even come over to the Allied camp. With German forces spread thin, it
would be easy to seize a bridgehead on
18 (1) Msg, Prime Minister to Lt Gen Sir Hastings L. Ismay, quoted in Churchill, The Hinge of Fate, Appendix A, Book Two, p. 943. (2) Ibid., Book Two, p. 791. (3) Min, 1st White House Mtg, TRIDENT, 12 May 43. (4) Msg, Prime Minister to President, circa 6 Apr 43, OPD 381 Security II.
64
decide, on merits, on the course of action at which we should aim."20 Thus reduced to stark outline, the opposing emphases of the two positionsthe British upon the Mediterranean in 1943, the American upon northwestern Europe in 1944stood out in bold relief. The inevitable clash occurred almost at the outset. Following General Brooke's exposition of the British position at the first CCS meeting on 13 May, General Marshall took the floor with an abrupt "now we get to the heart of the problem." Military operations, he asserted, always cost more than originally expected; once undertaken, they had to be backed to the limit, regardless of cost. To invade Italy would create another vacuum in the Mediterranean, with the inevitable result that "in 1943 and almost all 1944 we should be committed, except for the Our final conclusion is that the Mediter- air attack on Germany, to a Mediterranean offers us opportunities for action in ranean policy," besides prolonging the the coming autumn and winter, which may war in Europe and jeopardizing the be decisive, and at the least will do far American position in the Pacific. Brooke more to prepare the way for a successful replied that the Western Allies would cross-Channel operation in 1944 than we be unable in any event to mount a serishould achieve by attempting to transfer back to the United Kingdom any of the ous effort on the Continent until 1945 forces now in the Mediterranean theater. or 1946; any force that could reach the If we take these opportunities, we shall have Continent in 1944 would not be able every chance of breaking the Axis and of to even hold its own unless the German bringing the war with Germany to a suc- armies were fully committed elsewhere. cessful conclusion in 1944.19 Did this mean, demanded Marshall, that By mutual agreement neither side at- the British "regarded Mediterranean optempted during the first few days of de- erations as the key to a successful termibate to present detailed estimates of nation of the European war?" Did the requirements or capabilities. The discus- British really believe, he probed, that sion was confined to generalities in order, the Russians would be satisfied with an as the British Chiefs put it, to "clear attack on Italy at the cost of postponing our minds on the strategical issues, and ROUNDUP? Obviously nettled, Brooke retorted: (1) CCS 224, 14 May 43, memo by Br COS, What Russia wished us to achieve was title: Opns in European Theater Between HUSKY a withdrawal of German forces. He believed and ROUNDUP. (2) Min, 83d mtg CCS, 13 May 43,
19
the Adriatic coast, say, at Durazzo, throw a few divisions into the Balkans to "activate" the guerrillas, and occupy the Dodecanese. Nothing else the Allies could possibly do in 1943, the British declared, would so effectively help the Russians on the Eastern Front, and it would be unthinkable to leave large forces in the Mediterranean idle for seven or eight months while Germany perhaps won the war on the plains of Russia. In the meantime the build-up of forces in the United Kingdom and the strategic bombing offensive against Germany would be proceeding apace, looking toward a cross-Channel invasion "as soon as German resistance is weakened to the required extent"a condition the British were confident of meeting by spring or summer of 1944. They summed up their program:
Annex B.
20
TRIDENT
that only by attacking in the Mediterranean could we achieve immediate results and that this was more valuable than building up for a 1944 ROUNDUP which might not even then 21 be possible.
65
sion build-up in Great Britain to 14 divisions. All but two of these, however, would be ready to move across the Channel on 1 April; whereas, if Mediterranean operations were suspended, When the U.S. Chiefs of Staff reviewed only 16 of the 20 U.S. divisions in the their notes it seemed evident to them British Isles at that time would be operthat Brooke had let the cat out of the ational, owing to the limited capacity of bag. The British, Admiral King declared, British ports and the U.S. administrative obviously wanted to "drift toward an establishment to handle incoming forces. incidental ROUNDUP" that would be unIn short, the British staff contended dertaken only when Germany was at the that the difference between the alternapoint of collapse, and if they were not tives of halting or continuing Mediterpinned down, would continue to "fiddle ranean operations, as far as the impact fuddle" and "limp along" as before. on the U.K. build-up was concerned, None of his colleagues challenged his boiled down to only 3 divisions. Even conclusion that if the British could not this gap could be narrowed, they said, be forced into an unequivocal commit- by bringing one or two of their own diviment to carry out the cross-Channel in- sions back from the Mediterranean early vasion in spring of 1944, "we ought to in 1944, though they saw no point in divert our forces to the Pacific."22 doing so since the size of the cross-ChanThe air did not begin to clear until nel assault forces seemed to be limited the planning staffs got down to an ex- by availability of landing craft. amination of requirements and reWith the British estimating their sources. On 17 May the British planners, home forces (including Canadians yet after consulting their American oppo- to arrive) at only 14 divisions rather sites, gave the CCS an evaluation of the than 16, the total Allied invasion army requirements of their Mediterranean on 1 April 1944 would add up to roughprogram and its impact on BOLERO. ly 27 or 28 divisions. Limitations of conThey brought out a point previously tinental port capacity would hold down obscure, that no ground reinforcements to 25 the number of divisions that could in the Mediterranean were anticipated, be put ashore by D plus 125hardly and their estimate of forces available enough to oppose an estimated 35 Gerafter HUSKY came as a jolt to the Amer- man divisions in France and the Low icans38 Allied divisions, 25 of them Countries, besides the additional forces British-controlled instead of the 13 as- that could be rushed from other sectors sumed by the American staffs. The prin- over Western Europe's excellent rail net. cipal cost to BOLERO of post-HUSKY Medi- Hence the necessity, as the British saw terranean operations would be the diver- it, of an aggressive campaign in the sion of 90 cargo vessels from the Atlantic, Mediterranean to disperse and pin down which would reduce a potential 20-divi- enemy forces and prevent Germany from reinforcing northwestern France. If the Mediterranean program were carried As in Min, 83d mtg CCS, 13 May 43. 22 Min, 81st mtg JCS, 14 May 43. out, the British were confident that "a
21
66
successful invasion should be possible ners attacking as "unsound strategically with the forces outlined above in the and logistically" the concept, which they spring or summer of 1944."23 read into British arguments, of attemptAnalyzing the British plan, the Amer- ing to defeat the Axis by an invasion of ican staffs quickly noted the contrast southern Europe rather than by a "debetween the pessimism of estimates and cisive" invasion from the northwest. The calculations relating to the cross-Channel planners restated the American case for operation and the optimism of those re- a spring 1944 ROUNDUP, and particularly lating to the Mediterranean. Reception challenged the low British estimates of capacity in the United Kingdom and the possible rates of build-up on the Conrate of build-up on the Continent tinent. They were forced to recognize, seemed to have been rated low; the however, that the American position, as number, strength, and mobility of ene- presented early in the conference, had my forces in France and the Low Coun- glossed over the time required to pretries had been rated high. By contrast, pare U.S. divisions arriving in Great for the Mediterranean cargo shipping Britain for the move across the Channel. requirements, escort limitations, and re- This contributed to a dawning realizalief and occupation costs had been rated tion by the Americans that on the queslow or ignored altogether. The British tion of capabilities for building up a seemed to expect that "the landing of cross-Channel invasion force in the Unita few . . . soldiers" in southern Italy the two positions actually ed Kingdom, would cause the immediate collapse of were not far apart. Something like a the Fascist government while the Ger- break-through occurred on 19 May mans looked idly on from north of the when, in separate meetings, Admiral Alps. All was to be done, apparently, Leahy and Admiral King referred to "in our spare time this summer." "The the projected invasionLeahy alluding wish," General Marshall delicately sug- to the British concept, King to the gested, "might have been father to the Americanas an expanded "SLEDGEHAMthought."24 MER."25 Staff reactions were reflected in a rebuttal prepared by the U.S. joint planHow Large an Assault?
CCS 234, 17 May 43, memo, U.K. JPS, title: Defeat of Axis Powers in Europe (Elimination of Italy First). 24 (1) Min, 87th mtg CCS, 18 May 43. (2) Memo, Cols Smith and Belts for Gen Wedemeyer, 18 May 43, ABC 331 (9-25-41) Sec 7. (3) Memos, Somervell for CofS, 17 and 19 May 43. (4) Draft JWPC Paper, 18 May 43. (3) and (4) in ABC 337 TRIDENT, Sec A. (5) Memo, Maj Gen Walter B. Smith for Gen Wedemeyer, 21 May 43, sub: Comments on Defeat of Axis Powers in Europe, OPD Exec 8, Book 9, Case 85. (6) Memo, Somervell for Marshall, 14 May 43. (7) Memo, Gross for Somervell, 17 May 43. (6) and (7) in folder Agenda, Hq ASF. (8) On civilian supply see below, Chapters XXX and XXXI.
23
The rapid decay of the ROUNDUP concept in the first week of the TRIDENT Conference owed even more to the necessity, reluctantly accepted by both sides, of taking a realistic view of the future
25 (1) Min, 88th mtg CCS; 85th mtg JCS, 19 May 43. Admiral Leahy, in the former meeting used the phrase "magnified SLEDGEHAMMER"; Admiral King in the latter meeting referred to a "glorified SLEDGEHAMMER." (2) CCS 235, memo by U.S. JPS, 18 May 43, title: Defeat of Axis Powers in Europe (Concentration of Largest Possible Force in U.K.).
TRIDENT
availability of assault shipping. Since August 1942 British thinking with respect to the cross-Channel assault had been colored by memories of the Dieppe disaster. From that experience the British Combined Commanders' staff had drawn the lesson that any assault on the Channel coast must be both powerful and concentrated in order to break through the crust of coastal defenses, secure a substantial beachhead, and permit deployment of invading forces. A natural product of this line of thinking was SKYSCRAPER, an invasion model under study early in March, which envisaged simultaneous landings near Caen and on the east coast of the Cotentin Peninsula with subsequent exploitation toward Cherbourg and the ports to the northeast. It was a formidable conception: 10 assault divisions simultaneously afloat and landed in the first two days, comprising 227,000 troops and 33,000 tanks and vehicles. This assemblage would pose lift requirements for 60 combat loaders, 437 LST's, 538 LCI (L)'s, and over 3,000 LCT's and smaller craft. Such figures (for the larger types of assault vessels, at any rate) were generally recognized as fanciful and the British Chiefs of Staff presently scrapped the plan. When General Morgan and his assistants began work in April on crossChannel plans, it was under the more or less explicit assumption that they must avoid their predecessors' cardinal error of aiming too high above the probable limitations of available resources.26 In Washington the approach was different. When preparing the estimates
(1) Harmon, Cross-Channel Attack, pp. 55-59. (2) Memo, G-3 for Exec, Plng Sec, War Office, 9 Mar 43, SHAEF SGS 560, vol. I (RG 910).
26
67
submitted to the JCS on 8 May, which purported to demonstrate the feasibility of a major cross-Channel operation, the Joint War Plans Committee had reached all the way back to the original ROUNDUP plan of April 1942 for its landing craft requirements. This plan belonged to an earlier era in the development of amphibious doctrine. Its assault force, like that of SKYSCRAPER, comprised ten divisions but was far weaker in armor and vehicles, and its lift requirements were correspondingly lowerfor example, less
than half the LST's and less than onefifth the LCT's.27 Contrary to all recent
experience, moreover, the ROUNDUP estimates allowed for losses of only 10 percent of craft in training during the build-up period, and took no account of the space requirements inherent in assault loading as opposed to theoretical rated capacities of vessels. The staff assumed, finally, that no further amphibious operations, and therefore no further losses, would occur in the Mediterranean. The JWPC concluded that the only serious shortages would be encountered in two of the larger types of vessel, LST's and LCI (L)'s. These shortages could be filled, the committee thought, by modest production increases that would not threaten other naval building programs and since the increases would provide more of both types from 1944 production for the Pacific, it should be possible to borrow 35 LST's and 76 LCI (L)'s
27
striking in that ROUNDUP provided for an initial assault on a 6-division front, whereas SKYSCRAPER was on a 4-division front; initial assault echelons had heavier complements of armor than the follow-
up elements.
68
from Pacific allotments in 1943 for use in ROUNDUP. 28 The proposals for diversions from the Pacific evoked immediate protests from Admirals King and Cooke, and the Joint Chiefs promptly deleted them. Deciding further that it would be unwise "to enter into argument" with the British over allocations, they detached the entire portion of the report dealing with landing craft and assigned it the status of "a Planners' paper." For purposes of discussion at TRIDENT, the JCS took its stand on the simple assertion that landing craft requirements could be met on the scale of the old ROUNDUP plan, though at the expense of some operations in other theaters. They recommended only such increases in production as might be managed "without undue interference" with other essential programs.29 The Navy had, in fact, already decided to increase production. Monthly schedules of LST's were to be raised from 15 to 20 through 1943, then leveled off at 12 per month beginning in January 1944 instead of in April as previously planned. For LCI (L)'s the new program increased monthly construction from 16 to 20 beginning in October 1943. An improved tank lighter, the LCT (6), was to go into production in August with a planned rate of output of 20 per month from November on; it would supersede the LCT (5), for which the current schedules of 10 per
28 (1) JCS 291/1, 8 May 43. (2) Memo, Col Arthur G. Trudeau for Gen Somervell, 15 May 43, sub: Ldg Cft for Proposed Opns, folder CsofS Jt and Comb 1942-44, Hq ASF. (3) JCS 311, 15 May 43, rpt by JWPC, title: Mobility and Utilization of Amphibious Assault Craft. 29 (1) CCS 215, 13 May 43. (2) Min, 80th mtg JCS, 12 May 43.
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69
"The number of craft required to cross cent in personnel lift and 6 percent in the Channel," the British planners con- vehicle lift. American staff calculations, tended, "is higher than in other parts by contrast, assuming two major opera-
of the world on account of the need for a quicker rate of build-up and of the higher degree of resistance expected."32 To the U.S. Chiefs of Staff-though they, too, wanted a strong assaultthis approach seemed added proof of the insincerity of British professions of loyalty to a cross-Channel strategy and an indication of their intention, as Admiral King put it, to "wreck ROUNDUP on the matter of landing craft."33 The U.S. Staff estimated that, assuming no Mediterranean operations after HUSKY, a total of 4,657 craft of all types would be available for ROUNDUP. This number, they now admitted in a partial retreat from their first optimistic estimate, might "not meet fully the maximum vehicle requirements of a large-scale ROUNDUP"all the more reason, they thought, for not risking the certain losses further Mediterranean operations would entail, leaving an "entirely inadequate provision" for the cross-Channel invasion.34 American staff criticism focused, in fact, on what seemed the fantastically optimistic British estimates of probable losses of amphibious shipping to be expected in their Mediterranean program. Assuming that Italy would collapse after the loss of Sicily and that if German resistance did materialize it could be bypassed, the British expected losses of only 10 per32 (1) CCS 234, 17 May 43. (2) The COSSAC staff was already working on a 5-division assault plan. See Papers, 1944 Hypothesis, 15 May 43, and Planning for Operations in 1943-44, 20 May 43, in SHAEF SGS 560, vol. I. 33 (1) Min, 85th mtg JCS, 19 May 43. (2) See also min, 83d and 84th mtgs JCS, 17, 18 May 43; 87th mtg CCS; and 74th mtg JPS, 18 May 1943. 34 CCS 235, 18 May 43.
tions following HUSKY with 30 percent losses in each, indicated that of the lift then in the Mediterranean only about half would remain at the end of 1943. In any case the Americans doubted that the British timetable of Mediterranean operations could be completed in time to transfer surviving vessels back to England for ROUNDUP in spring of 1944.35 After some discussion the British and U.S. staffs were able to agree on loss rates, for planning purposes, of 20 percent for ships and 50 percent for craft in each major Mediterranean operation undertakena major concession to American conservatism. The British also substantially reduced their estimates of requirements for the cross-Channel attack, mainly in the small types of craft.36 But these reductions still left a wide gap between estimated requirements and estimated assets in the three critical types LST's, LCI(L)'s, and LCT'seven on the premise, which the British would not accept, that no further operations would be undertaken in the Mediterranean after HUSKY. The original choices remained fundamentally unaltered: either more assault shipping must be found, or the requirement must be reducedby curtailing the scope of the operation, postponing it, or abandoning it altogether. Admirals King and Cooke, convinced that the British had no intention
(1) Ibid. (2) CCS 234, 17 May 43. (3) Draft JWPC Paper, 18 May 43, title: Critical Analysis of British Plan. (4) Memo, Somervell for CofS, 19 May 43, sub: CCS 234. Items 3 and 4 in ABC 337 TRIDENT. (5) Min, 74th mtg JPS, 18 May 43. 36 Min, 84th mtg JCS, 18 May 43; 85th mtg, 19 May 43.
35
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GLOBAL LOGISTICS AND STRATEGY: 1943-1945 cidal to land 25 divisions on the Channel coast in 1942, but the great difference between 1942 and 1944 would be the interim "battering and bleeding" of Germany by Allied air power, which he ventured to hope might be worth 50 or 60 ground divisions. Under a protecting air umbrella a comparatively small assault force could seize a bridgehead and follow-up forces could "flood in behind." The British Chiefs also supported the bombing offensive, and the CCS on 18 May approved the Eaker plan, with its scheduled fourth phase designed to lead immediately into a cross-Channel as39 sault. Discussion of a medium-sized cross-Channel assault something more than SLEDGEHAMMER and less than ROUNDUP became explicit, and from this "split-the-difference" approach emerged, on 19 May, Operation ROUNDHAMMER (as Admiral King aptly named it). The conception was destined within a few weeks to take form on the planning boards in London under a more pretentious title, OVERLORD, and, after subsequent modifications, eventually to materialize on the beaches of Normandy 40 in June 1944. Evidently the British had been moving in the same direction. In a closed meeting on 19 May, Brooke recorded, the Combined Chiefs of Staff "at last formed a bridge across which we could meet." Ostensibly, the compromise consisted of a British commitment to carry out ROUNDHAMMER on a definite target date and an American agreement to undertake "such operations in exploitation of HUSKY as are best calculated to elim-
of carrying out the operation anyway, did not hesitate to advocate the last course. "If the British will not do ROUNDUP," King repeatedly demanded, "why hoard toward BOLERO [sic] at all?"37 The Trident Decisions on Europe In the midst of all the heated talk, a compromise was taking shape. By 17 May the Joint Chiefs were facing up to the clear indications that neither the forces nor (barring massive increases in production) the assault lift for a ROUNDUP-type operation could be amassed in the United Kingdom by spring 1944 under any scheme of deployment or under any limitation upon Mediterranean strategy. In the Army staff there was still some sentiment that, in the words of one OPD officer, "whatever landing craft [are] required to assure success must be obtained even at the cost of merchant shipping or escort craft." General Somervell urged this view on the Chief of Staff, but it found no adherents on higher levels. On the 17th the JCS agreed with General Marshall that a full-scale spring 1944 ROUNDUP was "a logistic impossibility."38 Plans for the air assault on Germany played no small part in this drift of thinking. Earlier General Marshall had admitted that it would have been sui37
(1) Min, 81st mtg JCS, 14 May 43; 82d mtg, 15 May 43; 83d mtg, 17 May 43; 84th mtg, 18 May 43; 85th mtg, 19 May 43. (2) Min, 74th mtg JPS, 18 May 43. (3) CCS 235, 18 May 43. (4) Agreed loss rates are in CPS 71, Subcom rpt, 20 May 43, title: Availability of Ldg Cft for Operation ROUNDHAMMER, ABC 561.1 (19 May 43) Sec 1A. 38 39 (1) Min, 83d mtg JCS, 17 May 43. (2) OPD (1) Min, JCS mtgs: 81st, 14 May 43; 82d, 15 May 43. (2) Min, CCS mtgs: 85th, 15 May 43; 87th, Notes on CPS 58th mtg, 19 May 43, ABC 337 TRIDENT, Sec C. (3) Memo, Somervell for CofS, 19 18 May 43. 40 Min, 85th mtg JCS, 19 May 43. May 43, sub: CCS 234.
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The British nevertheless succeeded in inate Italy from the war and to contain the maximum German forces." The U.S. writing into the TRIDENT "resources" part of the agreement was regarded by paper, as a basis for assigning assault everyone as a major concession, Brooke shipping, the three landings on the Italnoting it as a "triumph" in the light of ian mainland they had proposed: one what he believed to be the American near Reggio across the Strait of Messina; desire "to close down all operations in another on the east side of the toe in the the Mediterranean after capture of Si- Crotone area; and a third, a sizable effort, near Taranto on the north shore cily."41 The U.S. Chiefs had reached their of the gulf of that name. If undertaken, decision after three days of sometimes Eisenhower would have at his disposal bitter debate among themselves and un- for these operations all the assault shipder what Marshall mysteriously referred ping that survived the Sicily landings, to as "terrific" pressure from an un- except for small amounts to be withnamed sourcepossibly the President drawn for assaults on the port of Akyab to reach agreement with the British. in Burma and on Ramree Island off the The concession was, moreover, strictly Burma coast and, possibly, for a forced qualified. The Americans stipulated that occupation of the Azores late in the sumany operations undertaken in the Medi- mer. The arrangements were also subterranean must depend solely on re- ject to Admiral King's reservation that sources already available in the theater, final disposition of the American combat and they insisted on withdrawing for loaders in the Mediterranean would be use in ROUNDHAMMER some of the air made later. 43 (Table 7) forces used in HUSKY and, after 1 NoThe extent of the British concessions vember, four U.S. and three British divi- is less clear. Marshall's staff had no sions. They further stipulated that each doubts, considering the agreement as specific operation in the Mediterranean "the first real indication" that the Britmust be approved in advance by the ish had "definitely accepted" the idea CCS, who would review the whole situ- of a decisive cross-Channel invasionon ation again in July or early August. the assumption, of course, that their real Meanwhile, General Eisenhower would intention in presenting an invasion plan submit his recommendations on post- at the conference had been simply to HUSKY operations as soon as the progress have it rejected. Brooke himself, alof the campaign in Sicily gave some indi- though apparently pleased, noted only cation of the quality of the resistance that the bridge built on the19th was that might be encountered in Italy.42
(1) Bryant, Turn of the Tide, p. 509. (2) CCS 237/1, 19 May 43, title: Draft Resolutions by CCS. (3) Min, 98th mtg CCS, 19 May 43. 42 (1) CCS 242/6, 25 May 43, title: Final Rpt to President and Prime Minister. (2) CCS 237/1, 23 May 43. (3) CCS 250/1, 25 May 43, title: Implementation of Decision Reached at TRIDENT Conf. (4) Min, 5th White House Mtg, 24 May 43. (5) Progress toward the U.S. concession can be traced in the
41
JCS meetings of 17, 18, and 19 May, and in OPD Notes on 83d mtg JCS, 17 May, and 88th mtg CCS, 19 May 43, Exec 5, Item 10, folder 1. (6) General Marshall's remark is in Min, 83d mtg JCS, 17 May 43. 43 (1) CCS 223, memo CofS AFHQ, 14 May 43, title: Opns After HUSKY. (2) Min, 74th mtg JPS, 18 May 43. (3) Memo, Churchill for Field Marshal Jan Christian Smuts, 16 Jul 43, quoted in Churchill, Closing the Ring, pp. 35-37. (4) CCS 250/1, 25 May 43. (5) CCS 244/1, 25 May 43, app. A to Annex V.
TRIDENT "not altogether a satisfactory one."44 The record of the conference discussions seems to indicate that the retreat of the British from the concept of a ROUNDUPtype invasion in 1944 paralleled that of the Americans and was made easier by strong hopes, of which Brooke made no secret, that aggressive action in the Mediterranean might after all make the invasion unnecessary. But none of the available evidence suggests the slightest reluctance on their part to proceed energetically with the invasion build-up, to allot forces for the operation, or even to set a target date, so long as the Allies pressed forward in the Mediterranean. The decision on the target date (1 May 1944) was a compromise, but a casual one. It was arrived at by splitting the difference between 1 April, the Americans' preference, and 1 June, the date suggested by Brooke to coincide roughly with the opening of the campaign season in Russia. Although at the beginning of the conference the Americans had insisted on an early and firm target date and later were to make much of its sanctity, their final acceptance of 1 May was rather offhand; at the time, Admiral King merely remarked that a later date might be equally acceptable and that target dates seldom were met 45 anyway. The British quite evidently attached little importance to it. Brooke's overriding idea, noted privately at the time, was that "success can only be se(1) Bryant, Turn of the Tide, diary entry for 19 May, p. 509. (2) OPD Paper, SS 106, title: Analysis of TRIDENT and ANFA Confs, no date, ABC 381 SS Papers 96-126/3 (7 Jan 43), See also Matloff, Strategic Planning, 1943-44, p. 133. 45 (1) Min, 88th mtg CCS, 19 May 43. Compare King's remarks in 83d mtg CCS, 13 May, and 85th mtg CCS, 15 May 43. (2) Harrison, Cross-Channel Attack, pp. 69-70.
44
73
cured by pressing operations in the Mediterranean to force a dispersal of German forces, help Russia, and thus eventually produce a situation where cross-Channel operations are possible." Having secured a qualified American agreement to push on in the Mediterranean, he was willing to work in the meantime toward a Channel crossing on 1 May 1944 on a scale sufficient, as the agreed directive to COSSAC stated, "to secure a lodgment on the Continent from which further offensive operations can be carried out."46 ROUNDHAMMER was no SKYSCRAPER nor even a ROUNDUP, but neither was it a SLEDGEHAMMER and it was more consonant than any of them with the strategic outlook in May 1943. The TRIDENT estimates of the number of ships and craft likely to survive landings in Italy helped to determine the planned scale of the ROUNDHAMMER assault. British concessions on loss factors for planning had pushed the estimates of probable attrition in the Mediterranean sky-high. They now ranged from 40 to 80 percent cumulatively, "far beyond supportable losses," as Somervell observed, "in either men or matriel in any other part of our operations."47 To the total number of survivors from operations in the Mediterranean, in Burma, and in the Azores (all of which were to be brought back to the British Isles by spring of 1944) the Americans undertook to add 62 LST's, 58 LCI(L)'s, and 105 LCT's from new production in the interim. New LCT's, LCA's, and other
(1) CCS 250/1, 25 May 43, Incl B. (2) Quotes from Bryant, Turn of the Tide, p. 513. 47 Memo, Somervell for Smith, 19 May 43, OPD 560 Security, II, Case 53.
46
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more specialized craft would also be forthcoming from British production. The final tally for ROUNDHAMMER, after deducting 10 percent of ships and 15 percent of craft for unserviceability on D-day, added up (in major types) to 6 APA's, 13 LSI(L's), 143 LST's, 88 LCI (L)'s, and 555 LCT's. (See Table 7.) The prospective armada represented a fairly evenly divided coalition effort from the United States would come almost all the landings ships; from Great Britain most of the regular combat loaders and nearly all of the more specialized types of support craft and converted assault ships. Each country would provide its own types of LCT's, LCM's, and 48 small infantry assault craft. (Table 8) These estimates of available lift constituted the agreed upon "requirements" for the ROUNDHAMMER assault. The calculated lift added up to an estimated five divisions, three of them at assault scales, and these constituted henceforth the approved dimensions within which the planners had to work. In effect, the suit was cut to fit the cloth. The whole assault lift calculation was highly theoretical. The staffs had simply translated the total number of each type of vessel into the numbers of men and vehicles (including everything from jeeps to medium tanks) that its rated capacity indicated it could carry, added the totals together, and divided the sum by the average number of men and vehicles that current doctrine allowed for a division in an amphibious operation. They had not considered the inevitable shrinkage of capacity to be expected when vessels were grouped into subtask forces and teams and loaded with several types of units
48
airborne. General Morgan was given these specifications and directed to develop a plan. 49
A total of 29 divisions (17 British and Canadian, 12 American) was expected to be assembled and ready in the United Kingdom on D-day, including the 7 to be transferred from the Mediterranean. As many as 6 more from the United States might be on hand, but would not be fully equipped and ready to go.50 The build-up to these force levels was calculated and recalculated, and calculations were still going on as the conference ended. British shipping was heavily relied on for the movement of U.S. forces, especially the Queen Elizabeth and the Queen Mary, which would run on a lengthened 4-week cycle and carry up to 15,000 troops per crossing. With these and other transports, there seemed a fair prospect that British shipping alone would move about 366,000 American troops across the Atlantic by May 1944. During 1943 the emphasis would be on building up air forces for the strategic bombing offensive and service troops to staff existing installations, construct new depots, and increase port intake capacity. Ground combat strength,
The calculations are shown in CPS 71, 20 May 43. The directive to COSSAC is Incl B to CCS 250/1, 25 May 43. 50 (1) CCS 244/1, 25 May 43, Annex II, Annex VII. (2) One French division was regarded as a possibility.
49
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in consequence, would reach only 8 divisions by the end of 1943, in a total force of 763,000. The target strength for 1 May 1944 was 1,300,000 men393,000 air and 51 907,000 ground forces. (Table 9) Backing up the troop movements were 259 scheduled cargo sailings in the third quarter of 1943, 280 in the fourth quarter, 420 in the first quarter of 1944, and 400 in the second quarter 1944. In addition, 12 shiploads of military cargo on BOLERO account were to be lifted monthly on vessels carrying British import supplies. Although the volume of scheduled troop and supply movements was heavier in the four months preceding D-day than earlier, the schedule clearly contemplated a substantial advance movement of supplies in the summer of 1943, since the troop build-up would not begin in earnest until August. It was not enough, even so, to satisfy the British, who were worried over the impact of the heavy winter and spring movements on their crowded ports and indicated that 150 ships per month was the maximum that
consideration of actual operations was confined almost entirely to those in southeast Asia. The broader issues of whetherand, if so, to what extentthe war against Japan should be subordinated to the war in Europe, in terms of allocation of resources, was not debated at length. The final decision, which in the event proved more enduring than those on the European war, was reached with little fanfare. The JCS came to the conference with a rationale of the "defeat Germany first" concept that was hardly compatible with the British understanding of it. In their own councils the JCS had agreed, repeatedly and explicitly, that if the British should insist on a predominantly Mediterranean approach in Europe, the United States must shift its main effort to the Pacific. The threat was not made explicit in the position papers presented to the British. These papers set forth the recently developed American theory of the interrelated character of the "global" war, and repeated the argument, briefly could be accepted on BOLERO account. debated in April, that it was essential to The TRIDENT decisions thus gave the "maintain and extend" the pressure in ASF a green light for the BOLERO pre- the Pacific war while the war in Europe shipment program, and before the con- was still in progress in order to defeat ference ended a new program had al- Japan in the shortest possible time. Since ready taken shape.52 that time a significant new proviso had been added to the effect that, should conditions develop making it possible to The Other War end the war as a whole more quickly The debate on strategy in the Euro- by mounting a major offensive against pean war dominated the TRIDENT meet- Japan before the European Axis was ings. There was no thoroughgoing dis- defeated, "the concept of defeating Gercussion of the war against Japan, and many first may be reversed."53 As a corollary, in a discussion of the "main(1) CCS 246, memo, by Br COS, 23 May 43, title:
51
Movement of Queens. (2) Min, 93d mtg CCS, 22 May 43. (3) CCS 244/1, 25 May 43. (4) Min, 94th mtg CCS, 23 May 43, and Annex A. 52 (1) See below, ch. VII. (2) CCS 244/1, 25 May 43, Annex VII.
53 (1) CCS 219, 14 May 43, memo by U.S. Chiefs of Staff, title: Conduct of the War in 1943-44. (2) CCS 220, 14 May 43, memo by U.S. Chiefs of Staff, title: Strategic Plan for the Defeat of Japan.
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tain and extend" formula in a CCS meeting on 17 May Admiral Leahy declared that "if an unfavorable situation arose in the Pacific, all would realize that, whatever agreements were in existence, the United States would have to divert forces to meet this eventuality." 54 The U.S. Chiefs seemed to be taking the position that the extremes of either success or adversity in the Pacific might dictate a reversal of the "Europe first" strategy. Yet they did not think that position inconsistent with their continuing belief that in all probability the war could be won "most speedily by first defeating Germany, and thereafter by 55 completing the defeat of Japan." There is no indication that they had any plans for a really large-scale shift to the Pacific in the foreseeable future, and no recent staff studies had explored the logistical implications. The Chiefs must have been aware, indeed, that the President would not support such a move. It seems more likely that the real aim of the JCS was to reserve the right to make a major shift to the Pacific if developments should require itor if the British should insist on a program of operations in the Mediterranean that the Americans
Deployment to the Pacific of naval forces that could not be profitably employed in the Atlantic would, of course, create its own rationale for new offensive operations. Naval forces, in turn, would draw in their wake additional air and ground forces, merchant shipping, and, of course, amphibious shipping, which already was moving to the theater in growing volume. As General Marshall had so often argued with reference to the Mediterranean, offensives, once they were launched, always generated demands for more resources and led to further offensives. The British did not make this obvious point in the discussions at TRIDENT concerning the Pacific war. They did strenuously object, however, as they had in April, to the insertion of the phrase "and extend" into the Casablanca formula. Brooke argued that "shipping
56
Min, 86th mtg CCS, 17 May 43. Min, 83d mtg CCS, 13 May 43, Annex A.
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alone prohibited an equal effort in the Pacific Theater," and that the Allies lacked the strength to defeat Germany and Japan simultaneously. After an exchange of views on 17 May the general issue was shelved temporarily in order to permit discussion of the more concrete aspects of the war against Japan.57 At the beginning of the conference the Americans had not yet agreed among themselves on the specific outlines of a strategy for the defeat of Japan. They presented both a long-range plan and one for specific operations to be undertaken in 1943-44; but the latter was sketchy, and neither had a definite timetable. The long-range plan called for operations converging on the China coast from the Pacific, overland through China, and by sea from India through the Strait of Malacca and the South China Sea. From bases in China, the Allies would first attempt to crush Japan by air bombardment; ultimately, if necessary, they would invade the home islands. The short-range prospectus for 194344 provided for simultaneous advances in the Pacific along two main axes. The first was the familiar one already marked out in the South and Southwest Pacific; the second was the route through the Central Pacific laid down long before in the prewar plan ORANGE. Advances along the former line in 1943-44 were to extend only to the capture of the Solomon Islands, the Bismarck Archipelago, and New Guinea, and in the Central Pacific only as far as the Marshalls and Carolines, thus stopping far short of the Philippines and the China coast. These advances were to be com57
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bined with stepped-up air operations in China, a north Burma operation to open the Ledo Road to China, ejection of the Japanese from the Aleutian Islands, and intensified air and sea attacks on enemy lines of communication. A sketchy estimate of requirements indicated that about seven more Army divisions would be needed in the Pacific, considerably more aircraft both there and in China, and an indeterminate amount of cargo shipping besides the resources available from a rapidly growing fleet. Most significantly, though the Americans stated that the major restriction on Pacific operations would be "availability of trained amphibious divisions and amphibious craft," they made no attempt to enumerate how many of the latter would be needed.58 The British, as Brooke laconically noted, "accepted what was put forward"59 in the American plan for 194344 Pacific operations, and agreed that the general plan for the defeat of Japan should be the basis for further study and report by the Combined Planners at the next conference. Over mild British protests, Admiral King and General Marshall served notice that any surplus of American aircraft in Europe would be sent to the Southwest Pacific.60 The real debate developed over strategy in Burma and China. It was not a purely Anglo-American debate, for both Stilwell and Chennault were on hand to support their opposing views. The President, although officially supporting the JCS position that a land campaign in
58 (1)CCS 239/1, 23 May 43, title: Opns in Pacific and Far East in 1943-44. (2) CCS 220, 19 May 43, title: Strategic Plan for Defeat of Japan. 59 Quoted in Bryant, Turn of the Tide, p. 510. 60 Min, 95th mtg CCS, 24 May 43.
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GLOBAL LOGISTICS AND STRATEGY: 1943-1945 These last-named schemes evidently reflected diversionary tactics, for they were not vigorously pressed. President Roosevelt's views, on the other hand, clearly pointed the way to a compromise on operations in Burma. He insisted that an enlarged air effort in China and preparations for a limited ground campaign in north Burma were not mutually exclusive, and the CCS obediently wrote both into their scheme of operations for the China, Burma, India theater (CBI) in 1943. First priorities were assigned to expansion of the Hump airlift from its current capacity of less than 4,000 tons to 10,000 tons monthly, and to development of air facilities in Assam with a view to intensifying air operations against the Japanese from both Burma and China and to increasing the flow of airborne supplies into China. "Vigorous and aggressive land and air operations into Burma via Ledo and Imphal" were also to be undertaken in step with an advance by Chinese forces from Yunnan, and the British were charged with the Akyab and Ramree Island amphibious landings. Meanwhile administrative preparations for major land and amphibious operations on the scale of ANAKIM were to continue, but without a target date.62 In effect, a campaign to reconquer all of Burma and to reopen the old Burma Road was indefinitely deferred. A limited operation to retake northern Burma and open a new road to China stayed on the books but only as a second-
Burma would be needed to open communications with China, barely disguised his preference for Chennault's strategy of staking everything on an air offensive. Knowing this, the JCS had in fact come prepared to agree to a modified version of ANAKIM that involved a north Burma operation to clear the trace for the Ledo Road without the full-scale offensive earlier considered necessary to open the supply route north from Rangoon to the old Burma Road.61 Before the conference ended Roosevelt had granted Chennault's Fourteenth Air Force so decisive a claim on tonnage airlifted over the Hump as to leave little capacity for ground equipment for the Chinese forces in Yunnan on whom Stilwell was counting heavily to carry out even a limited ANAKIM. The British also threw their weight into the balance in favor of Chennault. They set forth at length their objections to executing ANAKIM in the 1943-44 dry season, stressing its cost, the immense logistical problems, and the difficulties of jungle fighting. They pointed out that, even if successful, the operation would not permit overland supply movements into China before mid-1945 or later. The British wanted, instead, to concentrate immediately on expanding the air route to China and carrying out limited offensives in north Burma and against Ramree Island and Akyab. As a grand alternative, finally, Churchill expounded the advantages of naval and amphibious attacks against Sumatra, Java, or Malaya.
62 61 (1) Min, 91st mtg CCS, 21 May 43. (2) Romanus (1) JCS 297, 10 May 43, title: Opns in Burma and Sunderland, Stilwell's Mission to China, pp. 1943-44. (2) Charles F. Romanus and Riley SunderFor 542-47. the background decisions conland, Stilwell's Mission to China, UNITED STATES 1 9 4 3 4 3328-33. ,(3) pages ( 4 ) A nof d the see below, c h . XXI. cerning CBI made at TRIDENT see Global Logistics, ARMY IN WORLD WAR II (Washington, 1953), pp. 320-28. (3) See below, ch. XXI.
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ary commitment. And, despite the President's optimism, it soon became apparent that the resources committed to CBI were grossly inadequate to support simultaneous major offensives in the air and on the ground. Whatever the result may have owed to differences within their own ranks, the
ed States would not permit the accept64 ance of major reverses in the Pacific." The amended "maintain and extend" formula, as both King and Brooke perceived, placed no real curb on American prosecution of the Pacific war, which was in fact soon to rise to a level of intensity not markedly lower than that of the American military regarded the south- war in Europe. How soon and how high east Asia program decided upon as essen- were questions that could not be antially a British one. "The British," not- swered in concrete terms in May 1943, ed Admiral Cooke after the Burma deci- most of all because plans for the great sions had been made, ". . . have written Central Pacific offensive were still in the the ticket, in substance, for everything formative stage. It was this offensive, in to date. ... In the Pacific we will be which the growing power of the U.S. carrying out the operations with Amer- Navy would be mainly concentrated, that ican forces, and I urge that we write the Admiral King evidently had in mind ticket and accept absolutely no reserva- when he rejected any reductions in existtions from the British."63 The British, ing allocations of landing craft to the in fact, did accept the American "ticket" Pacific.65 for the Pacific as written, and this exchange smoothed the path for the agreeThe "Not Unmanageable" Cargo ment reached near the end of the conShipping Deficit ference on the "maintain and extend" proviso that had been shelved a week One of the last items of business at earlier. By 24 May only Admiral King, TRIDENT, and an innovation in coalition on the American side, still held to that strategic-logistics, was the combined carproviso in its original form. After a short go shipping budget. The impetus to this debate the impasse was finally broken undertaking in global logistical accountby adding a phrase suggested by the British naval chief, Admiral of the Fleet (1) Min, 95th mtg CCS, 24 May 43. (2) Bryant, Sir Dudley Pound: ". . . the effect of any such extension on the overall ob- Turn of the Tide, pp. 515-16. (3) Fleet Admiral Ernest J. King and Walter M. Whitehall, Fleet jective to be given consideration by the Admiral King (New York: W. W. Norton & Co., Combined Chiefs of Staff before action 1952). p. 441, (4) CCS 244/1, 25 May 43. (1) See, for example, the planned allocation of is taken." The Americans also quietly 60 LST's to the Pacific between August and Novemdropped the issue of a major shift to the ber 1943 in Table 8. (2) Shortly after TRIDENT, in a Pacific under hypothetical conditions revised plan for 1943 deployment of combat loaders, with a final warning, voiced by Admiral the Navy assigned 47 assault transports to the Pacific as against only 19 to the Atlantic; at the time of Leahy, that "public opinion in the Unit- TRIDENT, the planned division between the two
64 65
Memo, Cooke for King, 21 May 43, sub: JCS 304, Opns in Pacific and Far East, 1943-44, ABC 337 TRIDENT, Sec E, Case 23.
63
areas had been roughly equal (31 to 27). See JCS 249 (Rev), 12 May 43; and JPS 193/1, 15 Jul 43, title: Strategic Deployment of U.S. Forces to 1 Jul 44; the last is a planning paper based on the TRIDENT decisions.
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ing came from the civilian shipping ad- 1943, for 95 sailings on military account ministrators, American and British alike, to the Mediterranean and Indian Ocean who felt that the bankruptcy of strategic areas, and 60 for the United Kingdom planning following Casablanca had been import service after allowing for Amerin large part a result of the failure of the ican aid already promised. No requirestrategists to face up to the visible facts ments had been budgeted for ANAKIM and prospects of the shipping situation. (possibly 120 sailings), for post-HUSKY It was no accident, then, that at TRIDENT operations in the Mediterranean, or for the U.S. Deputy War Shipping Admin- cargo transfers from the Mediterranean istrator, Lewis Douglas, was in attend- to the British Isles, apparently on the ance along with his British opposite, assumption that if such requirements Lord Frederick Leathers of the British materialized they would have to be abMinistry of War Transport (BMWT). sorbed in the American budget.67 That Both men were convinced that "it was budget, which had been consolidated by important not to leave . . . without hav- separate estimates submitted WSA from ing related fully the shipping availability by the military services and other claim66 to the strategic programme." ants, showed a deficit of 181 sailings.68 Because of differences in the compoWSA officials did not consider the sition and employment of the two mer- total deficit336 sailingsas unduly forchant fleets, it had been agreed that the shipping representatives of each nation (1) Ibid. (1), pp. 368, 382. (2) WSA Notes on would bring to the conference a purely Statements of Dry Cargo Shipping Position, May 10, national balance sheet, projected to the 1943, Tables I, II, III. Table I is especially pertinent. Folder CCS Reqmts and Availables 1943, WSA end of 1943, matching their own require- Conway File (hereafter cited as WSA Notes). (3) The ments against their own assets. At the term "sailings" used by the United States as the conference, after requirements had been unit of measure in computing its shipping budget one round voyage by a theoretically averageadjusted to take into account decisions meant sized ("notional") ship. The British budget was reached on strategy, they would try to computed in terms of dead-weight tons of shipping apply one country's surpluses against the continuously employed. The British deficit of 155 other's deficits, explore possibilities for sailings was the estimated equivalent in U.S. terms of about 800,000 dead-weight tons of U.K. shipping further pooling on specific routes and continuously employed. The different methods of for specific programs and, finally, arrive measurement were used because the U.S. unit could at an over-all estimate of the relation not be applied to a great part of British shipping, 12 percent of which, for example, was permanently between means and ends. assigned to the "cross trades"circuitous and varied The British budget, submitted to the rounds among ports in areas other than the British American shipping authorities just be- Isles; moreover, voyages between U.K. ports and distant areas such as the Indian Ocean involved fore the conference began, showed a total complex routings among many intermediate ports. deficit of 155 sailings for the last half of U.S. shipping, on the other hand, was used on rela67
66 (1) C. B. A. Behrens, "History of the Second World War, United Kingdom Civil Series," Merchant Shipping and the Demands of War (London: Her Majesty's Stationery Office, 1955), pp. 366, 337-38. (2) Leighton and Coakley, Global Logistics, 1940-43, chs. XXV, XXVI.
tively short, direct runs between a home port and a single overseas port or area. See Behrens, Merchant Shipping, p. 379. 68 (1) WSA Notes, Tables I, II, III. (2) Table, U.S. Cargo Shipping Requirements 1943, prepared by Plng Div OCT, ABC 570 (2-14-42) Sec 4. (3) Table, Cargo Sailings Required by Army, folder 10a Shpg File SoPac, ASF Plng Div.
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midable.69 Since most of it fell in the third quarter of 1943 (109 sailings for the British, 105 for the Americans) any savings that could be made in distant voyages during that quarter would automatically reduce the fourth quarter deficit as well. WSA hoped in fact to pick up some U.S, savings on the Red Sea route after the opening of the Mediterranean, and even to persuade the military to decelerate the British build-up in India on the strength of a postponement of major operations there. There was room for more pooling of U.S. Army cargo and British import cargo on the North Atlantic run and for more efficient use of freighter deck space; and the Western Hemisphere trades, though already attenuated, might absorb a small further cut. By all these means, combined with rigid economies all down the line, WSA hoped to reduce the entire deficit by about two-thirds and to wipe out the United Kingdom import deficit 70 altogether. Even as it stood, the deficit represented less than 5 percent of total requirements projected for a longer period than shipping officials ordinarily were willing to make firm commitments. On the eve of TRIDENT Lewis Douglas and Sir Arthur Salter, the British merchant shipping representative in Washington, prepared a joint statement:
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tending into the future are necessarily imprecise and subject to all the changing fortunes of war. Shipping availabilities fluctuate with the progress of submarine warfare, routing, loss of shipping in assault operations, and a variety of additional factors. Military requirements vary with developments in the theaters of war and modified strategic plans. The present estimates of requirements and shipping availabilities must therefore be constantly reviewed in the light of changing conditions.
The deficits, they concluded, were "within the margin of error inherent in a forward projection," and, with careful economies, might "well prove to be manageable."71 Somervell and Gross, who had drawn up the U.S. Army requirements that formed the bulk of the American budget, took a different view. Still irked by the President's decision at the end of March to support British shipping needs at whatever cost to American military operations, they tried to have British import requirements assigned the role of residual legatee rather than listing them along with other requirements, and urged that the combined deficit be charged against the import program. Douglas and Hopkins overruled them in a preconference session, but they renewed their effort on 22 May when the combined budget came up for conference consideration. All estimates of available shipping and The debate that ensued had a dreamrequirements covering a long period exlike quality. By this time the deficit had Behrens, Merchant Shipping, pp. 369, 383, errobeen swollen by the addition of new neously gives the American deficit alone as 336 sailmilitary requirements for post-HUSKY ings. This error invalidates much of her discussion of the shipping problem at TRIDENT. operations in the Mediterranean, for the (1) WSA Notes, Tab, Assumptions Underlying Azores occupation, for continued supWSA Estimates, 6 May 43; and marginal pencil comment on Table IV; Tab, Memorandum, 9 May 43; port of British forces in India, for Medi69
70
and Table, 8 May 43. (2) Min, Conf, Douglas with Hopkins, Somervell, Gross, and Rear Adm William W. Smith, 7 May 43. Both in folder CCS Reqmts and Avlbles 1943, WSA Conway File.
71
WSA Notes.
84
terranean-to-U.K. transfers, and for prisoner-of-war movements. Before the debate could get well under way, the British unexpectedly offered to write off their own deficit if the Americans would write off theirs. Behind this proposal apparently was a conviction, shared by Douglas and his colleagues, that U.S. military demands were inflated beyond reason and that the American deficit "existed on paper but not in fact."72 As for the British deficit, import needs seemed likely to be absorbed in the growing volume of transatlantic movements, while sailings to India had lost some urgency with the postponement of ANAKIM. Nevertheless, a stormy debate ensued, in which the American military representatives attempted to secure a further deflation of the British budget. The climax was reached in the small hours of Sunday morning, 23 May, when Somervell, for reasons not explained, insisted that the budget be projected to cover the first nine months of 1944. This calculation, so conjectural as to be hardly worth discussing, entailed additional hours of labor and produced astronomical new paper deficits. Meanwhile, in piecemeal concessions the Americans had reduced their original 1943 deficit, despite interim additions, from 181 to 135 sailings, and Somervell made a final bid to persuade the British to pick up half of this rock-bottom debit. The British categorically refused, and Somervell finally conceded that "it might be managed." At 6:30 a.m. the meeting broke up "with
72 (1) Behrens, Merchant Shipping, p. 370. (2) Conf, Douglas, Hopkins, and others, 7 May 43. (3) Conf, Douglas, Vice Adm Frederick J. Horne, Adm Smith,
TRIDENT
TABLE 10THE U.S. SHIPPING BUDGET: SPRING 1943
(IN SAILINGS)
85
Figures in parentheses show additions to or subtractions from budget as initially submitted. This represents a consolidation of several categories of requirements, involving maintenance of the war-making capacity of the Western Hemisphere and support and maintenance of U.S. Army and Navy forces other than those in the British Isles, Mediterranean, China-BurmaIndia, and Pacific (1944). c Original Army requirements included 60 sailings in last half 1943, covering most of the British deficit in this category. d For cargo movements from Mediterranean to the United Kingdom, and 25 shipments in first quarter of 1944 to the Indian Ocean. e 1943 requirements included in category described in b above. Source: (1) WSA Notes on Statements of Dry Cargo Shipping Position, 10 May 43. (2) CCS 244/1, 25 May 43, title: Implementation of Assumed Basic Undertakings . . . , Annex VII, Part I.
b
the conference wore on, and daily reports indicated a rising toll of submarine sinkings, the outlook grew steadily brighter. By 24 May Churchill could declare that the Allied victory in the current antisubmarine offensive was a "new fact" in the total equation. The kill for May amounted, in fact, to 40 U-boats in the Atlantic alone, a blow to the Ger-
man submarine arm that proved very nearly mortal.76 By the time the shipping budget came up for consideration, it could be determined that actual ship losses since the beginning of the year had been 32 per76
(2) Winston S. Churchill, Closing the Ring (Boston: Houghton Mifflin Co., 1951), p. 10.
86
cent less than expected in February. The conferees were sufficiently encouraged to add 70 Atlantic sailings arbitrarily to prospective assets during 1943. If the trend continued, it could be expected that losses during the second half of the year might be reduced by almost a million dead-weight tons, representing a gain over earlier expectations of about half that amount of shipping in service, on the average, during that period. This was the equivalent of something over a hundred sailings on the North Atlantic route where losses were heaviesta sufficient basis, perhaps, for the conclusion that the deficit might safely be regarded 77 as "not unmanageable."
staffs to scale down their conceptions of ROUNDUP and ANAKIM. In recompense they had secured British agreement to "extending" unremitting pressure against Japan in the Pacific and a seemingly clear prohibition against further allotment of forces to the Mediterranean in the interests of insuring the medium-scale cross-Channel operation in 1944. In its broader aspects the new global strategy was to prove far more realistic in relation to available resources than had the strategy developed at Casablanca. No new shipping crisis would arise of proportions formidable enough to shake the basic conclusion that shipping deficits would be "not unmanageable." AsFrom TRIDENT emerged the broad pat- sault shipping estimates, on the other terns of global strategy under which the hand, were to prove far less realistic and Allies were to use the vast war-making their adjustment to the actual needs of resources becoming available. In Europe ROUNDHAMMER was to be the principal they involved a Mediterranean campaign strategic-logistical problem of the year and a bombing offensive against Ger- to come. TRIDENT plans, moreover, many leading up to a medium-scale cross- lacked specific schemes of maneuver and, Channel invasion in spring 1944. For the in their indefinite prescriptions for conwar against Japan, they combined a more tinuing operations in the Mediterranean intensive campaign in the Pacific with and the Pacific and the degree of uncera less ambitious effort in southeast Asia tainty about the feasibility of operations and China than had originally been vis- in Burma, left much room for misunualized by the American staffs. Logis- derstanding and arguments between tical considerations, as well as British British and American staffs. Two more arguments, had forced the American grand conferences would take place, and almost continuous strategic-logistical debate, before the patterns determined at (1) Calculations are based on figures in CCS TRIDENT would harden sufficiently for 174, rpt by CMTC, 4 Feb 43, title: Loss Rate for firm logistical plans to be based upon 1943; and in CCS 174/1, 2 Jul 43, same title. (2) Behthem. rens, Merchant Shipping, pp. 293, 373 note 1.
77
PART TWO
CHAPTER IV
Logistical Organization
By the time of the TRIDENT Conference in May 1943, both the U.S. and the combined machinery for making and executing strategic decisions had taken relatively final form. Changes made in the last two years of the war were mostly matters of detail, of refinements and adjustments to an intricate operating machine, and grew out of efforts to promote smoother functioning of the most extensive and complex part of the apparatus, that part concerned with planning, direction, and control of the logistical effort.
Civil-Military Relations
The American logistical effort, in its larger aspects, was civilian as well as military, and involved the nation's entire economy. In its direction and control both civilian and military organizations played their part. For the management of the war economy, President Roosevelt in 1942 created a multiplicity of special civilian agencies, most of them engaged in co-ordinating rather than operating functions. Of these agencies the War Production Board (WPB) was pre-eminent in theory, if not always in fact, the arbiter of all industrial war production. Of no less importance for military logistics was the War Shipping Administration (WSA), which was charged with the allocation, control, and
use of American merchant shipping within the limits of "strategic military requirements" as determined by other, presumably military, authority. Other agenciesthe War Food Administration, Office of Defense Transportation, Office of Price Administration, Petroleum Administrator for War, Solid Fuels Administrator for War, and the War Manpower Commission, to name the most importantall exercised varying degrees of authority in their respective fields. Representatives of certain of the civilian agencies formed, with their British counterparts, the four civilian combined boards (Combined Production and Resources Board, (CPRB), Combined Raw Materials Board, Combined Shipping Adjustment Board (CSAB), and Combined Food Board) that served as media for co-ordinating the British and American economic effort.1 Within the military sphere, most strategic-logistic planning and determination of strategic requirements fell to the Joint Chiefs of Staff and its various committees. The Army-Navy Munitions Board (ANMB), theoretically at least representative of the undersecretaries of War and Navy, served as the military link with WPB at the joint level and
1 For treatment of the civilian wartime agencies, see Bureau of the Budget, The United States at War:
Development and Administration of the War Program of the Federal Government (Washington, 1946).
90
administered the complicated system of production priorities for military programs. The vast logistical operating functions detailed calculation of requirements, planning and scheduling of military production, and storage and distribution of end productsfell to the War and Navy Departments acting through their own separate agencies. Many of the organizational growing pains and the adjustment problems in 1942 involved the relationship between civilian and military authority. If, in theory, the logistical process could be divided into civilian and military segments, the one concerned with essentially commercial processes in production and distribution and the other with direct support of military operations, in practice the lines of authority overlapped at every turn. If military leaders respected the tradition of civilian control as much as did members of Congress and civilian heads of wartime agencies, they still considered it necessary that they share control and direction of the nation's economic effort because of its direct bearing on the success or failure of military operations. By mid-1943 most relative areas of responsibility had been satisfactorily defined, but some hazy sectors remained. By arrangements worked out in 1942 the military services had generally firm control of all operations that directly affected logistical support of the armed forces from production lines to overseas depots. WPB, for instance, did not become an operating ministry of supply, but left the actual purchasing, contracting, and inspection of military supplies to the Army and the Navy. Similarly, WSA, albeit with greater reluctance, left the actual loading and shipment of military supplies in the hands
LOGISTICAL ORGANIZATION
in the nature of the supervision over it. Recognizing the dual need for a greater degree of cohesiveness among the civilian war agencies and for a more positive measure of civilian control over military production programs, President Roosevelt on 27 May 1943 created the Office of War Mobilization (OWM) with former Supreme Court Justice James F. Byrnes as its director. OWM was granted sweeping powers to develop programs and establish policies for the maximum use of the nation's natural and industrial resources for military and civilian needs, and to unify the activities of all federal agencies and departments engaged in or concerned with production, procurement, distribution, or transportation of military or civilian supplies. Byrnes became something like a chief of staff to the President with authority over the entire domestic front. Only the determination of military strategy and the conduct of international political relations were excluded from his purview. In exercising these powers, Byrnes sought neither to disturb the existing structure nor to assume operating functions for OWM. The creation of OWM nonetheless had reverberations throughout wartime Washington: It established a definite point below the Presidential level at which civilian control over the multifarious economic activities of the military services could be exercised. Also, OWM served as a pointed reminder of Roosevelt's intention to maintain firm civilian control. Byrnes acted quickly to assert his general review authority in the economic sphere. He requested each military service and the Maritime Commission to appoint a procurement review board to undertake a thorough evalua-
91
tion of existing procurement programs. Shortly afterward, the President declined to issue a written charter for the JCS, and in doing so sharply reminded the military chiefs that they should establish more orderly control of the logistics function within the JCS structure. Thus the impulse behind the creation of the Office of War Mobilization opened a new chapter in the continuing search for economy and system, for from it evolved a revamped JCS committee structure for handling logistical matters and major adjustments in the Army's requirements program.4
Logistics in the Joint Committee System
By the end of May 1943 there probably was no staff officer in Washington who was not convinced that logistical considerations were very important factors in the formulation of strategy. Nonetheless, a basic disagreement remained within the War Department between the logisticians of Army Service Forces and the strategic planners of Operations Division as to how and by whom the integration of strategic and logistical planning should be carried out. The planners felt that the strategy and the logistics in any given operation must be treated as a whole and that only they (the planners) were in a position to do so, although they recognized the need to draw on the logistical experts in various fields for desired estimates, data, and advice as required. The logisticians claimed a place on the highest planning staffs for their experts, insisting that only in this way could adequate and accurate informa(1) Ibid., pp. 45-75. (2) On the War Department Procurement Review Board see below, Chapter V.
4
92
tion on logistical problems be brought to bear at every stage of strategic planning and timely preparations be made for actual execution of those plans when the JCS or the CCS approved them. In the reorganization of the JCS committee structure completed in May 1943, the ASF retained or secured a place on all the committees concerned primarily with logistics but failed to get representation on the Joint Staff Planners (JPS), which continued to be the principal group on which the Joint Chiefs relied for final staff work on strategic problems.5 In the reorganized committee structure, four main committees concerned themselves entirely with logistical mattersthe Joint Military Transportation Committee (JMTC), the Army-Navy Petroleum Board (ANPB), the U.S. Representatives, Munitions Assignments Board (U.S. Reps, MAB), and the Joint Administrative Committee (JAdC). The ANPB and JMTC antedated the May 1943 reorganization by more than a year, but at this time they first received formal charters setting forth their precise functions. Both agencies were highly specialized committees dealing with two of the most vital resources for the Allied war effort petroleum, oil, and lubricants (POL), and shipping. They had certain broad operational functions as well as planning responsibilities. By its charter, JMTC was responsible for
5 See (1) Leighton and Coakley, Global Logistics, 1940-43, pp. 649-55; (2) Ray S. Cline, Washington Command Post: The Operations Division, UNITED STATES ARMY IN WORLD WAR II (Washington, 1951), pp. 257-61; (3) John D. Millett, The Organization and Role of the Army Service Forces, UNITED STATES ARMY IN WORLD WAR II (Washington, 1954) (hereafter cited as Role of the
advising the JCS on shipping and all matters relating to overseas transportation (including the merchant shipbuilding program), for co-ordination of Army and Navy shipping requirements and their presentation to the War Shipping Administration, for apportionment of shipping allotted by WSA to meet Army and Navy requirements in accordance with priorities set by the JCS, for recommending adjustments in case of shipping shortages, and for general co-ordination of ship operations with WSA and with other United Nations (U.N.) shipping authorities. Similarly, the ANPB was charged with consolidation of Army and Navy requirements for petroleum products, with detailed co-ordination of the procurement, distribution, and use of products allotted to meet these requirements, and with liaison and co-ordination with the Petroleum Administrator for War. By contrast, the assigned functions of the U.S. Representatives, MAB, were exceedingly broad, patterned after those the Combined Munitions Assignments Board (MAB) was supposed to perform for the Combined Chiefs of Staff. They were to maintain full information of the entire munitions resources and requirements of the United States and recommend to the JCS measures necessary "to keep planned requirements programs in line with strategic policy, changing operational conditions . . . and the re of production."6 They would also, when
(1) Charter of U.S. Reps, MAB, is JCS 202/20/D. (2) Charter of the JMTC is JCS 202/16/D. (3) Charter of the ANPB is JCS 202/21/D. All dated 11 May 43. (4) For the fullest description of the May 1943 reorganization of the JCS committees, see Vernon E. Davis, Section I: Organizational Development, 3 vols., II, 590-684, in History of the Joint Chiefs of Staff in World War II, MS, JCS Historical Sec.
6
ASF),
pp. 111-23.
LOGISTICAL ORGANIZATION
directed by the JCS, recommend allocations of material between the Army and Navy and serve as U.S. members on the Combined Munitions Assignments Board in making assignments to other United Nations. In actual fact, the U.S. Representatives, MAB, did not effectively exercise such broad powers, but for the most part, like the MAB itself, were confined to the assignments function. They provided no real link between strategic and logistical planning, as their requirements function may have indicated, except insofar as they translated strategic decisions into assignments of munitions to service and national claimants. It was, rather, an entirely new organization, the Joint Administrative Committee, that bore closest resemblance to what General Somervell wanteda genuine logistics committee concerned with assuring proper consideration of logistics in strategic planning at the highest levels. However, the impetus for creation of this committee did not come from the logisticians so much as it did from the Joint Staff Planners, who were anxious to rid themselves of the burden of considering numerous miscellaneous matters outside the realm of pure war planning. Only after a strong protest from General Somervell did the ASF get a place on this committee, replacing a proposed OPD member. The duties of the JAdC were simply stated as "handling matters which do not come under the jurisdiction of one of the other agencies of the Joint Chiefs of Staff organization."7 The committee was not given any jurisdiction over the Joint Military Transportation Committee, the Army-Navy Petro7
93
leum Board, or the U.S. Representatives, MAB. Moreover, although the terms of its charter implied a relationship of equality with the Joint Staff Planners, in practice the planners continued to act as the filter through which all important plans and problems went to the JCS for decision. The arrangements for integrating logistics with strategy proved the weakest part of the May 1943 reorganization. Although U.S. staff work at TRIDENT was generally smoother than at Casablanca, the members of the Joint War Plans Committee complained in a postmortem of the difficulty of "obtaining in a reasonably short time, data on availability and allocations" relying on ad hoc subcommittees formed of War and Navy Department experts. They suggested an addition to the joint planning structure of "a joint logistics group charged with maintaining a central file of up to date statistics on availability and allocation of forces and equipment."8 The joint planners demurred, apparently fearful of the creation of a separate logistics committee on an equal plane with themselves. Meanwhile, the Joint Administrative Committee had begun to function and was taking unto itself some of the functions a logistical committee might be expected to perform, but it had no subordinate working committee, such as the Joint Staff Planners had in the JWPC, to do the necessary detailed studies in support of its operations. In July the JWPC proposed the obvious solution: that the JAdC be specifically charged with those matters pertaining to mobilization, deployment, troop bases,
JPS 191, rpt by JWPC, 26 May 43, title: Joint War Plng Agencies. Quoted in Davis, Organizational Development, II, 718-20, History JCS.
8
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of the administrative committee the JCS had been effectively functioning in this portant forward strides in joint as well as area. The reply to the President stated combined strategic planning ... it is my categorically that the Joint Administraopinion that more attention should now be tive Committee was charged with the given to organizing for the same kind of integration of logistical with strategic joint effort in dealing with questions of planning, and that it was responsible for supply. Joint logistics planning should parwelding Army and Navy procurement allel joint strategic planning. Likewise, the joint military supply program should receive plans into an over-all plan and for recontinuous review in order to attain a more adjusting "military programs so that they perfect balance among the various pro- will be feasible from a production viewgrams. The supply program of each service 13 should be carefully scrutinized as to its point" obviously, what General Somrelationship to the programs of the other ervell thought a joint logistics committee services to the end that there shall be one should be rather than what the Joint unified and balanced supply program conAdministrative Committee actually was. sistent with up-to-date strategic concepts.10 OPD officers prepared a memorandum As General Marshall noted when the for General Marshall showing that each matter was discussed in a JCS meeting of the functions claimed for the Joint three days later, it was evident that "the Administrative Committee had in fact President's letter had been prompted by been assigned to the U.S. Representathe effort of Justice Byrnes to have all tives, MAB, by their charter. The memagencies connected with the war effort orandum was never sent, for the OPD correlated."11 Marshall came to the officers soon recognized that the letter meeting with a reply to the President's to the President had forced the issue, letter drafted by General Somervell, the making mandatory a new charter for the tenor of which was that all that needed JAdC that would give it at least some to be done had already been done. Somof the powers it was represented as havervell's draft described the several mili- ing. The charters of other committees tary programs as in "an excellent state
9
training, equipment, and transportation that fell within the purview of the JCS and that a Joint Logistics Plans Committee be formed under the JAdC.9 In the end it was not the JWPC's insistent voice but a White House communication that produced a solution not unlike the one the planners' working group proposed. On 17 July, when specifically rejecting a JCS proposal that he approve a written charter for them, the President said: I believe that we have recently made im-
so sure the state of balance was so excellent and they stoutly denied that the JAdC had ever been charged with the broad functions describedthe JCS accepted Somervell's draft as modified to indicate that even before the creation
10 Ltr, President to Leahy, Incl to JCS 415, 17 Jul 43, title: Joint Effort Regarding Supply. 11 Min, 97th mtg JCS, 20 Jul 43, Item 1.
Memo, Somervell for CofS USA, 19 Jul 43, and Incl, CsofS Jt and Comb 1942-44, Hq ASF. 13 Memo, JCS for President, 20 Jul 43, sub: Logistics Planning, Incl, JCS 415/1, 21 Jul 43, title: Joint Effort Regarding Supply.
12
LOGISTICAL ORGANIZATION would then, of course, have to be modified accordingly.14 The members of the administrative committee themselves were quick to grasp the initiative. By 8 August 1943 they were ready with a new charter changing the name of the committee to the Joint Logistics Committee (JLC) and broadening and enlarging its functions to the point where it would stand on a plane of equality with the Joint Staff Planners. The Joint Logistics Committee was to act in co-ordination with the planners in preparation of joint war plans "so as to insure the logistic feasibility of such plans"; prepare basic logistical plans to implement war plans; advise the JCS in respect to logistical implications of prepared U.S. commitments relating to combined operations, balance among military production programs, and adequacy of supply and priority ratings; furnish logistic information and guidance to the JCS and other governmental agencies as required; and make up the U.S. membership of the Combined Administrative Committee (CAdC). Its membership, they said, should consist of three general officers from the Army and three flag officers from the Navy; two of the Army members should come from the ASF and one from the AAF. A Joint Logistics Plans Committee (JLPC) should be formed to serve as a working committee for the JLC.15
14 (1) OPD Notes on JCS 97th Mtg, 20 Jul 43, ABC 334.8 JAdC (5 May 43), Sec I-A. (2) Min, 97th mtg JCS, 20 Jul 43, Item 1. (3) Draft Memo, ACofS OPD for CofS, 23 Jul 43, sub: Balanced Supply Program Consistent with Current Strategic Concept, and related papers in ABC 334.8 JAdC (5 May 43) Sec I-A. 15 JCS 450, 8 Aug 43, rpt by JAdC, title: Adjustments in JAdC.
95
The proposed Joint Logistics Committee charter marked General Somervell's final bid for equal status of logistical experts with strategic planners in the Joint Staff hierarchy. Very quickly OPD opposition asserted itself. Expressing old fears that "logistical decisions could unduly affect . . . strategy," O officers turned to the task of whittling down both the pretensions of the new committee and the role of ASF on it. They agreed to the creation of a Joint Logistics Committee, but they felt it should be definitely subordinate to the JPS planners. They saw no need for the working subcommittee, and insisted that the existing system of consulting experts as required better served the needs of the planners. Moreover, they would eliminate one ASF member and substitute an OPD officer. On 9 August 1943 the JCS agreed to defer action on the matter until after the QUADRANT Conference scheduled to begin at Quebec on 14 August, and to refer the proposed charter to the Joint Strategic Survey Committee and the Joint Staff Planners for concurrent study and recommendation. In the meantime, a special logistical team composed of Army and Navy experts was set up to serve the planners at QUADRANT, an arrangement which, at least to the Army planners in OPD, seemed eminently satisfactory and worthy of perpetuation.16 By the time the separate reports of the joint planners and the Joint Strategic Survey Committee had been recon(1) Quote from OPD Notes on JCS 102d Mtg, 9 Aug 43, and Tabs A-C. (2) OPD Notes on JPS 95th Mtg, 18 Aug 43. Both in ABC 334.8 JAdC 5 May 43, Sec I-A. (3) Memo, Brig Gen Walter A. Wood, Jr., for Gen Somervell, 9 Aug 43, sub: Action Taken at Special Mtg JCS Mon 9 Aug, CsofS Jt and Comb 1942-44, Hq ASF.
16
96
ciled, the Army planners had been persuaded to abandon their opposition to a JLC working committee. But they did gain their main pointthat the Joint Staff Planners should continue to be responsible for the integration of logistics with strategy and that in this respect the logistics committee should "advise" the planners and not "act in co-ordination" with them. In facing the knotty problem of relationship between the Joint Logistics Committee and the specialized committees (JMTC, ANPB, and U.S. Reps, MAB) the joint report circumscribed the jurisdiction of the JLC by exempting from its surveillance matters "specifically assigned to other J.C.S. agencies, namely military overseas transportation, petroleum and munitions assignments." Although the JPS clearly perceived a conflict between the functions already assigned the U.S. Representatives, MAB, and those to be assigned the Joint Logistics Committee, the joint report circumvented the issue by suggesting that there was no real problem.17 This jettisoning of Somervellian concepts was almost entirely the work of the Army planners. The Navy took little part, and when the joint report was presented to the JCS on 14 September 1943, Admirals King and Cooke, Vice Chief of Naval Operations Admiral Frederick J. Horne, and Rear Adm. Oscar C. Badger, Assistant Chief of Naval Operations for Logistic Plans, all insisted that the new logistics committee should be accorded a higher place in
17
Relationships of the Joint Logistics Committee to the Joint Military Trans(1) Quotation from Min, 114th mtg JCS, 14 Sep 43, Item 4. (2) JCS 450/4, 8 Oct 43, title: Adjustments in JAdC. (3) Min, 118th mtg JCS, 12 Oct 43, Item 2. 19 JCS 202/29/0, 13 Oct 43, title: Charter JLC.
18
(2) JCS 450/1, 9 Sep 43, is the separate report of JSSC. (3) JCS 450/2, 11 Sep 43, is the separate
report of JPS.
LOGISTICAL ORGANIZATION
portation Committee, Army-Navy Petroleum Board, and U.S. Representatives, MAB, were not really spelled out in detail. Revisions were made in the ANPB and JMTC charters to provide that certain of their planning functions would be carried out "in accordance with overall logistical plans" as developed by the JLC, but their "administrative functions" were left intact and they maintained their independence of the logistics committee in their own specialized fields until the end of the war. The charter of the U.S. Representatives, MAB, on the other hand, was extensively revised. The over-all surveillance of requirements and production programs, a function long allowed to atrophy, was dropped and the committee reconstituted under a new name, the Joint Munitions Allocation Committee (JMAC), responsible for allocation of finished munitions between the Army and Navy and for concerting American policy on matters to be brought before the Combined Munitions Assignments Board.20 When the function of advising the JCS on the alignment of requirements programs with changing strategy, operational conditions, and the realities of production was removed from the U.S. Representatives, MAB, it was not assigned to the Joint Logistics Committee. Instead, at the direct request of Justice Byrnes, the JCS on 21 September created the Joint Production Survey Committee (JPSC) to function in that area,
(1) The revised charter of the JMTC is JCS 202/27/D, 13 Oct 43; that of the ANPB, JCS 202/28/D, 13 Oct 43; and that of the JMAC is JCS 450/8/D, 10 Nov 43. (2) Davis, Organizational Development, II, 747-57, History JCS. (3) On the JMAC see below, Chapter XXV.
20
97
quite independent of JLC control. The committee was composed of two general officers from the Army (one of them from the AAF), and two flag officers from the Navy; an OWM representative, Fred Searls, attended each meeting though he was not formally a member. The committee was primarily conceived as a link between the JCS and Byrnes' office. The Joint Production Survey Committee was the logistical counterpart of the Joint Strategic Survey Committee, and was composed of "elder statesmen," though of not quite so exalted rank as those on the JSSC. Army Service Forces was not represented on the committee at all, so that the JSSC did not have the link the JLC had with the main War Department operating agency in the field of production.21 The membership of the Joint Logistics Committee had been set at three general officers from the Army and three flag officers from the Navy; as OPD asked, its Logistics Group was accorded a place; the ASF was assigned only one member; the third membership went to the AAF. The charter for the working committee, the Joint Logistics Plans Committee (JLPC), as approved on 10 November 1943, set the permanent membership at six, three from the Army and
three from the Navy, with the Army members being drawn from precisely the same sources as those of the parent committee. The permanent members were to be simply a control group to direct, co-ordinate, and supervise the endeavors of a host of associate members
(1) JCS 202/26/D, 21 Sep 43, title: Charter JPSC. (2) Somers, Presidential Agency, OWMR, pp. 122-23. (3) Davis, Organizational Development, II, 757-61, History JCS.
21
98
GLOBAL LOGISTICS AND STRATEGY: 1943-1945 War Department General Staff supplied 23 one. Establishment of the JLC and its working subcommittee and of the JPSC
completed the World War II structure
who were to be logistics experts with various specialties drawn from the War and Navy Departments. So constituted, the JLPC was to prepare plans, studies, and estimates as directed by the JLC or upon its own initiative, and work in close liaison with the Joint War Plans Committee "to the end that resulting logistics plans will properly implement war plans."22 The arrangement of associate members in effect systemized the older method of calling on ad hoc committees of experts from the War and Navy Departments. Associate members were not appointed permanently but were assigned JLPC work in addition to their other duties. By the end of the first month of operations, the Joint Logistics Plans Committee had 150 associate members and the number rose slowly but steadily every month thereafter, reflecting the ever-increasing volume and complexity of joint logistical planning. The regular members of the JLPC complained in March 1944 that the whole system was relatively inefficient. Associate members, burdened with regular duties within their departments, could not always be counted on for JLPC work, and the
effects were particularly serious when important studies had to be completed on short deadlines. The following month
of Joint Staff planning committees. (Chart 1) That they came into being so late in the war indicates a belated acceptance of the need for systemization of logistical planning at the JCS level and for a body of logistical experts to serve as permanent members of the joint committees, not simply to be on call from their parent offices. Though the
logistics committees provided a structure
paralleling the strategic planning committees, they did not gain for the logisticians equal place with the planners in the formulation of strategy. The Joint Staff Planners retained the final word when it came to making the tentative estimates of resources and requirements requisite to strategic planning, and surrendered to the logistics committees only
calculations of the more detailed sort
that were necessary for drawing up final balance sheets or that actually governed the movements of troops and materials after over-all objectives had been decided upon. This was a lasting source of dissatisfaction to the ASF members of the JLC and JLPC, who continued to
complain of not having enough knowledge of strategic plans to permit joint
the JCS made some concessions: the number of permanent associates was increased to twenty, eleven to come from the Army and nine from the Navy; of the eleven Army members, OPD and ASF furnished three each, AAF furnished four members, and G-4 of the
22 (1) JCS 450/7/0, 10 Nov 43, title: Charter JLPC. (2) Cline, Washington Command Post, pp. 264-65.
logistical plans to be intelligently formulated. On the other hand, the strategic planners also had occasion to complain that in their estimates the logisticians tried to influence strategy indeed, at times to formulate their own strategy
23 (1) JCS 810, 8 Apr 44, rpt by JLC, title: Membership JLPC. (2) Cline, Washington Command Post, pp. 264-66.
100
the major commands" the principal areas of logistical activity.25 But, by the sheer The joint committees dealing with magnitude of its operation, its greater logistics were focal points at which Army size and the superior effectiveness of its and Navy plans and estimates could be staff, and the driving personality of its brought together, revised, and related commanding general, ASF completely to the broader issues of strategy, and overshadowed G-4. General Somervell where basic allocations of military re- continued to function as the principal sources could be worked out. The work adviser of the Chief of Staff on supply of the committees was, nevertheless, matters after he ceased to be G-4 and largely of a planning, co-ordinating, and became Commanding General, Army advisory nature. The work on which Service Forces. With eight or a dozen plans and estimates were based, as well officers assigned it G-4 found it imposas that involved in the enormous task sible to exercise even policy supervision of translating broad logistical plans into over logistical activities. Insofar as the the myriad actions required to carry power to determine general policy outthem out, rested with the staff and oper- side the technical sphere was concerned, ating agencies of the War and Navy De- OPD exercised control with its general partments. In the War Department responsibility for overseas operations. structure the reorganization of March ASF generally determined detailed Army 1942 had left two real powers in the requirements, prescribed policies and field of ground force logistics Army procedures to be followed in production Service Forces and Operations Division. and distribution, served as the operating While G-1, G-3, and G-4 of the War agency for supply, transportation, and Department General Staff were entrust- general housekeeping in the zone of ed with responsibility for formulating interior, and maintained liaison with the Army-wide policies in the fields of per- principal civilian agencies involved in sonnel, unit organization, and supply the war effort. OPD provided the bases respectively, in point of fact these func- on which requirements were calculated, tions were exercised mainly by either determined overseas troop bases and supASF or OPD, or, for air matters, by the ply levels, set priorities on scarce items, AAF. In the basic Army Regulations and insisted on exercising the principal setting forth General Staff functions, the role in strategic-logistical planning. To Supply Division (G-4) was charged with the extent that ASF activities were conpreparation of "broad basic supply plans cerned with support of overseas theaters, they training, were subject to active and effective . . . required by mobilization, and strategic plans" to guide the actions supervision by OPD, while G-4 superof AAF, ASF, and AGF, with collabora- vision over other aspects of ASF operaCompare Cline, Washington Command Post, pp. 266-68, and Millett, Role of the ASF, pp. 122-23.
24
25 AR 10-15, 13 Jul 42, General Staff, Organization and General Duties.
LOGISTICAL ORGANIZATION tions was quite nominal. Clashes between ASF and OPD in the areas of planning for and support of overseas operations, where the functions of the two agencies overlapped, were not infrequent. All sections of OPD dabbled in logistical matters at times; however, the OPD agency primarily concerned was the Logistics Group, headed by Brig. Gen. Patrick H. Tansey, "a small but very influential staff for studying all matters of logistics, supply and equipment as such, as distinguished from such matters in any specific theater." 26 Theater Group, OPD, with its individual sections for each of the overseas theaters, also dealt continuously and directly with logistical problems in each separate theater. During 1943 there was a general move in the direction of reassertion of the prerogatives of the General Staff at the expense of the ASF. It resulted in a moderate bolstering of the position of G-4, though it never went so far as to supplant General Somervell as the principal adviser to General Marshall on supply matters or to shift from either OPD or ASF to G-4 the right of membership on the more important joint committees concerned with logistics. General Somervell opened the question of staff organization for logistics anew in the spring of 1943 with a blunt and overt proposal that the functions and personnel of G-1, G-4, and the Logistics Group, OPD, be absorbed into the ASF and AAF as appropriate. "In matters of supply and administration," wrote Somervell, "it is highly impracticable, if not impossible, to separate
(1) Cline, Washington Command Post, pp. 270-71. (2) Leighton and Coakley, Global Logistics, 1940-43, pp. 223-27.
26
101
policy and operations. The enforcement of policy inevitably tends to become the actual operation of that policy with all the extra administrative detail and personnel required for an additional agen27 cy to do the work of another." As far as G-1 and G-4 were concerned, Somervell was doing little more than requesting formal ratification of a situation that already existed. The abolition of OPD's Logistics Group was something else again, but the ASF commander insisted that it simply duplicated work his own staff was doing. Somervell's proposal found no adherents anywhere in the War Department, and General Marshall took no formal action on it. The over-all result was, rather, to provoke a reaction in favor of bolstering the General Staff at the expense of the ASF. Somervell's proposal called attention to the atrophy of all General Staff sections save OPD, and the need to do something about it if G-1, G-3, and G-4 were not to wither away entirely. During the summer and well into the fall of 1943 debate continued within the General Staff as to the proper distribution of functions, centering around proposals that the OPD Logistics Group be transferred not, as Somervell suggested, to ASF, but to G-4The ultimate decisions, rendered by Lt. Gen. Joseph T. McNarney, Deputy Chief of Staff, in effect reaffirmed OPD's position as the element within the General Staff having primary interest in overseas operations, and emphasized the necessity for G-4 to exercise effective policy supervision over more or less rou27 (1) Memo, Somervell for CofS, 3 Apr 43, sub: Suggested Changes in Organization of the War Department, File CofS, Hq ASF. (2) Millett, Role of the ASF, pp. 138-42.
102
tine supply operations in the zone of interior. McNarney's directive of 5 August 1943 stated:
The Operations Division . . . will scrutinize the requirements of the several theaters, will balance the requirements against the means available, and will determine the priority and time when they are to be made available. The Operations Division will then inform the theater commander and the Assistant Chiefs of Staff, G-1, G-3 and G-4 what units, individuals and materials are to be furnished and when they will be made available. . . .28
Within OPD, it was generally agreed that all functions not essential to the direction of operations in overseas theaters should be performed by other sections of the General Staff. The great
difficulty was that almost every activity in the zone of interior affected overseas operations. The functions of providing the means and of directing their employment were so closely related that OPD found it impossible to operate without maintaining its own sort of G-4, and all proposals to transfer the functions of the Logistics Group to G-4 fell by the wayside. General McNarney did, in October 1943, transfer certain specific functions relating to procurement and munitions assignments from OPD to G-4. Responsibility for preparation of the Victory Program Troop Basis, used for computation of the Army Supply Program and for determining policies for planning and execution of procurement, were turned over to G-4, as was the task of representing the War Department on
28 (1) Memo, McNarney for ACsofS, G-1, G-2, G-3, G-4, G-5, 5 Aug 43, sub: Movements to Theaters, ABC 334.8 JAdC (5 May 43), Sec I-A. (2) Cline, Washington Command Post, pp. 270-84, treats these issues in detail.
29
LOGISTICAL ORGANIZATION
103
ize many of the activities and functions currently being executed by the Army Service Forces and would require a reorganization within the War Department."32 No such major reorganization took place. General McNarney had directed that AR 10-15 be clarified to show division of supply responsibilities more clearly, but the end result was only an extremely minor change published in September 1944.33 Nevertheless, under the basic AR 10-15, interpreted broadly, G-4 already had considerable power, and on 1 January 1944 General McNarney assigned the Supply Division major responsibility for seeing that the Richards Committee recommendations were carried out. G-4 was, among other things, to conduct a review of existing supply regulations, supervise the formuGENERAL MCNARNEY lation of the Army Supply Program, undertake the accurate determination of replacement factors, and establish policy exercise his right to supervise supply acfor and supervise a further wide variety tivities of ASF and AAF and to deterof ASF and AAF activities.34 mine broad supply policies and proceWith the assignment of these responsi- dures. In a nominal sense he succeeded, bilities, the Supply Division received a but actual power relationships and methmodest increase in personnelfrom 12 ods of doing business changed very little; to 45 officers. The net results in terms indeed, they could hardly have been of any major shift in power relation- changed very much at that point in the ships within the War Department were war without the major reorganization not earthshaking. Maj. Gen. Russell L. and the consequent dislocations of which Maxwell, who assumed office as G-4 in ASF warned. The admonitions of GenSeptember 1943, aggressively sought to eral Somervell about the difficulty of separating supply policy and operations Memo, Col Henry R. Westphalinger, Hq ASF, had considerable validity. As long as for Maj Gen Russell L. Maxwell, Chmn, Ad Hoc Com, sub: Minority Rpt Covering Recmns of Ad G-4 could communicate with the techHoc Com . . ., Levels of Supply, app. G. nical services and other ZI supply agenAR 10-15, Change 1, 11 Sep 44. (1) Memo, McNarney, DCofS, for CG's AAF, cies only through ASF headquarters, the AGF, ASF, and ACsofS G-1, G-3, G-4, and OPD, general staff agency was at a decided dis1 Jan 44, sub: Changes in Supply Levels and Supply advantage. G-4 was able to assert its right Procedures (hereafter cited as McNarney Directive 1 Jan 44), Levels of Supply, app. A. (2) See below. to review policies and procedures developed by the ASF staff and publish these Chapters V and VI, for greater detail.
32 33 34
104
GENERAL LUTES
policies and procedures as War Department, not ASF, directives; it did not, however, actually initiate many of these policies and procedures. The historian of OPD organization concludes that the transfer of functions to G-4 in 1943 marked "the beginning of a gradual rise in the volume of staff business done by G-4"; the ASF historian remarks that "thereafter the influence of G-4 was greater, or at least ASF found it expePlans and Operations, ASF dient to keep G-4 fully informed about Organization for logistics at the War what it was doing."35 Not the least of G-4's handicaps was Department level, then, continued to that for the most part it continued to be an area in which indistinct and overbe divorced from the area of correlation lapping boundaries divided the work of of logistics and strategy the area in four different agencies ASF, OPD, which OPD shared dominance with ASF. Memo, Gen Maxwell for DCofS, 3 May 45, sub: The key point was membership on the Membership of G-4 on Joint Staff Committees Which joint logistics committees in a period Deal with Logistics, ABC 334.8 JAdC (5 May 43).
36
In May 1943 a G-4 officer had complained bitterly of the middle position occupied by the Supply Division "between General Somervell as the Army representative in joint and international supply deals and General Somervell as Commanding General of the Army Service Forces, a theoretical subordinate."37 The situation General Maxwell objected to near the end of the war still bore a distinct resemblance to the earlier "middle position" and persisted as an anomaly in the War Department structure despite the movement toward reassertion of General Staff prerogatives in 1943 and 1944.
(1) Cline, Washington Command Post, p. 284. (2) Millett, Role of the ASF, p. 144. (3) History of Supply Division, G-4, WDGS, MS, OCMH.
35
Memo, Lt Col James McCormack, Jr., for Brig Gen Raymond G. Moses, G-4, 16 Apr 43, sub: Reorganization of the WD, G-4 020. See Leighton and Coakley, Global Logistics, 1940-43, p. 224.
37
LOGISTICAL ORGANIZATION
G-4, and AAF. The unchallenged supremacy that ASF retained in ground force supply operations in the zone of interior made that agency the most important part of the Army concerned with logistics, and the ASF headquarters staff dwarfed in numerical strength that of any other agency in wartime Washington. The fundamental organization of the ASF remained relatively stable after May 1943, but largely because General Somervell's attempts to carry out a farreaching reorganization along functional lines cutting across the traditional divisions among the technical services failed 38 of acceptance. The May 1943 reorganization of ASF headquarters replaced the traditional staff divisions under assistant chiefs of staff with six staff directoratesOperations, Materiel, Personnel, Military Training, Fiscal, and Administration. In terms of logistical planning and support of military operations, the two most important directorates were Materiel under Maj. Gen. Lucius D. Clay and Operations under General Lutes. Clay's jurisdiction included requirements, production, and international aid; Lutes had jurisdiction over all matters pertaining to overseas troop and supply movements. Except for requirements, which had always been a general staff function, Clay's domain covered principally those matters that had fallen into the province of the Under Secretary of War before the March 1942 reorganization; Lutes inherited the more essential parts of the work of the Supply Division of the General Staff. Also, as the ASF staff became increasingly involved in logistical planning as well as in operations, Lutes
On these proposals see Millett, Role of the ASF, p. 144.
38
105
GENERAL CLAY
formed a planning staff that soon became the dominant planning agency in the ASF. In July 1943 he suggested to Somervell that the Director of Operations should occupy the same place on the ASF staff that OPD did on the War Department General Staff, and he should, Lutes noted, "be charged with the strategic employment of the supplies in consonance with the approved strategic plans, and charged with all ASF matters 39 affecting overseas operations." The last important reorganization of the ASF staff, in the autumn of 1943, carried out this concept in very considerable degree. At that time General Lutes was designated Director of Plans and Operations and his office made part of the Office of the Commanding Gen(1) Memo, Lutes for Somervell, 27 Jul 43, Misc Notes, Lutes File. (2) Millett, Role of the ASF, pp.
39
345-46. (3) Leighton and Coakley, Global Logistics, 1940-43, pp. 227-33.
106
eral, ASF, its mission to "coordinate and supervise planning and certain operational activities of the Army Service Forces."40 Specifically, his responsibilities included providing the links between ASF and both the joint and combined committees and the War Department General Staff and of acting as principal co-ordinator for supply operations of the ports and the technical services in support of overseas theaters. Two divisions remained as direct parts of Lutes' office, the Planning Division and the Mobilization Division. Planning Division was charged with the central task of co-ordination and supervision of "all overseas responsibilities of the Commanding General, ASF"; Mobilization Division was to handle ASF responsibilities with relation to overseas troop movements, service troop bases, and the Troop List for Operations and Supply.41 At the same time, three of the staff divisions that had been part of the Directorate of Operations Stock Control, Storage, and Maintenance were formed into a new Directorate of Supply under Brig. Gen. Frank A. Heileman. General Lutes' expanded powers reflected recognition of the ever-increasing work of ASF in the support of overseas operations, and in his new position he would have general surveillance over requirements and production planning, functions of General Clay's Directorate of Materiel, as well as over ASF distribution activities. General Clay, however, apparently was not disposed to relinHistory Planning Div ASF, Text, I, 24. (1) Ltr, Gen Lutes to Brig Gen Edmond H. Leavey, 1 Mar 44, sub: Functions and Responsibilities of Dir P&O ASF, Gen Pac Day file, Feb 44, Plng Div ASF. (2) ASF Cir 118, 12 Nov 43. (3) History Planning Div ASF, Text, I, 24-26. (4) On the Troop List for Operations and Supply see below, Chapter VI.
41 40
and with OPD, studied the implications of joint and combined plans, and conducted a certain amount of long-range logistical planning on its own. The Theater Branch was charged with co-ordinating, securing War Department approval when required, and issuing the necessary directives to fulfill ASF troop and supply requirements for overseas theaters. The branch was divided into sec(1) ASF Cir 67, 15 Mar 44. (2) ASF Cir 175, 10 Jun 44. (3) Millett, Role of the ASF, p. 346. (4) On supply control see below, Chapter V.
42
108
tions corresponding to the active theaters of the long-range logistical planning emin a close parallel to OPD's Theater bodied in the strategic logistics studies Group, and each section sought to serve as essentially strategic planning in disthe interests of its own theater by shep- guise. Lutes in turn continually fought herding its requests through the War against the proclivity of OPD officers to Department machinery and co-ordinat- communicate directly with chiefs of teching shipping requirements with the nical services on supply matters without Chief of Transportation. Zone of Inter- going through Plans and Operations, ior Branch was charged with co-ordina- ASF. In theory, Plans and Operations, tion of ASF programs for supplies, ASF, simply took up where OPD, Gentroops, and transportation, with the de- eral Staff, left off, planning for the exetermination of long-range requirements cution of and actually carrying out supfor ASF troop units, and with proc- ply actions required by decisions of the essing theater long-range operational CCS, JCS, and OPD. In practice, it was supply requirements. As General Lutes very hard to keep out of the business of politely wrote theater Service of Supply anticipating these decisions and trying (SOS) commanders in mid-1944, "The to influence them in terms of logistical Planning Division . . . is therefore the problems involved. Indeed, Planning Army Service Forces staff agency with Division, ASF, freely admitted that it which overseas Services of Supply Com- entered this field, and justified the pracmanders and staffs are most con- tice on the ground that actual strategic cerned."43 decisions usually came too late to allow As the focal point of ASF activity in timely logistical preparations. This bylogistic planning and support of over- product of the exclusion of the supply seas theaters, General Lutes' office was experts from the highest councils of the also the center of jurisdictional clashes joint planners endured until the very with OPD, whose officers regarded much end of the war.44
(1) Ltr, Lutes to Leavey, 1 Mar 44. (2) History Planning Div ASF, Text, I, 63-68. (3) General Orders 14, 12 March 1943, changed the name of Services of Supply (SOS) to Army Service Forces (ASF). Thereafter the Washington command used the new designation; theaters continued to use the old name until a rear area was officially designated a communications zone.
43
(1) Cline, Washington Command Post, pp. 26768. (2) Millett, Role of the ASF, p. 123. (3) Memo, Lutes for Dir Plng Div, 30 Aug 44, sub: Relations Between OPD and Chiefs of Services. (4) Memo, Lutes for ACofS OPD, 10 Oct 44. (5) Memo, Lutes for CofT, 25 Oct 44, sub: 772d MP Bn. (3), (4), and (5) in Lutes Diary.
44
CHAPTER V
110
GLOBAL LOGISTICS AND STRATEGY: 1943-1945 exact and a more exacting exercise in 1943. Not only did estimates for military end items have to be carefully reviewed and balanced, but all such items had to be translated into their equivalents in raw materials and production facilities. At the same time, as the pattern of future strategy and operations emerged, the requirements program had also to be adjusted to that pattern. The problem was no longer one of initial calculation of requirements to fit a specific strategy, but one of adjusting requirements (initially calculated in terms of creation of a general pool of military power) to meet specific needs as they developed. Thus the calculation of requirements in the later years of the war did become more closely allied to strategy as the Army completed its capital equipment program and moved on to a phase in which replacement, consumption, and special operational needs were the principal requirements. It cannot be said, however, that the specific goal of calculating "strategic requirements" was ever reached. Since early 1942 the official compilation of requirements for the U.S. Army (except for aircraft and parts) and of Army-procured material for the Navy and lend-lease had been the Army Supply Program (ASP). With the 1 February 1943 edition the form of the program and the basic procedures for its formulation and semiannual revision 3 had taken relatively final shape. Sec(1) See especially Smith, The Army and Economic Mobilization, pp. 140-212, for an extremely lucid account of the methodology of Army requirements determination. (2) Leighton and Coakley, Global Logistics, 1940-43, pp. 295-303, 632-35. (3) The following is based primarily on: Control Division, ASF, The Determination of Army Supply Requirements, prepared in 1945 by Lt. Col. Simon
3
duction realities, a process that reached its climax in the feasibility dispute of the fall of 1942. In that crisis the WPB ruled that proposed war production programs for 1943 were beyond the limits of American productive capacity, and the JCS consequently scaled them downward, with the Army requirements for ground force equipment receiving the brunt of the reduction. In the reduction, the question of a specific strategy was of less import than that of over-all balance of air, ground, and naval power and of merchant shipping in the pool.1 Coincident with the resolution of the feasibility dispute, a new system of allocation of raw materials was adopted by the War Production Board that further emphasized the necessity for close calculation of military requirements. The Controlled Materials Plan, first promulgated in November 1942 and put into effect in two major steps in April and July 1943, provided that each procurement agency should calculate its requirements for three basic raw materials steel, copper, and aluminumand present them to WPB quarterly. WPB would then make the necessary allocations, apportioning any shortfalls among the various agencies, and leaving to these agencies the actual distribution of critical materials among their contractors. This system proved to be far more effective than the previous method of allocating critical materials by means of priority ratings.2 With this system the calculation of Army requirements became both a more
1 On the feasibility dispute, see Leighton and Coakley, Global Logistics, 1940-43, pp. 602-11. 2 R. Elberton Smith, The Army and Economic Mobilization, UNITED STATES ARMY IN WORLD WAR II (Washington, 1959), pp. 566-96.
111
tion I of the 1 February ASP showed requirements for ground equipment; Section II set forth those for equipment and supplies peculiar to the AAF; Section III contained the required production of lend-lease items not standard to the
units. In 1943 it contained no data on troop deployment by theater, existing or projected. Calculating detailed requirements for the thousands of individual items that made up the ASP was an almost unbeU.S. Army; Section IV set forth the lievably complex undertaking and inconstruction program. Aircraft require- volved hundreds of individuals in the ments were not carried in the ASP; they technical services and ASF headquarters. were handled separately by a joint Army- In dealing with these calculations, a basic Navy agency, the Aircraft Resources distinction must be made between equipControl Office at Dayton, Ohio, which ment items that could be used over and scheduled aircraft production and dealt over again until they wore out, such as directly with WPB and with industry. rifles, tanks, planes, artillery pieces, and Requirements in the 1 February edition clothing (Class II and IV supplies), and were projected for 1943 and 1944; the expendables that could be used only 1 August 1943 edition carried 1945 re-once, such as food (Class I), POL (Class quirements for the first time. III), and ammunition (Class V). The Section I contained the great bulk of factors used to compute requirements ground army requirements. The task of for the two categories were necessarily their detailed calculation fell to the sev- different, though requirements for both en technical services, each of which han- had to be based generally on the Vicdled the items within its jurisdiction tory Program Troop Basis and on the under the supervision and direction of anticipated rate of overseas deployment. Requirements Division, ASF, a part of Initial issue, maintenance or replace4 General Clay's Directorate of Materiel. ment, and a distribution allowance The chief basis for calculation was the were the basic factors for calculating Victory Program Troop Basis, prepared equipment requirements. Initial issue by the OPD Logistics Group. It pro- was the quantity required to equip indijected estimates of all types of units for viduals and troop units in the first inapproximately two years in the future, stance; replacement, the quantity necesshowing applicable tables of organiza- sary to replace initial issue worn out, tion and equipment. It was a long-range lost, destroyed, or damaged beyond reforecast issued solely for use in require- pair; the distribution allowance was the ments calculations and did not neces- quantity required to keep the transportasarily reflect the short-range schedules tion pipeline full at all times so the prepared by G-3 that the War Department actually followed in activating The use of the term "maintenance" to designate
4
M. Frank, QMC, of Reqmts and Stock Control Div ASF, 5 vols. (vol. 1, text; vols. 2-5, appendixes and documents) (hereafter cited as Frank, Army Supply Requirements, with document number if pertinent) I, 52ff., Monograph OCMH; and on TM 38-220, 25 Jan 44, Preparation and Administration of the Army Supply Program.
quantities needed to replace initial issue worn out, lost, destroyed or damaged beyond repair, and of "maintenance factor" to describe the percentage of initial issue needed for this purpose, was common in 1942 and 1943. In November 1943, the term "replacement" was adopted in lieu of "maintenance," and thereafter "maintenance" referred only to the care and repair of equipment.
112
GLOBAL LOGISTICS AND STRATEGY: 1943-1945 monthly losses of each type of equipment from all causes. Separate factors were calculated for theaters of operation and for the zone of interior (the latter including certain inactive areas outside the United States such as Panama and the West Indies). During 1943 no differentiation was made among the active theatersa weighted average was used for all of them. For example, the ZI monthly replacement factor for service shoes during 1942 was set at 10 percent and the theater of operations factor at 25 percent, which meant that the yearly ZI replacement requirement would be 120 pairs of shoes for every 100 pairs of initial issue, the theater of operations replacement requirement 300 pairs for every 100 of initial issue.6 Calculation of total replacement requirements, then, depended on a determination of how many men on the average would be in active overseas theaters during the year and how many in the zone of interior or inactive areas. It was further complicated by the fact that the method used was to determine the number of months of each type replacement required for the entire troop basis.7 The distribution allowance, in the allinclusive sense, consisted of the quantities necessary to fill ZI depots and theater supply levels, to provide for filling the segments of the pipeline from factory to overseas port, and a special 2 percent allowance for shipping losses. A distribution factor at first was calculated as a flat percentage of initial issue and replacement requirements for each
6 Smith, The Army and Economic Mobilization, Table, p. 190. 7 For an explanation of this method see Ibid., pp. 182-84, and Leighton and Coakley, Global Logistics, 1940-43, p. 299.
soldier at the front could receive his equipment when and where he needed it. Certain factors that would appear to be properly a part of the distribution allowance (notably the provisions for shipping losses and for overseas theater reserve levels) in early editions of the 5 ASP were calculated separately. At least in theory initial issue requirements were the simplest to compute. They were determined by multiplying the dozens of separate tables of equipment for different types of troop units by the number of those units in the Victory Program Troop Basis, and by multiplying individual allowances by the number of soldiers entitled to receive them. To the products had to be added special operational supplies in excess of individual and unit allowances and a strategic reserve to take care of contingencies. The strategic reserve in the 1 February 1943 Army Supply Program consisted of equipment for 1.5 million enlisted men in units not expected to be activated, about 20 percent more than the then anticipated 7.5 million-enlistedman army. This strategic reserve was about equally divided between undetermined lend-lease needs and the needs of U.S. forces. Requirements for operational supplies were based on estimates of the areas of future operations and what they would entail. Replacement requirements were determined by the use of replacement factors, flat percentages of initial issue that were supposed to indicate average
TM 38-220, 25 Jan 44, lists initial issue, replacement, and distribution as the only factors; however, some ASF spokesmen later listed the strategic reserve as an additional separate element. See, for instance, address by Col. Lee A. Denson, Director, Reqmts Div ASF, at ASF Hq School, 15 Apr 44, File Speeches, Reqmts Div ASF.
5
ARMY REQUIREMENTS, 1943-44 item with added allowances for items subject to size tariffs. This method was used by all the technical services except Quartermaster Corps in calculating distribution requirements for the 1 February 1943 ASP. The Quartermaster Corps system, the carry-over method, tied in calculation of distribution requirements with actual calculation of stocks, existing and required, at different points in the pipeline. Later in the year the other services adopted the Quartermaster method. There was a marked tendency, in fact, for the distribution allowance to be merged with the replacement requirement. In the 1 February 1943 ASP, for instance, the amounts required to establish the shipping loss allowance and a 4-month overseas reserve level were both included with replacement under the general designation "maintenance." In the 1 August 1943 edition the distribution allowance was expressed entirely in terms of months of ZI and theater replacement although the various factors in distribution continued to be calculated separately. Requirements for expendable supplies could not, of course, be determined in terms of either initial issue or replacement, although there was a similar distribution requirement for keeping the pipeline full. Expendable supplies were therefore estimated in terms of average rate of consumption, expressed in "days of supply." For ammunition the day of supply referred to the number of rounds per gun per day; for subsistence it was the amount consumed by one man in one day; for POL it was the normal daily consumption of each type of vehicle or other piece of equipment using liquid fuel. Determination of requirements, then, involved multiplication of the
113 basic day of supply by the number of men or units to be supplied and multiplying the result by the number of days of supply required. The total days of supply necessary to provide for consumption by all units in the troop basis, to
build up reserves in the pipeline, and to provide for a plethora of special circumstances, made up the total requirement for expendables. Of all expendables, ammunition requirements were the most difficult to predict because of variations
in expenditure rates for different areas and different weapons and in the intensity of combat. However, 1942 and 1943 computations avoided these complications by the use of weighted averages for all theaters similar to those used for replacement factors. After calculating total requirements for a given year, total stocks on hand were deducted to arrive at required production. The "on-hand" figures in early 1943, however, were largely hypothetical, based as they were on production figures for the previous year minus estimated wastage. In March 1943 ASF ordered an inventory of stocks on hand in depots, posts, camps, and stations, which was to be the basis for calculating on-hand quantities for the 1 August revision of the ASP. Requirements were then to be based on the assumption that all troops were equipped and all overseas levels filled except to the extent that requisitions were in hand at depots for shortages. This represented a first attempt to base requirements strictly on anticipated future issues, the premise behind the stock control system to be placed into effect in 1944. Unfortunately, the first inventories were not entirely satisfactory, and only three services Quartermaster, Chemical Warfare, and
114
Transportationcould rely on them for The calculation of Army requirements computing requirements. The others, in early 1943 was thus more comparable for the most part, fell back on over-all to a mass volley than to carefully aimed inventory figures usually determined on fire. Apart from initial issue figures, the basis of theoretical, not actual, rates which were as reliable as the troop basis of consumption.8 and the tables of organization and equipOnce determined, required produc- ment they were derived from, the comtion was scheduled over the period for putations behind the ASP figures were which requirements were computed, syn- weighted averages determined more or chronized as closely as possible with less arbitrarily. No really reliable data troop activation and overseas movement existed as yet on which either replaceschedules. When total required produc- ment factors or ammunition days of suption for any year exceeded anticipated ply could be based, and most of the data production capacity, the deficit was de- used were derived from World War I ferred for production the next year. In experience. There was no provision for this connection the difference between different conditions in different theaters, "critical" and "essential" items must be either in replacement and consumption noted. Critical items were those requir- factors or in the methods by which reing a long lead time for production, and serve levels were computed. Overseas were for the most part in short supply troop bases in each theater were assumed during 1942 and 1943; essential items to be simply cross sections of the over-all were those obtainable on much shorter Victory Program Troop Basis, for renotice and, even in the earlier period, quirements were established without regenerally available in adequate quan- gard to variations in type troop requiretities. The basic plan for equipping units ments between the ZI and overseas theprovided that units in training should aters or in variations between overseas receive only 50 percent of their allow- theaters themselves. Specific theater reance of critical items. Thus both the 1 quirements entered into the calculation February and 1 August 1943 ASP's pro- of the Army Supply Program only in the vided for production of only 50 percent cases of special operational supplies, of critical items for those units in train- which were calculated by the chiefs of ing not expected to go overseas until services from strategic projections fur1944. For 1944 and 1945 full authorized nished them by Plans and Operations, allowances of critical items were provid- ASF. In the 1 February revision no provision had yet been made for calculating ed for all units.9 special project requirements on the basis of information from theater commandFrank, Army Supply Requirements, I, 71-74. ers. Items classified critical for procurement purposes were not necessarily the same as items listed as conIf inexact and perhaps overgenerous trolled for distribution under the War Department in its provision for future Army needs, priority system. Similarly, items under control for the Army Supply Program was as flexoverseas distribution and carried in the Materiel Status Report were not the same as critical or con- ible as circumstances would permit. It trolled items. (See below, Chapter VI.) Just why underwent a major revision every six these three different categories were maintained months, with monthly revisions for speseparately is not entirely clear.
8 9
115
tion of munitions, exploiting the immense capacity built up through 1941 and 1942 to turn out weapons, equipment, and supplies of relatively easy manufacture. In 1944 the emphasis shifted from sheer physical volume to greater selectivity, and most particularly toward production of heavy equipment items neglected earlier. Thus the dollar value of munitions produced in 1944 exceeded that of 1943, but for sheer physical volume output in 1943 may well have surpassed that of any other year of the war. And, if ground munitions alone are considered (excluding subsistence), even in adjusted dollar value 1943 production slightly exceeded that of 1944 and more than doubled that of 1942. 1 1 Significant as the 1943 production achievement was, it had been foreseen and counted on and must not be allowed to obscure the fact that war production failed to meet the goals set. At the beginning of 1943, even after the drastic cuts imposed by WPB the preceding November, the entire munitions program (excluding war construction) totaled $72.3 billion. Actual output for 1943 came to only $57.4 billion. About half of the shortfall can be explained by a general downward revision of unit costs that affected the dollar value figStatistics: Procurement, 9 April 1952 draft, prepared by Richard H. Crawford and Lindsley F. Cook under the direction of Theodore E. Whiting (hereafter cited as Crawford and Cook, Statistics: Procurement), MS, OCMH, p. 15. (2) Conspicuous exceptions to the above generalizations were aircraft, subsistence, and artillery ammunition, for which production was greater in 1944 than 1943. The peak year for tank guns and howitzers was 1942. In terms of adjusted dollar values, all of the technical services except Ordnance and Medical procured more in 1944 than in 1943; if subsistence is excluded, Quartermaster procurement reached its peak in 1942.
11
cific items. The aim of the ASF was to keep the requirements program responsive to needs as reflected from the active theaters and in line with production capacities insofar as necessary adjustments did not unduly disrupt the production program. Besides the program for better inventories on which to base on-hand quantities, in mid-1943 ASF began a project to secure better data from overseas theaters and ZI installations on which to base replacement factors and ammunition days of supply. At the same time, the first step toward calculation of operational supply requirements on the basis of actual theater needs was taken when theater commanders were asked on 1 June 1943 to submit as "keyed projects" their future requirements of that kind.10 As troops actually moved out to overseas theaters in large numbers, and as the strategy under which the war would be fought and the operational conditions governing its conduct unfolded, the ASF sought in several other ways to bring the massive requirements program into line. Nevertheless, it was a slow process, for requirements once established and converted into production schedules generated a certain rationale of their own. The bulk of ground forces were not to be committed to battle until late in 1944, and in the meantime the realities of production governed adjustments in the Army Supply Program as much as did either real or prospective theater needs.
The Realities of Production1943
American industry in 1943 reached its wartime peak in the mass produc10 (1) History Planning Div ASF, Text, II, 216. (2) See below, pp. 49-51.
116
ures, but this still leaves a gap of $7 or $8 billion between initial goal and performance.12 Limitations on productive capacity combined with voluntary reductions in military requirements in producing the gap. Often it was difficult to see which came firstreduction because of lesser need, or evidence that productive capacity would prove insufficient to fill the original requirement. Over all, the reductions had a broad strategic basis for, contrary to original Victory Program estimates, the USSR continued to tie down the great bulk of the German Army and mass invasion of the European Continent from the west was delayed. In making the reductions, nevertheless, they appeared far more closely related to limitations on the national economy than to any changes in strategic concepts.
(1) CPA, Industrial Mobilization for War, pp. 533,5 4 0 ,6 0 0 .(2) The $57.4 billion figure, as well as t h a t of $32.5 billion for 1942, represents contemporary rather than adjusted dollar values. Dollar values adjusted on the basis of 1945 prices are $52.4 billion for 1943, $30.5 billion for 1942. See Civilian Production Administration, The Production Statement, United States War Program July 1, 1940August 31, 1945, Special Release, May 1, 1947 (hereafter cited as The Production Statement), pp. 2-3. (3) The figures for the war production program include merchant shipping. Treasury-procured lendlease, and direct foreign purchases, as well as the military supply programs. The $7-8 billion differential for the entire program is a rough estimate based on the assumption that the decline in unit costs across the board was approximately 10 percent. This assumption is in turn based on a comparison made by the ASF showing a decline in unit costs of approximately 10 percent between the 1 February 1943 and the 1 August 1943 editions of the ASP. The assumption, then, is that this 10 percent decline in unit costs would hold good in comparing dollar values of the whole war production program as originally planned for 1943 with the appraised value of 1943 production at the end of the year. See ASF, Monthly Progress Report, 31 Jul 43, sec. 6, Analysis, p. 50.
12
eds., "The Army Air Forces in World War II," VI, Men and Planes (Chicago: The University of Chicago
Press, 1954) (hereafter cited as Craven and Cate, AAF VI), 281-87, 358-59. (2) Leighton and Coakley, Global Logistics, 1940-43, pp. 602-11. (3) CPA, Industrial Mobilization for War, p. 605. The reduction in the number of groups was in part the result of the enlargement of certain types of groups and the introduction of the very long range (VLR) B-29 bomber.
117
maintain schedules for Signal Corps items such as radar and high frequency radio sets.15 Whatever the complex causes, production shortfalls called for further realistic adjustments in Army requirements to
conform to what seemed to be the prac-
rise in output of most categories of ground munitions until late in the year. Actually, production spurted during
April, but dropped in May and June;
The causes of production difficulties in 1943 were complex and, except in isolated cases, did not stem from inadequate productive capacity or from inadequate supply of basic materials. Failures in the infinitely complex processes of synchronizing the flow of materials and components and of insuring the
availability of skilled labor were substantially responsible. Then, too, although supplies of basic materials were generally adequate, shortages of specific shapes and forms of material and refined products developed in the course of the year that held back production of end items. The inadequate supply of fabricated aluminum, for example, was a major factor in some of the cutbacks in aircraft production, although the supply of aluminum ingots themselves well exceeded the demand. A shortage of carbon steel developed in the summer of 1943, largely because of the prolonged strike in the coal mines. Because of a shortage of copper, the production of steel cartridge cases had been initiated, which, in its turn, was slowed down by chronic technical problems. Production of Army-procured vessels was held up by shortages of engines, deck equipment, and electrical control equipment. Rapid design changes made it impossible to
14 ASF Monthly Progress Reports, 30 Jun 43, sec. 6, Analysis.
tical limits of feasibility. In the meantime an even more serious question of feasibility had to be faced: determination of the practicable limits of Army expansion, which, in turn, vitally affected production goals. The JCS had had the question of the ultimate troop basis for the Army and Navy under consideration
since September 1942. Early estimates by both services, totaling about 14 million men for 1944 and 17.5 million by
1945, were far beyond the approximately 11 million men the War Manpower Commission thought would be available. In the struggle to bring even the 1943 requirement within the 11-million limit, the Navy took the position that the
Army's 8.2-million-man program (100 divisions) was too great, that it would
absorb men needed to man the new ships being built under the naval construction program, and would provide a much larger Army than could be transported overseas in shipping to be available by the end of 1944. The Army's
program also came under attack from the War Manpower Commission and the Congress. Under these pressures, General McNarney appointed a special committee headed by Col. Ray T. Maddocks of
OPD, an Army member of the Joint Staff Planners, to study the whole question of reduction of the projected size of the Army. The Maddocks Committee,
15 ASF Monthly Progress Reports, 30 Jun, 31 Jul, 31 Aug 43, sec. 6, Analysis.
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GLOBAL LOGISTICS AND STRATEGY: 1943-1945 Troop Basis, received by ASF from OPD on 17 June 1943, did not reflect the reduction in 1943 goals set forth in the G-3 Troop Basis to be issued less than two weeks later, nor did it reflect the general expectation that the Army would reach the limit of its expansion by the end of 1943. Instead, despite internal adjustments, it set forth precisely the same manpower goals as those on which the 1 February ASP had been calculated7.5 million enlisted men (8.2million-man army) in 1943 and 9 million in 1944. And it should be remembered that the February edition had included requirements for an additional 1.5 million men in 1944 simply to provide a 20 percent strategic reserve for which units were not expected to be activated. The practical effect of not considering the reduction in the Army's goals from 8.2 million to 7.7 million officers and men in 1943 was to add another contingency reserve of about 500,000men for 1943 that would be carried over to provide an even greater one in 1944a sizable cushion, since the total program provided equipment for 116 divisions by the end of 1943 and 148 by the end of 1944 as opposed to the go soon to be accepted as the practicable top limit of Army expansion. Perhaps because of this, the requirement for a 20 percent strategic reserve of food and clothing, materials procurable on short notice, was eliminated in the 1 August 17 ASP. The established policy in connection with the 1 August revision of the ASP was that no changes in required production for 1943 should be made except where deemed "absolutely necessary" be17
using the proposed deployment of Army units drawn up in pursuance of TRIDENT strategic objectives, concluded that an Army of 88 divisions and 7.7 million men by the end of 1943 would be adequate, and that the planned activation of 12 additional divisions could be postponed until 1944. This recommendation was accepted and incorporated in a new G-3 Troop Basis for 1943 issued on 1 July. The question of the troop basis for 1944 was a matter of discussion in JCS committees for sometime longer; the issue was finally settled in November when the 7.7-million figure was set as a continuing ceiling on Army expansion and the Navy's ceiling was set at 2.9 million. Within the 7.7-million ceiling, go divisions became the accepted upper limit of expansion of the ground com16 bat army. By mid-1943, then, it was reasonably clear that the ultimate limitation on the American war effort would not be productive capacity but military manpower. The reduction in the troop basis obviously opened the way for a corresponding reduction in material requirements that would make production shortfalls of little consequence except for individual critical items. Even so, in the 1 August 1943 revision of the Army Supply Program there was no meshing of these factors of decreased manpower availability and decreased production feasibility. The revised Victory Program
16 (1) Maj William P. Moody, Planning the Troop Bases for All Services for 1944 and Beyond, sec. II C, ch. VII, History of the Joint Chiefs of Staff in World
War II, MS, JCS Historical Sec. (2) Matloff, Strategic Planning, 1943-44, pp. 179-84. (3) Kent Roberts Greenfield, Robert R. Palmer, and Bell I. Wiley, The Organization of Ground Combat Troops, UNITED STATES ARMY IN WORLD WAR II (Washington, 1947), pp. 222-30.
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less, was evidently more theoretical than real, for implementing procurement plans drawn up in August cut more than 3 percent off the reduced goals as probably unattainable, and to realize even these reduced expectations output would have to be accelerated by 20 percent during the last four months of the yearan increase more than twice as rapid as any yet accomplished in a fourmonth period of 1943. The expectation did in fact prove too optimistic. Even though interim revisions whittled down the ASP by almost another billion dollars before the end of the year, performance fell short of reduced objectives by almost 5 percent. Shortfalls in the individual technical service programs ranged from 4.2 percent in Ordnance to 7.7 percent in Quartermaster, with the major deficits in combat vehicles, trucks, tractors, small arms, artillery ammunition, bombs, airborne radar, ground radios, field wire, landing mat, subsistence, equipage, general quartermaster supplies, drugs, and marine equipment. As the accompanying chart shows, the total 1943 output of ground munitions was far less than the goal set at the beginning of the year.21 (Chart 3)
McCoy Board and Richards Committee
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certainly not the only, impetus for revision came from the War Department's Procurement Review Board, appointed in mid-1943 at the behest of the Office of War Mobilization and headed by Maj. Gen. Frank R. McCoy. Instructed to review Army supply policies, procedures, and programs in the light of approved troop bases, projected operations scheduled by the JCS, and established lendlease policy, the board first set out to
study long-range strategic plans and to review procurement operations to ascertain how closely they followed and supported strategic concepts. The board members abandoned this approach when they found that operations were planned for no more than six months in advance, while procurement of many items had necessarily to be on an eighteen months basis. "Materials are ordered to meet the planned mobilization pro-
ARMY REQUIREMENTS, 1943-44 gram," the board reported, "and for the purpose of accumulating stockpiles to meet possible and unstated demands. We are, in effect, establishing a pool of supplies."22 In its sympathetic and constructive review, presented on 1 September 1943, the board members recognized the immense complications of the military supply program and that "the one irredeemable error of a supply program is not too much, but too little."23 They found organization for supply "generally sound," and the military results achieved "excellent," but also noted that "in many phases of the program the sights have been set too high and must be critically re-examined with a view to their reduction."24 In support of this latter contention, the board aimed its principal attack at overgenerous provision of reserves, inaccuracy in calculation of replacement and consumption factors, failure to consider variations in requirements of different theaters, lack of proper inventory control in overseas theaters, and failure to cancel requirements for obsolete programs or to liquidate investments in inactive theaters fast enough. In regard to reserves, the board pointed to the discrepancy between the Victory Program Troop Basis and the actual prospective rate of mobilization, noting that in the ASP the "so-called 20% reserve may be, in effect, a reserve of far greater proportions."25 It suggested that a further vast accumula-
121
factors and days of supply and from the too-generous calculation of distribution allowances to fill theater levels and the supply pipeline based on a more active submarine threat than then existed. The most important of the board's thirteen recommendations proposed a "restudy of reserves to reduce them to realistic realignment with the actual situation and to give greater weight to the reserve strength which exists in our productive capacity."26 On 3 September 1943 General McNarney appointed a special committee for this purpose, headed by Brig. Gen. George J. Richards, War Department budget officer, and made up of one representative each from G-2, G-3, G-4, and OPD of the General Staff, and one representative from each of the major ZI commands. The Richards Committee was to submit recommendations concerning the strategic reserve, theater reserves, stockpiles in the United States, days of supply and maintenance factors, and distribution and shipping loss allowances.27 The Richards Committee took the same line as had its predecessor. While warning of the necessity for any errors to be "on the side of over-supply," and that supply reserves had been subjected "neither to prodigious demands of large successful offensives on several fronts nor to the staggering losses of a major defeat," the committee still spelled out in
57 specific recommendations the means to reduce what it considered overabundance in the Army Supply Program.28
22 26 Levels of Supply, app. B, Rpt of WD ProcureIbid., p. 67. 27 ment Review Board (McCoy Board), I, 63-64. Levels of Supply, app. E, Conference Held by 23 Ibid., p. 2. the Deputy Chief of Staff on 3 September 1943. 24 28 (1) Ibid., p. 65. (2) Levels of Supply, app. E, Ltr, Levels of Supply, app. F, Rpt of WD Special McCoy to Marshall, 31 Aug 43. Committee for the Re-study of Reserves (Richards 25 Ibid., Levels of Supply, app. B, p. 47. Committee), I, 5, 89.
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The general import of the recommendations was a call for a general reduction in reserve levels in view of the bright outlook for the Allied cause at the end of the year 1943. The Victory Program Troop Basis, the committee said, should be changed to conform to the practical limits of Army expansion and the strategic reserve drastically cut. Moreover, the troop basis should be revised to provide "by theaters or areas, the proper types and numbers of units needed for present and projected operations."29 Further, the committee called for calculation of replacement factors and ammunition days of supply for each individual theater rather than in terms of over-all weighted averages. The ASP, on that basis, should then be recalculated in terms of variant needs of the individual theaters based on actual and prospective deployments to them. In calculating needs for each theater, authorized theater levels should be reduced as a result of the diminished submarine menace to quantities necessary for a 3O-day operating level, for filling theater distribution pipelines, and for sufficient stock to provide for convoy interval time for Classes I and III, and for emergency replacement time for Classes II, IV, and V. In calculating needs for the zone of interior, maximum stock levels should be lowered from go to 45 days on hand and on order at posts, camps, and stations, and from 180 to 90 days in distribution depots serving these installations. In filler depots serving overseas theaters 60 days' stock should be provided of items in the strategic reserve, over and above the 30-day contingency reserve for
29
Ibid., p. 76.
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jections. On 1 January 1944 General McNarney issued a formal directive incorporating the fifty-seven recommendations as modified in the subsequent deliberations. The McNarney directive codified the final results of the survey begun by the McCoy Board, and established definite command or staff responsibility for carrying out each recommendation, with G-4 to carry the heaviest burden. As an ASF historian remarked, the directive "echoes with mandates to The use of so-called theater computations, G-4."33 while having certain advantages, has many The McNarney directive, nonetheless, serious disadvantages. The chief objection did not mark a sharp break with the to the theater computation is the inherent lack of flexibility; i.e., provision of the bulk past. It represented, rather, a culminaof equipment in general purpose types is tion of trends toward greater logic, order, preferable. Moreover, theater computations and system in the calculation of Army require an accurate long-range projection of troop deployments. Any changes made in requirements, toward reduction of retroop deployments will render surplus any serve levels, and toward calculations in special equipment procured, and more seri- terms of theater needs, all of which had ous, will cause a shortage of general pur- been under way since 1942. It undoubtpose equipment. . . . Replacement of equip- edly speeded up those trends and proved ment is more nearly a function of time; the value of an independent outside hence, with few exceptions, wastes generally 32 survey of the Army supply system. But at the same rate in any theater. changes were gradual, and not all the The ASF objections carried little final recommendations were ever comweight with a committee on which it pletely carried out, while others were, had only equal representation with the in fact, being carried out at the time the other agencies involved. General McNar- directive was issued. The shift of auney assigned formal responsibility for thority from ASF to G-4 for the formucomment on each of the recommenda- lation of the supply program proved to tions variously to G-4, OPD, G-3, ASF, be more nominal than real, and practical AAF, and to an ad hoc committee under adjustments made in a number of cases the chairmanship of General Maxwell, met many of the ASF objections and reG-4, and composed of representatives stored a considerable measure of adof all the interested agencies. ASF dis- ministrative control over supply levels sents were generally referred to the ad hoc committee, whence the original (1) Frank, Army Supply Requirements, I, 89; recommendations emerged with only see also above, ch. IV. (2) Levels of Supply, app. G, minor modifications to meet ASF ob- Comments . . . on Recommendations [of the] Rich33
32 (1) Ibid. (2) For detailed comments see pages 51-55 of Richards Com Rpt.
ards Com. (3) Levels of Supply, app. A, Memo, McNarney for CG's and Army CsofS, 1 Jan 44, sub: Changes in Supply Procedures and Supply Levels (hereafter cited as McNarney Directive, 1 Jan 44).
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34
to that command. The proposed theater method for calculation of requirements, in particular, would not be achieved for a long time.
ceiling for the ground army. On the supposition that the Army would reach the limits of its expansion by the end of 1943the approved ceiling of 7.7 million officers and enlisted menand remain at approximately that strength The 1 February 1944 Army through 1944 and 1945, the strategic Supply Program reserve for which supplies were to be The Richards Committee report had procured but units not activated was its major impact on the formulation of reduced from 1,678,000 to 532,000 men. the 1 February 1944 edition of the Army The net total in terms of divisions and Supply Program. Computation of the balanced supporting units for which maprogram was going on concurrently with terial would be procured came to 115 (105 active and 10 strategic reserve), as the deliberations of the committee and the staff review, and every effort was opposed to the previous figure of 148. made to make the final product conform The deepest cuts were made in armored to the recommendations contained in the divisions (from 30 to 18) and antiairMcNarney directive. The result was a craft battalions (from 550 to 257) , which marked downward revision of Army re- correspondingly affected requirements 35 quirements as stated in the 1 August for heavy equipment. The expected progressive deployment 1943 edition, but the very heart of the system proposed by the committeethe of forces overseas during 1944 and 1945 calculation of requirements on a theater is shown in Table 11. basiscould not be effectively carried out. The new Victory Program Troop Basis The most significant factor affecting did not show prospective troop deploythe reduction of the ASP was the new ments by theater because neither OPD Victory Program Troop Basis drawn up nor G-4 could provide timely estimates in OPD and approved by General Mc- consistent with it. Consequently, the use Narney on 22 November 1943. Although of specific theater deployments as a basis it did not follow the Richards Commit- for requirements computation was detee recommendations in detail, the new ferred until the next regular revision troop basis was in substantial accord with of the ASP later in the year. The basis the conclusions of that committee and of the McCoy Board, for it finally (1) Frank, Army Supply Requirements, I, 90-96. brought the basis for the supply program Document 94, volume III, is a detailed comparison of into alignment with the approved troop troop units in the Victory Program Troop Basis of
35 34
(1) Since these developments are mainly related to distribution rather than requirements calculations they are treated in Chapter VI, below. (2) For a final appraisal of the probable impact of McNarney's directive on ASF operations see Memo, Clay for Somervell, 9 Jan 44, sub: Analysis of "Changes in Supply Procedure and Supply Levels," ASF Dir
15 June 43 and that of 22 November 43. See also, Document 93, III, Memo. Hq ASF for CsTechSvcs, 27 Nov 43, sub: Computation Section 1 ASP, 1 Feb 44. (2) The Richards Committee calculations provided for procurement for 113 divisions in 1944 and for a possible additional 11 in 1945. See Com Rpt, pp. 1022, and especially Table on page 22, in Levels of Supply. (3) The tabulation is not, however, entirely clear, and the ASF critique charged that the committee itself did not "fully understand" it. See Memo, Styer for DCofS, 4 Dec 43.
125
TABLE 11SUMMARY OF GROUND ARMY STRENGTH, VICTORY PROGRAM TROOP BASIS 22 NOVEMBER 1943
Source: Memo, Hq ASF for CsTechSvcs, 27 Nov 43, sub: Computation of Sec 1 ASP, 1 Feb 44, in Frank, Army Supply Requirements,
doc. 93.
for calculation of the 1 February edition was still, for the most part, weighted averages with some consideration given to climatic factors. Keyed projects submitted by theater commanders were used to adjust operational supply requirements, and the provision for the distribution allowance was made to conform with the different theater supply levels prescribed by the Richards Committee. In the absence of an authoritative troop deployment, however, this
for Class II and IV supplies from the previous edition's 215 to 285 days of supply (varying with the technical service) to an average standard allowance of 160
days for items included in the strategic reserve, and 190 days for items not included therein. Most of the reduction
had actually been accomplished before McNarney issued his directive. Pipeline requirements for subsistence were reduced by approximately 14.5 percent. Distribution allowances for other ex-
average for all theaters. ASF had already drastically cut theater levels (partly by
providing for only half of the operating
pendables (except were determined Petroleum Board) cordance with the ater levels.36
36
POL for which levels by the Army-Navy were computed in acnewly prescribed the-
tation had to be made eliminating the in-transit allowance entirely and providing for the newly prescribed theater levels. (Table 12) There was a total reduction in the distribution allowance
and doc. 97. (2) Memo, Clay for Somervell, 9 Jan 44. (3) Excerpts, ASF Rpts on Implementation of McNarney Directive, Log File, OCMH. (4) On the detailed problems of subsistence and POL requirements see Erna Risch, The Quartermaster Corps: Organization, Supply, and Services I, (hereafter cited
as Risch, Quartermaster Corps I), UNITED STATES
126
Replacement factors used in computing the 1 February 1944 ASP, though still as a rule weighted averages for all theaters and for the zone of interior, in many cases were refined and based on an evaluation of theater experience to date. During the last six months of 1943 replacement factors for 769 items (of a total 4,298) were revised, 713 of them
downward. Also, inventories used by the technical services in determining onhand figures were considerably more accurate than those used in August 1943, but they still left much to be desired. A final refinement used reserve productive capacity in lieu of end items in some categories notably ammunition and quartermaster and chemical warfare
127
ly committed on all fronts. By early 1944 capital issue requirements for an army of 7.7 million men were nearing completion. In the future the major proportion of requirements would be for replacement and operational supplies needed for the great worldwide offensives of 1944.39 Future requirements, too, were apt to be both more specific and more variable than those of the past that had been calculated mainly in terms of the over-all troop basis.
itemsas the McCoy Board had recommended.37 The resultant net reduction achieved in Sections I, II, and III of the Army Supply Program was from $27.2 billion of required production for 1944 in the 1 August 1943 edition to $21.6 billion as of 1 February 1944. Section I (ground equipment) was reduced from $21.7 billion to $17.8 billion for 1944 and from $19.6 billion to $15.8 billion for 1945, or, roughly, a net total reduction of $8 billion for the two years. The major portion of the reduction by far was in ordnance equipment. ASF statisticians figured that of the total reduction 84 percent could be attributed to net decreases in requirements and 16 percent to reductions in unit costs. When the 1 February ASP was published, almost one-half of the decrease in net requirements had already been reflected in procurement schedules.38 The adjustment of the Army Supply Program to the realities of production and to the progressive reduction in the projected size of the ground army had been achieved, more or less, and the requirements program relatively stabilized. Most future problems would be those of adjusting specific items of production to needs reflected by theater experience as the ground army became progressive37 (1) Frank, Army Supply Requirements, I, 97-98, 122. (2) Memo, Hq ASF for CsTechSvcs, 16 Sep 43, sub: On-hand Figures for 1 Feb 44 Rev ASP, with related papers, Reqmts Div ASF, On-Hand Data, 1 Feb 44 Rev of ASP. (3) Memo, Lt Col Paul I. Bertram for Maj Silverstrand, 8 Jan 44, sub: Replacement Factor Data for Gen Moore, Reqmts Div ASF, file Basis for Memo to Gen R. C. Moore. (4) ASF Monthly Progress Report, 31 Jan 44, sec. 6, Analysis. 38 (1) ASF Monthly Progress Report, 31 Jan 44, sec. 6, Analysis. (2) For a convenient table of dollar values for the seven editions of ASP Section I see Smith, The Army and Economic Mobilization, p. 152.
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of the theater basis for calculating requirements. Better theater reports on issues and expenditures clearly demonstrated marked differences in expenditure and wastage rates. On 10 June 1944 separate days of supply for categories of ammunition were established for four major areasthe European, MediterraBasis that was published under a new nean, Asiatic, and Pacific. In July sepaname, "Troop Schedule for the Army rate replacement factors were established Supply Program." Based on the most for the two broad areas of the war, Pacirecent G-3 troop basis, it showed pro- fic and Atlantic, and with additional acjected deployment for all theaters and cumulation of data in December 1944 the the zone of interior by calendar quarters War Department finally could announce up to and including 31 December 1945. separate replacement factors for each Unfortunately, it was not entirely de- of the six major overseas theaters and pendable, and often did not agree with for the zone of interior. With the accuactual activations being made by the mulation of additional data for each catemajor commands nor with other data gory, replacement and consumption facon troop deployments. Later, on 19 tors were progressively revised.41 July 1944 a revised Troop Schedule was To gear procurement of operational distributed that was based on the War supplies more closely to theater needs Department Troop Deployment pre- took somewhat longer. Operational suppared by OPD. This revision was used plies were those in excess of authorized for the next regular edition of the ASP, allowances and needed for particular opnot actually completed until 1 October erations, mostly items for development of 1944. On 1 October, also, OPD pub- lines of communication or to take care lished a new War Department Troop of special combat exigencies created by Deployment that proved to be so satisdocs. 123, 124. (3) Memo, Col H. M. Reedall, Dir factory G-4 considered it necessary only Reqmts and Stock Control Div, for Dir P&O, ASF, to add an annex, designated the Supply 15 Jul 44, sub: Progress Rpt on Revision of Troop Supplement, which set forth the neces- Schedule for ASP, Purchases Div ASF file ASP. (4) The Troop List for Operations and Supply presary data for computing supply require- pared in the Strength and Accounting Office, ODCofS, ments. In this way the troop basis for continued to serve as the troop basis for distribution. procurement of supplies was finally See below, ch. VI. For fuller development of the problem of deterbrought into agreement with the troop mining replacement factors and ammunition days 40 basis for deployment. of supply see Smith, The Army and Economic
41
gram as a method of stating Army production requirements. The use of the theater basis for the determination of requirements depended on the development of a usable forecast of troop deployments by theaters. As a result of the McNarney directive this forecast became a primary responsibility of G-4. Working closely with OPD, G-4 finally came up with such a troop deployment on 20 May 1944a revision of the Victory Program Troop
Mobilization, pp. 182-93, 203-08; especially Table 23, (1) History of Supply Division, G-4, WD Gen- page 190, showing some particular replacement faceral Staff, Program Br, pp. 10-11, MS, OCMH. (2) tors, and Table 25, page 207, showing ammunition Frank, Army Supply Requirements, I, 142-44; and days of supply for selected weapons.
40
129
ment of procurement programs. Late in 1942 the ASF staff prepared a series of detailed assumptions as to operations in the Mediterranean during 1943 on which the Chief of Engineers prepared estimates of special requirements for construction materials in that theater. These estimates were forwarded to General Eisenhower's headquarters where, after several delays, they were revised downward about 30 percent. Shortly thereafter the Chief Signal Officer pioneered development of estimates of signal requirements for nearly all overseas theaters two years in advance, and they were approved for procurement planning purposes by the Joint Communications Board of the JCS. Other extensive estimates of requirements were made for the development of the supply line through Burma, one of the most elaborate operational projects of World War II. Another very extensive and urgent project, development of facilities in the Persian Gulf, was met by several expedients without extensive new production.42 In June 1943 the first step toward systematized consultation of theater commanders was taken with the initiation of the keyed projects system. Under this system overseas commands were to submit their requirements for operational supplies in the form of lists of projects, each with a key number, with either specific bills of material or with requests that the War Department compute such
bills. The system was officially recognized by War Department circular in September 1943, and with significant modifications remained in effect throughout the rest of the war. Early in 1944 it
42 On the CBI and Persian Gulf see Leighton and Coakley, Global Logistics, 1940-43, chs. XIX-XXI .
130
was reinforced when theaters were asked to prepare one additional project to provide for maintenance materials for engineer projects already under operation, and also a quarterly estimate to be used solely for procurement planning purposes of Class IV engineer supplies needed for special projects for three to five quarters in advance. The keyed projects system proved in practice to be more a means for requisitioning operational supplies than for procurement planning. Its usefulness for the latter purpose was limited mainly to adjustments of procurement requirements already calculated on other bases. Procurement plans normally had to be initiated long before projects were submitted, for theater commanders could seldom anticipate operational supply demands a year or more in advance. During most of 1943 requirements for operational supplies were first calculated for the Army Supply Program mainly on the basis of strategic estimates (quarterly operational summaries) furnished to the technical services by Plans and Operations, ASF, and later adjusted to specific keyed projects submitted by the theaters. In mid-1944 the system was formally changed to conform more closely to the reality, and to check the tendency of technical services to relax their own efforts to anticipate theater operational requirements in view of the assumed responsibility of theaters for these calculations. Much of even the theory that theaterprepared projects would be the main guide to procurement planning was abandoned. For it was substituted the concept that the War Department (Plans Division, ASF, and the technical services) should initially prepare projects
131
In terms more purely of system, the major effort of the ASF to gear the production and flow of supplies more closely to actual demand came in the inauguration of supply control as a method of calculating requirements. Stock control, a related but not so comprehensive concept, had been practiced to a greater or less degree from the day the ASF started operations in 1942, but until March 1944 its main importance was in connection with distribution, as a means of determining ZI replacement factors and of on-hand quantities as of specific dates for use in computation of the ASP.45 The Supply Control System inaugurated on 7 March 1944 had a much broader purposeto provide an integrated method of determining requirements, carrying out distribution of material, and disposing of surplus. The heart of the system was stock control, that is, the maintenance of detailed stock records of inventory and issue by ZI depots of each separate commodity that entered the Army supply system. Records of past issue were then to become the main basis for forecasting future demand; the forecast would be the basis for adjusting inventory levels, disposing of surplus, and determining future requirements; requirements then would be the basis of production scheduling. Detailed data was to be provided monthly and revised either monthly or quarterly, as opposed to the way the Army Supply Program was computed,
treated more fully in Chapter XXII, below. 45 (1) History of Stock Control, United States Army, MS, OCMH. (2) Frank, Army Supply Requirements, I, 132-34.
132
of items from the P to the S group was anticipated. Procurement of matriel in group P was to continue to follow ASP procedures for the time being, while considerably more leeway was granted the technical services in freely adjusting requirements for S items from month to month. Moreover, both types of items were to be the subject of intensive supply and demand studies in order to determine actual inventories and issue experience. Some items were to be reviewed monthly, and none less often than quarThe inventory and issue basis proposed in your memorandum will leave to the terly. In either case, a total authorized judgment of clerks and relatively untrained level for the zone of interior was to be supervisors decision as to projected rates of determined for each separate supply issue on the basis of data of unknown accu- item; it would include all depot stocks racy which must be carefully adjusted for destined to fill either ZI troop or overchanges in troop composition, non-recurring seas theater demands and the various issues and special future requirements. 46 classes of reserves, but exclude all maAt least some of these difficulties were terial overseas, en route overseas, in the recognized in the initial supply control hands of troops in the zone of interior, directive, which provided for a gradual or under control of posts, camps, or stashift from ASP to supply control pro- tions. This level was to be converted to cedures.47 Items of issue were divided a numerical quantity. The objective into two broad groups, Principal (P would be to bring stocks in line with the items) and Secondary (S items). P items authorized quantity at the earliest pracwere those of sufficient military or mone- ticable date and thereafter to make protary importance to require central con- curement schedules accord with antictrol either because of production prob- ipated future demand. In determining lems (such as lead time or scarcity of future issue requirements, however, techmaterials) or because of too little past nical services were to use issue experiissue experience to provide an adequate ence as the main guide only for items guide for the future. All the rest were having "a relatively stable or readily classified as S items. Initial classifications predictable rate of issue." For other were to be made by the responsible tech- items, issue experience was to be comnical service and they were to be re- bined with all the other pertinent facviewed periodically. A progressive shift tors previously used in calculating the Army Supply Program. The basic requirement, in any case, was "complete, Memo, Brig Gen Hugh C. Minton, Dir Procentralized, accurate, consolidated and duction Div for Dir Materiel ASF, in response to Memo, Clay for Div Dirs, 28 Jan 44, 3 Feb 44, sub: systematically recorded data" on all facProposed Supply Program Procedures, Purchases tors necessary to compute requirements. Div ASF, File ASP. These data, plus a "continuous schedASF Cir 67, 7 Mar 44.
that is, to provide for annual requirements with major revisions only semiannually. The purpose behind supply control, then, was to make production schedules more immediately responsive to the fluctuation of supply and demand, in much the same way as peacetime industrial production. To put the system into effect involved immense complications. One ASF officer, in fact, reviewing the initial proposal for a supply control system, commented:
46
47
133
quent revisions of production schedules to prevent surplus accumulations and reflect current demand trends, it marked a distinct improvement over earlier methods. Its institution in the last phase of the war undoubtedly helped to cure some of the lack of realism and to curb some of the wasteful tendencies that the McCoy Board and Richards Committee had noted earlier. Yet the system had its own limitations and disadvantages. It involved a Herculean task of assembling the necessary data on hundreds of different items, and when assembled these data did not necessarily provide an adequate basis for predicting future issues, which in many lines were bound to be governed by the uncertainties of war. A certain element of crystal gazing necessarily remained in the calculation of requirements and hence a strong temptation to provide for all possible contingencies, for there was no gainsaying the McCoy Board's conclusion that the one irremediable error in a war supply program was not too much but too little. Moreover, close adherence to the supply and demand formula could easily lead to violent, and not readily manageable, fluctuations in production schedules. There were safeguards against the worst consequences of drastic upward and downward revisions, but those very safeguards negated some of the purposes of supply control. Requirements calculation to the end of the war remained as much an art as a science, requiring the use of good common sense and the judgment of experienced officials as well 50 as detailed statistical analyses. Production feasibility, as it applied to the major reductions of the Army Sup50 (1) Smith, The Army and Economic Mobilization, p. 166. (2) Risch, Quartermaster Corps I, 229.
uled review of requirements" were the real essence of supply control.48 The Supply Control System had perforce to be put into effect gradually, as necessary detailed inventories and records were developed and as procedures were crystallized and refined. The first ASF supply control manual was published on 20 July 1944; it was revised twice before the end of the war. An elaborate scheme of forms and records was devised that provided a single sheet for each important item in the supply system. By August 1944, 950 items had been brought under supply control, but the system continued to coexist with the Army Supply Program, the final edition of which was published on 1 October 1944. Supply control procedures were, however, used in the computation of this final edition of ASP. By March 1945 the number of items under supply control had risen to 1,900 and the monthly supply control report, ASF Monthly Progress Report, Section 20, had superseded the ASP as the official War Department production program and the procurement authority for the technical services.49
The Supply Control System was the final phase in the evolution of the Army's wartime system for forecasting matriel requirements. In its provisions for detailed stock records, close and detailed integration of requirements, procurement, and distribution, and for very freIbid. (1) For a fuller treatment of the Supply Control System see Smith, The Army and Economic Mobilization, pp. 162-67; Risch, Quartermaster Corps I, 226-29; Frank, Army Supply Requirements, I, 15665, 175-82. (2) The editions of ASF M413, The Supply Control System, are dated 20 Jul 44, 22 Dec 44, and 10 Apr 45. (3) For the 1 October 1944 ASP see below, Chapter XXII.
49
48
134
ply Program in 1942 or even the more of $24.25 billion ASF-procured supplies limited ones of 1943, was no longer an in 1944, according to contemporary calimportant factor in 1944 and 1945, al- culations, was only $764 million or 3.2 though this is not to say that production percent.52 These over-all figures, of always met scheduled goals, or that criti- course, concealed serious shortfalls in cal materials were always available in certain lines and overages in others. adequate quantities, or that the military They also meant that the Army requirerequirements program in the later war ments program in 1944 was generally years did not strain the American econ- being fulfilled on a current basis, and omy. As will be more fully developed, that shortages of equipment that had so the full-scale commitment of U.S. forces plagued both training and operations in on two fronts in the fall of 1944 and the early part of the war were largely a the winter of 1944-45 did bring out in thing of the past. In the full-scale offull relief some of the limitations on fensives of 1944 most shortages were to American resources, massive as they be the results of errors in the distribuwere.51 In the last analysis, however, the tion process rather than genuine line strains were more severe on military item shortages except for a very few manpower and shipping than on produc- items for which production schedules tive capacity, particularly insofar as it were not adjusted in time. No operation applied to production of supplies and failed, or was even significantly delayed, equipment for the ground army. Feasi- for lack of troop equipment. bility, in 1944 had become mainly a mat(1) ASF Monthly Progress Report, 31 Dec 44, ter of individual items, and the acute sec. 6, Analysis. (2) Crawford and Cook, Statistics: production problem was rather one of Procurement, gives $21.37 billion as the dollar value balance than over-all capacity. of ASF procurement in 1944 as opposed to the ASF The shortfall against the revised goal Monthly Progress Report figure of $23.48 billion.
52
51
(3) See CPA, Industrial Mobilization for War, pp. 753-854, for an over-all view of war production in 1944.
CHAPTER VI
freight, hundreds of thousands of troops, and thousands of ocean miles. It required broad planning for movement of carloads and shiploads of supplies to fill needs calculated, like production requirements, on the basis of numbers of different types of units with their respective Tables of Basic Allowances (TBA's) and Tables of Organization and Equipment (TOE's), and on replacement and consumption demands expressed in weighted averages (replacement factors and days of supply). It was, in short, a wholesale process throughout most of its several stages, giving way to a retail one only at the very end of the line. To provide the necessary supplies out of which day-to-day retail needs could be met, the system relied on the accumulation of reserves at various points along the linein depots and ports in the United States and overseas and in lesser quantities at posts, camps, and stations, and army and division supply points. In a sense, the basic concept was that of continuous pipelines of supply, with new articles flowing in at one end each time similar ones were issued at the other, and with proper adjustments at the intermediate storage points. In the wholesale sector, the one with which this chapter is concerned, regulation of the distribution process was primarily a matter of establishing and maintaining proper lev-
136
els of supply at each of the critical points along the pipeline. The system involved a certain calculated degree of oversupply for, if the distribution pipelines were really kept full, stockages at intermediate points would never be used. The primary problem was to maintain these stockages at a high enough point to permit each installation and overseas theater to draw the particular items and quantities to which it was entitled, and at the same time prevent accumulation of excesses that would unduly burden production and storage facilities and, in the end, become an embarrassment. Basic economy measures always involved principally efforts to reduce pipeline quantities or to perfect the keeping of inventories. The Army Service Forces exercised administrative control over the distribution process as it concerned ground equipment, subject to policies and procedures (including initial setting of levels) established by the War Department General Staff. Within the ASF each of the seven technical services maintained control and responsibility for distribution as well as procurement of supply categories falling under its jurisdiction. The Transportation Corps exercised "unbroken control of troop and supply movements from domestic origins to the overseas ports of discharge" with the single exception of airborne traffic, which was controlled by the Army Air Forces. ASF control over supplies peculiar to the Air Forces, nonetheless, was limited to this movements phase. In almost all other matters relating to distribution of AAF matriel, the Air Service Command exercised a practical autonomy, except for some common items such as food, clothing, and certain
p. 7.
3
technical service lines to establish functional missions see History of Supply in the Zone of the Interior, prepared by Distribution Division, ASF, 1946, Chapter V, MS, OCMH.
137
nish articles for overseas supply, and filler depots to furnish training needs.4 In any case, ZI depot stockages were
authorized at levels calculated in terms of so many days of supply for all troops
in the United States and overseas translated into actual quantities of specific
stored designated special-purpose items in bulk and supplies in excess of current needs. The general idea was that filler
and distribution depots should stock fastmoving items, while slow-moving items and items in critical supply would be concentrated at the key depots. Also, limited stocks were maintained at ports of embarkation to permit more rapid filling
items by use of allowance tables and replacement and consumption factors. This was the general fund from which the needs of both ZI stations and overseas theaters were met. Stations and theaters were authorized to hold also their own general funds, again expressed in terms of days of supply, out of which
of overseas demands. In theory ports relied on their own stocks and those of
filler depots as their primary sources for filling requisitions from overseas theaters, and ZI stations depended upon distribution depots to fill theirs. When particular items were not available at the immediate back-up depot the requisitions were extracted to other filler de-
they in turn served the units and installations for which they were responsible. Their demands on port and depot
were formulated in terms of anticipated need to maintain authorized levels, or, in many cases, port and technical serv-
pots or to reserve depots to the rear. Orders were placed directly on key depots for appropriate articles, with shipment direct from depot to post or port. Technical service chiefs were responsible for maintaining the detailed stock records that would indicate the depot from which any given article could be supplied, and for controlling the distribution of critical items in accordance with War Department policy.
day requirements in the theaters consisted of the combined levels earmarked for this purpose in ZI depots, actually in existence in theater stocks, and in transit; similarly, the combined fund for meeting ZI requirements consisted of depot levels in the United States earmarked for this separate purpose and of the actual quantities of supplies at posts, camps, and stations or in transit. Total requirements, as has been shown,
138
tain the stocks at designated points on the pipeline, and to keep the pipeline between them filled. The distribution process was thus the practical test of the efficacy of requirements calculations, and was as vitally affected by the accuracy or inaccuracy in setting replacement factors and days of supply. ZI requisitions, then, moved from unit to station supply officer, and from station supply officer to the appropriate technical service back-up depot. Initial equipment for newly activated units, however, was furnished automatically (without requisition) based on calculations of allowances of each item by the technical service concerned.5 Overseas theaters and bases placed their orders on a designated responsible port of embarkation, which then channeled the orders to the proper source of supply and arranged shipment. Once supplies were delivered at a theater port a new distribution pipeline started wherein the level of supplies to be held at each particular point, the methods of ordering, and the regulations governing the flow of supplies to troop units were all determined by the theater commander.
Supply Priorities
Despite the increasing volume of production, plenty was always a relative matter, and scarcities of individual items of Army production continued to the end of the war, necessitating a constant measure of priorities control. Indeed, the first step in the distribution process division of Army production among the U.S. Army, the U.S. Navy, and the
(1) TM 38-205, 21 Oct 43, Parts 1 and 2. (2) See History of Supply in the Zone of the Interior, Chapters 3 and 4, for a detailed account of station supply.
5
140
ward spurt the general trend was downward. The final list, published on 27 June 1945, contained only 130 items.7 In the priorities system for controlled items, three broad categories were established in 1942 and they remained relatively stable throughout the war. In mid1943 these categories consisted of an A group to receive 100 percent equipment in sequence as listed, a B group to receive 50 percent of most controlled items, and a C group to receive only 20 percent. Into the A group fell, in order, testing and laboratory units, units overseas, units on one to six months' alert for overseas movement (in three groups), units in a pool about to be alerted, schools and training centers, and units of defense commands. Included in the B group were units in training for some period of time but not yet earmarked for overseas shipment, and in the C group all others, mainly units newly activated. Newly activated divisions were entitled to receive a minimum 50 percent allowance of essential training equipment despite the fact that they fell into the C category. For the nondivisional units in C priority, AAF units received highest preference, followed by AGF and ASF units, in that order.8
7 (1) WD Memo W 700-20-43, 21 Apr 43, shows 776 controlled items. (2) Numbers of items in later lists were: WD Cir 260, 20 Oct 43504; WD Cir 42, 1 Feb 44415; WD Cir 191, 13 Mar 44335; WD Cir 355, 1 Sep 44290; WD Cir 65, 28 Feb 45475; WD Cir 100, 31 Mar 45278; WD Cir 191, 27 Jun 45130. The item count does not always constitute an accurate measure, however, because sometimes different models of the same basic item were listed separately and at other times they were not. 8 (1) TAG Ltr, 1 Jun 43, sub: Distribution of Controlled Items of Equip, AG 400 (5-25-43) OB-S-C-M. (2) Leighton and Coakley, Global Logistics, 1940-43, pp. 303-15. (3) History of Supply in the Zone of the Interior, ch. VI, pp. 6a-16. (4) Annual Report of
Transportation Corps equipment was usually produced to meet specific demands and seldom was part of TOE equipment of units, except for the Transportation Corps' own units. Distribution control was exercised by the corps and by the munitions assignments machinery. Antiaircraft weapons with their accompanying fire control equipment, and seacoast defense equipment were issued by the Chief of Ordnance under special directives. Motor vehicles,
the Army Service Forces, 1943 (Washington, 1944), p. 101. 9 TAG Ltr, 1 Jun 43, sub: Distribution of Controlled Items of Equip.
141
units far down the priority list entailed continual shifting about of equipment from unit to unit. Moreover, unit training suffered from crippling shortages, the subject of agonized complaints from the Army Ground Forces.11 Beginning roughly with the April 1943 movements for the invasion of Sicily, these problems became progressively less acute. By midyear the system was working more or less as planned, and the worst examples of equipment shuffling were a thing of the past. The increase in the availability of equipment and the diminution in the number of controlled items played no small part. The inauguration early in 1943 of the OPD Six Months Forecast of unit deployments, and establishment of a pool of units within each major command from which emergency overseas demands could be met introduced a greater element of stability into movements forecasting. The AGF continued to complain justifiably of shortages for training, the complaints now being leveled more against the inadequacies of the allowances than the failure of units to receive them. By mid-1944 the equipment shortage problem had given way to the more serious personnel problem created by large-scale raids on training divisions for overseas replacements.12 The emphasis shifted to intertheater priorities. After 1942, except for the small-scale requirements for laboratories
11
43, pp. 309-15. 12 (1) The last WD directive on distribution of controlled items was TAG Ltr, 1 Feb 44, sub: Distribution of Controlled Items of Equip, AG 400 (28 Jan 44) OB-S-C-M. (2) Palmer, Wiley, and Keast, Procurement and Training of Ground Combat Troops, pp. 463-68, 557-58. (3) Cline, Washington Command Post, p. 288.
142
GLOBAL LOGISTICS AND STRATEGY: 1943-1945 ments for a theater of lower priority were considered. This proved impractical, and the system adopted attempted to supply all TOE equipment for theaters first, then maintenance and operational supplies, and lastly all other requirements to the maximum level, so that each theater was assured certain minimum essential supplies, the priorities system applying only to its marginal requirements. Even in this area, Logistics Group, OPD, did not follow the ratings strictly if they threatened to deprive low priority theaters of equipment vital to the success of approved operations. In the last analysis, the preference accorded a theater depended as much on troop deployment schedules, allocations of shipping, and the evaluation of other factors in each instance as it did on the formal system of priorities for allocation of critical items of equipment. Still, the priority rating accorded a theater at any given time did,
as a rule, indicate its standing on the
and testing (A-1-a), active overseas theaters received highest priority (A-1-b) on all critical items of equipment. Troops about to proceed to theaters ranked next, in A-2 through A-4 depending upon the imminence of movement. The competition between theaters necessitated, however, arrangements within these categories to provide priority rankings for areas and operations generally in accord with the strategic decisions of the JCS and the CCS. This priorities structure, controlled by Logistics Group, OPD, was complicated and viable. Highest priority was usually assigned to theaters where operations had been specifically approved and ordered, with preference given to theaters in the war against Germany over those of the war against Japan. Thus in 1943 Mediterranean operations normally had first priority, the principal Pacific theaters second, and the China, Burma, and India theater last, with various aspects of the build-up in the United Kingdom sandwiched in between. During most of 1943, for instance, air forces in the United Kingdom were assigned priority A-1-b-4, roughly equal to that of Pacific operations; ground forces held A-1-b-8, just above the CBI; and the advance shipment program held a fairly low rating in the A-2 group. 13 The administration of theater priorities was not entirely a matter of formal ratings. If the priorities system had been applied literally, all requirements for a critical item for one theater would have had to be satisfied before any requireFor development of the priority problem in relation to the BOLERO build-up and the preshipment program, see below, Chapters VII, IX, and XII.
13
preference scale in accordance with which all these resources, insofar as they were controlled by the War Department, were allotted.14
14 (1) Memo, Tansey, Logistics Gp, OPD, sub: Allocation of Munitions for Log Support of Global Strategy, no date, ABC 400 (2-17-42) Sec. 6. (2) TAG Ltr, 1 Feb 44, AG 400 (28 Jan 44) OB-S-C-M. (3) ASF Control Div, The Problem of Troop and Cargo Flow in Preparing the European Invasion 1943-1944 (hereafter cited as The Problem of Troop and Cargo
19, MS, OCMH. (4) TAG Ltr, 14 Feb 44, sub: MSR Editing Levels, SPX 400 (11 Feb 44) OB-S-SPDDL-M. (5) Cline, Washington Command Post, p. 285. (6) Memo, Dir Plng Div ASF for OPD, 8 May 45, sub: Theater Priorities, Thtr Files, Pac Sec General File,
Plng Div ASF. (7) Dir, Service, Supply and Procurement Div, WDGS, Logistics in World War II, Final Report of Army Service Forces (Washington, 1948)
(hereafter cited as Logistics in World War II, ASF Final Report), p. 79.
143
port or staging area by the technical services.16 The flow of troops into ports and The first phase of support of overseas staging areas was controlled by port comoperations involved the shipment of manders in consonance with the availtroops with their accompanying equip- ability of transports. Transport schedment and impedimenta. The extent to ules for Atlantic sailings were worked which systematized procedures in troop out by Movements Division, Office, movements had replaced the hurry and Chief of Transportation (OCT), subject confusion of 1942 was evidenced in the to arrangements with the Navy for conmarked contrast between the orderli- voys and routing and with the British ness of movements for the Sicily opera- Ministry of War Transport when British tion and the disorder that had attended troop carriers were involved. The system the preparations for the North African differed somewhat for Pacific sailings. landings. Much of this orderliness had Here joint utilization of transports with been achieved through the preparation the Navy was necessary, and schedules and widespread distribution of stand- generally were worked out by joint comardized procedures in the booklet "Prep- mittees in San Francisco. In any case, aration for Overseas Movement" (POM), Movements Division developed its own by fixing in OPD the responsibility for six-months' forecast of troop lift in close determining troop requirements and and direct co-ordination with OPD, the making unit allocations to overseas thea- agency responsible for the six-months' ters and in the three major commands deployment forecast on which preparathe responsibility for determining unit tion and initial movements of units was availability, designating units to be based. At the very top level, the joint moved, and making initial preparations and combined transportation commitfor movement. By the fall of 1943 OPD's tees serving the JCS and CCS made the Six Months Forecast of deployment was basic allocations of troop lift in the light stating "quite firm" requirements for of existing strategy or other considera17 the next two months and reasonably ac- tions. A fundamental problem in conneccurate "theoretical" ones for the following four.15 This made possible the tion with all troop movements was the orderly processing of troops for move- assembly and shipment of authorized ment according to the detailed proce- supplies and equipment in close syndures of POM. Movement orders, prep- chronization with the shipment of the aration of which was a joint responsi- units themselves. Under POM regulability of OPD and the major commands, tions units moving overseas were enspecified additional details as to port of
16 On movement orders see Troop Movements in World War II, prepared by Movements Br, Mobilization Div, ASF, MS, OCMH. 17 (1) For a complete and detailed account of the procedures involved in troop movements see Wardlow, The Transportation Corps: Movements, Training, and Supply, pp. 89-136. (2) On the Pacific system see below, Chapter XVIII.
144
titled to their full TOE and TBA allowances, to certain maintenance supplies and ammunition, and such further matriel as might be specified in Special Lists of Equipment (SLOE's). POM procedures divided responsibility for seeing that embarking troops were properly equipped among unit commanders, station commanders, major ZI commands (AAF, AGF, and ASF), service commands, technical services, and the port of embarkation, with Mobilization Division, ASF, exercising general co-ordination over the process. At the initial alert for overseas movement, unit commanders determined by means of showdown inspections existing shortages of items and quantities of combat serviceable equipment to fill allowances and submitted lists to their respective station commanders. Station commanders then filled shortages to the extent possible from station stocks and depots normally supplying the station, drawing when necessary on units of lower priority at
the same station. For items they were
unable to supply, station commanders then prepared an "Initial List of Shortages" and forwarded it to the responsible technical services, which filled them by shipments either to the unit at home station or directly to the port area. AGF and AAF commanders were empowered to transfer from other units of lower priority under their command any items not obtainable from ASF sources. Port commanders were responsible for filling such last-minute shortages as remained when the unit moved into the port area. ASF service commands rendered advice and assistance all along the line.18
18
items from the initial list of shortages. See POM, 3d ed., 15 Jan 45. (4) Certain additional procedures
and variants were prescribed for AAF units, see Additional Preparation for Overseas Movement for AAF Units (AIR-POM), 2d ed., 1 Aug 43, AG 370.5 (6 Aug 43) OB-S-AF-M. (5) A third procedure governed m o v e m e n t of replacements, see WD Pam 29-2, Preparation for Overseas Movement of Individual Replacements (POR), 15 May 44. (6) Troop Movements in World War II, pp. 6-7; see appendix B for
145
with equipment stowed so that it could be discharged quickly in the order needed, required specially rigged ships such as the Navy's APA's and AKA's and was reserved for troops mounted out directly for amphibious assaults. Unit loading, whereby troops and equipment were loaded on the same ship but without special facilities for discharging, was usually impracticable because most troop transports did not have the required cargo space; and even when they did, wasteful loading practices frequently resulted. Convoy loading simply involved sailing the cargo ships in the same convoy as the troop transports but it, too, was usually impractical because troopships either did not sail in convoys or moved in fast convoys while
cargo vessels moved in much slower ones. Thus the need to use cargo space efficiently ruled out, for all but special movements, methods that would have insured the rapid marrying up of troops and equipment overseas; instead, shipments of organizational equipment
usually had to be made in separate cargo vessels, sometimes scattered over several 19 convoys.
This last method of loading was a frequent source of complaint from theater commanders who found it difficult to locate and identify organizational equipment after it had arrived in the theater. The problem was particularly acute in the Pacific where there was
See Wardlow, The Transportation Corps: Movements, Training, and Supply, pp. 148-50, 373.
19
146
seldom any central point for handling plentiful, there was a marked tendency all incoming shipments, and troops and to substitute bulk shipments to be supplies were frequently unloaded at placed in theater stocks and then issued widely separated points. No completely to units as they arrived for the more satisfactory solution was found that ap- meticulous and time-consuming procplied to all areas. Much was achieved esses of gathering and shipping organby administrative improvementsthe izational equipment and supplies for adoption of a standard marking system each unit as it sailed. Shipment of mainfor shipments, meticulous record keep- tenance allowances with troops, for ining at the ports, closer liaison between stance, was gradually abandoned, and ports and theaters, greater care and sys- by late 1944 these allowances were being tem in the preparation of shipment man- shipped in bulk to all theaters and ifests, and greater speed in relaying ad- placed in theater stock.22 vance information on manifests to the theaters detailing the cargo to be exEvolution of the Overseas pected on specific vessels. An Initial Supply System Troop Equipment Division was estabThe main principles governing overlished in each port, separate from the Overseas Supply Division, with special seas supply in World War II were laid responsibility for handling initial ship- down in a directive issued shortly after ments to accompany troops.20 Pearl Harbor, hastily conceived and genOutside the realm of administrative erally considered to be of an experiimprovements, the major innovations mental nature. The salient feature of were preshipment of organizational the system then adopted was decentralequipment to the United Kingdom for ization of operations to permit control the cross-Channel invasion forces and of the normal flow of supplies by ports bulk shipment of equipment to ports on of embarkation based either on comthe Continent for follow-up divisions putation of standard allowances or on coming directly from the United States.21 requisitions submitted by theaters. The Both of these procedures put the em- War Department's role was confined to phasis on bulk shipments from technical determining policies, establishing allowservice depots, bypassing normal POM ances and levels, controlling particuprocedures. Neither was used extensively larly critical items, and supervising opin the Pacific, although some instances erations to see that practice was brought of preshipment of divisional equipment into harmony with policy. Surprisingly occurred. All in all, in the later stages enough, this original plan proved flexof the war as equipment became more ible enough to meet the changing needs of operations that quickly expanded into (1) See Ibid., pp. 149-55, 396-403. (2) On the every quarter of the globe. This flexi20
importance and the evolution of the standard marking system see Leighton and Coakley, Global Logistics, 1940-43, pp. 644-45. (3) For more specific information on the problem of Pacific theaters see below, Chapter XX. 21 See above, ch. II and chs. VII, IX, and XIV,
below.
(1) Wardlow, The Transportation Corps: Movements, Training, and Supply, pp. 155-61. (2) Msg, AGWAR to CG's, USAFICPA, USAFCBI, San Francisco and Los Angeles POE's, 7 Aug 44, file 13b Day File Cen Pac, Feb 44, ASF Plng Div.
22
147
bility was, of course, largely a matter of broad and general language that left a multitude of concrete problems to be solved in the future: organization at ports of embarkation, theater supply levels, methods of requisitioning and controlling the flow of various types of items, and co-ordination among staff and operating agencies involved. Thus the evolution of the system was still in progress in the summer of 1943, although the general lines of its development were quite clear. No small part of the accomplishments of 1942 and early 1943 was the development of a satisfactory mechanism for controlling the flow of supplies in and out of ports without disproportionate sacrifice of the ultimate goal of the supply system the shipment of specific items and quantities of supplies overseas to meet the specific needs of overseas commanders. Satisfactory control over the flow of supplies into ports was largely attained through the use of holding and reconsignment points and establishment of procedures for calling supplies forward into the port area as shipping became available to transport them. The first step in the marriage of supply and transportation considerations was the establishment in 1942 of an overseas supply division at each port responsible for the ports' overseas supply activities. The second came in early 1943 with the working out of a modus vivendi between General Lutes and General Gross that provided, in effect, for close co-ordination between Lutes' ASF operations staff, the Office of the Chief of Transportation, and the port commanders in supervising the work of the overseas supply divisions. Thus, while the overseas supply divisions continued to
be parts of the port commands and so under the Chief of Transportation, the Director of Plans and Operations was authorized direct communication with them on matters pertaining to supplies to be shipped overseas.23 As the system workedand it did work better in practice than looked possible on an organization chartthe Office, Chief of Transportation, planned the availability of shipping while Plans and Operations, ASF, had cognizance over the types and kinds of cargo to fill the ships.24 Each theater was assigned as the responsibility of a single port, and the Overseas Supply Division in the primary port was the key center for handling all matters relating to overseas supply for the theater or theaters for which it was responsible, save only the shipment of initial equipment for troops moving overseas. The procedures developed during 1942 provided for shipment of Class I and III supplies on an automatic basis by the ports, Class II and IV on requisitions initiated by overseas commanders, and Class V on directives issued by the commanding generals of ASF and AAF. But even for classes II, IV, and V supply was to some degree automatic since troops moving overseas were entitled to maintenance allowances and these al(1) On development of the overseas supply system in 1942 and early 1943 see Leighton and Coakley, Global Logistics, 1940-43, pp. 233-38, 317-36, 642-48. (2) See also Wardlow, The Transportation Corps: Movements, Training, and Supply, pp. 33557. (3) Two useful monographs are: ASF, Control Division, Development of Overseas Supply Policies and Procedures, prepared by Richard M. Leighton; and Harold Larson, Role of the Transportation Corps in Overseas Supply, OCT Historical Monograph 27; both in OCMH. 24 (1) Memo, Lutes for CsTechSvcs, 11 May 43. (2) Memo, Lutes for CofT, 3 Aug 43. Both in Log File, OCMH.
23
148
lowances normally constituted the first requirements in 1942 had been kept at step in building theater supply levels. a minimum as too great a burden on In the early stages of the war supply of newly established overseas bases. The all classes for task forces was automatic. major report required was the Materiel For instance, in the North African in- Status Report, which listed on-hand vasion supplies were shipped on the quantities of a selected list of scarce items early convoys almost entirely on the (similar to, but not identical with, the basis of initial and maintenance allow- controlled items list, and including amances and estimated consumption rates, munition); it was submitted directly to not on requisitions from the theater the War Department each month and commander. The whole emphasis during used by the technical services in editing 1942 was on automatic supply to estab- requisitions for controlled items. It was lish minimum theater levels; it was only an imperfect instrument, and usually at the end of 1942, when massive evi- contained outdated figures by the time dence of resulting unbalanced stocks in it was received. For the great mass of several theaters came to light, that the noncontrolled and automatic supply emphasis began to shift to the more items the ports became the principal selective process of determining actual record-keeping agencies, basing their figtheater stocks and needs and governing ures largely on what had been shipped and on whatever information "they shipments accordingly Meanwhile, basic procedures for req- could cajole from overseas commanduisitioning Class II and IV supplies had ers."25 In May 1943 the War Department been worked out. They provided that the Overseas Supply Officer at the port took action to systemize reporting, and should edit requisitions for noncon- in so doing gave the overseas supply systrolled items in terms of theater allow- tem a new turn. Three reports were reances and furnish matriel to meet them quired for each theater: a Monthly Maeither from port stocks or by back-order- teriel Status Report (MMSR) for selecting on appropriate depots. (Chart 4) ed Class II and IV items, a monthly Requisitions for controlled items were Automatic Supply Report for Class I to be forwarded to appropriate chiefs of and III supplies, and an Ammunition technical services for editing in accord- Supply Report for Class V to be subance with existing priorities and deter- mitted every ten days. The port commination of source of supply. (Chart 5) manders were made primarily responThe great problem that emerged was sible for preparing these reports, but that of determining the actual status of definite deadlines were established for theater assets as a basis on which intelli- overseas commanders to forward the necgent editing could be conducted, either essary data. All reports were designed at the port or by the technical services. to show theater stocks, quantities en And, as unbalanced stocks of food and route, and the theater allowances against POL appeared in the various theaters, which they should be matched; these the problem of determining supply sta- last, in the case of the MMSR, were to tus became equally acute as it applied Leighton and Coakley, Global Logistics, 1940to the automatic categories. Reporting 43, pp. 322-28.
25
THE MECHANICS OF WHOLESALE DISTRIBUTION be compiled by the technical services. OPD was made responsible for furnishing ASF within eight days after the end of the month the official troop bases for each overseas theater on which allowances were to be calculated.26 The stated purpose of these reports was to serve a statistical and control function to permit ASF headquarters, the technical services, and the ports to edit requisitions intelligently and adjust the flow of automatic supply. The whole evolution of the supply system at this point, however, was toward use of the reports as a form of requisition and the semiautomatic flow of supply this implied. In September 1943 the trend was formally recognized in a new "bible" for overseas supply. The directive27 divided overseas supply operations, as they might be expected to develop after the occupation of a new theater, into three consecutive phases. In the first phase all supply was to be automatic "until such time as normal supply procedure can be put into operation." During this phase all supplies would be shipped in accordance with schedules and levels prescribed in the plan for establishing the theater or base and, at least theoretically, the theater commander would not have to concern himself with the shipments at all. From this stage it was intended to hurry as quickly as practicable into the second phase wherein procedures styled "semiautomatic" would apply; that is, ammunition and controlled items
26
149
would be supplied on the basis of status reports and other supplies by requisition. Considerably later, after authorized levels had been reached and stabilized, a third phase of supply by requisition only would be instituted with the status reports to be continued for statistical purposes. The new instructions substituted a Selected Items Report on certain Class I and III supplies for the Automatic Supply Report. This report occupied a less determinate status than either the
Monthly Materiel Status Report or the Ammunition Report as a requisition. Medical supplies were to be obtained by requisition. The new circular also confirmed special procedures for handling POL that had taken shape since the founding of the Army-Navy Petroleum Board in July 1942, by which requisitions for POL from overseas theaters were forwarded to the Board, and this JCS agency then determined allocations of petroleum products to theaters and prescribed their sources, relying on the Quartermaster Corps for procurement to meet ground force needs and on the Transportation Corps to arrange movements. For other items on the Selected Items Report, mostly Class I rations, the circular prescribed that "the port commander will take necessary action to maintain levels," which was taken, at least by port commanders, to mean that rations would be shipped on a semiautomatic basis without requisition.28 Another practice confirmed at that time was one by which Air Forces tech28 (1) Quotation is from WD Cir 220, 20 Sep 43. (2) TAG Ltr, 19 Sep 43, sub: Overseas Supply Rpts, AG 400 (19 Sep 43) OB-S-SPDDL-M. (3) On the system of petroleum distribution, see Erna Risch, Fuels for Global Conflict, QMC Historical Study 9, (rev. ed.; Washington, 1952).
Supply R p t , AG 400 (4-25-13) OB-S-D-M. 27 (1) WD Cir 220, 20 Sep 43. (2) For the voluminous background papers on the drafting of the circular and the preliminary drafts see Drafts on Supply of Overseas Depots, Theaters and Separate Bases, ASF Plng Div.
152
GLOBAL LOGISTICS AND STRATEGY: 1943-1945 ly amply reflected in the investigations being conducted by the McCoy Board into the requirements system.31 The system outlined in September 1943 continued in effect for all practical purposes throughout the rest of the war. A new directive published on 23 May 1944 was largely a refinement of the earlier one. The only significant changes, most of them products of the Richards Committee report and the McNarney directive, were specific stipulations that the War Department should set overseas operating levels and that neither ports nor theater commanders could adjust them, and specific instructions that theater commanders should establish definite systems of supply control.32 Yet both the September 1943 and the May 1944 circulars prescribed quite flexible limits within which the evolution of the overseas supply system continued. The evolution moved toward more efficient methods of stock control and record keeping in the zone of interior and the theaters, and, at the same time, toward the third phase, requisition supply, as a method still more efficient than either automatic or semiautomatic flow. Problems cropped up almost immediately in the operation of semiautomatic supplyinadequate theater inventories, divergent port and theater figures for stocks on hand, and duplication of status report shortages by separate theater requisitions. Moreover, because of time delays involved in gathering data
31 (1) On the McCoy Board, see above, Chapter V, pp. 119-24. (2) Leighton, Overseas Policies and Procedures, pp. 210-13. 32 (1) WD Cir 203, 23 May 44. (2) History Planning Div ASF, Text, II, 196. (3) Annual Report of the Army Service Forces, 1944, p. 9. (4) WD Cir 455, 30 Nov 44, amended Cir 203 in some particulars, but made no basic changes in the system.
nical supplies were requisitioned directly from the Air Service Command at Patterson Field, Ohio, with the port completely eliminated from the requisitioning channel. To give the port adequate information on shipping requirements, the AAF was directed to provide at periodic intervals information on cargo under its control requiring water shipment and to maintain liaison officers in the port overseas supply divisions. But the AAF maintained near the ports its own in-transit depots that received Air Forces cargo, processed it for overseas shipment, and delivered it to the port's Water Division for loading. AAF cargoes amounted to some 10 percent of the Army cargo moved through the various ports during the war.29 The circular also contained a few new provisions aimed at arresting the overaccumulation of stocks in overseas theaters. One of them enjoined commanders to "establish and maintain an effective inventory control system"; another prescribed "centrally located necessary records as to the status of supplies on hand and due in and levels of supply to be maintained in his command." Moreover, the commander was to "continually review maintenance factors and submit recommendations for changes" and to request promptly instructions from higher authority concerning disposition of any unbalanced stocks or excessive amounts of supplies.30 These provisions were straws in the wind indicating mounting concern in the War Department with weaknesses in control that were causing overstockage and uneconomical distribution of supplies in the theaters, a concern that was concurrent29
30
History Planning Div ASF, Text, II, 194. WD Cir 220, 20 Sep 43.
153
The report concluded that the use of the Materiel Status Report "slows up rather than speeds up the actual delivery of supplies to the theaters" because of time consumed in processing the report, and that "supply could be more readily accomplished through the standard requisitioning procedure and standard supply channels." 33 These conclusions took shape slowly and had little effect on supply procedures until late in 1944. For the better part of a year after the general initiation of semiautomatic supply in September 1943 the ASF concentrated on making the system work by educating everyone concerned in its principles, and most
(1) TAG Ltr, 28 Nov 43, sub: Overseas Supply Rpts, AG 400 (25 Nov 43), OB-S-SPDDL-M. (2) Control Div, ASF, Survey of Operation of MSR, Aug 44, Log File, OCMH.
33
particularly by improving stock control in overseas theaters. "Successful accomplishment of overseas supply by the War Department," insisted a new directive on reporting issued in mid-March 1944, "is dependent in a large measure on the availability and the coordination of accurate and up-to-date supply statistics from overseas commands," and went on to prescribe a more precise system for compilation of the Materiel Status Re34 port. The port commander was instructed to keep a "perpetual inventory" for each overseas command for which he had responsibility, to be based initially on a "firm inventory," furnished by the overseas commander "as of a convenient date" mutually agreed upon, and to be kept up to date through notification of vessel arrivals in the theater and from theater reports on items and quantities lost, expended, or transferred to non-Army agencies. The theater commander was to keep a similar perpetual inventory of Materiel Status Report items in his theater, and the two would be adjusted as occasion demanded. In this way, it was hoped, the monthly formal compilation of the report would give a true picture of theater shortages. At the same time, for those inactive theaters that had been placed entirely on requisition supply, a quarterly submission of the Materiel Status Report was prescribed instead of a monthly one, "for statistical and control purposes."35 Requirements for the Selected Items Report and the Ammunition Report were also tightened, though it was now stipulated that rations as well as medical supplies would be furnished on requisi34
Ibid.
154
GLOBAL LOGISTICS AND STRATEGY: 1943-1945 seas commands and the technical services. Overseas theaters would receive supplies of critical items entirely on requisitions, which would be edited against allocations projected six months in advance by the technical services based on present and projected troop strength, issue experience of the past three months, and anticipated extraordinary demands. Control would be exercised through adherence to these allocations (with interim changes on proper justification) with detailed ZI and theater stock control records as a substitute for the "perpetual inventory" at the ports.38 This proposal and its several variants were extensively debated during the fall of 1944. The faults of the Monthly Materiel Status Report were generally admitted, but there were those, such as General Lutes and Brig. Gen. William M. Goodman, Overseas Supply Officer, New York Port of Embarkation, who also thought it had virtues. "I have never
liked the MMSR system . . . ," wrote
tion except to theaters still on an automatic supply basis. The Ammunition Report, on the other hand, would be used as the principal basis for supply of items listed on it. In pursuance of the goal of more effective inventory control overseas, on 15 May 1944 the ASF issued a new manual on stock control in overseas theaters, laying down the general principles already in use in ZI depots, though it was hardly expected that these operations could reach the same height of efficiency in areas where stocks were scattered 36 and troops engaged in active combat. All these efforts were soon merged in the general endeavor, beginning in the spring of 1944, to institute the Supply Control System Army-wide. The key feature of this system, it will be recalled, was the use of central and accurate records of depot stocks and issues to forecast both production and distribution requirements.37 In this connection, the whole system of status report supply came into question. The Control Division, ASF, in its adverse report on the Materiel Status Report in August 1944, proposed a new system to eliminate unnecessary duplication in planning, record keeping, and reporting that the coexistence of the Materiel Status Report procedure and the Supply Control system would engender. Since overseas theaters, ports, and technical services would all be keeping very nearly the same records, Control Division pointed out, the port could be eliminated from the procedural chain and the burden of inventory control thrown directly on the over(1) TM 38-205, 15 May 44, Stock Control for Overseas Commands, Part 3. (2) History of Stock Control, U.S. Army, pp. 202-10. 37 See above, ch. V.
36
have supplied our forces very well."39 He feared that elimination of the ports' running inventories would result in loss of effective editing control by the ASF. "If we wiped out the ports' inventory," he remarked, "we would have to accept the theater commander's figures and edit alone on his statements."40 Lutes could also point to existing discrepancies between port and technical service records and to the need for ASF to have author(1) Control Div, ASF, Survey of Operation of MSR, Aug 44. (2) Annual Report of the Army Service Forces, 1945 (Washington, 1945), p. 32. 39 Memo, Lutes for Somervell, 30 Aug 44, sub: Monthly Materiel Status Report, Lutes Diary. 40 NYPOE Conf, sub: Inventories; Changes in System of Editing at Ports, 12 Oct 44, Lutes Diary.
38
155
The new system incorporated many elements of the Control Division plan but it still maintained one essential feature of the old order the perpetual inventory at the ports. All overseas theaters were placed on requisition supply, but requisitions for critical items were to be submitted directly to the chiefs of technical services, not to the ports. For items expected to be in short supply the technical services were to prepare "distribution plans" for three months in advance, a system not unlike the allocations suggested by Control Division. The ports were to continue to prepare a status report, now named the Critical Items Report, based on data submitted by the theaters, this to be used in conjunction with the distribution plans in editing requisitions for critical items. It was no longer to be, in itself, a requisition.43 The final transition to requisition supply and even the beginning of full implementation of stock control as a method for regulating the flow of supplies overseas came too late in the war to receive a thorough test. Experience with the various forms of automatic supply nevertheless led to the conclusion that requisition supply with appropriate measures of statistical control did represent the best method. The Planning Division, ASF, recognized the need for some form of automatic supply in the
OCMH. (6) TAG Ltr, 16 Mar 45, sub: Overseas Supply Rpts, AG 400 (17 Mar 45) OB-S-D-M. (7) History of Stock Control, U.S. Army, pp. 211-13. (8) Annual Report of the Army Service Forces, 1945, pp. 32-35. 43 (1) TAG Ltr, 16 May 45, sub: Overseas Supply Rpts, AG 400 (17 Mar 45) OB-S-D-M. (2) Ltr, Hq ASF to CG's POE's and CsTechSvcs, 17 Mar 45, sub: Overseas Supply Rpts, SPX 400 (17 Mar 45) OB-SSPDDL-M, Log File, OCMH. (3) Annual Report of the Army Service Forces, 1945, p. 33.
156
early stages of operations, but shortly after war's end concluded that:
sumption prior to the date upon which the next consignment of supplies may reasonably be expected to arrive at an 45 The varying conditions encountered overseas base." A limit of 90 days' supthrough the world with corresponding vary- ply was set on the operating level except ing supply requirements leads to the con- where shipping conditions or the tactical clusion that passing to a 100% requisition basis at the earliest practicable moment is situation required a higher one; even then any higher level had to have the essential if excesses are to be avoided and express approval of the Commanding desired items only are to be shipped.44 General, ASF. In July 1943, as a corollary to the Levels of Supply standardization of status reporting, theRegardless of the method of ordering ater levels were reduced in modest proand shipping supplies whether auto- portions and the whole system refined matic, semiautomatic, or by requisition and clarified. The existing concept of the key factor in determining any the- maximum and minimum levels was conater's authorized stockage was its pre- firmed, but confined to uncontrolled scribed level of each class of supply. The Class I, II, and III supplies. Operating concept of theater levels had already un- levels for these classes (still not to exdergone a considerable evolution by ceed 90 days except in special instances) mid-1943. The original supply plan in were to be determined by the port and January 1942 set certain reserve levels overseas commanders in collaboration to be reached but not exceeded in each "based on the frequency of shipments of the then existing theaters and bases; and the time required for supplies to these reserve levels were considered as reach their destination." Materiel Status insurance should sea supply lines be cut. Report items, ammunition, and any othThe ever-present fear of interruption er articles in short supply would be furof oversea supply lines was behind the nished only to the minimum level "until May 1942 decision that reserve levels such time as the supply situation pershould be considered almost inviolate, mits furnishing the operating level of not to be drawn on except in an emer- supply. . . ." Class IV supplies were to gency. The reserve level then ceased to be furnished on the basis of operational be a ceiling and was redefined as a mini- projects and were not to be included in mum level. In July 1942, to counter the theater levels. For purposes of computpossibility that a given theater might ing stocks on hand against levels, all supplies "at ports of debarkation, incontinue to build its stocks ad infinitum at the expense of others, the concept of transit within the theater, or in depots 46 the maximum level was introduced. In in the theater" were to be considered. this concept each theater was entitled to TAG Ltr, 19 Jul 42, sub: Levels of Supply for certain minimum reserve levels of each Overseas Depots, Theaters, and Base Comds, AG class plus an operating level defined as 400 (7-11-42) MS-SPOPS-M. (1) TAG Ltr, 10 Jul 43, sub: Levels of Supply "the quantity required for normal con45 46 44
for Overseas Areas, Depots, Theaters and Bases, AG 400 (8 Jul 43) OB-S-SPOPI-M. (2) History Planning Div ASF, text, II, 201-02. (3) Leighton and Coakley,
157
Events in 1943, meanwhile, were rap- ous theaters, finally recommending miniidly outdating the concepts on which mum levels that reduced the average, supply levels had been based. The sub- considering all theaters, from 120 to 97 marine threat in the Atlantic lessened, days. The committee felt that direct conand the shift from defensive to offensive trol over all levels should be exercised operations in the Pacific put an end to by the War Department and not deleany imminent threat that the enemy in gated to the ports and theater commandeither major area would be able to cut ers as prescription of operating levels 47 American supply lines. This was a prime had formerly been. consideration with the Richards ComThe Richards Committee recommenmittee in drawing its conclusions that dations on levels were accepted in toto reserve levels were too high all along the and officially promulgated in the Mcline. The committee accepted the exist- Narney directive of 1 January 1944. ing concept of minimum and operating (Table 13) They remained in force, levels, but insisted that minimum levels with minor modifications mainly affectshould not be held sacred and that sup- ing inactive areas, until the end of 1944 plies held against them should be used when further reductions were made in temporarily at any time there was an levels in the Pacific theaters. They were interruption in the normal flow. The at first regarded almost universally as committee went on to develop a formula too low by both theaters and ASF operfor computing authorized theater levels ating agencies, largely because they for all classes as followsfor Classes I seemed to make no provision for the and III: theater level = theater distribu- long time lag between preparation of tion time (including unloading time) + a requisition or semiautomatic supply convoy interval time + operating level; report and the actual arrival of supplies for Classes II, IV, and V: theater level = in the theater. Much of this criticism theater distribution time (including un- was obviated by the recognition, shortly loading time) + emergency replacement after the promulgation of these levels, time + operating level. Based on in- of order and shipping time as a factor formation from the Transportation in editing theater requisitions. Port and Corps that shipping capabilities insured theater commanders were instructed to delivery of maintenance supplies to ev- determine the average length of time ery theater at least once every 30 days, required between requisition and delivthe Richards Committee recommended ery at a theater port and to add that a uniform operating level of 30 days for number of days to the theater's requisiall theaters except for certain stations tioning objective. Since order and shipsuch as Greenland that were frozen in ping time varied between two and four for part of the year or those where the months, it provided a sizable cushion garrison was too small to justify monthly against which theater requisitions were sustaining shipments. It then proceeded edited. The net effect was to establish to calculate the other factors for the variGlobal Logistics, 1940-43, pp. 333-36, 643-44. Appendix F-1 shows authorized levels of supply in June 1942 and June 1943.
(1) Levels of Supply, app. F: Richards Com Rpt, pp. 23-30. (2) See Leighton and Coakley, Global Logistics, 1940-43, Appendix F-1 for levels prescribed in July 1943.
47
158
a Special operating levels were authorized for those stations frozen in for part of year and those served direct from a port, where the garrison was so small that monthly shipments would be uneconomical. b Minimum in terms of 15-day increments. c Exclusive of current operations. Source: McNarney Directive, 1 Jan 44.
a new formula reading: theater requisitioning objective = theater level + order and shipping time. Except in the case of critical items, the actual theater level was expected to fluctuate between the minimum and maximum authorization of each class of supply.48
48 (1) History Planning Div ASF, Text, II, 204-05. (2) TAG Ltr, 20 Jan 44, sub: Levels of Supply for Overseas Areas, Depots, Theaters and Bases, AG 400 (11 Jan 44) OB-S-E-M. (3) TAG Ltr, 29 Dec 44, sub: Overseas Supply Levels, AG 400 (12 Dec 44) OB-S-E-I.
The investigations of the Richards Committee also affected levels of supplies in the zone of interior. The McNarney directive set back-up stocks for overseas theaters at 60 days in filler depots plus the strategic reserve (equipment for 10 divisions, 27 air combat groups, and supporting troops) and a contingency reserve of 30 days' supply of items not included in the strategic reserve. It provided only 105 days' sup-
THE MECHANICS OF WHOLESALE DISTRIBUTION ply on hand and on order in distribution depots and posts, camps, and stations (45 days normally to be held in the latter) to serve ZI units, as against a previous maximum authorization up to 270 days at the discretion of the commanding generals, ASF and AAF. ASF aimed its most vociferous protests against these provisions because they did not take into account in-transit allowances that would permit inclusion of order and shipping time in requisitioning objectives. In the case of overseas back-up stocks, the ASF admitted that strategic and contingency reserves would, in effect, provide for in-transit quantities, but found the whole system too inflexible in its classification of the various types of reserves. On the other hand, the 105day ZI level made no provision for intransit distribution at all.49 The ASF objections went unheeded for a time. ZI stock levels were officially fixed in late February 1944 in strict accordance with the Richards Committee recommendations. Two other types of reserves were identified and defined at this timeutility reserves of special types of equipment to be used mainly as a back-up for operational projects and to meet other special demands; and production reserves, defined as stockages made necessary "when production reasons make it mandatory to accept delivery of supplies in addition to stocks pre50 scribed. . . ." For the next two months, the diligent
(1) Draft Memo, Somervell to CofS, 9 Jan 44 (prepared in Office Dir Materiel, ASF) sub: Changes in Sup Levels and Sup Procedures, Dir Materiel, ASF File, Richards Com Rpt. (2) Related papers in same file. (3) Levels of Supply, app. F, Richards Com Recmns 31, 32, 42, 51. (4) See ch. V, above. 50 WD Cir 85, 25 Feb 44, Sec III. The Richards Committee apparently recognized the existence of
49
159
effort to bring stock levels in line with these authorizations went ahead, but concomitantly the ASF was moving toward the Supply Control System, the premises
of which in many cases were at variance with the rigid levels prescribed in the McNarney directive. Finally, on 24 May 1944, with the issuance of a new directive on ZI levels, ASF for all practical
purposes won its case. While the 45-day level for posts, camps, and stations was retained, the ZI depot level was made very largely a matter for determination by ASF and AAF subject to G-4 review, and without exception was to be "that quantity necessary to assure uninterrupted supply under current procurement conditions." When the future issue of items could be estimated with reasonable accuracyas S items in the Supply Control Systemthis level was not to be higher than expected issues for the next 90 days; other items, for which future issue could not be estimated or which had to be stocked against undeterminable issuesas P items in the Supply Control Systemhad no ceiling. At the same time the strategic reserve was further defined and expanded to include, besides initial issue for the units composing it, a 90-day reserve of medium and heavy artillery ammunition at War Department day-of-supply rates, and 90 days of replacement of initial issue items whose rate of production
could not be raised within 90 days.51
these two types of reserves but did not include them in its formula for requirements calculation. 51 (1) WD Cir 206, 24 May 44, Sec VIII. (2) Memo, IG for DCofS, 3 May 44, sub: Memo, 1 Jan 44. . . . (3) Memo, Dir Supply ASF, for G-4, 16 May 44, same sub. (4) Memo, ASF for G-4, 19 May 44, sub: Proposed WD Cir and Memo Changes in Supply Procedures and Sup Levels. Last three in G-4 334 WD Spec Com, vol. 2.
160
The net effect was to leave ASF depot levels for all practical purposes under
the administrative control of ASF. The problem of levels soon resolved itself largely into one of establishing effective stock control, both in the zone of interior and overseas, and of determining both
accurate troop bases and accurate day-ofsupply and replacement factors in terms
of which actual quantitative levels could
be computed. 52
Not the least problem was that of determining existing and projected troop bases for each theater accurately enough to permit basing supply action on them. Until mid-1944 the Victory Program Troop Basis that was used for procurement purposes did not even contain an approximate theater breakdown. For distribution purposes a far more accurate instrument was required, and to develop a satisfactory one took time. All through 1943 operations were handicapped by the use of three different sets of figuresone set furnished by OPD's Logistics Group in the form of periodic theater
troop bases and the Six Months Deployment Forecast; a second set compiled
by Planning Division, ASF; and a third set maintained at each port of embarkation. The second and third sets were based on the first only in part, and there were frequent discrepancies among all three. Technical services frequently used one troop basis in editing requisitions while ports used another. In late 1943 ASF, charged by War Department regulations with furnishing a troop basis to
As the overseas supply divisions in the ports were the key centers of contact between theaters of operations and the ZI supporting establishment, the efficiency of the whole overseas supply system depended in no small measure on port procedures for handling orders and making shipments. In mid-1943 New York was assigned responsibility for the European and Mediterranean theaters, San its own agencies for supply purposes, set Francisco for the three main Pacific theup a special section in the Mobilization aters, Seattle for the North Pacific, Los Division to prepare a Troop List for Angeles for the CBI, New Orleans for Operations and Supply that would pro- the Panama Canal and Caribbean bases,
53
52 (1) See above, ch. V. (2) History Planning Div ASF, Text, II, 202-03.
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teletype conferences with the theater. Editing was frequently something less than an exact process; its general purpose was not so much to hold theaters to exact limitations of allowances as it was to eliminate what was genuinely excessive and unnecessary. Liberal editing was particularly characteristic of the period of intensive build-up for operations on the European Continent in 1944 when the New York port was instructed to honor all reasonable requests and to use "sound judgment and common sense, predicated on past experience and the tenor of cables and other correspondence being received at the base."55 Other theaters were not treated quite so kindly during 1943 and most of 1944, nor, for that matter, was the ETO during the earlier part of this period. Theaters frequently complained about port actions in reducing requisitioned quantities. Much of the time misunderstanding arose because of differences in port and theater records of theater stocks or the use of inadequate replacement factors and days of supply. Better stock control and refinement of factors progressively minimized these problems but never completely eliminated them. Nevertheless, as stock control procedures became more effective, editing was generally liberalized.56 Once requisitions were broken down by technical service and edited, the next step was to determine source of supply. Within the discretion of the port commander, some supplies were furnished
55 Quoted in Larson, Role of the Transportation Corps, p. 113. 56 (1) Ibid., pp. 103-18. (2) Wardlow, The Transportation Corps: Movements, Training, and Supply, pp. 342-43. (3) General Goodman's remarks at Port Comdrs Conf, Boston, 30-31 Aug 43.
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from port stocks, the remaining parts of the requisition "extracted" to appropriate filler or key depots. After decisions had been made on the extent to which theater orders would be honored, the port had to arrange shipment following priorities laid down by the theater commander within the limitation of availability of both the supplies and shipping. In this phase, the port had responsibility not only for matriel furnished on requisitions edited in its Overseas Supply Division but also for AAF technical supplies, Materiel Status Report items, special operational supplies, and petroleum. Theater priorities were usually of three types. The first, a time priority, required shipment of designated items within a given period or by a certain limiting date; the second, a type priority, stipulated in order of relative need the various types of supplies ordered by the theater; the third, a shipment priority, gave a particular shipment or series of shipments an overriding preference.57 Meeting the priorities, of whatever kind, depended on close synchronization of movement of exact types and quantities of supplies into the port with the availability of cargo shipping to move them out. And it involved, almost inevitably, some compromises. The theater commander's wishes could not always be met because of the practical limitations imposed by the necessity of making the utmost possible use of cargo space, because supplies simply were not shipped by depots on time, or because of conflict between a single theater's priorities and the intertheater priorities imposed by the War Department on critical items.
57
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vessel on which supplies were to be loaded. Starting with the sailing date, the schedule moved backward, establishing deadlines for each phase of the supply process. The first deadline was the Cutoff Date, the date on or before which all requisitions for supplies to be forwarded in a given convoy or during a given shipping period must be dispatched from the port to depots or appropriate War Department agencies. The second was the Initial Date, the date on or before which supplies called for should be ready at depots for shipment to port. The third was the Limiting Date by which time all supplies must be set up at depots for shipment. The fourth was the Deadline Date, on or before which shipments should arrive in the port. The fifth and last, the Sailing Date, was the date on which loading must be completed. The time intervals between the various dates could be expected to vary somewhat but the standard cycle used at New York allowed 39 days from the time of receipt of a requisition to the final loading of supplies aboard ship2 days for processing the requisitions at the port, 10 days from Cut-off Date to Initial Date during which requisitions would go to depots and be processed there, 7 days for depot crating and marking between Initial Date and Limiting Date, 10 days for movement into port between Limiting Date and Deadline Date, and a final 10 days for loading aboard ship. Geared to the whole Date-line System was a port follow-up of requisitions to determine their status, and on the basis of this follow-up cargo distribution charts were constructed. In October 1943 a detailed procedure was prescribed for
depot reports on availability of supplies,
164
but prescribed procedures were not as important as an aggressive follow-up by every means of communication, as General Goodman of the New York port emphasized "to put the pressure on" the 59 depots. Follow-up at San Francisco was not quite so aggressive. The accumulation at that port of a large number of unfilled requisitions in the fall of 1943 led to a full-scale Control Division survey of the port's operations in support of the Pacific theaters that occasioned appropriate corrective measures. The survey at San Francisco became the prototype for similar surveys at other ports of embarkation. It also gave impetus to development of a standard operating procedure for all ports, which the Transportation Corps established in January 1944. Drafted by General Goodman, for the most part it simply codified procedures already in effect at the New York 60 port. The port surveys showed that the major problem in procedures revolved around the relationship of ports and depots and the flow of information between them. When requisitions could not be filled at the first depot to which they were sent, the transaction tended to degenerate into extracts and re-ex59
The talk made by General Goodman at this conference is an excellent and succinct description of the
way the system was working at the NYPOE in mid1943. (2) The above is generally based on Gen.
Goodman's talk; on Leighton, Overseas Supply
a more aggressive follow-up. Port overseas supply divisions were required to maintain records showing the status of all requisitions, granted authority to request status reports on them when necessary, and instructed to initiate followup action on any items where availability had not been determined two days after the Limiting Date. Procedures developed by the end of the war along these lines had been simplified to the point where depots were simply required to file notices when items were delayed or could not be made available.61 The flow of information between depots and ports in many ways was simply accessory to the flow between ports and overseas theaters. This was a most vital link in the whole chain of overseas supply because advance information on each ship's cargo was a prime requisite to theater planning for handling it on arrival, as well as to the theater's actions in ordering further supplies. During 1942 the principal advance information reaching the theater commanders consisted of a copy of each ship's manifest, which sometimes did not arrive until the ship was in a theater port and which was not always accurate, nor did it contain enough detailed information. Airmailing the manifests produced some improvement but theater complaints of lack of advance information on ship(1) TC Pam 5, 27 Jan 44, and Revision, 1 Apr 44. (2) ASF Cir 336, 7 Oct 44. (3) WD Cir 5, 3 Jan 45.
61
165
Standard operating procedures alone could not, of course, provide solutions for all the difficulties involved in the complex relations between theaters and ZI supporting agencies. Too many individual problems in supplying each separate theater required special handling, special loading methods, and the expediting of individual items and categories of supply. Despite increased standardization of procedures, each port and each theater had its own peculiar problems that had to be worked out in a neverending series of adjustments. Improvements normally reflected a growing ability of many different agencies to work together as a team. In early 1945 ASF Control Division undertook to measure the efficiency with which overseas supply operations were being conducted by determining the average turnaround cycle for each major theater, that is, the lapse of time between the dispatch of a requisition from the theater to the arrival of the supplies requested at a theater port. The studies were limited to routine requisitions for maintenance supplies and did not include Materiel Status Report items. The results showed a turnaround cycle of 133 days for the European Theater of Operations, 115 for the Mediterranean Theater of Operations, 118 for the Pacific Ocean Areas, and 181 for the Southwest Pacific Area. The greatest delays occurred in depot processing75 days out of 133 for ETO, and 66 days out of 181 for SWPA. Independent studies at New York showed only 28 percent of requisitioned supplies reached port by the Deadline Date and only 48 percent before the convoy sailed. At least half of the convoy loads, therefore, seemed to be of cargo requisitioned for previous
166
months. Although further investigation modified these conclusions by showing that long delays on a small number of items unfavorably affected the results, the studies did reveal overlong delays in the whole process of requisitioning and shipping maintenance supplies. These conditions were mitigated, however, by the quicker performance possible in shipping critical items on Materiel Status Reports and faster action on cabled requisitions. In the very last days of the war, considerable effort was devoted to improving depot performance in processing requisitions and postV-E Day studies showed considerable improvement in the turnaround cycle to Pacific theaters.63
Special Operational Supplies
In the distribution phase special operational supplies also constituted a separate and difficult problem, involving as they did those extraordinary items needed for specific operations that could not be calculated in terms of authorized allowancesitems that one supply officer in 1944 described as "to date the big64 gest headache of Army Service Forces." Procedures developed to deal with this particular "headache" centered around the operational, or keyed, projects system developed in mid-1943, devised as a means of shifting the burden of anticipating need from Washington to the overseas theaters. As a device for forecasting long-range operational requirements for procurement planning the sys(1) Annual Report of the Army Service Forces, 1945, pp. 41-44. (2) Wardlow, The Transportation Corps: Movements, Training, and Supply, p. 347. 64 Lecture, Lt Col Clarke at Hq ASF School, 13 Apr 44, Log File, OCMH.
63
167
quirements of the theater. The project system is degenerating into an easy method of securing supplies over and above normal requirements."68 Requisitions frequently were submitted along with the project, and then the project system simply became a procedural framework for submitting supply orders. The practice at first was officially frowned on but was legalized in the revised outline of the overseas supply system published in May 1944, which provided that projects submitted requiring shipment of material within go days were to be accompanied by requisitions so that "expeditious supply action can be effected on approval."69 The ASF was authorized in the interests of speedy action to ship supplies in advance of OPD approval if there was not enough time for normal processing, to act on minor amendments and changes to approved projects, and even to ship against emergency requisitions of sufficient urgency pending submission of projects to cover them. OPD reserved the right of ex post facto review.70 The extent to which keyed projects became simply a method for short notice requisitions can, of course, be exaggerated. When the area and nature of operations could be predicted far enough in advance, projects were submitted and both procurement and shipment carefully planned in accordance with the theory laid down in War Department and ASF directives. One major project
Lecture, Clarke, 13 Apr 44. WD Cir 203, 24 May 44. 70 (1) Memo, Handy for CG ASF, 10 Jan 44, sub: Operational Projects. (2) Memo, Lutes for ACofS OPD, 12 Feb 44, same sub, with 1st Ind by OPD, 14 Feb 44. Both in History Planning Division ASF, Apps. 13-F, 13-G. (3) See also ASF Cir 32, 28 Jan 44.
69
68
168
the rehabilitation of the port of Cher- purposes (as distinguished from Materiel bourgwas submitted by the European Status Report items) over which ASF theater on 12 August 1943, materials headquarters and the technical services 72 were placed under procurement on 23 would exercise control. Though the project system, even after August, and by D-day on 6 June 1944 all the necessary materials had been as- its modification to provide for War Desembled in the British Isles. As the pace partment prepared projects, never was of operations in Europe quickened, de- regarded as a completely satisfactory mands had to be presented on shorter method of determining operational renotice. In the Pacific, where a strategy quirements it remained in effect through of opportunism prevailed, there was sel- the end of the war. Refinements and dom time for advance planning for proj- changes proposed in 1945 never got beects in specific geographic areas. In the yond staff consideration. The basic probSouthwest Pacific Area in particular the lem, not completely soluble under any project system became something of a system of calculation, was that of anticiwhipping boy, and was blamed for many pating specific operations far enough in of the delays in receipt of engineer con- advance to prepare for them. General Tansey, chief of OPD's Logistics Group, struction supplies.71 Recognizing that the project system commented toward the end of the war: was not working well, ASF undertook a It will be readily seen that unless the thorough review in the summer of 1944. theater commander is given long range straThe net result was the publication of tegical directives that he will be unable to an ASF manual on operational supplies, submit projects in time for procurement consolidating all existing procedures in and thus will be forced to take what the one place. The only major change to the Army Services Forces and Army Air Forces have anticipated as his needs. One of the existing system was the provision that outstanding things in this respect is the War Department prepared projects (a super-ability of the Army Service Forces Planning Division responsibility) be the and Army Air Forces to furnish anything main guide for theaters in calculating imaginable on practically no notice. While their own requirements for operational this abundance of supply is commendable, it has had the effect of removing restrictions supplies. But no supply action was au- and control of supply for overseas theaters. thorized until the theaters had present- . . . The great ability of this country to ed their own projects, whether based on produce can and will supply theaters with those prepared in ASF or those devel- what they need, but will never be able to oped independently. Basic procedures supply them what they want. It would be in the future for all operational for processing theater projects and ship- desirable projects to be prepared in detail by the War ping supplies to meet them were only Department and sent to the theater comrefined in detail. Among the refinements mander for such modifications as are necwas a provision for a separate category essary. This has been attempted by the Joint of restricted items for operational supply Logistics Plans Committee and the Army
Service Forces and has met with a certain amount of success, the trouble being that
ASF M a n u a l M415. Special Operational Supplies, 25 Aug 44.
72
71 (1) Annual Report of the Army Service Forces, 1944, p. 12. (2) On the problem of operational projects in the Pacific see below, Chapter XX.
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The system was better geared to meet routine and predictable demands comConclusions reached in the Planning mon to all areas and operations than to Division, ASF, the other agency funda- furnish the exceptional and extraordimentally concerned with operational nary items needed at special times and 74 places. Even so, with timely special arprojects, were essentially the same. rangementsoften a judicious mixture The Army's elaborate apparatus for of preparation for the largest possible distribution of supplies, for all its faults number of contingencies plus a generand imperfections, met its ultimate test ous measure of improvisation supply successfully. Supplies were delivered to agencies usually managed to meet all theaters in more than adequate quanti- legitimate demands. This, too, usually ties and usually at the right time and involved a calculated degree of overplace. No operation, once definitely supply. At other times and places and under scheduled by the JCS or CCS, was ever canceled or even significantly delayed other circumstances, the system might by failures in the delivery of supplies not have met the test so well. Certainly, attributable to malfunction of the sys- after early 1943 the success of supply tem. As has been demonstrated, the sys- operations involving mass shipments by tem depended on a calculated degree of sea and mass accumulations of reserves oversupply, that is, on a generous stock- at key points was in no small part due age of all the way stations on the long to the absence of any large enemy air road from factory to using troops, and or submarine threat. In the particular in this as well as in other respects it was time and circumstances of World War wasteful. After the war critics would II, and granted the wealth of national charge that because of this built-in waste resources it had to draw upon, the more supplies were left over at the end Army's distribution system was well of the war than were used by the Army adapted to the tasks it had to perform. in all its overseas operations. An officer Before the war no one foresaw the magwriting in 1951 remarked: nitude or the complexity of supply opWe operated on the principle of plenty erations involved in supporting troops for everybodyplus a good padding in case in theaters of war scattered round the things went wrong. Our supply system oper- globe. That the system developed under ated on the principle of the shotgun rather the stresses of war was wasteful in some than the rifle. If you shoot enough pellets respects is not surprising. Of more funyou are bound to hit every one, but with damental importance is the fact that it better aim we could have hit every target did provide adequate support for the with fewer bullets.75 large-scale military campaigns necessary for victory over the Axis. Memo, Tansey, no date, sub: Allocations of
73
Munitions for Log Support of Global Strategy, ABC 400 (2-17-42), Sec. 6. 74 History Planning Div ASF, Text, II, 222. 75 Lt. Col. Page H. Slaughter, "Substituting Speed
CHAPTER VII
175
to contain maximum German forces" destroyers for escort in the Mediterra2 had, indeed, glossed over a basic disagree- nean. Eisenhower's request launched the ment. British and American leaders could agree on the second aim, but the familiar process of trading and shuffling Americans did not share the conviction shipping. Cargo shipping presented no of their allies that eliminating Italy difficulty; the problem centered on perwould be the best way to accomplish it. sonnel vessels. To provide the 68,000 Churchill was fully aware that General troops Eisenhower needed it was decidEisenhower's judgment on the issue ed without much debate to switch a large might prove decisive. Immediately fol- troop convoy in August from the United lowing the conference, accompanied by Kingdom run to the Mediterranean and General Marshall and with the Presi- at the same time to reshuffle various unesdent's blessing, he visited Eisenhower's corted troop sailings. More difficult was headquarters in Algiers in the hope of the provision of assault transports, for winning him over to an invasion of Italy. their assignment to an operation in the Eisenhower stood up well under the Mediterranean would not only further onslaught of Churchillian charm. He delay BOLERO movements but would also agreed to develop a plan for a move to press upon operations in the Pacific and the Italian mainland along with the Burma, a consequence the Washington plans for occupying Sardinia and Corstaffs were not willing to accept. Combat sica, but with the understanding that a loader assets actually in the Mediterfinal decision would not be made until ranean at the time comprised 13 U.S. mid-August when the course of events APA's and 7 XAP's, along with 16 Britin Sicily would afford some basis for esti- ish LSI (L)'s, passenger liners converted for assault use. All were reserved for mating enemy reaction.1 Already the TRIDENT estimates of the Sicily, but, of the entire fleet only 3 cost of an Italian mainland invasion LSI (L) 's had been slated for post-Sicily were dissolving into mist. Largely be- operations, and Eisenhower's staff was recause of limitations of assault lift and luctant to risk these big, valuable ships the distance from the nearest fighter in a major assault. Three other LSI (L) 's, bases, Eisenhower's staff had decided earmarked for a putative Azores expethat of the proposed mainland landings dition though not for combat use, were only that in Calabria, on the toe across presently released as the necessity of a from Sicily, could be undertaken. Even forcible occupation of the Portuguese isthis would require 68,000 additional an- lands faded. Six more LSI (L) 's were tiaircraft and service troops to reach the due to be redeployed to Burma in July, theater in August, borrowing fighter air- the rest of them to the North Atlantic. craft from other areas, and clarification Of the American assault transports, the of TRIDENT schedules to permit reten- XAP's were also assigned to the Atlantic tion of 9 U.S. APA's and 4 AKA's used sector; in June Admiral King exercised in HUSKY, 90 cargo ships, and 18 U.S. one of his TRIDENT options to assign two
1
(1) Min, Algiers Conf, 29 May 43, TRIDENT Book. (2) CCS 268, 1 Jul 43, title: Post-HUSKY Opns, N African Theater.
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GLOBAL LOGISTICS AND STRATEGY: 1943-1945 cruisers, and the 90 cargo ships already earmarked. His request for fighter aircraft was denied.4 Events were overtaking these arrangements even as they were made. As the armored spearheads of Lt. Gen. George S. Patton, Jr., fanned out through the rugged terrain of Sicily, it soon became apparent that the Italian troops on the island had little stomach for further fighting. Reports flooding into Allied Force Headquarters indicated similar low morale among Italian units occupying the Balkans. Palermo fell to the U.S. Seventh Army on 22 July, and on the 25th the world heard the news broadcast from Rome that Mussolini had been arrested and a new government formed by Marshal Pietro Badoglio. All signs seemed to point to an early collapse of Germany's principal partner. Reacting promptly, on the basis of intelligence reports of declining Italian combat power, Marshall had proposed to the CCS on the 16th, with King's support, that Eisenhower be sounded out on the feasibility of an amphibious flanking attack on the Italian mainland near Naples. Marshall hoped that a sudden landing in force south of Rome might complete Italy's demoralization. With Allied armies firmly ensconced in southern Italy, and the Italian Government and people out of the war, the Allies might venture to go on the defensive in the Mediterranean and devote their full energies to preparations for the Normandy invasion. Churchill, how-
APA's to the same area, and ordered six more to the Pacific to fill the complement of 18 required for the GilbertsMarshalls operation. The U.S. vessels were due to depart immediately after the Sicily landings.3 All these assignments left Eisenhower a theoretical total of only 5 APA's and 3 LSI (L) 's, less expected heavy losses off Sicily, for whatever operations might follow. The British thought his needs should be met but declined to offer LSI (L) 's as substitutes for the requested APA's. The Americans argued that Eisenhower should make do with the vessels he had been allotted. In the midst of the debate 6 APA's and 4 AKA's departed as scheduled for the Pacific. Happily, the expected losses in the Sicily landings did not materializeall the assault transports came out unscathed, and losses in landing ships and craft amounted to only 4 LST's, 2 LCT's, and 15 LCM's. This permitted a compromise decision, transmitted to Eisenhower on 20 July, allowing him to keep the 7 remaining APA's and 2 of the 7 XAP's. The British LSI (L)'s were expected to make good most of the troop spaces thus lost to BOLERO-SICKLE. Eisenhower was also granted 18 of the 48 destroyer escorts in the theater, 3 U.S.
3
(1) Memo, Horne for Somervell, 16 Jun 43, with related corresp in OPD 560 Security, II, Case 54. (2) Memo, Col Claude B. Ferenbaugh for ACofS OPD, 25 Jun 43, sub: Effect of Special Convoy on U.K. Lift, ABC 384 Post-HUSKY (14 May 43), Sec 3. (3) CCS 244/1, 25 May 43, Annex V. (4) CCS 268/2, 15 Jul 43, title: Post-HUSKY Opns N African The4 ater. (5) Memo, Somervell for Marshall, 30 Jun 43, (1) CCS 268/3, 19 Jul 43. memo by Reps Br COS, sub: Combat Loaders for Post-HUSKY Opns, OPD Post-HUSKY Opns N African Theater. (2) CCS 268/4 Exec 3, Item 1c. (6) Min, 66th mtg, CPS, 10 Jul 43; and 268/5, 20 Jul 43, same title. (3) Min, 69th mtg, 67th mtg, 17 Jul 43. (7) Table, Assault Shpg Med CPS, 20 Jul 43. (4) Msg 172032, COMINCH to COMArea, 3 Jul 43, in ABC 561 (31 Aug 43), Sec 1B. NAVEU, 17 Jul 43, OPD Exec 3, Item 5. (5) Paper, (8) LSI(L)'s had an average capacity of about 2,500 Landing Craft Losses in HUSKY as Reported 28 Jul troops, APA's about 1,500, XAP's about 1,100. 43, in folder Misc Shpg Info, OCT HB.
177
merits from the Mediterranean until Eisenhower's needs were formulated and could be debated on their merits. They did not propose recalling ships already departed, such as the six Pacific-bound APA's, or any action that might prejudice planned movements to either the Pacific or the United Kingdom. The elements immediately affected by the "stand fast" order were (1) 3 groups of medium bombers temporarily assigned to the theater for the scheduled raid on Ploesti in August; (2) 2 U.S. cruisers and a destroyer group scheduled to depart about 12 August for Atlantic escort duty; and (3) 6 British LSI (L) 's and 8 LST's due to depart immediately for India. With the possible exception of the destroyers, it seems unlikely that a brief delay in any of these scheduled movements would have had serious consequences. The JCS had now decided, however, to take "a very firm position."7 Because retention of the India-bound LSI (L) 's and LST's would admittedly delay planned operations in Burma, the Americans made this the major issue. In a stiff note on 26 July rejecting the British proposals, the JCS informed the British Chiefs:
The U.S. Chiefs of Staff do not consider that the accelerated rate of success in the Mediterranean eliminates the need for the execution of the Burma operations as agreed upon. They are now concerned with the apparently slow progress of the plans and preparations for operations in Burma.
The JCS made it clear that they regarded the proposed landings near Naples as a quick, bold stroke in a situation that justified taking risks. The opMemo, Wood for Somervell, 23 Jul 43, folder CsofS, Jnt and Comb 1942-44, Hq ASF.
7
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GLOBAL LOGISTICS AND STRATEGY: 1943-1945 order pending a reappraisal of the situation at the impending conference at 9 Quebec.
eration should be carried out, therefore, with resources already providedwhich, even after planned withdrawals, would give Eisenhower an estimated assault lift for almost 80,000 troops, ample to mount a 3-division assault even after absorbing 25 percent losses in the Cala8 brian landings. This verdict the British were in no mood to accept, for the Naples operation (AVALANCHE) had now become the crux of Mediterranean strategy. On the same day as the JCS reply, Prime Minister Churchill poured out his hopes in a jubilant letter to Roosevelt, painting a prospect of fighting between Germans and Italians, surrender of the Italian fleet, and wholesale capitulation of garrisons throughout the Mediterranean. He wanted to increase pressure on Turkey, to throw agents, commandos, and supplies into the Balkans, and in Italy to seize lodgments on both coasts "as far north as we dare"and, he declared, "this is a time to dare." With the Allies dominating the Adriatic and the Balkans on fire, the Germans might be forced back to the line of the Sava and Danube; Italy could become a great air base for bombing southern and central Germany. Ten days earlier, in a sterner mood, he had confided to Field Marshal Jan Christian Smuts that he would "in no circumstances allow the powerful British and British-controlled armies in the Mediterranean to stand idle." The British Chiefs held to their "stand fast"
8 (1) CCS 268/9, memo by U.S. CsofS, 26 Jul 43, title: Post-HUSKY Opns N African Theater. (2) Memo, Handy for CofS, 25 Jul 43, and related papers in ABC 384 Post HUSKY (14 May 43), Sec 3. (3) Min, 103d mtg CCS, 23 Jul 43, and Spec mtg JCS, 26 Jul 43. (4) JWPC 67/2, 22 Jul 43, title: Post-HUSKY Opns. (5) Draft, Notes for Gen Marshall, undated, OPD Exec 5, Item 11.
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Jr., and Richard C. Lindsay, boldly attacked the cross-Channel strategy and the following day the committee itself raised the standard of revolt in a formal report to the JPS.11 As the committee
saw the situation, Germany had already been so weakened that she could not destroy the Soviet armies while simultaneously under attack in the west. Ger-
man leaders might well have already concluded that their best hope lay in a negotiated peace with the Western Allies. If so, the obvious course for the Allies would be to increase, not relax, pressure during the remainder of 1943 and early 1944 by strategic bombing and further offensives in the Mediterranean where strong and seasoned forces were deployed in readiness to strike. From Mediterranean bases, Allied air power could extend its bombing range and, ultimately, re-equipped French armies could invade southern France. In this perspective, an invasion from the northwest would not be "the opening wedge for decisive defeat of the German armies," but rather the "final, as opposed to the decisive, actiondecisive action having already taken place in the air over Europe, on the ground in Russia, and at sea." The committee concluded that, while the invasion build-up should continue, it should be "without prejudice to the achievement of our objective
in the Mediterranean, the elimination of Italy." The seven divisions scheduled for withdrawal should be left in the theater, enabling the same amount of
total Allied strength in Europe by bringing seven fresh divisions from the United States.12 The seriousness of the challenge to established strategic concepts was underlined when Admiral Leahy, on 26 July, told his JCS colleagues that the President himself had suggested it might become necessary to reorient Allied strategy in Europe in view of events in Italy. Leahy hinted that "we may not mount OVERLORD." Invasion forces might be deployed to the Mediterranean, and the decisive attack on Fortress Europe might be made through northern Italy or southern France.13 Ten days later the Joint Strategic Survey Committee added the weight of its prestige to the new line of thinking. In an appreciation submitted to the JCS on 5 August this senior group took note of the "inviting promise of new situations" in analyzing the merits of an advance up the Italian Peninsula to Pisa and Ancona, possibly even to the Po River, along with either a "collateral threat" or a full-scale entry into southern France to support the Normandy invasion. Most significantly, the JSSC was willing to envisage "encroachments" on the cross-Channel operation that might reduce it to a purely opportunistic effort to exploit "a marked deterioration" in Germany's Atlantic defenses.14 Meanwhile, however, the JWPC had reviewed its own conclusions and given the argument a somewhat different turn. The committee now regarded Mediterranean operations in a new lightas neither a diversion nor a main effort,
JPS 231, 26 Jul 43. Min, spec mtg JCS, 26 Jul 43. JCS 443, memo by JSSC, 5 Aug 43, title: QUADRANT and European Strategy.
13
12
14
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western
and
central
Mediterranean,
centering in a drive up the Italian Peninsula, while strategic bombing from the
United Kingdom continued with mounting intensity. By spring 1944 Germany would be reeling under these pressures and the blows of the Soviet armies in the east, its position in France an exposed salient, its strength spread thin.
At this juncture the Western Allies would launch a double offensive, one prong reaching across the English Chan-
and defend the recently completed outline plan for the cross-Channel invasion
(OVERLORD) . In two JPS meetings on 4
nel, the other up the Rhone Valley from initial lodgments in the Toulon-Nice area and an overland advance from northern Italy. The JWPC contemplated no additions to the forces present in the Mediterranean and even conceded that the seven earmarked divisions might safely be withdrawn, though the committee hoped the withdrawals could be held to three divisions. This would leave about 29 divisions for the 1944
August Brig. Gen. Albert C. Wedemeyer and Brig. Gen. Laurence S. Kuter, the Army members, sharply attacked both the original and the revised JWPC paper, urging that recent events only
underlined the need for an abrogation
campaigns in Italy and southern 15 France. For its first conception of a main effort in the Mediterranean followed by a coup de grace delivered across the English Channel, the JWPC thus substituted the grander idea of a squeeze from north and south on the whole peninsula of western Europe. The northern claw of
15
emy's." Merely to label OVERLORD "primary," they argued, would not prevent it from being in fact "de-emphasized" by the effort called for in the Mediterranean. Split between the Army and Navy members and pressed for time, the JPS sent up to the JCS both the revised JWPC paper and a new version drawn up by the Army planners.16 Wedemeyer and Kuter, it was soon evident, had correctly read their Chiefs' leanings. When the JSSC paper came up
181
in the Balkans. The Army planners adopted the JWPC's Mediterranean program in fullto seize the islands of the Tyrrhenian Sea, pin down enemy forces and establish air bases as far north as possible in Italy, bomb southern Germany and the Balkans, aid the Balkan guerrillas, and finally open a new front in southern France to support OVERLORD and they were only a degree less optimistic than the JWPC over the prospects for driving to the Po and overland into France. On the other hand, both groups saw OVERLORD, with a spring target date, as the main effort for 1944, the Army planners holding out for 1 May instead of 1 June. Both agreed that no additional resources should be allotted to the Mediterranean, and that the TRIDENT withdrawals should be carried out as scheduled. In approving this program the U.S. Chiefs of Staff thus rejected the older party line, still intoned in certain quarters of OPD, that nothing whatsoever must be undertaken in the Mediterranean following the collapse of Italy. They were committed henceforth to a continuing effort in the southern theater, centered in Italy, and providing a supplementary prong in a pincers strategy destined to emerge full-blown in spring of 1944 with the Normandy and south18 ern France operations.
The Overlord Plan
Thus ended, somewhat anticlimactically, the revolt against OVERLORD. It coincided, appropriately enough, with the
18 (1) JCS 444/1, 5 Aug 43. (2) SS 93, 3 Aug 43, sub: Comments on Strategic Concept for the Defeat of the Axis in Europe, ABC 381 Strategy Sec Papers (7 Jan 43) 2-95. (3) OPD paper, no date, sub: Conduct of War in Europe after Collapse of Italy, ibid., 240/11/24, Tab 240 Misc.
Aug; 102d mtg (Suppl), 9 Aug 43. (2) JCS 443 (Rev), rpt by JSSC, 7 Aug 43. (3) CCS 303, 9 Aug 43, memo by U.S. CsofS, title: Strategic Concept for the Defeat of the Axis in Europe.
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GLOBAL LOGISTICS AND STRATEGY: 1943-1945 achieve these conditions, COSSAC recommended skillful deception measures and diversionary operations against the Pas de Calais area and southern France.19 Aside from these conditions, General Morgan's greatest concern was the problem of build-up and maintenance following the initial assault. The target area contained only a few small ports, and Cherbourg, the only sizable one within striking distance, was not large enough to support 26 to 30 divisions. Therefore, until the Brittany and Seine ports could be seizedpossibly two or three months after D-daya considerable part of the forces would evidently have to be supplied over the beaches. To overcome this difficulty Morgan counted on an expedient that was as yet scarcely more than an ideaprefabricated ports that could be towed across the Channel, anchored off the beachhead, and protected by breakwaters made of sunken ships. "I feel it my duty to point out," he warned, "that this operation is not to be contemplated unless this problem of prolonged cross-beach maintenance and provision of artificial anchorages shall have been solved."20 As for the assault itself, Morgan's analysis showed all too clearly the limitations imposed by the meager allotment of amphibious shipping made at TRIDENT. When the COSSAC staff set about breaking down this allotment into task and subtask groups, it found that the sum of the parts did not add up to the
19 (1) Digest of Operation OVERLORD, 27 Jul 43. Reproduced as Appendix A in Harrison, CrossChannel Attack, pp. 450-56, and as JCS 442, 5 Aug 43. (2) For full discussion see Harrison, Cross-Channel Attack, pp. 71-79. 20 Memo, Gen Morgan for COS Com, 15 Jul 43, with Outline OVERLORD Plan in QUADRANT Conf Book.
appearance of the prospectus for the operation that General Morgan had been directed to prepare at the end of the TRIDENT Conference. The assignment was a formidable one. Morgan had been allotted enough assault shipping, theoretically, to lift five divisions, and enough transport aircraft for about twothirds of an airborne division. He could count on Allied superiority at sea and in the air, with some reservations as to local fighter cover and protection against submarines. With these assets, he had been instructed to draw up a plan for seizing a lodgment on the Continent from which further offensive operations could be launched and which would contain facilities necessary to maintain from 26 to 30 divisions initially and subsequent increments of 3 to 5 divisions per month. General Morgan's response to these prescriptions was not notably hopeful. The COSSAC staff had concluded that the most promising area for an amphibious attack was a 27-mile stretch of the Normandy coastline between Caen and the base of the Cotentin Peninsula, within fighter range of England but not so near nor so heavily fortified as the Pas de Calais. Success would depend on certain conditions: German fighter strength must be substantially reduced, and the Germans should not have available in France and the Low Countries at the time of the assault more than twelve mobile, first-quality divisions, nor be able to transfer from the Eastern Front during the first two months more than fifteen such divisions. In the target area itself, it was essential that no more than three mobile divisions be brought to bear on D-day, five divisions on D plus 2, or nine divisions by D plus 8. To help
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GENERAL MORGAN
(1) Harrison, Cross-Channel Attack, pp. 74-75. (2) Table accompanying CCS 304, note by Br COS, 10 Aug 43, title: Opn OVERLORD. (3) General Barker's comments at 110th mtg JCS, 21 Aug 43. "Follow-up" forces in amphibious operations were preloaded at the time of the initial assault; "buildup" forces came ashore in craft surviving the initial assault and, after the beach area was secure, in vessels of all types. In the outline plan, reinforcing armor to be landed on D-day was the equivalent of a division, and there were three, not two, follow-up divisions. But the first build-up division would not 22 come ashore until late on D plus 2, and would not (1) Harrison, Cross-Channel Attack, p. be operational until the next day. (2) Corresp in SHAEF SGS 560, vol. I.
the 555 LCT's of all types expected to be operational on D-day, 44 were now being used for net protection duties with the British Fleet at Scapa Flow, with no prospect of being released for OVERLORD. Another 43 were to be converted to gun and rocket support craft for the assault. Requirements for more support craft of various kinds, most of which would have to be contrived from LCT hulls, were snowballing and the end was not in sight. The deficit on the eve of the Quebec Conference was estimated at 72 LCT's, about 11 percent of the entire LCT allotment; in another month the figure was to climb to 164.22 General Morgan recommended an allaround increase of 10 percent in assault lift as "highly desirable in order to provide a greater margin for contingencies within the framework of the present
101.
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plan," and observed further that enough additional lift for another division could "most usefully" be employed for a landing on the Cotentin Peninsula west of the target area, in order to ensure early capture of Cherbourg. He did not press the issue of how the two airborne divisions and additional parachute regiments allotted to OVERLORD were to be transported, given the small allotment of transport aircraft, but the outline plan provided for airdropping both divi23 sions. In presenting the plan to the British Chiefs of Staff on 15 July, General Morgan had stressed what he called the "essential discrepancy in value" between the position of an enemy awaiting attack in carefully prepared defenses, and troops assaulting them at the end of a difficult Channel crossing subjected to all the disadvantages inherent in movement under fire from water to land. He reminded his superiors of the novelty of the conditions that had to be faced tide, weather, relation between base and target area and, above all, the problem of prolonged maintenance over beaches and he warned against comparisons with the Sicily operation. A more generous allotment of resources, he pointed out, would permit alternative courses of action, freeing the assault plan from the limitations which dictated rigid adherence to a single course or none at all. In the interests of greater flexibility he was prepared to recommend, as a last resort, postponement of OVERLORD'S target date.24
Harrison, Cross-Channel Attack, app. A. (1) Memo, Morgan for COS Com, 15 Jul 43, QUADRANT Conf Book. (2) Naval Branch (Br), Appreciation of Effect of Provision of Extra Ldg Cft . . . , 27 Jul 43, SHAEF SGS 560, vol. I.
24
23
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optimistic assumptions of future ship losses.28 On 10 August, shortly before the JCS came to the White House to present these arguments, Secretary Stimson gave the President a careful analysis of British views as he interpreted them on the basis of conversations with Churchill and other leaders during his recent visit to England. Both Churchill and Sir Alan Brooke, Stimson asserted, were haunted by "the shadows of Passchendaele and Dunkerque," and mortally afraid of a cross-Channel invasion, for all the "lip service" they had given it in the past. As for the Mediterranean, while admitting that Churchill professed to have no desire for a land invasion of the Balkans, Stimson believed nevertheless that most British leaders thought Germany could be defeated "by a series of attritions in northern Italy, in the eastern Mediterranean, in Greece, in the Balkans, in Rumania and other satellite countries." Anthony Eden, the British Foreign Secretary, was reported to be openly in favor of a Balkan invasion in order to forestall Soviet domination of that region. Stimson was convinced that no British commander could ever provide the resolution or energy needed for a cross-Channel invasion, and he urged the President to insist that this assignment be given to General Marshall.29 Stimson's imputations of British coolness to OVERLORD and hankering for a
(1) Memo, Stokes for Handy, 9 Aug 43. (2) Memo, Handy for CofS, 9 Aug 43. Both in ABC 384 PostHUSKY (14 May 43), Sec 2. (3) Min, mtg at White House, President and JCS, 10 Aug 43, ABC 337 (25 May 43). 29 (1) Stimson and Bundy, On Active Service, pp. 335-38. (2) Min of mtg at White House, 10 Aug 43. (3) Bryant, Turn of the Tide, pp. 573-76, disputes Stimson's conclusions. (4) See also Matloff, Strategic Planning, 1943-44, pp. 211-16.
28
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Balkan invasion evidently made a deep impression on the President. Roosevelt had already assured Marshall that he wanted no part of a Balkan campaign, but hoped merely to ensure that the Allies would gain a good position north of Rome, occupy Sardinia and Corsica, and "set up a serious threat to Southern France."30 On Marshall's assurances that Eisenhower would be able to do substantially this without replacing the seven divisions, and that to replace them would be a clear invitation to the British to invade the Balkans, Roosevelt gave up the idea of reinforcing the Mediterranean. In a burst of enthusiasm he wondered whether OVERLORD might not be made a purely American undertaking. Marshall reminded him that no shipping was available to move elsewhere the 15-odd British and Canadian divisions expected to be in the United Kingdom. At least, the President persisted, OVERLORD'S commander must be
an American as Stimson had urged, and he told Marshall to see to it that U.S. forces on D-day were decisively preponderant over the British.31
blended into a larger strategic concept in which continuing Mediterranean operations and strategic bombing during 1943 and early 1944 had an important role. Still, the case for this grand design rested on the dubious premise that resources allotted at TRIDENT with a lesser
strategy in view would suffice for major operations in three widely separated areasItaly, southern France, and Normandy. The Washington staffs thought
that the 24 Allied divisions remaining in the Mediterranean after seven had been withdrawn for OVERLORD would be adequate. General Eisenhower, less confident, informed Marshall on 13 August that everything would depend on German reactions. Though he anticipated no difficulty in getting to the Po if the Germans fell back, he doubted whether he could even get to Rome if they stood and fought. At any given time, he pointed out, he could count on no more than
two-thirds of the divisions theoretically at his disposal to be fully equipped, at full strength, and ready for action, and the obstacles to rapid deployment within the theater would reduce even that proportion. As for a southern France operation, what with the uncertainty as to future enemy strength, limited port capacity, and, above all, "the constantly annoying and limiting factor of shipping and landing craft," Eisenhower found himself unable to predict his capabilities so far in the future. 32 The Washington staffs had ample reason by mid-August to question the adequacy of the very slim margins of assault
32 (1) Msg 7205, Eisenhower to Marshall (eyes only), 12 Aug 43, OPD Exec 3, Item 5. (2) Msg 4751, Marshall for Eisenhower (personal), 11 Aug 43, OPD Exec 3, Item 4. (3) Min, 101st mtg JCS, 7 Aug 43.
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lift capabilities on which OVERLORD and its southern France complement were being planned. One disturbing recent development concerned the movement schedules of landing craft to be sent to England from the United States and the Mediterranean. Movements across the Atlantic had started in July and were to continue through the following March, with most of the larger vessels sailing after the turn of the year. Redeployments from the Mediterranean of vessels surviving the post-HUSKY operations were not yet definitely scheduled, but were expected to take place in November or earlier, after the landings in Italy. Late in July it was learned that the COSSAC planners now wanted one-half of all OVERLORD assault shipping to be on station by the first of the year, the remainder by 16 March. To meet this requirement, the British estimated the following deadlines for arrival in the United Kingdom: half of the LCT's from the United States by 1 November, half of all the LST's and LCI (L) 's by 1December, and the remaining increments by mid-January and mid-February, respectively. American naval experts challenged as excessive the time allowed for refitting and movement to station, and General Barker himself admitted that the indicated arrival dates for the first increment might be delayed as much as a month. While the matter was being debated, the reports of low landing craft losses in the Sicily operation seemed to indicate a way out. The windfall accruing from Sicily could be assigned to OVER-
even increase their own contribution to OVERLORD, permitting some reduction in that of the Americans. By 4 August the Joint Staff Planners were venturing to hope that in this way OVERLORD requirements could be "more than met." The Navy was, in fact, already augmenting allotments of American landing craft production to the Pacific.33 But while some of the joint staffs were planning to move all surviving assault
lift out of the Mediterranean for OVERLORD, another group was estimating that the Sicily windfall would leave an aggregate lift of two reinforced divisions for the southern France operation.34 Admiral Cooke, calling attention in the JCS meeting of 6 August to these conflicting assumptions, roundly asserted that the Allies could not mount two major amphibious operations in Europe simultaneously and that, if OVERLORD were to be carried out, all the assault lift Surviving the invasion of Italy would have to be transferred to England. As Cooke was aware, the prolonged tie-up of the Mediterranean amphibious fleet in over-thebeach supply operations in Sicily35 was already raising serious doubts as to the extent to which even the TRIDENT allocations of Mediterranean assault lift to OVERLORD, much less the "surplus" resulting from overestimation of losses, would in fact be available for timely redeployment. As for the southern France operation, the Joint War Plans Committee noted on 13 August in comment33
LORD, thus meeting COSSAC's steppedup schedule and obviating the need for some of the later movements from the United States. Perhaps the British could
notes. (2) Memo, JHC for Gen Wedemeyer, 6 Aug 43. Both in ABC 384 (9 Jul 43), Sec 1. (3) JPS
228/1, 2 Aug 43. (4) Diary entry, 12 Aug 43, in Historical File 23, ASF Plng Div. 34 JPS 242, 5 Aug 43, app. B. 35 See below, pp. 189-90.
188
ing on the feasibility of the OVERLORD plan that the withdrawal of additional amphibious equipment from the Mediterranean to provide the increased lift General Morgan had asked for would "most seriously limit the possibility of amphibious operations against Southern France, which is ... a subsidiary but
The position of American military leaders on European strategy before the Quebec Conference was thus a curious blend of optimism and caution. Axis reverses in the Mediterranean had inspired hopes of eliminating Italy from the war, occupying the islands of the Tyrrhenian Sea and a large part of the Italian Peninnonetheless important element of our sula, and, by combined overland and overall strategy for the defeat of the amphibious operations, driving up the 36 Axis in Europe." Rhone Valley in spring of 1944 to a The JCS themselves were still unwill- junction with OVERLORD forces pushing ing to write off this operation. Their eastward from Normandy. In this way position paper on European strategy for Mediterranean strategy, hitherto regardthe forthcoming conference at Quebec, ed as peripheral and diversionary, might as finally approved on 9 August, omitted be made to serve the orthodox strategy the recent optimistic but now hardly centering in a decisive invasion of the tenable estimates of landing craft avail- Continent from the northwest. For the ability based on the Sicily windfall, but Americans, it had the additional attracretained the end-product of those esti- tion of being a means of keeping Medimates, the statement that a southern terranean forces profitably occupied in France assault by "at least" two rein- the western half of that vast theater and forced divisions in support of OVERLORD thus unavailable for British-instigated could be mounted. General McNarney adventures in the Balkans. Yet, for all suggested that in cases of competing de- its grandeur, it was still a strategy of opmands between the two theaters OVER- portunity, at the mercy of any upturn LORD should be explicitly accorded an of Axis fortunes or even a German deci"overriding" priority. Vice Adm. Rich- sion to make a stand south of Rome. ard S. Edwards quickly objected that The "overriding priority" formula this might be construed to subordinate adopted by the JCS on 9 August was the claims of the Pacific. The JCS ac- ostensibly a hedge against such contincordingly modified McNarney's proviso gencies, calculated to ensure the primacy to read: "As between Operation OVER- of OVERLORD over the Mediterranean LORD and operations in the Mediterra- though not over the Pacificin any situnean, when there is a shortage of re- ation dictating hard choices. The JCS sources, OVERLORD will have overriding seemed hardly to recognize the inconsispriority."37 tency between this formula and their stubborn hopes for an amphibious assault in southern France, which at best would (1) JPS 253, 13 Aug 43, rpt by JWPC, title: require the retention in the MediterComments on COSSAC Outline Plan. (2) Min, 100th mtg JCS, 6 Aug 43; 101st mtg, 7 Aug 43. (3) Min, ranean of landing craft badly needed for 71stmtg CPS, 13 Aug 43. (4) Min, 91st mtg JPS, OVERLORD. They were already coming 7 Aug 43. (1) Min, load mtg (Suppl) JCS, 9 Aug 43. (2) to regard the southern France operation, rather than Mediterranean operations in CCS 303, 9 Aug 43.
36 37
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They regarded a landing near Naples (AVALANCHE), suggested by the CCS, as too risky without a secure lodgment in Calabria as a preliminary. Only on 26 July did Eisenhower assign priority to planning for AVALANCHE, and the operation was not definitely decided upon until 16 August.38 The cautious pace of this planning and the narrow range of its choices were
governed primarily by the twin limitations of air power and assault lift. Naples
itself lay beyond effective operating range of single-engine fighters based on Sicilian airfields. The area finally chosen for AVALANCHE, some distance south of Naples in the Gulf of Salerno, was barely within this range for fighters equipped with extra tanks. Even with the few avail-
able long-range fighters and aircraft from the five British carriers, air cover for the assault would still be heavily outweighed by enemy shore-based aircraft. To offset this disadvantage, Eisenhower pleaded repeatedly for more heavy bombers to pound enemy airfields and isolate the battlefield. All his requests were turned down. The B-24's that carried out the Ploesti raid on 1 August were withdrawn to England as scheduled, and Eisenhower was left with only about twothirds of the air strength his command39 ers wanted. Eisenhower's pleas for more air power were aimed at offsetting a weakness in assault lift that seemed to preclude putting ashore at any point, except perhaps in Calabria, forces as large as those the enemy could mass to oppose them. The optimism engendered by the small losses in the Sicily landings and the rapid disintegration of Italian resistance was soon dispelled by the prolonged tie-up of landing ships and craft in supplying the forces ashore. LST's, LCM's, and DUKW's were engaged in lightering cargo ashore from freighters, while LCI(L)'s, LCT's and other LST's ran a cargo shuttle service between TunisBizerte and Sicily. More LCI (L) 's and other personnel craft labored to roll up the administrative tail as the invasion progressed, and a few unscheduled amphibious landings in the enemy's rear on the northern and eastern shores of
Sicily absorbed other vessels. The wear
Martin Blumenson, Salerno to Cassino, UNITED STATES ARMY IN WORLD WAR II (Washington,
38
Item 5. (2) Eisenhower Dispatch, The Italian Campaign, 3 September-8 January 1944 (hereafter cited as Eisenhower Dispatch), copy in OCMH, pp. 18-19. (3) Craven and Cate, AAF II, pp. 492-96.
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part, had not been built for prolonged work of this sort, was severe.40 On 26 July Eisenhower was informed that sufficient ships and craft could not be released from Sicily in time to be refitted and redeployed for another major operation before 7 September at the earliest. This quashed any hope for amphibious landings in force either before or immediately following the capture of Messina, and left as the only means of rapidly exploiting the fall of Mussolini such highly risky undertakings as an airborne drop or direct entry into a portexpedients that were, in fact, considered and prepared for but (except for a bold dash into Taranto) ultimately abandoned. The Germans were thus given ample time to organize countermeasures.41 Meanwhile, with lift in sight for only one major undertaking, Eisenhower's commanders, still dominated by the belief that a foothold in Calabria was an indispensable preliminary to AVALANCHE, were compelled to divide even this meager resource. They set up one amphibious force for AVALANCHE, another smaller one for crossing the Messina Strait (BAYTOWN) , and a third to be used (BUTTRESS) either to support AVALANCHE if BAYTOWN prospered or to land in northern Calabria if BAYTOWN went badly. The crossing at Messina was to be launched as soon as possible, thus releas(1) CCS 268, 1 Jul 43. (2) Eisenhower Dispatch, pp. 2, 22. (3) Rpt of Opns . . . Seventh Army, Part I, pp. b-18-22; Part II, pp. e-13-15. (4) Msg NAF 265, Eisenhower to CCS, 18 Jul 43, ABC 384 Post-HUSKY (14 May 43), Sec 3. (5) Msg, COMNAVNAW to COMINCH, 25 Aug 43, OPD 560 Security II, Case 63. 41 (1) Msg NAF 300, Eisenhower to CCS, 27 Jul 43; Msg NAF 312, 5 Aug 43. OPD Exec 3, Item 5. (2) Capt. Harry C. Butcher, USNR, My Three Years with Eisenhower (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1946), pp. 371-74.
40
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AN LCT BEING LIFTED FROM ITS "PIGGY-BACK" BERTH ON AN LST, Oran, Algeria.
September. Though Marshall favored a short delay, the American admirals insisted they must be released on schedule, since the process of fitting the vessels for the voyage to India and taking on their deck-loaded LCT's would hold them up until mid-September in any case. Eisenhower was curtly informed, therefore,
that the Burma LST's, British as well as American, must depart on schedule. Before the end of the conference the British Chiefs of Staff also ordered their six LSI (L) 's, earmarked for the same operation but held under the July order, to proceed to India.44 On 3 September Italian representatives formally took their country out of
44
the war, and on the same day the Allied invasion of the mainland got under way with an almost unopposed crossing of the Strait of Messina by elements of the British Eighth Army. Six days later Admiral of the Fleet Sir Andrew B. Cunningham boldly sailed four cruisers and accompanying destroyers loaded with
troops of the British 1st Airborne Division directly into the harbor of Taranto, encountering no organized resistance from shore. The Germans had decided, in fact, to mass their forces against the main Allied landings, which they believed would be made farther up the west coast, probably near Naples. By the
Both in OPD Exec 3, Item 5. (3) Min, 108th mtg JCS, 19 Aug 43. (4) Min, 74th mtg CPS, 15 Aug 43. (5) Churchill, Closing the Ring, pp. 204-05.
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9th they had three divisions in or near the target area, with two more on the way from the south and others within easy reach farther north. When, in the early hours of 9 September, one American and two British divisions of the U.S. Fifth Army came ashore at Salerno, they were soon engaged in one of the bitterest battles of the war.45 Assault shipping for an adequate build-up at Salerno was lacking. The meager six days' interval between Montgomery's crossing of the Strait of Messina and the Salerno landings did not
much good. Five days were required to unload rails and other miscellaneous cargo, and in the end the vessels were used to carry the British 78th Division to Taranto. At Salerno, meanwhile, the crisis had been weathered, and on 18 September Eighth Army elements linked up with the beachhead.46 Salerno had been, as Churchill paraphrased the Duke of Wellington's comment on Waterloo, "a damned close-run 47 thing." German mistakes, as well as Allied efforts, contributed to the outcomefor example, Hitler's decision not permit the transfer of enough landing to support Field Marshal Albert Kesselcraft northward to strengthen the assault ring by sending divisions from northern or early build-up of the forces in the Italy. Otherwise the denial by the CCS beachhead. In effect, enough assault lift of the assault shipping and heavy bombto mount a division or more was immo- ers Eisenhower requested might well bilized far to the south in what was vir- have had disastrous consequences. The tually an unopposed operation. And denial of the LST's seems doubly futile Montgomery's forces, hampered by dem- in retrospect, since the Burma assault olitions and insufficient transport, never shipping of which they were a part was got close enough to the Salerno battle- destined to sail all the way to India and field to affect the outcome. At Salerno back again without landing a single solthe situation immediately became criti- dier or vehicle on a hostile beach. "No cal and remained so for a full week while one," commented Eisenhower's naval frantic efforts were made to bring in re- aide, noting American press criticism of inforcements. Fortunately, as in Sicily, the Allied failure to rapidly follow up very few landing craft were lost in the the Sicilian victory, "seems to emphasize initial assault, but only limited reinforce- the bitter truth, which is that troops ments could be brought in during the do not have that mysterious power atfirst few critical days. On 11 September tributed to Jesus when he walked across the CCS reversed their previous deci- the water. We still have to rely on landsion, and, at Eisenhower's urgent re- ing craft and, unfortunately, we didn't quest, granted him permission to use the have enough to continue to supply Sicily 18 Burma LST's. They also made avail- and conduct two other large-scale opera48 able some additional heavy bombers. tions at the same time." The bombers helped to turn the tide Blumenson, Salerno to Cassino, chs. X and XI. in the later stages of the battle, but the (2) Msg, NAF 367, Eisenhower to CCS, 9 Sep 43, loan of the LST's was too late to do OPD Exec 3, Item 5. (3) Morison, SicilySalerno
46
45
Churchill, Closing the Ring, p. 147. Butcher, My Three Years with Eisenhower, p. 407. (2) Morison, SicilySalernoAnzio, p. 294.
48
47
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its blessing to a more comprehensive policy, establishing the ground rules unUnder the pressures created by events der which the preshipment program was in the Mediterranean, and beset by a to proceed for the rest of the year. This lack of firm strategic objectives, the BO- enabled ASF on 17 May 1943 to pubLERO build-up continued uncertainly be- lish a new directive supplanting the tween May and August 1943. Movement stop-gap instructions issued in April. schedules developed at TRIDENT provid- The new tentative ETOUSA troop basis ed for placing 763,000 U.S. troops in was attached as a supplement.50 Britain by the end of 1943 and 1,300,000 The plan was to begin shipping immeby 1 May 1944, together with the sup- diately against the theater's total needs plies and equipment for launching a through 1943 calculated in terms of the cross-Channel assault on the latter date. tentative troop basis and known requireThe schedules envisaged a progressively ments for operational supplies. But it mounting tempo of movement, reaching was hedged by many restrictions. Units a peak in the first three months of 1944, under orders for April, May, and June but, in deference to the limitations of were to sail under normal POM proBritish port capacity, spacing shipments cedures except that their equipment over the entire period to the maximum would be withdrawn 30 days before the extent practicable. The planners expect- sailing date and shipped in bulk to ared a substantial acceleration in the sum- rive in the theater simultaneously with mer of 1943, particularly of supplies and or shortly before the troops. Equipment equipment shipped in advance for troops for units scheduled to depart from July who were to move later.49 These TRI- through December was to be shipped in DENT estimates represented little more bulk, not marked for any particular unit. than educated guesswork, based on a However, a priority was set for these general appraisal of the future availabil- shipments well below that for competity of shipping in the North Atlantic ing training allowancesand thus autoand a highly tentative troop basis; they matically below current requirements of were tied to no definite operational plan. other theatersand cargo was to be takAs in 1942 the real aim was to generate en only from depot stocks and new prosome momentum. Precise objectives, and duction, not from equipment already in the schedules for attaining them, would the hands of troops. Even for equipment come later. to fill shortages at the time units sailed A few days before the TRIDENT Con- and for other special supplies, the priference the European theater had submitted a hastily concocted troop basis for 1943, showing a total of 888,000 men. (1) Ruppenthal, Logistical Support of the This figure, rather than the TRIDENT Armies I, 123. (2) TAG Ltr to CG's ETO, NYPOE, and CsTechSvcs, 16 May 43, sub: SOP for Shipments goal of 763,000 became the real basis of of Equip and Sups to U.K., copy in History of planning in OPD and ASF. Even before Preshipment, Annex 17. (3) Memo, Lutes for OPD, the final TRIDENT decisions, OPD gave 7 May 43, sub: Cargo Shipments for U.K., with 1st
50
49
Ind, OPD to ASF, 17 May 43, Lutes File, folder ETO. (4) Diary, Theater Br, entries for 7, 11, 14 May 43, ASF Plng Div.
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ority for ground force equipment for the European theater was set at A-1-b-8, below that of all other active theaters; the priority for Air Forces equipment was set at A-1-b-4. The May 1943 troop list on which advance shipments were to be based was imperfect in many respects. It was only partialit did not add up to the total numerical strength forecast for the end of the yearand the only reasonably firm entries were those units under orders for May and June. It was, moreover, extremely tentative and made up predominantly of units not specifically named but designated simply by type, and the phasing of movements to the theater beyond mid-1943 faded into guesswork. The list of ground force units was built around seven infantry divisions (including the 29th already in England), two armored divisions, and one airborne divisiona total strength of 390,000 ground combat forces with directly supporting service elements. The Services of Supply numbered 245,000and there were 250,000 AAF troops. Units not already in the theater or under orders for May and June were phased, more or less arbitrarily, in monthly increments from July through December. This phasing bore no relation to deployment plans, but was intended as a guide for advance shipments with a view to preserving a rough balance among various types of material, subject to the availability of cargo and the requirements of efficient stowage. In short, the troop basis was hardly more than a fiction, and it was to remain so 51 for some time to come.
51
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May only 24 of the 38 ships allocated for that month had been filled; the other 14 had to be carried over into June. At the end of June, of 42 vessels allocated, 12 had to be listed as carryovers into July.54 In reality, the program was lagging more seriously than these figures would suggest, since the requests to WSA themselves fell far short of original projections. Shipments over the May-August period totaled 2.3 million tons, instead of the 3.2 million General Lutes had stipulated as a goal in April. Measured against TRIDENT targets, shipments through September fell about 53 shiploads short.55 Preshipped cargo accounted for 39 percent of the May-August total. This relatively high proportion was to be expected at a time when troop movements were at a low ebb. That it was not higher meant that the preshipment program was failing at the very outset to attain the double purpose of fully using available cargo shipping and exploiting British port capacity during the long daylight hours of summer. "We can never recover," Somervell wrote the theater SOS commander, "the precious time that is now available to you during the good 56 weather."
(1) Memo, Wylie for Gross, 2 Jun 43, sub: U.K. Cargo Statement for May. (2) Memo, Vissering for CofT, 29 Jun 43, sub: Cargo and Ship Sit for U.K. Both in OCT 563.5 England May-June 1943. 55 (1) See above, ch. II. (2) See Appendix D-5, below. (3) The statement concerning the TRIDENT target is made on the assumption that shipments were projected as notional sailings of 10,000 measurement tons each. The target included 36 shiploads mixed with British imports besides 259 sailings on Army account, or a total of 295. Actual cargo movements in terms of notional sailings totaled 242. 56 (1) Ltr, Gen Somervell to Maj Gen John C. H. Lee, 30 Jul 43, Hq ASF, File ETO (6). (2) Leighton, Problem of Troop and Cargo Flow, pp. 16-16a.
54
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The basic cause of the shortfall was the low priority assigned the preshipment program. The ASF made one attempt, in June and July, to secure additional equipment for preshipment by holding troops in training strictly to their percentage allowances, but ran into a hornet's nest of opposition from Army Ground Forces. OPD supported General McNair's objections, reaffirming existing priorities and specifically prohibiting any withdrawals for preshipment from units in training, whether or not the units had more than their allotted percentages.57 Undoubtedly OPD's position was occasioned in part by the atmosphere of uncertainty in July 1943 concerning the future course of strategy for the war in Europe. Even within ASF, there was a gnawing fear that the whole preshipment program might prove to be wasted effort. Though only on the fringes of the debate over future operations in
the Mediterranean, the supply planners could sense the strong pressures arising
the United Kingdom be discontinued." Lutes's recommendation may have been prompted mainly by a desire to secure a high-level decision, but it illustrates the difficult position of the ASF as initiator and principal champion of the preshipment program. If a cross-Channel invasion was to be undertaken in 1944, it was imperative to expedite the buildup by preshipment of equipment in 1943; if the main Allied effort was to be made in the Mediterranean, advance shipment, clearly, should be halted as soon as possible. Opinion within the ASF was divided. By mid-July Lutes had reversed his position and was arguing that preshipment should continue as long as a prospect remained that both BOLERO and Mediterranean operations could be supported. When on 8 July Somervell was apprised by OPD that the Chief of Staff contemplated halting preshipment on 15 August "until the strategic situation
59
is more clarified," the ASF chief argued forcefully against so abrupt a terminafrom what one ASF officer called "in- tion.60 tangible sources," to postpone or abanBy mid-July a decision seemed imdon OVERLORD and shift the main effort perative. The bulk of the organizational to the southern theater.58 As early as equipment for units on the tentative 17 June General Lutes argued that a ETOUSA troop basis for 1943 had been successful HUSKY followed by an inva- set up for shipment by the end of Ausion of Italy would absorb the maximum gust, excepting only critical items inacshipping effort to the exclusion of the cessible under the low preshipment priground force build-up in England, and ority. Only if shipments were authorhe bluntly recommended to General Somervell that "pre-shipping of cargo to Memo, Lutes for Somervell, 17 Jun 43, sub:
59
(1) Memos, Lutes for OPD, 19 Jun 43, Somervell for Handy, 14 Jul 43, Lutes Diary. (2) Memo, CG AGF for CofS, 3 Jul 43, sub: Policies Governing Issues of Equip, Log File, OCMH. (3) Memo, Handy for CG ASF, 26 Jul 43, sub: Preshipment, 1a Policy File SWPac, ASF Plng Div. 58 Memo, Wood for Lutes, 7 Jul 43, sub: BOLERO Build-up, Lutes File ETO.
57
Cargo Shipmts to U.K., in History of Preshipment, Annex NN. 60 (1) Memo, Lutes for Dir Stock Control Div ASF, 8 Jul 43, sub: Shipments to U.K., in History of Preshipment, Annex NN. (2) Memo, Dir Stock Control Div for Gen Lutes, 12 Jul 43, sub: Pres Chgs and Preshipment of Equip, Lutes File Svc Troops 194243. (3) Memo, Lutes for Dir Stock Control Div, 19 Jul 43, folder Current Opns, Case 26, ASF Plng Div.
197
coming Quebec Conference had progressed far enough for Maj. Gen. Thomas T. Handy of OPD to give Somervell
a tentative go-ahead, though still within the framework of a 1943 troop basis. A few days later, as a cumulative result of the appearance of the OVERLORD plan and
ing strategic decisions at the joint and combined levels, refused to sanction any advance shipment of equipment for troops scheduled to move after 31 December 1943. Transportation Corps officials could foresee only 50 shiploads of cargo in September for the 120 ships 61 then expected to be available. On 20 July Somervell addressed a pointed inquiry to the Chief of Staff: "The status of ROUNDHAMMER is becoming indefinite," he wrote. "Fears are prevalent that it may go the way of our previous experience." Should the buildup in the United Kingdom proceed, he asked, regardless of the uncertainty whether the troops and matriel amassed 62 there would ever be used? For two weeks the question went unanswered. By 4 August, finally, the crystallization of U.S. strategy positions for the forth(1) Ltr, Gen Wylie to Brig Gen Frank CofT, ETOUSA, 19 Jul 43, OCT 370.5 Jan-Jul 43. (2) Diary, 20 Jul 43, Theater Plng Div. (3) Memo, Lutes for Somervell, Lutes Diary. 62 Memo, Somervell for CofS, 20 Jul Planning, ABC 381 (9-25-41), Sec 7.
61
receipt of a new ETOUSA troop basis, the completion of shipping estimates showing that the 1,400,000 men in the troop basis could be moved to the British Isles by 1 May 1944, and, finally, the JCS decision on 9 August to insist on
OVERLORD as the main effort in 1944, OPD gave ASF its full sanction to move ahead with the preshipment program in the remaining months of 1943. ASF was sufficiently emboldened to issue instructions on 13 August anticipating an extension of the program to cover material for units sailing in the first four months of 1944, using the new ETOUSA troop basis as a guide.63 In the existing atmosphere this was an administrative gamble involving some risk. It remained to be seen whether the decisions to be taken at Quebec would justify it. Based on the experience of the period since TRIDENT, U.S. Planners felt that the decision must be final and irrevocable.
63 TAG Ltr to CsTechSvcs, 13 Aug 43, sub: Shipment of Equip and Sups to U.K. on Extended Troop Basis, SPX 400.22 (13 Aug 43) OB-S-SPDDL-M.
CHAPTER VIII
First Quebec
Almost four weeks before the battle for Italy was joined on the beaches of Salerno, Allied leaders had assembled on the picturesque heights above Quebec for their fourth wartime conference QUADRANT. The conference was in session from 14 to 24 August 1943. In retrospect the issues debated there seem difficult to define. Neither the British nor the Americans proposed any significant changes in either the broad strategy or the specific decisions agreed on at TRIDENT, and the QUADRANT decisions were largely reaffirmations of those reached at the earlier meeting. But to the American military leaders the conference seemed to be a crossroads in the evolution of the strategy of the European war, and they came prepared to force a showdown on what they considered to be the basic issue: whether the main effort against Germany should be made in northwestern France or in the Mediterranean. The British, in contrast, apparently considered this issue dead, and refused to debate on those terms. They took the position at Quebec that within the framework of the primacy of OVERLORD adequate provision must be made for maintaining the utmost pressure possible on Germany's southern flank during 1943 and early 1944. More pessimistic
than the Americans as to the adequacy
to agree that the full burden of any unavoidable retrenchment must necessarily fall upon the Mediterranean theater.
"Overriding Priority" and the Conditions of Overlord
of resources allotted at TRIDENT for both European theaters, they were unwilling
To the American military leaders and their staffs in mid-August 1943 it seemed that the really fundamental decisions on European strategy had yet to be made or, rather, re-made. Recent British actions and pronouncementsthe "stand fast" order in the Mediterranean, talk of operations in the Adriatic and farther east, reservations and qualifications hedging acceptance of the OVERLORD plan all seemed to foreshadow a British attempt to renege on the TRIDENT agreements. There was no expectation of a forthright proposal to cancel or downgrade OVERLORD. What the Americans looked for from the British was, rather, a variety of schemes for opportunistic ventures in the eastern Mediterranean along with a major effort in Italy, all scheduled wishfully to be completed in good time for release of resources earmarked for OVERLORD. Such a program, the Americans were convinced, could bring no decisive results and, because operations once undertaken must be sustained, would eventually drain off resources needed for OVERLORD. Accordingly, the JCS had inserted into their
FIRST QUEBEC position paper on European strategy the proviso that OVERLORD should be given an overriding claim on resources as against operations in the Mediterranean, though they were not prepared to assign it a similar claim in relation to resources allotted to the Pacific.1 On "overriding priority" the JCS pinned their hopes for a successful showdown with the British at Quebec. Behind the proviso lay the accumulated frustration resulting from a drift of events which, since the summer of 1942, seemed to have responded to British manipulation, drawing the Allies deeper and deeper into the Mediterranean and away from the center of German power. Many officers on the American staffs genuinely believed that by going into the Mediterranean the Allies had thrown away good prospects of ending the war in 1943, and they were desperately afraid that further operations there would sidetrack OVERLORD in 1944. A favorite staff exercise in OPD was to contrast the 450,000 American troops actually in Europe at the beginning of April 1943 with the force of one-million-plus which, it was assumed on very dubious premises, could have been amassed in Great Britain by that date if the strategy of concentration had not been abandoned with the decision to invade North Af2 rica. There was also a strong tendency in the staff to think of OVERLORD, despite the TRIDENT compromise, in the old, heroic terms of ROUNDUP, as "a mass explosive air, sea, and ground attack" that would crush the German Army in the west as the Russians were
(1)CCS 303, 9 Aug 43. (2) See above, ch. VII. For BOLERO'S prospects in summer of 1942 see Leighton and Coakley, Global Logistics, 1940-43, Chapter XIV.
2 1
199
crushing it in the east. The corollary seemed inescapable: to execute OVERLORD on an adequate scale would "leave no margin of our limited resources available to implement any additional secondary operation."3 Underlying this view was the doctrine, deeply rooted in American military tradition and teaching, that concentration of resources and effort on a single line of action was essential to success in war. As one OPD officer noted, with reference to the TRIDENT decisions on division of resources:
We should either choose an objective and accept that we are going to commit within reason the resources required, be they more or less than estimated, or we must allocate a fixed number of resources and direct the commander to exhaust them in a given direction. The first method is generally the sound one strategically.4
The objective chosen for concentrated effort should, it was generally assumed, be one likely to bring decisive results. But concentration per se was the important idea. Some of those who advocated a shift to the Mediterranean in July felt that concentration even upon an indecisive line of attack was preferable to a division of effort with the risk of falling between two stools.5 The dominant view among the staffs was, in any case, that a successful OVERLORD was the supreme objective in Europe and that any expansion of operations in the Medi3 (1)SS 90, 8 Aug 43, Conduct of the War in Europe, ABC 381 Strategy Sec Papers (7 Jan 43) 2-95. (2) See also OPD Paper, 25 Jul 43, Conduct of the War. 4 OPD Notes on JCS 98th Mtg, 27 Jul 43, ABC 337 (25 May 43). 5 See General Handy's remarks at 104th mtg JCS, 15Aug43,and 105th mtg, 16 Aug 43.
200
terranean would seriously jeopardize its ciple "that OVERLORD should constitute the major offensive for 1944 and that fulfillment. That the Joint Chiefs of Staff them- Italian operations should be planned selves leaned toward this view may be with this conception as background." inferred from the fact that a staff paper Churchill himself insisted several times expounding it and flatly opposing any during the conference that, whatever "expansion of operations in the Medi- his earlier views on a cross-Channel opterranean" was included in the dossier eration in 1942 or 1943, he was now of each American military representa- fully committed to carrying out OVERtive at Quebec.6 Yet strategic concentra- LORD in 1944. It was he, in fact, who tion in so exclusive a sense was quite proposed that the OVERLORD commander clearly inconsistent with the pincers stra- should be an American officer, thus distegy the JCS were prepared to advocate posing of the issue Stimson had raised 7 at the conference. In a wider frame of with Roosevelt on 10 August. reference, it was equally inconsistent To the surprise of the Americans, with the strategy of an expanding war moreover, the British presented no Mediin the Pacific to which the Americans terranean program of their own and had been formally committed since TRI- raised no objection to the American proDENT. "Overriding priority" for OVER- gram. They accepted as a basis for disLORD was, in a sense, an attempt to cussion the American position papers invoke the classic principle of concen- on European strategy, in which Brooke tration in one sector of the war with professed privately to find evidence that
the hope of curbing trends that had already outmoded it. Since midsummer of 1942 Allied strategy had been on a course that increasingly dictated not "at last they [the Americans] are beginning to see some daylight in the problems confronting us."8 Particularly surprising to the Americans was the failure
the globea division of effort that by its very nature could not be rigidly governed by schedules and plans, but must, without losing sight of objectives, be constantly responsive to events and the opportunities they offered. The somewhat equivocal pincers strategy that emerged early in August from the staff debate evoked by the events of July was the most recent stage in this evolution. It would not be the last. At Quebec the British promptly avowed their full support of the prin6
of the British to put forward any proposals for action in the eastern Mediterranean. In mid-July, as it happened, the British staff had examined and rejected as not worth the effort, the Durazzo venture advanced at TRIDENT. They had further disparaged any other undertakings in the Balkans as likely to lead to "an exhaustive and indeterminate campaign," which even if successful would be out of phase with OVERLORD.
(1) Quotation is from Brooke's comments at 108th mtg CCS, 15 Aug 43. (2) Min, 1st Plenary Mtg, QUADRANT, 19 Aug 43. (3) Min, 105th mtg JCS, 16 Aug 43. (4) Min, 71st mtg CPS, 13 Aug 43. (5) Churchill, Closing the Ring, p. 85. (6) Bryant,
Turn of the Tide, pp. 575, 578-80.
8 7
FIRST QUEBEC By early August they had decided not to press Turkey to intervene for the present, but merely to "adjust" her neutrality somewhat in the Allies' favor. As prospects for Turkish intervention dimmed, British preparations to move into the Dodecanese in order to open the sea route to Smyrna were for the most part suspended, although Churchill still clung to the hope that a bloodless occupation of Rhodes might be brought about if the Italian garrison could be induced to defect; as far as the British planners were concerned, however, any incursion into the Dodecanese was regarded as "no longer urgent."9 The focus of British interests in the Mediterranean seemed, indeed, to have shifted westward.10 Without advocating a major effort to drive the Germans farther north than any line where they might choose to make a stand, the British did raise for discussion early in the conference the advantages of an advance to the Milan-Turin area in order to secure air bases for bombing central Germany and to open an overland route into southern France. A similar proposal had been put forward some weeks earlier by General Arnold. Late reports from the theater indicated, however, that the Germans might dig in as far south as the southern face of the Apennines, and the idea was not pressed. On 17
9 (1) Min, 71st mtg CPS, 13 Aug 43. (2) JP(43)221 (Final), Rpt by Br JPS, 12 Jul 43, Mediterranean Strategy, ABC 384 Med (26 Oct 43) Sec 1-A. (3) Memo, JPS for JCS, 16 Aug 43, ABC 381 Europe (5 Aug 43). (4) Churchill; Closing the Ring, pp. 203-04. (5) John Ehrman, "History of the Second World War, United Kingdom Military Series," Grand Strategy, August 1943-September 1944, V (hereafter cited as Grand Strategy V) (London: Her Majesty's Stationery Office, 1956), 80-81, 88-92, 112. 10 See Ehrman, Grand Strategy V, 112.
201
August Churchill laid it to rest in a paper prepared at the conference: Although I have frequently spoken of the line of the Po or of the Alps as being desirable objectives for us this year in Italy, it is not possible to see so far at present. A very great advantage will have been gained if we stop at the Leghorn-Ancona line. We should thus avoid the danger ... of the immense broadening of the front which will take place as soon as that line has been passed. . . . From such a position we could by air supply a fomented rising in Savoy and the French Alps . . . and at the same time with our right hand we could act across the Adriatic to stimulate the Patriot activities in the Balkan peninsula. The guiding thought in all this, he pointedly added, was that "the integrity of OVERLORD shall not be marred."11 In airing the possibility of an overland advance from Italy into southern France, Brooke reflected British misgivings over American proposals for an amphibious assault in that area. The British planners quickly concluded that neither the forces nor the assault lift prospectively available for this venture would be adequate. In a curious reversal of the situation at TRIDENT, when the Americans had underestimated British-controlled forces in the Mediterranean, they now overestimated them. Against an American estimate of 28, the British planners indicated only 22 organized British divisions would be in the theater, and only 19 (instead of 24) effective
11 (1) Churchill, Closing the Ring, p. 83; see also comments at 1st Citadel Mtg, QUADRANT, 19 Aug 43. (2) Msg W-7445/173, FREEDOM to BOSCO, 15 Aug 43, Annex A to min, 105th mtg JCS, 16 Aug 43. (3) JS (Q)16, 14 Aug 43, title: Comments by British JPS on CCS 303. (4) Memo, JPS for JCS, 16 Aug 43. (3) and (4) in ABC 381 Europe (5 Aug 43). (5) Matloff, Strategic Planning, 1943-44, p. 155. (6) Min, 108th mtg CCS, 15 Aug 43.
202
GLOBAL LOGISTICS AND STRATEGY: 1943-1945 months, and that it would therefore be unwise to decide irrevocably in advance that any competition for resources between operations now in progress in the Mediterranean and preparations for OVERLORD must be resolved in favor of the latter. Each case should be decided on its merits as it arose. The British saw no contradiction between making OVERLORD the main effort in 1944 and leaving the door open meanwhile to an adequate provision for Mediterranean operations during 1943. As for the projected 7-division transfer from the Mediterranean, they held that judgment should be suspended until German intentions became clearer, leaving open the alternatives of shipping fresh divisions to the Mediterranean or to England.13 In general, however, the British declaration of support for OVERLORD and their conservative views on Mediterranean strategy left no major issue of European strategy to be debated except that of overriding priority for OVERLORD. For this formula the British proposed to substitute a statement to the effect that the CCS might at any time "readjust" allocations between OVERLORD and the Mediterranean as the 14 situation demanded. Admiral Leahy thought the proposal reasonable enough, but his colleagues disagreed. British rejection of the "overriding priority" formula seemed, indeed, to bring to a head the distrust of British intentions regarding OVERLORD, and this distrust was fanned by the emphasis the British placed on the conditions for undertak13 (1) Min, 108th mtg CCS, 15 Aug 43. (2) Min, 1st Citadel Mtg, QUADRANT, 19 Aug 43. 14 Min, 108th mtg CCS, 15 Aug 43.
Allied divisions would be available for operations in northern Italy and southern France after withdrawal of the 7 OVERLORD divisions and provision of rear-area forces. The British regarded these forces as insufficient to hold a defensive line in Italy while executing an independent amphibious operation in southern France, especially if the latter were not supported by an overland movement. As for assault shipping, the British planners were quick to perceive the contradictions in the JCS-endorsed calculation of a 2-division residual lift in the Mediterranean; their own estimates indicated a lift of less than one division, badly unbalanced at that. "We consider," the British planners asserted, "that nothing less than a corps of three divisions would be sufficient for an amphibious operation against southern France," and with this verdict General Eisenhower's representatives at the conference agreed. In the Mediterranean, in short, the British urged a strategy of concentration on the campaign in Italy.12 Accepting the general pattern of the American pincers strategy, the British nevertheless flatly rejected the "overriding-priority" proviso for OVERLORD and, to a degree the Americans found disturbing, emphasized the conditions stipulated in the plan for undertaking the operation. They argued that whether these conditions could be met would depend very largely on what was done in the Mediterranean during the next nine
12 (1) JS(Q)16, 14 Aug 43. (2) Min, 71st mtg CPS, 13 Aug 43. (3) Min, 116th mtg CCS, 24 Aug 43. (4) The force estimates included 9 U.S. and 5 French divisions, with perhaps 6 more French divisions to be available in spring of 1944.
FIRST QUEBEC
ing the operation, their interest in north ern Italy, and their unwillingness to accept the pending 7-division transfer as a settled matter. Admiral King suspected that what the British had in mind was to "create an emergency" to justify retention and even reinforcement of the seven divisions. Although ostensibly sup porting OVERLORD, King charged, they were really seeking to "depreciate" and "emasculate" the operation by emphasizing the dangers and difficulties, with a view to getting it postponed and at last abandoned altogether. In King's opinion, unless the British could be forced into unequivocal support of OVERLORD, the United States should shift its main effort to the Pacifica strategy that at least "we could reasonably expect would be carried out."15 On the second day of the conference General Marshall expounded the American view that without an overriding priority OVERLORD would inevitably decline to the status of a subsidiary effort as its resources were nibbled away by successive ad hoc redeployments and reallocations. Apart from their effect on OVERLORD, these would be enormously disruptive and would have repercussions "as far back as the Mississippi River." On 16 August the JCS nailed their colors to the mast in a formal paper restating their demand "for a decision now as to whether our main effort in the European Theater is to be in the Mediterranean or from the U.K." They again insisted that this decision must take the form of a reaffirmation of the Allies' intention to carry out OVERLORD with a definite allocation of resources and an
15
203
overriding priority over other operations in Europe. They added a warning:
The U.S. Chiefs believe that acceptance of this decision must be without conditions and without mental reservation. They accept the fact that a grave emergency will always call for appropriate action to meet it. However, the long-range decisions for the conduct of the war must not be dominated by possible eventualities.16
Since the British were already on record as favoring OVERLORD as the main Allied effort in Europe, and conversely had shown no signs of weakening in their stand on "overriding priority," this pronouncement was hardly calculated to advance the debate. The JCS were, in fact, not hopeful. On the day they submitted their manifesto, they sent its author, General Handy, posthaste to Washington to inform the President, who had not yet departed for Quebec, that they and the British had reached an im17 passe on the OVERLORD issue. Whether by some indication of the President's attitude or not, the impasse was broken in two closed CCS meetings on the day Roosevelt arrived at Quebec, 17 August.18 In the main, the British won their point. The CCS agreed that OVERLORD with a 1 May 1944 target date should be the "primary U.S.-British ground and air effort against the Axis in Europe," a principle the British had agreed to from the start. They also ap16 (1) CCS 303/1, 16 Aug 43, memo by U.S. CsofS, Strategic Concept for the Defeat of the Axis in Europe. (2) Min, 108th mtg CCS, 15 Aug 43. (3) Min, 104th mtg JCS, 14 Aug 43; 105th mtg, 16 Aug 43. (4) Memo, JPS for JCS, 16 Aug 43, ABC 381 Europe (5 17 Aug 43). (1) Memo, 16 Aug 43, in OPD Exec 10, Item 51. (2) Matloff, Strategic Planning, 1943-44, note 26, p. 223.
18
204
proved the outline OVERLORD plan with the conditions intact and instructed General Morgan to proceed with detailed plans and full preparations. The U.S. Chiefs accepted as a substitute for "overriding priority," a clause providing that, if OVERLORD'S requirements should compete with those of the Mediterranean, available resources should be "distributed and employed with the main object of insuring the success of OVERLORD." They also accepted the original British condition that Mediterranean operations should be carried out with the forces allotted at TRIDENT, "except insofar as these may be varied by deci19 sion of the Combined Chiefs of Staff." These conditions covered the disputed case of the seven divisions, though the assumption remained, for deployment planning, that they would move to England as scheduled. With the central issues disposed of, there was little difficulty in agreeing on a specific program of operations in the Mediterranean. The program followed the proposals in the original American paper, except for the invasion of southern France, concerning which some concession was made to British reservations. For Italy it was agreed that after the anticipated surrender of the existing government the Allies would proceed with the occupation of air bases in the Rome area and "if feasible" farther north; occupation of Sardinia and Corsica (largely by infiltration and subversion); and thereafter pressure on the Germans in the north in support of OVERLORD. The agreement on the southern France operCCS 303/3, 17 Aug 44, resolutions by CCS, title: Strategic Concept for the Defeat of the Axis in Europe.
19
FIRST QUEBEC
205
ference left on the books Churchill's long-cherished project for an invasion 21 of Norway. In estimating the availability of ground forces for the two European theaters, the final figures adopted at the conference provided for 19 U.S. and 17 British divisions in the United Kingdom for a 1 May 1944 OVERLORD of which all but 5 U.S. divisions would be available for operations. British figures formed the basis for final QUADRANT estimates that 29 divisions would remain
As far as OVERLORD was concerned, the British had apparently come to Quebec prepared to debate not its primacy but the adequacy of the assault and immediate build-up as set forth in the outline plan. To them the question of priority between OVERLORD and the Mediterranean seemed of less moment than the scale of the proposed OVERLORD assault, which they regarded as a dangerous weakness in the plan. This feeling in the Mediterranean after the with- lay behind their stress on the conditions drawal of 7 for OVERLORD, and that 20 of OVERLORD, and led them to consider of them would be available for opera- the invasion of southern France an untions on 1 November 1943. Two addi- welcome new claimant for the inadetional French divisions over and above quate amphibious resources allotted to 25 garrison requirements were expected by the European war. On 12 August the 22 British had invited General Morgan to 1 June 1944. prepare a detailed report on the short"To my great relief," Sir Alan Brooke age of landing craft and other naval rewrote in his diary on the 17th, after the decisive CCS meeting, "they accepted sources for the operation. The study was our proposals for the European theatre, not completed until long after QUADso that all our arguing has borne fruit RANT, so that the British were not able and we have obtained quite fair results." to present a detailed case at the conferYet on the day before the conference end- ence. They did, nevertheless, raise the ed he wrote: "We have not really arrived question of the adequacy of OVERLORD'S at the best strategy, but 1 suppose that allotted assault lift, only to meet with when working with allies, compromises, determined resistance by the Americans with all their evils, become inevitable."23 against any attempts to raise it above the It is not without significance that the figures agreed to at TRIDENT. On 18 August the British Chiefs called War Department planners, who had so ardently sought an "overriding priority" attention to the developing shortage of for OVERLORD at Quebec, looked back LCT's for OVERLORD resulting from the on the conference with a similar mixture diversion of 44 of them to net protection duties at Scapa Flow and the need of satisfaction and disappointment.24 to convert many more to gun support craft. They asked for an increase in (1)CCS 319/5, 24 Aug 43. (2) CCS 320, 20 Aug American production to meet the deficit. 43, title: RANKIN. In the CCS meeting on 18 August AdCCS 329/2, 26 Aug 43, title: Implementation of Assumed Basic Undertakings and Specific Opns for miral King cautiously informed them
21 22
Conduct of the War, 1943-44, Annex II. 23 Bryant, Turn of the Tide, pp. 581, 586. 24 See Matloff, Strategic Planning, 1943-44, p. 242.
25 CCS 304, 10 Aug 43, Opn OVERLORD, Outline Plan, Covering Note by Br COS.
206
that preliminary reports from Washington indicated some possibility of an increase of 25 percent in landing craft production across the board. But two days later in an official reply to the British request the JCS bluntly stated they could not increase their existing commitment of 146 LCT's because any acceleration in production would not be felt before April 1944. OVERLORD'S deficiencies in vehicle lift would have to be made good "from the Mediterranean," unless, the statement continued, some of the broken-down LCT's already in the United Kingdom could be put into serviceable condition.26 In the same way, the Americans showed no inclination to provide for production of gun support craft, the demands for which were encroaching
more and more on the available supply 27 of LCT's. On 20 August the British raised the question of the supply of DUKW's, citing doubled requirements for OVERLORD "to mitigate the great problems involved in prolonged maintenance over the beaches under difficult conditions." They asked that the Americans examine the possibility of increasing production as a matter of urgency, that the CCS accept the principle that "priority of allocations of production be given to OVERLORD/' and that allocations for OVERLORD be made concurrently for American and British needs in a ratio to be stated by General Morgan. The Americans were in fact already exploring the question of increasing DUKW produc(1)CCS 314/3, 20 Aug 43, memo by U.S. CsofS, title: Allocation of Ldg Cft (Opn OVERLORDVehicle Lift). (2) CCS 314, 18 Aug 43, memo by Br COS, same title. (3) Min, 111th mtg CCS, 18 Aug 43. 27 (1) See above, ch. VII. (2) Memo, Head of Navy Branch (British), 2 Sep 43, sub: Provision of Support Cft, with related corresp in SHAEF SGS 560, I.
26
FIRST QUEBEC
places the greatest limitation on all our operations," but Admiral King assured the Prime Minister that prospects were excellent for having more landing craft 30 available than previously anticipated. In their own councils, General Barker reminded the U.S. Chiefs that the COSSAC planners were dubious of the merits of widening the assault, and that it was the follow-up elements that needed to be strengthened, not the D-day assault forces, which were already stronger than the three divisions prescribed at TRIDENT. Admiral King ventured to hope that the Prime Minister had failed to grasp this point, but when General Marshall tactfully intimated as much at the next plenary meeting, Churchill made it clear that he wanted separate landings on the Cotentin anyway. Marshall assured him the matter would be looked into. Roosevelt made no comment, and the JCS received no instructions to explore the question.31 The Combined Planners meanwhile went on to agree on allocations of U.S. landing craft for OVERLORD, which were, in all essential respects, the same as those set at TRIDENT for ROUNDHAMMER. The key to these tactics in large measure lay in American concern lest an increase in the OVERLORD allotment prevent an acceleration of Pacific operations. American plans for the war in the Pacific, had matured considerably since TRIDENT. Operation CARTWHEEL, the converging drive on Rabaul from the South and Southwest Pacific was now well under way, and in the Central Pacific Admiral Chester W. Nimitz was preMin, 1st Plenary Mtg, QUADRANT, 19 Aug 43. (1) Min, 110th mtg JCS, 21 Aug 43. (2) Min, 2d Plenary Mtg, QUADRANT, 21 Aug 43.
31
30
207
paring to launch a parallel offensive with an attack on the Gilbert Islands in mid-November. A tentative timetable of operations presented at Quebec called for bringing these converging lines of advance to points just short of the Philippines by the end of 1944 in phase with the reconquest of Burma and the overland advance through China to the 32 coast. The American delegation brought to Quebec only "broad estimates" of the assault shipping required in Pacific operations. From them it appeared that requirements through mid-1944 could be met in most categories, but only on the premise that OVERLORD allocations 33 would not be increased. The lack of specific requirements for the Pacific reflected the opportunism inherent in the strategy for that area. To exploit opportunities as they arose, large numbers of all types of vessels would obviously be needed. To reach the China coast or the mainland of Japan in this oceanic theater would require a series of amphibious operations rapidly succeeding one another. For most of the contemplated operations, all attacking forcesassault, follow-up, and build-upwould have to be ferried to the target area in one trip. Distance precluded the incremental shuttling of forces from bases to target areas in the same assault shipping, or the repair of badly damaged vessels for use in later stages of the same operation. Huge distances were also involved in in-transit movements between operations, particularly from one theater to another.
Pacific strategy is treated separately in greater detail in Chapter XVI, below. 33 CCS 329/2, 26 Aug 43, Annex V.
32
208
In the South and Southwest Pacific many's defeat in 1944. At QUADRANT up to this time, amphibious lift had been the U.S. planners took the position that grossly inadequate. In SWPA, for in- Japan must be defeated within twelve stance, General MacArthur had to rely months after the surrender of Germany. mainly on smaller types of vessels The British planners, while agreeing manned by Engineer special brigades that some acceleration might be posLCM's and LCVP's and a miscellan- sible, would not accept the twelveeous collection of ordinary small craft months' target, which they said involved and merchant vessels. For longer hops "an entirely new concept of opera34 along the New Guinea coast and the tions." The U.S. staff, nevertheless, began imisland chain of the Solomons, the demand for larger landing craft and ships mediately to explore the possibility of would certainly mushroom. Meanwhile, achieving the one-year goal. The search a major new requirement was emerging began with a plan to project very long in the Central Pacific where the Navy range (VLR) bombers B-29's into was to commit most of its expanding China before the opening of a land supfleet. In that vast theater, now favored ply line and led eventually to a marked by the JCS as offering prospects for a acceleration of the American advance more rapid advance than the south, through the Pacific islands with the aim, would take place most of the long among others, of basing the VLR bombtransoceanic amphibious leaps by fully ers in the Marianas. While this outcome equipped assault forces simultaneously was not yet foreseen at Quebec, the afloat. The basic carriers would be as- American staffs, especially the Navy sault transports (APA's) and assault car- members, began to think in terms of go ships (AKA's), with their comple- amphibious resources that would be mentary small craft and vehicles, espe- needed for an accelerated Pacific adcially amphibious tractors. These oper- vance. They had to reckon with the ations would, however, also require a probability, suggested by the prolonged large fleet of LST's and LCT's, the ves- tie-up of assault shipping in Sicilian wasels most needed in Mediterranean and ters, that the shipping used in OVERLORD would not be quickly released for reEnglish Channel operations. The timetable the JCS brought to deployment to the Pacific, TRIDENT asQuebec did not fully reflect their real sumptions notwithstanding. The estilong-range strategic goals. The Com- mated date for releasing OVERLORD shipbined Staff Planners, acting on instruc- ping was now moved back from the tions of the CCS at TRIDENT, had long TRIDENT prediction of one month to been working on an outline plan for the four months after OVERLORDalmost cerultimate defeat of Japan. The first plan tainly too late for any of it to be used submitted provided for a three-pronged in the Pacific during 1944.35 advance toward the China coastfrom the Pacific, overland through China, and CCS 313, 18 Aug 43, title: Appreciation and by sea around Malaya. It contemplated a Plan for the Defeat of Japan. prolongation of the war with Japan un(1) CCS 239/1, 23 May 43. (2) CCS 329/2, 26 til 1947 or 1948, even assuming Ger- Aug 43, Annex V.
34
35
FIRST QUEBEC The Navy was, in fact, already planning to enlarge its assault shipping construction programs with a view to supporting an intensification of the Pacific war long before the defeat of Germany, building up to a massive offensive almost immediately thereafter. The Quebec Conference was, in a sense, almost incidental to this development, the day-today course of which occasionally produced faint echoes in staff discussions at the conference. The Navy's latest (1 August 1943) production schedules were the basis of the conference discussions of U.S. landing ships and craft. These schedules envisaged increased production of LST's, LCI (L) 's, and LCT's, but Planned monthly production rates for LST's were to be boosted from 12 to at least 20, and for LCI (L) 's from 20 to 25, during the first six months of 1944 (actually an extension of the 1943 rate into that period). Owing to the changeover from the LCT (5) to the improved LCT (6) no LCT's had been produced in the United States between January and August. The Navy now proposed to increase the planned production of the new type in the period October 1943-May 1944 from 200 to 300, but the largest part of the increase would not come until 1944. Even the 105 LCT's promised for OVERLORD at TRIDENT, the Navy said, could not be moved in time to meet the readiness dates proposed by COSSACa result of the production stoppage caused by the changeover. The allocation schedules the Americans brought to QUADRANT, based on the new production schedule, assigned to the Pacific the entire expected increase in all types while holding At36
209
lantic allocations to those agreed to at
TRIDENT.
On the first day of the conference, before the British had even raised the question of landing craft production, Admiral King had telephoned instructions to the Navy Department in Washington to look into the possibility of a further increase. An accompanying message to the War Department rather tortuously explained:
Reason for this is that the availability of landing craft and landing ships is resulting in tight situation relative to carrying out vital planned operations unless furtherance of war in Pacific is to deteriorate. 37
mainly in 1944, too late to provide the dilemma in which the Americans any sizable increment for OVERLORD. found themselves in the face of British
not prepared to slow down or dilute his Pacific program in order to provide more lift for OVERLORD, particularly in the light of his oft-stated conviction that
the British would probably contrive, in
one way or another, to prevent its execution. Nor were the naval authorities willing to embark on another accelerat(1) Mowry, Landing Craft and the War Production Board, pp. 28, 33. (2) See above, ch. III, for TRIDENT allocations. (3) JPS 228/1, 2 Aug 43, appendixes. (4) CCS 329/2, 26 Aug 43, Annex V, app. B. 37 (1) Msg No. 16 for Gen Gross, unsigned, 14 Aug 43 (rec'd as CM-IN 10723, 15 Aug 43), OPD Exec 5, Item 11. (2) For the sequel to this inquiry, see below, Chapter X.
36
210
ed program of production to meet the needs of both the European and the Pacific war if it meant disrupting other vital building programs. On 17 August King received his reply from the Navy's Bureau of Ships in Washington to the effect that not merely a 25 percent but a 35 percent increase in landing craft production was possible. To realize it before April 1944, however, would involve disruption of other programs.38 An increase at so late a date promised few additional craft for OVERLORD, particularly in view of the accelerated arrival schedules COSSAC was then demanding. On the other hand, it would add immensely to amphibious resources available for acceleration of Pacific operations. These circumstances probably explain the contrast between King's studiously vague promises of an increase in landing craft production in the meetings with the heads of state and the concurrent insistence of the Americans in the planners' meetings on holding the line against further allocation of craft for OVERLORD. At Quebec the British tried again, and for the last time, to challenge the American determination to pursue an aggressive multifront strategy in the Pacific. Would it not be less costly, Sir Alan Brooke inquired early in the conference, to make the main effort against Japan along the Central Pacific axis, with only a subsidiary effort in the southwest, and thus release resources for OVERLORD? Admiral King promptly rejoined that both
38
lines of advance were "complementary and equally essential," but that, in any case, whatever resources could be released from the Southwest Pacific would go to the Central Pacific, not to Europe. General Marshall attempted to soften somewhat the implications of this stand by pointing out that operations in the Southwest Pacific were not, in the main, employing types of amphibious equipment most needed in the Central Pacific and in Europe. Furthermore, he added, the commitment to the Southwest Pacific had already gone so far that a radical shift of emphasis was no longer practicable. The British decided to let the matter drop, leaving unsaid their private convictions that in the Pacific the Americans were making a virtue of the strategy of dispersion they rejected in Eu39 rope. The American program of operations in the Pacific was approved with only perfunctory discussion, and the long-range plan was sent back to the CPS for further study in light of the American determination to defeat Japan within twelve months after the end of the war in Europe.40 Meanwhile, as usual, the principal debate on the war against Japan was revolving around the future course of operations in the Far East. The U.S. staff successfully resisted Churchill's renewed pleas for his Sumatra project, a long amphibious leap to the southeast that would have required considerably more assault transports than the currently
(1) Memo, Chief BuShips for VCNO, 17 Aug 43, sub: Additional Ldg Cft Programs, app. A to JCS 462, 30 Aug 43, title: Landing Ships and Craft, Means of Increasing U.S. Production. (2) For a more complete discussion, see below, Chapter X.
39 (1) Min, 110th mtg CCS, 17 Aug 43. (2) Bryant, Turn of the Tide, p. 576. 40 (1) Min, 114th mtg CCS, 24 Aug 43. (2) Min, 113th mtg CCS, 20 Aug 43. (3) CCS 313/1, memo by U.S. CsofS, 20 Aug 43, title: Appreciation and Plan for the Defeat of Japan.
FIRST QUEBEC
planned Akyab-Ramree landings. The British Chiefs themselves had no enthusiasm for Churchill's project, but neither they nor he were willing to commit themselves to the Akyab-Ramree venture nor to the full-scale campaign in southern Burma to which it would serve as prelude. The Americans had to settle for a Southeast Asia program that was, in effect, simply a reiteration of the TRIDENT decisions, but with the priority between the land offensive in north Burma and the air effort in Burma and China implicitly if not explicitly reversed.41 As for amphibious operations, the CCS agreed simply that preparations should continue for landings in the spring of 1944 "of the order of those contemplated for . . . Akyab and Ramree." In consonance with this decision the British agreed to send to India the 6 LSI (L) 's and 8 LST's they had recently retained in the Mediterranean under the "stand fast" order, and as already noted, the JCS refused Eisenhower the temporary use of the 10 U.S. LST's and 10 LCT's that were also earmarked for movement to India.42 The CCS also ratified the allocations of American assault shipping that the JCS had worked out before the conference. From August 1943 through March 1944 all the assault transports, about 55 percent of the LST's, 60 percent of the
211
U.S. active-theater assault shipping deployed against Japan on the eve of the cross-Channel invasionfrom 67 to 73 percent for the assault transports, from 51 to 52 percent for LST's, from 41 to 54 percent for LCI (L) 's. (Tables 14 and 15) The schedules took no account of the proposed increases in production that presumably would also accrue to the benefit of the Pacific. These figures were not, of course, the whole picture. As long as British-controlled assault shipping remained concentrated in European waters, a preponderance of Allied assault liftin large landing craft, at leastwould remain deployed against the European Axis. Distances and other conditions peculiar to the Pacific war also to some degree invalidated the significance of any purely arithmetical analysis of the division of amphibious shipping between the two main sectors of the global war. Nevertheless, there was real paradox and striking irony in the fact that, as the war in Europe approached its climax and the American military leaders' distrust of British loyalty to the OVERLORD strategy became increasingly vocal, these same leaders were resisting British urging to strengthen the OVERLORD assault while at the same time sending to the other side of the world the greater portion of the United States' immense assets in what was probably the most critical single branch of weaponry in the Allied arsenalcertainly the most critical limitation on the scale of the OVERLORD assault. Small wonder that the British became sceptical of American pretensions
LSI(L)'s, 1 LSC, 1 LSH, 1 LSI(H), 8 LST's, 12 LCI(L)'s, and 5 LCT's, besides numerous small craft.
LCI (L) 's, and 45 percent of the LCT's expected to be built in the United States were to be assigned to the Pacific. For all types except LCT's these allocations would increase the percentage of total
41
On this aspect of CBI strategy, see below, Chap(2) See above, ch. VII.
ter XXI.
(1) CCS 329/2, 26 Aug 43, Annexes 1 and V. The British were to provide most of the lift: 9
42
212
No losses considered. Includes 3 LST's to be taken from training if needed to meet TRIDENT commitment for OVERLORD. Includes 25 LCT's to be taken from training if needed to meet TRIDENT commitment for OVERLORD. "Twelve LCT's included in total allocation to British to replace losses already incurred in transit. Source: CCS 329/2, 26 Aug 43, title: Implementation of Assumed Basic Undertakings and Specific Operations for Conduct of the War, 1943-44, Annex V.
b c
of fidelity to the "Germany-first" strategy.43 Although the JCS insisted that any OVERLORD deficit must be made up "from the Mediterranean," they clung to their original position that the surplus of landing craft over TRIDENT allocations resulting from light losses in Sicily and anticipated light loss rates in Italy should stay in the Mediterranean for the southern France operation. The British thought this surplus should be allotted to OVERLORD in accordance with the TRIDENT agreement. Since neither side
(1)CCS 329/2, 26 Aug 43, Annex V. (2) The above figures on landing craft deployment do not include substantial numbers of U.S. craft intended for training in home waters, almost all of which, by late spring of 1944, could be considered as serving the Pacific war. Even so, the figure of "eleven twelfths" cited by Bryant in Turn of the Tide, p. 587, as the allotment of U.S. landing craft to the Pacific at the time of QUADRANT is obviously a great exaggeration and cannot be supported by the figures available to all the principals at Quebec.
43
would yield, they went their separate ways. The British increased the planned transfers of their own craft to the United Kingdom48 LST's instead of the 38 agreed on at TRIDENT, 44 LCI (L) 's instead of 20, 75 LCT's instead of 18, 174 LCA's instead of 65, and 12 large gun support craft instead of 5. The Americans, despite the overriding priority formula, held to the transfers of their own craft stipulated at TRIDENT 48 LST's, 24 LCI(L)'s, and 41 LCT's. (Table 16) Based on an agreed loss rate of 15 percent for landing ships and 30 percent for landing craft in post-HUSKY operations, these transfers would leave in the theater an estimated 3 LSI (L) 's, 26 LST's, 84 LCI (L) 's, 38 LCT's, and miscellaneous smaller crafta meager and unbalanced lift for perhaps 27,000 troops and 1,500 vehicles, and hardly adequate to mount more than a threat against southern France. Its inadequacy was reflected in the studiously vague fin-
FIRST QUEBEC
213
All figures represent vessels estimated to be operational on dates shown. For planning purposes the following serviceability rates were used: LST's, 85 percent; LCI(L)'s, 80 percent; LCT's, 75 percent. No serviceability factor was used for assault transports nor for craft in training. Source: CCS 329/2, 26 Aug 43, title: Implementation of Assumed Basic Undertakings and Specific Operations for Conduct of the War,
1943-44, Annex V.
Quebec meetings were drawing to a close, "is that it started with the misapprehension that there is a surplus of [dry cargo] shipping. ... So we have been spending some time bringing the military face to face with reality."45 The optimism of the military was understandable. In the Atlantic the victory over the U-boat appeared to be complete, while the flood of new American shipbuilding continued each month to add between a million and a million and a half dead-weight tons, net, of new bottoms to the Allied merchant fleets. By conservative estimates, these fleets were expected to increase by almost five million dead-weight tons by the end of 1943, and by ten million by mid-1944. British merchant tonnage, which had
Ltr, Douglas to Land, 21 Aug 43, folder Quebec (Douglas) 1943, WSA Conway File.
45
214
Vessels expected to be on hand 1 May 1944. No allowance for unserviceability. Includes 8 XAP's.
Includes 6 XAP's.
d Not shown in source. Includes 8 LST's expected to return from India, following ANAKIM. fANAKIM LST's not expected to return in time for OVERLORD; 10 additional LST's, over TRIDENT commitment, included. g Represents the net result of a cut in the number of LCI(L)'s to be turned over to the British for manning, and an increase in the number of British LCI(L)'s to be redeployed from the Mediterranean. Source: (1) CCS 244/1, 25 May 43, title: Implementation of Assumed Basic Undertakings .... Annex V. (2) CCS 329/2, 26 Aug 43, title: Implementation of Assumed Basic Undertakings and Specific Operations for Conduct of the War, 1943-44, Annex V, app. A. e
reached its lowest level of the war in March, was climbing again for the first time since 1941. The situation bore out the bright expectations embodied in the budgets prepared at TRIDENT when deficits had been labeled "not unmanageable." These deficits for 1943 had, in fact, dwindled almost to the vanishing point and those for 1944, it now appeared, would be replaced by fat surpluses. In short, cargo shipping was no longer the "stranglehold on all offensive operations" it had appeared to be seven, even five, months earlier.46 One by-product of this abundance, which military planning had to take into account, was an increasing imbal(1)On the TRIDENT estimates, see above, Chapter III. (2) JMTC Survey of U. S. Shpg, 13 Aug 43, folder Future Opns, Case 5, ASF Plng Div. (3) Behrens, Merchant Shipping, pp. 69, 328. (4) CCS 329/2, 26 Aug 43, Annex VII.
46
ance between troop and cargo shipping. To rectify it, construction of troop transports and conversion of cargo ship hulls into troop carriers had been expanded in the latter case to the point where, in the opinion of War Shipping Administration officials, the output of finished cargo vessels was being seriously jeopardized. WSA expected the shortage of troop lift to disappear before the middle of 1944, and feared that expanding military and war economy requirements would before long wipe out the expected surplus of cargo shipping. But on the eve of the Quebec Conference Army calculations showed a troop lift deficit of more than 300,000 spaces against the number of troops that available cargo shipping theoretically could be expected to support overseas by the end of 1943, and predicted that the deficit
FIRST QUEBEC would be almost doubled a year later. This combination of anxiety over troop movement capabilities and complacency over the outlook for cargo shipping was among the presuppositions that the American military staffs brought to Quebec.47 As at TRIDENT, balancing the U.K. and U.S. shipping budgets was one of the last items of business at QUADRANT. The U.S. cargo shipping budget, in general, showed approximately the same volume of tonnage available for the various war services as did the TRIDENT budget, and anticipated little increase after the beginning of 1944even though the total size of the merchant fleet would be rapidly expanding. Requirements, which at TRIDENT had been projected on a rising scale through the first few months of 1944, now were expected to decline after reaching a peak in the last quarter of 1943. Moreover, for the whole tenmonth period covered, the budget forecast a reduction of almost 12 percent 757 sailingsin requirements projected at TRIDENT. (Table 17) Cuts in military requirements accounted for only a small part of the reduction. Most of the cuts were in the BOLERO program and were largely dictated by shortages of dock labor in Great
Britain and the anticipated swamping of British port and transit facilities during
215
grams, a result in large part of the increase of about 800,000 dead-weight tons in cargo shipping under British control since TRIDENT. For United Kingdom imports, the U.S. shipping authorities budgeted a total of 872 sailings, representing the estimated equivalent of the deficit in the British budget which, as at TRIDENT, the Americans were asked to assume. Through the remainder of 1943 this assistance was scheduled at approximately the same level as at TRIDENT, but for the ensuing six months was scaled down by 172 sailings, a reduction also dictated by the traffic congestion anticipated during the mounting of OVERLORD. A more drastic reduction was made in the regular U.S. lend-lease ship-
ping assistance to the British (known as "customaries") from 478 to 117 sailings over the ten-month period from September 1943 through June 1944. U.S. assistance to British military programs, set at 108 cargo ship sailings at TRIDENT, was eliminated entirely. Part of the ostensible reduction was fictitious. Soon after TRIDENT, under the President's order to transfer 15 to 20 new U.S. cargo ships per month to British control, 29 vessels had been turned over to the British on lend-lease bareboat charters, and 162 more were scheduled for delivery by mid-1944. This form of American assistance did not appear in the U.S. shipping budget except for the initial voyages of each ship. Since they would account for 192 additional sailings after transfer, this represented the
the weeks immediately preceding the Normandy invasion. Only small cuts were made in military requirements of other areas. The major portion of the reduction in TRIDENT requirements was extent to which the QUADRANT budget in assistance to British shipping pro- actually exaggerated the reduction.48 (Tables 17 and 18) (1) JMTC Survey, 13 Aug 43. (2) JCS 420, 22 Even so, the real reduction in U.S.
47
Jul 43, ltr from WSA, title: Army and Navy Reqmts for Troop Transportation. (3) JCS 420/1, 9 Aug 43, rpt by JMTC, same title.
216
TRIDENT figures shown here are arranged somewhat differently from those shown on page 850.
b
Requirements included the British deficits and also 50 ships for operational use in Mediterranean for post-HUSKY, 80 ships after 1 April 1944 for OVERLORD, and 71 ships for use in Southwest Pacific.
Each BOLERO cargo ship was to lift about 1,500 tons of British import cargo, and the equivalent of 12 shiploads of measurement cargo for BOLERO was to be lifted on ships carrying British imports. d Includes 10 sailings in compensation for British ships employed in Mediterranean.
c
Source: (1) CCS 329/2, 26 Aug 43, title: Implementation of Assumed Basic Undertakings and Specific Operations for Conduct of the War, 1943-44, Annex VII, Part III. (2) Table, Summary of U.S. Shpg Reqmts, QUADRANT . . . OCT HB Plng Div Studies folder Misc Shpg Info, p. 92.
FIRST QUEBEC
217
TABLE 18U.S. SHIPPING FOR BRITISH PROGRAMS QUADRANT AND TRIDENT BUDGETS (In Sailings)
Source: Compiled from CCS 329/2, 26 Aug 43, title: Implementation of Assumed Basic Undertakings and Specific Operations for Conduct of the War, 1943-44, Annex VII.
almost 18 percent of the aid scheduled not without foundation. The military at TRIDENT. It was tantamount to releas- cargo shipping budget badly underesing, on an average three-month turn- timated some requirements and omitted around, some 855,000 dead-weight tons others. It did not fully reflect either the of shipping for American use out of the needs of an accelerated advance in the 4.9 million tons previously earmarked Pacific or the demands for operational for British use. (See Table 18.) With shipping for intratheater use. In the British dependence on U.S. aid thus de- latter category, the Americans assigned clining, and military requirements for 50 cargo vessels for extended service in the first time showing a tendency to the Mediterranean and 80 to be retained level off, the military planners at Que- in British waters from 1 April 1944 onbec might well be pardoned for regard- ward for OVERLORD; the British made ing the future, as far as cargo shipping somewhat larger allocations in terms of was concerned, with confidence. tonnage. The adequacy of these allocaThe optimism of civilian shipping of- tions was open to question. Moreover, ficials was more restrained. Lewis Doug- there was no provision at all for retenlas and Lord Leathers attached a caveat tion of shipping in the Pacific where to the shipping budgets suggesting that the demand was bound to be greatan they did not "reflect the real situation." omission dramatized during the conferWar requirements, they charged, had ence by the arrival of a message from not been "fully submitted," and they General MacArthur requesting permisthought them unlikely to be lower dur- sion to retain 71 WSA-controlled vessels ing the first half of 1944 than in the last in the Southwest Pacific for impending quarter of 1943.49 Their misgivings were operations in New Guinea. The request was granted, but failed to get into the Comments by Mr. L. W. Douglas and Lord U.S. shipping budget. Also omitted were Leathers on the Dry Cargo Shipping Position, attached to CCS 329/2, 26 Aug 43, Annex VI, Part III. certain looming but unpredictable de49
218
GLOBAL LOGISTICS AND STRATEGY: 1943-1945 the next nine months of a transport fleet that already comprised 267,000 passenger spaces (not counting assault transports or other vessels permanently assigned to the military services) and that
mands for shipping to support civilian populations in occupied areas as well as developing requirements for old freighters to form a sunken breakwater off the
level. By mid-1944 new American construction in all probability would bring the aggregate capacity of the two transport fleets to more than 700,000 spaces. On an average turnaround of two months, they could be expected to transport over the next ten months more than three million troops.52 Most of the British troop lift was now available to help their allies. By midThree months after TRIDENT, the mili- 1943 British overseas establishments for tary staffs had not yet succeeded in "in- the most part were fully manned, and tegrating" (the current euphemism for their projected deployments, compared "reconciling") deployment plans with to American, were quite modest. British shipping capabilities, even though the plans for the future involved a total lift JWPC and JMTC had directives, al- of 744,000 men, mostly replacements and ready more than two months old, to limited reinforcements, to overseas staget together and do so.51 tions from Gibraltar to India and CanaOn the face of it, the figure of 1.6 dian troops across the Atlantic to the million troops was a conservative esti- United Kingdom for OVERLORD. After mate of the deployment capability over meeting these commitments, the British were prepared to make available enough shipping to move 860,000 U.S. troops (1) CCS 329/2, 26 Aug 43, Annex VII. (2) On by mid-1944, mainly in the North AtPacific shipping, see below, Chapter XIX; on civilian lantic, to accelerate the long-delayed supply, see below, Chapters XXX and XXXI. American build-up in the United King(1) JPS 193/1, 15 Jul 43, title: Strategic Deploy50 51
ment of U.S. Forces to 1 Jul 44. (2) Memo, Secy JPS for Secy JWPC, 21 Jul 43, ABC 320.2 (3-13-43), 52 (1)CCS 329/2, 26 Aug 43, Annex VII, Part IV. Sec 1. (3) JMTC Survey of U.S. Shpg, 13 Aug 43, Tables III and IV. (2) JMTC Survey, 13 Aug 43.
FIRST QUEBEC
dom. QUADRANT schedules provided for a slow start in September, rapidly accelerating thereafter with monthly installments of 150,000 troops and upwards. The British proposed to increase the capacity of the Queens on the winter runs, to return them to the three-week cycle abandoned in the spring, and to
219
ance was expected, the problem was somewhat different and a tight situation was in prospect during the period of preparation for the Central Pacific offensive. It was foreseen, however, that existing deficits would be overcome once the conversion program was completed, which, at the outside, should be by the furnish additional capacity in transports second quarter of 1944. All in all, as the returned from other areas and in final QUADRANT report stated, the "heavy LSI (L) 's converted from American car- strain on troop transports" seemed likely 54 go ship hulls. All told, the British were to ease by 1 May 1944. (Table 19) prepared to make available enough Full provision of shipping for the transport to ferry some 625,000 U.S. BOLERO program now seemed assured. troops to England from August 1943 to QUADRANT schedules provided for a treMay 1944 and still more thereafter. With mendous movement of troops and cargo almost 700,000 men to be ferried in across the Atlantic, which from SeptemAmerican transports, the total U.S. Army ber 1943 on would dwarf all other overstrength in Great Britain was scheduled seas deployment programs. The chief to reach 814,300 by the end of 1943 and limiting factor now in prospect was the 1,416,900 by the end of April 1944 capacity of British ports and internal 116,000 more than the TRIDENT final transport to handle the load. Cargo shiptarget. Moreover, the British offered to ment schedules spread the burden more pick up in convoys returning from India evenly over the entire period than had one of the four U.S. divisions slated for been done at TRIDENT, accentuating redeployment from the Mediterranean again the importance of maximum adto the United Kingdom, and they allot- vance shipment of supplies in the fall ted some additional lift for U.S. move- of 1943 to make up for the summer defiments to the Mediterranean and India cit and to avoid overloading British ports and one fast transport for two trips in while OVERLORD was being mounted. the Pacific.53 Planned BOLERO cargo sailings on Army These arrangements appeared ade- account for the fourth quarter of 1943 quate to cover American troop deploy- were slightly augmentedfrom 280 to ment requirements on the Atlantic side. 298while those for the first and second In the Pacific, where little British assist- quarter of 1944 were cut back from 420 and 400 to 365 and 332 respectively. TRIDENT provisions for an equivalent of (1) CCS 329/2, 26 Aug 43, Annex VII, Part IV. 36 sailings per quarter in BOLERO meas(2) Informal Notes on Mtg held at 5 p.m., Aug 18, urement cargo on U.K. import ships and 1943. (3) Memo, Douglas for Lord Leathers, 19 Aug for shipment of 1,500 tons of U.K. im43. (4) Notes for Lord Leathers and Mr. Douglas . . . .
53
19 Aug 43. (5) Table, Employment of Troop Lift for U.S. Forces, 18 Aug 43. (2) through (5) in folder Quebec (Douglas) 1943, WSA Conway File. (6) Msg 32 W-17, CM-IN 12033, Stokes to CofT, ASF, 16 Aug 43, OPD Exec 5, Item 11.
(1) CCS 329/2, 26 Aug 43, Annex VII, Part V. (2) For a fuller treatment of the Pacific problem see below, Chapter XVI.
54
FIRST QUEBEC
221 Conference until almost the end of 1944 shortages of merchant shipping were virtually nonexistent indeed, something like a glut developed in mid-1944; whereas, by contrast, the shortage of assault lift was the crux of the problem of mounting OVERLORD and amphibious operations in the Mediterranean. If the shortage of ordinary personnel and cargo shipping in the Pacific never became quite so acute, it was largely because as shortages began to develop shipping authorities were able to divert some of the Atlantic surplus to that area. Similarly the U.S. Navy eventually revised, more or less unilaterally, some of the approved allocations of large landing vessels to the Pacific in order to make more adequate provision for OVERLORD and Mediterranean operations.56 This curious asymmetry in initial allocations of resources to the two major sectors of the war resulted from the conflict between deep-seated national and service interests and proprietary attitudes which stubbornly resisted thoroughgoing pooling of resources and effort and yielded only to the pressure of extreme emergency. The conflict made logistical planning at all the wartime conferences something less tidy and more complex than a classic textbook exercise.
port cargo on each BOLERO ship were carried forward.55 These decisions justified the action, already taken by ASF on 13 August, to extend the preshipment program to cover the new ETOUSA troop basis through April 1944. It remained to be seen whether the strategic planners were sufficiently convinced of British commitment to OVERLORD to give the program the high priority needed to release cargo up to the full capacity of shipping now available.
In conclusion, a certain imbalance in the QUADRANT allocations of assault and merchant shipping must be noted. For operations approved by the CCS and the heads of state at Quebec, allocations of assault shipping to the Pacific were far more generous than those to the Atlantic. On the other hand, QUADRANT plans for the use of ordinary troop and cargo shipping were more generous to the Atlantic theaters. In the war against Germany, from the end of the Quebec
55 (1) CCS 329/2, 26 Aug 43, Annex VII. (2) The figures of 298, 365, and 332 are derived by deducting Navy requirements from the total requirements for sailings to the United Kingdom on military account in each quarter. Navy requirements (10 in 3d quarter 1943 and 1st quarter 1944, 8 in the 2d quarter 1944) are shown in TC Summary, U.S. Cargo Shpg Reqmts . . . QUADRANT, in OCT HB File Plng Div 56 Studies, Misc Shpg Info, though they are not shown On the Pacific shipping problem see below, separately in the QUADRANT budget itself. Compare Chapter XX. On diversions of landing craft from Ruppenthal, Logistical Support I, 136-38, whose Pacific allocations to the European theaters, see figures include the sailings on Navy account. below, Chapters X, XI, XIII.
CHAPTER IX
ing other Allied forces for action elsewhere "either to the west or to the east." Westward, as Admiral King later noted, Churchill seemed at the moment to see only Sardinia and Corsica. To the east he had his sights on the Dodecanese where he thought prompt action might provoke "far-reaching reactions" in Germany's Balkan satellites and even, possibly, the unsolicited intervention of Turkey. In the western Balkans Churchill also hoped to organize concerted action against the Germans by Italian and patriot forces. With their help, he boldly suggested, it might be possible "to open quite soon one or more good ports on the Dalmatian coast, enabling munitions and supplies to be sent in by ship and all forces that will obey our orders to be raised to good fighting condition." From these ports Allied forces released from Italy might later "emphasize a movement north and northeastward." Churchill disclaimed any thought that the Allies should "work from the bottom of the Balkans upwards." Nor was there any question, he assured the Americans, of "whittling down" OVERLORD, and he promised that the movement of the seven OVERLORD divisions from the Mediterranean would be carried out.1
1
223
Build-up in Italy
For the moment no action was called for, and the roar of the Salerno battle drove long-range plans into the background. The ensuing victory insured the capture of Naples (1 October) and of the Foggia airfields on the other side of the peninsula, which were overrun on 25 September. Sardinia and Corsica fell to rearmed French forces as by-products of the mainland advance. By 26 September optimism was restored and Eisen2 (1) Matloff, Strategic Planning, 1943-44, pp. 250-
hower ordered the capture of air bases in the Rome area as the next objective, with a subsequent advance to Arezzo, Leghorn, and Florenceall, hopefully, to be accomplished by the end of the 3 year. Meanwhile, a new problem was emerging. At Quebec General Eisenhower's representatives had warned that, even if his forces could get ashore in Italy, success would depend on their ability to match the enemy's rate of build-up. Inherent advantage seemed to rest with the Germans, who would be fighting a defensive battle and would enjoy excellent rail communications from the north as far south as the Rome-Naples area. The Allies would have to rely on the scantier, more difficult roads and railroads of southern Italy and on ports that the Germans could be counted on to demolish with the same thoroughness as at Palermo. Superior Allied naval and air power and the hoped-for Italian resistance to the Germans could not wholly offset these disadvantages. A German withdrawal was far from a foregone conclusion, and the Quebec decisions on redeploying assault shipping would, if carried out, soon nullify the theater's ability to make flanking amphibious landings behind enemy lines.4 The theater's first estimates of the rate
of the Allied build-uptwelve divisions by 1 Decemberwere so pessimistic as to draw vehement protests from both Churchill and the British Chiefs. The
3
IV. (2) Ehrman, Grand Strategy V, 67. 4 (1) Msg 7205, Eisenhower to Marshall (eyes only), 51. (2) On arming of Italian divisions, see Chapter XXVIII, below. (3)Ehrman, Grand Strategy V, 151-52.
13 Aug 43, OPD Exec 3, Item 5. (2) Eisenhower Dispatch, 3 Sep 43 to 8 Jan 44, pp. 1-7. (3) Msg W-7445/173, Smith for Whiteley, 15 Aug 43. Filed as Annex A to Min, 105th mtg JCS, 16 Aug 43.
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CCS immediately queried Eisenhower on what could be done to speed the movement of forces onto the peninsula. In his reply Eisenhower emphasized that the primary limitation was the capacity of the Italian ports and that a secondary one was the shortage of vehicles, particularly in British formations. Ports in Calabria and Apulia, he noted, were small and far from the front, and it remained to be seen how soon Naples could be captured and put into operating order. To insure full use of port facilities as they became available, Eisenhower asked for 14 more freighters besides the 126 allotted at TRIDENT, ample numbers of tugs, barges, and lighters, and, above all, permission to retain all LST's then in the theater until an adequate build-up was in prospect, since the main problem was one of loading and off-loading vehicles. He promised to make every effort to release the LST's "in numbers and on the dates laid down in the QUADRANT decisions."5 The CCS readily granted Eisenhower's requests for tugs, lighters, barges, and freighters, and the British Chiefs undertook to send more vehicles for their forces. But the request for LST's aroused misgivings both in Washington and London. Naval officers especially deplored
the "misuse" of landing craft in a purely logistical role on the scale that had developed in Sicily. The British Chiefs were willing to postpone again movement of the 18 LST's earmarked for India and held over for the Salerno
(1)Msg NAF 408, Eisenhower to CCS, 18 Sep 43, Incl to CPS 88/2, 19 Sep 43, title: Build-up in Italy. (2) CPS 88/1, 16 Sep 43, same title. (3) CCS 334, 2 Sep 43, memo by Reps Br COS, title: Slowness of Build-up for AVALANCHE. (4) Churchill,
Closing the Ring, pp. 95-96.
5
crisis, but yielded to American insistence that they should proceed as planned no later than 10 October. Eisenhower was also instructed to send 24 LST's (12
British and 12 American) to arrive in the United Kingdom for OVERLORD training no later than 10 November and 72 more (36 British and 36 American) to arrive no later than 15 December.
This would complete the movement scheduled at Quebec. The only concession granted with regard to assault shipping was an authorization to use whatever vessels might be available from the 6 eastern Mediterranean. Meanwhile, during the last three weeks of September, the build-up of Allied forces in Italy went ahead at a
rate that belied the early gloomy estimates. In the U.S. Fifth Army sector it was accomplished almost entirely without ports. Salerno was wrecked by German artillery fire within a few days of the landings, and by the time Naples was taken on 1 October the Germans had wrought a masterly work of ruination on that harbor and its facilities. Even
so, the large assemblage of landing ships and craft in the theater, including some 159 LST's, were used to good effect, and
troops and cargo began to discharge in Naples in the first week of October. By the end of that week more than 212,000 troops, 45,000 vehicles, and 154,000 tons of cargo had been brought ashore in the Naples-Salerno area. In the south and on the east coast the British Eighth Army rapidly built up its strength and mobil6 (1) Msg FAN 240, CCS to Eisenhower, 24 Sep 43, OPD Exec 3, Item 4. (2) Min, 120th mtg CCS, 24 Sep 43. (3) Memo, JHC for Col Roberts, 28 Sep 43, sub: Build-up in Italy, ABC 561 (31 Aug 43), Sec 1 B. (4) JCS Memo for Info No. 139, 29 Oct 43, sub: Misuse of Ldg Cft in Combined Opns.
225
THE RUINED PORT OF NAPLES. Generals Eisenhower (left) and Clark (behind him) inspect the damage.
ity. Thirteen Allied divisions (including two airborne divisions soon to be withdrawn) were now in Italy, and a total of twenty facing the enemy was confidently anticipated by the end of the year.7 The optimism engendered by this rapid progress was soon dispelled. As the British Eighth Army and the U.S. Fifth Army pressed northward from Foggia
7 (1) H. H. Dunham, U.S. Army Transportation and the Italian Campaign (hereafter cited as Transportation and the Italian Campaign), OCT Historical Monograph 17, MS, OCMH, pp. 42-43, 5255, 60-61. (2)Ehrman, Grand Strategy V, 66-68.
and Naples early in October they encountered increasingly stubborn resistance. This reflected, in fact, a basic change in Axis strategy. Increasingly uneasy over his exposed position in the Balkans, which a retreat in Italy would make even more vulnerable, Hitler had decided to hold a line along the river and mountain barriers south of Rome. In October German reinforcements began to move into both Italy and the Balkans. Churchill's hopes for easy gains in the eastern Mediterranean went glimmering, and the Allies faced the necessity of reappraising their long-range
226
disposal for use in Italy, and the departure of six assault transports for India left the Middle East Command, by the end of August, without the means for executing an amphibious assault.9 GENERAL WILSON With Italy's surrender in September British hopes once again revived. On strategy in the entire theater, with dis the 10 th, as noted earlier, the CCS approved in principle a new attack in the turbing implications for OVERLORD.8 Dodecanese. Spurred on by Churchill to "improvise and dare," General Sir Setback in the Aegean Henry Maitland Wilson, British commander in the Middle East, parachuted Events in Italy coincided with the swift development of a crisis in the emissaries onto Rhodes to urge the ItalAegean. Axis forces lodged in the Dode- ian garrison to overpower the German canese chain, especially on Rhodes, had division stationed there. The coup failed long been a thorn in the side of the to materialize, but before the end of Allies. Axis air power based in the is- the month Wilson did manage to land lands effectively closed the Aegean Sea small forces on Kos, Leros, Samos, and to Allied shipping, which, by hugging a number of other small islands north the Turkish coast, might otherwise have of Rhodes. Then on 22 September Wilhad practicable, though precarious, ac- son submitted, and the British Chiefs cess to the Straits and the Black Sea be- endorsed, a new plan to attack Rhodes yond. Conversely, Allied air power in October using the partially equipped lodged in the Dodecanese could have 10th Indian Division with some armor dominated the whole Aegean area and and airborne troops. Part of these forces
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the JCS decided to tell the British Chiefs that operations there should be given whatever support General Eisenhower felt he could spare from the central 12 Mediterranean. At this juncture Churchill, on 7 October, brought the whole matter to a head by a personal appeal to Roosevelt. He spelled out his aims: an assault on Rhodes using a first class division to be replaced later by static troops; occupation of the Dodecanese; and establishment of British air forces in the area, possibly on bases in Turkey as well as in the islands. He defended the considerable air effort involved as offering an opportunity to force the enemy to spread and expend his dwindling air forces. To mount the assault would require, besides local shipping, the loan of nine of the OVERLORD landing vessels (presumably LST's) scheduled to leave the Mediterranean soon; their departure would be delayed perhaps six weeks, a trifling encroachment on the six months remaining before they would be needed in OVERLORD. Still unaware of the recent about-face in German strategy, Churchill felt that the needed forces could easily be spared from Italy. He repeated his disclaimer of any desire to "send an army into the Balkans," and concluded with a pointed request that the President not let his request be "brushed aside" by 13 his military advisers. Despite Churchill's pleas, Roosevelt supported the JCS recommendation to leave the matter up to Eisenhower, and
12 (1) Memo, OPD for CofS, 5 Oct 43, sub: Future Opns in the Eastern Mediterranean. (2) OPD Notes on 117th mtg JCS, 5 Oct 43, with related papers. All in ABC 381 Strategy Sec Papers (7 Jan 43) 131159. (3) OPD Notes on 84th mtg CPS, 7 Oct 43, ABC 384 Med (3 Oct 43). (4) Min, 117th mtg JCS, 5 Oct 43. 13 Churchill, Closing the Ring, pp. 210-11.
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told the Prime Minister he opposed any diversions that would "in Eisenhower's opinion jeopardize the security of his current situation in Italy" or "prejudice OVERLORD as planned." He also turned down a last-minute request from Churchill to send Marshall to Eisenhower's headquarters for a meeting with him (Churchill) and the British Chiefs. The President's reply to the latter request (drafted for him by the Army staff) made it evident that he and the JCS still assumed as fact what Churchill contested as the point at issuethat to attack Rhodes would be in actuality "to enter into a Balkan campaign, starting with the southern tip." On this premise, American fears for OVERLORD were understandable, but they ruled out any objective consideration of Churchill's proposals on their immediate merits. An annoyed Churchill was later to declare that American insistence that the retention of a handful of LST's for six more weeks would jeopardize OVERLORD "was to reject all sense of proportion."14 Before the month was out, the JCS were in fact to permit the retention of many times this number of LST's and for a longer period in order to retrieve the situation in Italy. The decision now rested with the theater commander and was to be made on other grounds altogether. By 8 October Eisenhower had ample evidence of the German decision (taken on the 4th) to fight it out south of Rome, though Churchill himself may not have been aware of it until the 9th or l0th. Facing probable enemy superiority on the ground, Eisenhower's staff felt that the Allies would be more than ever depend14
BOG-DOWN IN THE MEDITERRANEAN ably lead to full-scale involvement of Allied forceswhich would mean opening a new front, new ports, and a new line of communications. With the establishment of Allied strategic air power in Italy, moreover, the advantages to the Allies of Turkish air bases now seemed less compelling. Churchill, of course, grasped eagerly at the Soviet demarche. On his instructions Foreign Secretary Eden sounded out the Russians on a renewed British attempt with Turkish support to clear the Aegean in order to send naval forces and war material into the Black Sea and ultimately, perhaps, "to give them [the Russians] our right hand along the Danube." The Russians, it soon became apparent, were not ready to support such an undertaking and Eden and U.S. Secretary of State Cordell Hull joined in declining their proposal. In any case, discussion of intervention now seemed academic, as the Turks watched the unfolding British debacle in the Aegean. By early November British negotiations with Turkey had reached a temporary impasse.16
LST's and the Crisis in Western Strategy
The American stand in the Rhodes episode, as finally defined in Roosevelt's messages to Churchill, was that nothing must be undertaken in the eastern Mediterranean, even on a minor scale, that might jeopardize the success of the Italian campaign, and that nothing must be undertaken in the Mediterranean as a
16 (1) Churchill, Closing the Ring, pp. 219-26, 286-89, 334-35. (2) Ehrman, Grand Strategy V, 99103. (3) John R. Deane, The Strange Alliance (New York: The Viking Press, 1947), pp. 21-22. (4) OPD Notes on JCS 546, Swedish and Turkish Participation in War, OPD Exec 9, Book 13, Case 84.
229
whole that might interfere with the execution of OVERLORD as planned. Given the immediate situation, the British fully concurred with the first half of the proposition, and probably at least in principle with the second. Churchill, whose acquiescence was reluctant, remained unconvinced that the Rhodes operation could not have been "fitted in," and regarded its rejection as "improvident." Understandably, too, he resented the American attempt to influence the decision by what he considered to be irrelevant considerationsfear of
further involvement in the Balkans and the alleged threat to OVERLORD posed by delaying the scheduled transfer of a few LST's to the United Kingdom.17 Neither Churchill nor the British Chiefs were prepared to accept the second half of the American proposition under any rigid interpretation of the phrase "as planned," believing as they did that the fortunes of OVERLORD and operations in the Mediterranean were so intertwined as to make an "either-or" approach meaningless to begin with. The issue came to a head in the context of a deteriorating situation in Italy, described in a long, gloomy message from General Alexander on 24 October. Although the Allies still held a slight edge over enemy forces facing them south of Rome, at least 15 and perhaps 19 German divisions were reported concentrating in the north. From them and from strategic reserves beyond the Alps, Alexander said, the Germans could rapidly replace their tired divisions on the Italian battlefront and be in a position, if the Allied offensive bogged down, to launch an immediate counterattack. On
See his reflections in Closing the Ring. pp. 218-25.
17
230
the other side, the speed of the Allied build-up was dwindling as wear and tear took its toll of landing vessels, tugs, and harbor craft, as OVERLORD LST's and LCT's departed or prepared to depart for the north, and as the port of Naples remained unusable for ocean-going ships. Instead of a hoped-for 1,300 vehicles per day, Alexander reported, forces ashore were receiving only about 1,000 per week. His ground forces, moreover, now had to share the inflow of men and materiel with heavy bomber elements, which, as a result of recent U.S. decisions, were to be moved forward immediately to the Foggia bases instead of waiting for capture of the Rome airfields, and augmented at the expense of those in the United Kingdom. Alexander now estimated his build-up at only thirteen divisions by the end of November, and one or two additional divisions per month thereafter through January. With the drive on Rome already grinding to a halt, it seemed all too likely that the enemy would stabilize the front and then strike back with fresh troops at the weary and depleted Allied divisions. Winter weather would deny the Allied ground forces the full support of their superior air power, and coastal flanking operations would be ruled out by lack of assault shipping.18 On 23 October, the day before he received Alexander's message, Churchill had once again unburdened himself in a long message to the President. He was worried over the division of Allied forces in Europe between two theaters, in either one of which the enemy, operating
18(1) Msg NAF 486, Eisenhower to CCS, 24 Oct 43, Incl to JPS 310/D, 26 Oct 43, title: Opns in Mediterranean. (2) Craven and Cate, eds., AAF 11, 56472, 723-27.
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At Moscow, Stalin apparently took the bad tidings of a possible postponement of OVERLORD with astonishingly good grace, seeming, as Eden put it, "to show he no longer regards an overseas opera21 tion as a simple matter." Eisenhower in the meantime had forwarded Alexander's message to the CCS with his own endorsement and reinforcing comments. The Allies, he said, must at all costs retain the initiative in the Mediterranean until early spring, when an enemy counteroffensive in Italy would help, not hinder, OVERLORD, "and it then makes little difference what happens to us." He accordingly proposed to drive on toward Rome in both the Eighth and the Fifth Army sectors and to execute powerful amphibious runs around both the enemy's coastal flanks with a brigade group on the east coast and a full division on the west. More assault lift would of course be needed and Eisenhower promised to forward his detailed requirements soon.22 To the British Chiefs, the developments in Italy constituted a crisis of the first magnitude. On 26 October, through their representatives on the CCS in Washington, they issued what appeared to be a virtual ultimatum, developing the theme expressed by Churchill in his messages to Eden and the President. They warned that in their opinion ad20
herence to OVERLORD'S current target date and to the preparatory schedules tied to it might become impossible if the situation in Italy continued to deteriorate. "We are convinced," they declared, "that if the campaign in Italy should lead to a reverse, or even to a stalemate, resulting in the Germans recovering the initiative, then OVERLORD would inevitably have to be postponed." They echoed the Prime Minister's assertion that the campaign in Italy must be backed to the full whatever the cost, and hinted darkly that they intended to bring up for reconsideration soon "the whole position of the campaign in the Mediterranean and its relation to OVERLORD." For the present they again urged, as they had in July, that all amphibious shipping be held in the Mediterranean until Eisenhower's exact needs could be determined.23 Had the Allies really faced the threat of a "frightful disaster" in Italy, it would have been hard to deny that, as Churchill insisted, "Eisenhower and Alexander must have what they need to win the battle, no matter what effect is produced 24 on subsequent operations." As yet, however, reports from Italy hardly justified such hyperbolic language. Larger forces did not seem to be needed, and the British had made no explicit demand to hold the remaining OVERLORD divisions in the Mediterranean. The real problem was to bring to bear the sizable forces already in the theater in order to avert a protracted stalemate south of Rome. The best solution, in the opinion of commanders on the spot, was to turn the enemy's exposed coastal flanks by
23
21
22
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landings in his rear. On this point Washington and London did not disagree. On the broader issue of the relationship of the Mediterranean and OVERLORD the U.S. Chiefs took their stand on the principle asserted in the Rhodes crisis earlier in the month: Eisenhower must be strongly supported, of course, but not at the expense of OVERLORD, Most of the original objectives in the Mediterranean had already been won, earlier than anticipated. In the last resort, if Eisenhower could not keep the initiative with the forces he had, then he must go on the defensive on the ground, while continuing the bombing offensive from his Foggia bases. "We are convinced," the JCS asserted, "that it would be militarily unsound to take any action to the possible detriment of OVERLORD merely to insure that we advance farther on the Italian mainland." In view of Allied air and naval superiority, they believed a serious setback to be extremely unlikely. Meanwhile, Eisenhower should be directed to report his specific requirements for the flanking 25 operations he proposed. Requirements, however, could not be simply stated. With respect to LST's, the nub of the question, inquiries via transatlantic telephone on the staff level elicited the following information: of the 48 American and 56 British LST's scheduled to leave for the United Kingdom by 1 December, 36 of the former were almost ready for departure. General Eisenhower wanted to retain the remaining 68 (56 British, 12 American)
(1)CCS 379/1, 29 Oct 43, memo by U.S. CsofS, title: Opns in Mediterranean. (2) See also Msg, Marshall to Prime Minister, 27 Oct 43, OPD Exec 5, Item 12a.
25
at least until 15 December and preferably until 5 January, making a total of 100 including the 32 permanently assigned to the theater. By the earlier date arrears in the build-up of auxiliary ground force units for the divisions ashore could be made up, and substantial progress could be made in the strategic air force build-up; the proposed one-division flanking assault could also be mounted. If the LST's were held for three more weeks, the entire strategic air force could be established in Italy. Under the first alternative the OVERLORD vessels would reach the United Kingdom by the beginning of February; under the second, a month later. There were no LST's at all in the Middle East. Clearly, the build-up problem was overshadowing the proposed amphibious landings, for which plans were rather vague. Indeed, the projected east coast operation seemed to have been quietly abandoned, and the west coast landings could not be launched before mid-December, if at all. "We cannot say definitely," warned Maj. Gen. Walter B. Smith, Eisenhower's chief of staff, in a telephone conversation with General Handy, chief of the Operations Division, "that we will get any operational assault under way, and
if we do not get it under way by January 5, we will let the craft go at that time." General Handy suggested that some of the "great concentration of shipping . . . other than landing craft" in the area might be used for the build-up. Smith's reply was succinct and illuminating:
My answer is that if these ships were packed head to foot or if we had twice as many as there are now here, it wouldn't help a bit, as the port capacity for oceangoing ships is the limiting factor. The rea-
233
Elsenhower's confirming message the following day reported simply that the proposed landings would be carried out if the OVERLORD LST's could be retained. Without them the build-up requirements would leave barely enough amphibious shipping for a single brigade group, a force too weak to be even considered. Eisenhower concluded:
quate strength, probably of the order of a division on each side, we shall be faced with a long drawn-out campaign involving a series of frontal attacks at heavy cost. . . . Anything short of this would in our view fail to afford our commander on the spot the latitude of maneuver which he clearly requires for obtaining a quick decision.
in returning LST's to the United Kingdom, the enormous value to us of being able to use these additional LST's for a comparatively short period beyond the time originally scheduled for their return is so impressive from our local viewpoint that 1 have decided after consultation with my senior commanders again to present these facts for your consideration.27
They specifically proposed that the theater not only be permitted to retain the 68 LST's requested, but be given enough additional LST's and combat loaders to mount a one-division assault on the east coast of Italy.28 The Prime Minister followed through with a direct appeal to 1 am not certain what effect the two the President.29 alternatives [retention until 15 December The Joint Chiefs were caught once or 5 January] . . . would have on OVERmore between the promise of great reLORD, but I am very sure that the success sults at little cost on the one hand and of our operations in this area will have a great effect on OVERLORD and a greater on the threat of disaster on the other. The POINTBLANK. Therefore, while 1 am reluc- OVERLORD deadlines were no longer betant to repeat my previous request for delay yond the horizon. In order to begin amphibious training, COSSAC wanted half of the entire complement of assault shipping to be on hand in the United Kingdom by the first of the year. The 68 LST's in question represented more than a third of the whole OVERLORD contingent. To hold them back until early January would mean that, under existing schedules for deliveries from the United States, OVERLORD training would have to be conducted with 43 fewer vessels than needed during January, and 23 fewer during February. Each American LST retained in the Mediterranean,
terranean. (2) See also NAF 498, Eisenhower to CCS, 3 Nov 43, Incl to CCS 379/4, 4 Nov 43, same title. This message corrects the earlier request for 60 LST's to 68. (3) POINTBLANK was the code name for the combined bomber offensive against Germany. 28 (1) Msg COS(W)929, Br COS to JSM, 4 Nov 43, ABC 561 (31 Aug 43) Sec 1-B. (2) CCS 379/3, 3 Nov 43, memo by Reps Br COS, Opns in Mediterranean. (3) Min, 126th mtg, CCS, 5 Nov 43. 29 Churchill, Closing the Ring, p. 248.
Again the British Chiefs of Staff backed up Eisenhower's request. They went further:
In our view, unless General Eisenhower has at his disposal the resources to enable him to carry out amphibious operations on both east and west coasts of Italy in ade(1) Synopsis of telephone conversation with Gen Smith in Conf Room, Pentagon, 1400 DST 31 Oct 43. (2) Msg 1328, Handy to Smith, 30 Oct 43. Both in OPD 560 Security II, Case 100. (3) See also related papers in ABC 561 (31 Aug 43) Sec 1B. (4) See LST movement schedule in Ehrman, Grand Strategy V, 73. 27 (1) Msg NAF 496, Eisenhower to CCS, 31 Oct 43, Incl to CPS 103/D, 1 Nov 43, title: Opns in Medi26
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moreover, would also hold back an LCT.30 Even so, most of the Army staff thought General Eisenhower should have his LST's. Fortunately, at this juncture, Admiral King made the decision easier by allotting to OVERLORD a number of additional LST's and LCT's, some of which would be sent in November and December.31 On 5 November the Joint Chiefs agreed with the British representatives to allow the 68 LST's to be retained in the MTO until 15 December. At the same time Eisenhower was pointedly admonished that the high command expected him to use them as fighting vessels, not "as freighters." The JCS saw no good reason, moreover, for giving him more than he had asked for that is, additional shipping for an east coast operation, as the British had proposed. In any case, all U.S. combat loaders within reach were already scheduled to move troops from the Mediterranean to the United Kingdom, return to the States for refitting, and then carry more U.S. troops to England.32 Clearly, the JCS were resigned to the probability of still further delays in the transfer of LST's from the Mediterranean. When Admiral Leahy noted that the build-up in Italy would still be incomplete in mid-December, Admiral
30
King pointed out that "a decision on any further holding of landing craft could be taken at a later date if General Eisenhower put in a further request." Field Marshal Sir John Dill was at pains to remind the U.S. Chiefs that his superiors in London did not consider the size of the planned amphibious operation south of Rome a closed question and that General Alexander was in fact already pleading with London for a full month's extension of the 15 December deadline. Churchill decided on 9 November to risk an American veto, and told Alexander to make his plans on the assumption that the LST's would stay in the theater until mid-January.33 Thus, by mid-November the U.S. Chiefs were adjusting to the military setbacks of October in the Mediterraneanmuch as they had adjusted to the gains of July and August. The grand design of early August had receded into the realm of the improbable. Few now believed that Alexander could reach the Po even by spring, and early in November assignments of assault shipping and other resources were being made on the basis of requirements for reaching a line north of Rome, no farther. One underlying feature of the pincers strategy remained: the Allies were committed for better or for worse to maintain a "going" front in Italy so that it might play (1) Memo, Handy for CofS, 4 Nov 43, sub: its part when OVERLORD was launched Retention in Mediterranean of Ldg Cft Scheduled in the spring. (Table 20) for OVERLORD, and Memo, 5 Nov 43, same sub, with Eisenhower's report on the southern related papers in ABC 561 (31 Aug 43), Sec 1-B. France project, submitted as directed (2) Msg, Gen Barker to Gen Morgan, 4 Nov 43, SHAEF SGS 560, vol. I. (3) CCS 379/5, rpt by CPS, late in October underlined the degree
4 Nov 43, title: Opns in Mediterranean. (4) Min, 126th mtg CCS, 5 Nov 43. 31 See ch. X, below. 32 (1) Min, 126th mtg CCS, 5 Nov 43. (2) CCS 379/5. 4 Nov 43. (3) JCS 548/1, JPS rpt, 10 Nov 43, title: Opns in Mediterranean. (4) CCS 379 (SEXTANT), memo by U.S. CsofS, 18 Nov 43, same sub.
(1) Churchill, Closing the Ring, p. 249. (2) Min, 123d mtg JCS, 15 Nov 43. (3) Eisenhower Dispatch, pp. 86-87. (4) Field Marshal Sir John Dill was head of the British Joint Staff Mission in Washington and the chief British representative on the Combined Chiefs of Staff.
33
235
CCS 329/2, title: Implementation of Assumed Basic Undertakings and Specific Operations for Conduct of the War, 1943-44. bEstimated; source not available. Based on subtraction of known HUSKY losses from reported totals in theater for early October. Msg FAN 240, 24 Sep 43, Exec 3, Item 4; ASF Spec Rpt, Ldg Cft, 25 Oct 43, Tabs D, E.
d
e
CCS 428, (Rev), 15 Dec 43, title: Relation of Available Resources to Agreed Operations, app. A. This figure is two less than the remainder left after subtracting the British withdrawals for India from the early October theater total. It is one of several unexplained discrepancies involved in calculations of Mediterranean LST's in October. As the theater status report for 1 January 1944 indicates (last line in table), the status report for 31 October may itself have been in error. g Tel conv with Gen Smith, 31 Oct 43. h See page 234, note 32. i Theater status report, in ABC ... 561 (30 Aug 43), Sec 2. j See note f, above. Source: Compiled by Richard M. Leighton from numerous sources, all cited in the text.
f
of adjustment. He advised the CCS not to assume as yet that that operation was "certain to be the best contribution this theater can make at, or near, the time of OVERLORD." Under certain conditions, he thought, a threat to southern France might actually attract German forces into France and thus imperil OVERLORD. If spring should find the Allies bogged down before fortified positions across the waist of Italy, they might be able to pin down more German divisions there by frontal assaults and amphibious turning movements than in any other way.
If a southern France diversion must be undertaken in these circumstances, Eisenhower thought it would be more useful as a threatto be kept poised from a few weeks before until a few weeks after the cross-Channel attack, and actually carried out only if the Germans seemed unlikely to oppose it in force. In the remote event that the Allies should reach the north Italian plain by spring, the original plan of a co-ordinated overland and amphibious operation might be effective, but it should be launched after OVERLORD, following a
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threat of several weeks' duration. In any case, an amphibious attack with the assault lift likely to be available in the spring would be very weaka division strong, at most, with only two brigades in the initial assault, and even weaker if wastage of craft during the coming six months proved heavy. Eisenhower recommended, essentially as he had done in mid-August, that the operation be regarded "as but one of the various alternative opportunities which will lie open to us for assisting OVERLORD." In London General Morgan, though still convinced that OVERLORD would need some sort of diversion in southern France, preferably more than a feint, shared Eisenhower's misgivings as to its feasibility. The British Chiefs passed Eisenhower's report on to Washington with their endorsement.34 On 11 November the JCS concurred in the British recommendation. The southern France operation stayed on the
books and theater preparations for it continued. But it had been relegated to the limbo of contingent plans, tailored to an improbable degree of enemy weakness and designed, in general, to help OVERLORD more by the threat than by ning with UGS 14 on 6 August stepped the reality of diversionary action. So im- up their cycle from two weeks to ten probable was its execution considered days. By 7 September in response to that it was not even included on the pressures from the Army, Admiral King agenda of the forthcoming international had agreed that beginning in November conference at Cairo and Tehran. As Ad- these convoys could sail at 7-day intermiral King tersely expressed his and his vals if desired. colleagues' view: "Our plan is OVERThe port situation in the theater made LORD. Operations such as against south- it impossible to take full advantage of ern France are diversions. We do not the relaxation of convoy restrictions. Be(1) Msg NAF 492, Eisenhower to CCS, 29 Oct 43, quoted in Ehrman, Grand Strategy V, 188, 190-91. (2) CCS 394, 10 Nov 43, memo by Reps Br COS, Opns against South of France to Assist OVERLORD.
34 35 (1) Min, 123d mtg JCS, 15 Nov 43. (2) Memo by S&P Gp OPD, 7 Nov 43, sub: Compilation of Background Material for SEXTANT, ABC 337 (19 Oct 43), Sec 5. (3) CCS 394/1, 11 Nov 43, title: Opns Against South of France.
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departure; however, the British, who had requirements for an accelerated build-up through Taranto and support of operations in the Aegean, did not expect to be able to reduce their own retentions below go before the end of the year. They also requested temporary use of a number of westbound U.S. freighters returning from the Red Sea and Indian Ocean areas to carry cargoes to the western Mediterranean. Other demands for intratheater shipping were imminent.37 Shipping retained in the theater, enships and the Navy's offer to sail the convoys at 7-day intervals had to be turned gaged largely in trans-Mediterranean down.36 movements to Italy, had to be outloaded This attempt to tailor convoy sched- from the North African ports that were ules to port capacities for receiving and also handling incoming cargoes; the discharging cargo in order to avoid a turnaround in Italy was slow and unshipping tie-up was only partially suc- certain. Shipping was thus tied up at cessful. The situation was complicated both ends. Algiers and Bone, the major by the need to retain shipping in the North African ports supporting the theater for movements across the Medi- troops in Italy, carried the heaviest burterranean to Italy. At Quebec it had den. By 28 September, 22 loaded cargo been agreed that an average of 80 Brit- ships were lying idle at Algiers awaiting ish and 50 U.S. cargo ships should be berth with no prospect of completing retained in the Mediterranean for this discharge before mid-October, by which purpose. In practice, ships were held for time 24 more were expected to arrive. only one or two intratheater voyages and The situation at Bone was similar.38 then replaced by new arrivals; the numDuring the next few weeks the shipber actually in use fluctuated widely, ping authorities in Washington and Lonbut the total in the area tended to exceed don watched with growing uneasiness QUADRANT allocations. On 14 Septem- as matters steadily worsened. The North ber the WSA representative at Algiers African Shipping Board (NASBO), the
reported that 103 British and 59 U.S. interallied co-ordinating agency for shipvessels were then being held. The nine ping in the theater, made strenuous excess U.S. ships were scheduled for early efforts to halt the trend. Some ships waiting with cargoes at Algiers were diverted
(1) Msg, COMINCH to CESF, 2 Jul 43; Msg, COMINCH to Admiralty, 21 Jul 43, folder N Africa, WSA Douglas File. (2) NYPOE charts, Convoys to N African Theater. (3) CCS 222/2, 20 Aug 43, rpt by CMTC, title: Future Convoy Arrangements in Atlantic; CCS 222/3, 22 Aug 43, and CCS 222/5, 20 Sep 43, same title. (4) OPD Notes on CCS 222/3, undated, ABC 560 Atlantic (1-19-43), Sec 1.
36
Msg NAWS 370, Kalloch to Douglas, 14 Sep 43, folder N Africa, WSA Douglas File. 38 (1) Msg NASAB 595, NASBO to CSAB, 28 Sep 43. (2) Msg NAWS 415, Kalloch to Westernlund, WSA, 2 Oct 43. Both in folder N Africa, WSA Douglas File.
37
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to Oran; others were sent on to Italy. A number of operational loadings for U.S. forces were shifted to Oran, and for U.K. forces to Bougie and Philippeville. Large-scale discharge of packaged gasoline at Algiers, a major factor in the congestion there, was drastically curtailed. At all ports, the work of discharging and clearing incoming cargoes from the docks and loading cargoes for forward movement went on around the clock.39 Apart from these and other local corrective measures, the situation seemed to call for prompt action in Washington and London to curtail further the flow of shipping into the congested areas. On this question a sharp difference of opinion emerged between British and American shipping authorities. Even though, beginning in late September, the British had reduced the KMS convoys somewhat, they now took the position that no further curtailments were necessary and that local remedial measures had already gone far toward breaking the shipping jam. They confidently predicted that the crisis would pass before the end of November. According to London, the theater was unwilling to forego a number of high-priority shipments of munitions due in October and November and destined primarily for British forces. It appeared, moreover, that most of this material would have to be carried in American bottoms, since the British Ministry of War Transport had submitted requests for about 40 WSA vessels in October KMS convoys and 14 in October and November UGS convoys to carry British military cargo. The British also need39 Msg SABLO 345, London to Washington, 16 Oct 43, folder N Africa, WSA Douglas File.
239
ices in the Mediterranean to American shipping or of building up British commercial trades, and he maintained that some "switches" of this kind were necessary because of the types of ships involved. Requests for American shipping to fill KMS convoys were, nevertheless, scaled down during late October and in November, and the entire British shipping program for the Mediterranean during those months was somewhat reduced.42 As the British had predicted, the situation did improve rapidly after the middle of October. Reductions in cargo shipments by both the Americans and the British helped, but more directly effective was the reconstruction of the port of Naples, where by November enough piers were in operation to discharge ocean-going freighters on a large scale. After November Naples, together with Taranto, Bari, and the smaller Italian ports, provided an outlet for shipping backlogged in the North African ports, and also handled the bulk of new shipping entering the theater. There was little diminution in the volume of merchant shipping engaged in the Mediterranean services, which held at a level of about 6 million dead-weight tons, or in the number of operational retentions, which remained above the level agreed to at QUADRANT. Expanded port capacity, however, restored fluidity to port operations. For example, an analysis of shipping supporting U.S. Army forces in the theater, excluding vessels retained for operational purposes, showed that at the
42 (1) Msg SABLO 375, Reed to Douglas, 10 Nov 43, with related corresp in folder N Africa, WSA Douglas File. (2) Memo, J. A. McCulloch to Reed, 17 Nov 43, sub: Allocation of WSA Ships to KMS Convoys, folder BMSM Misc, WSA Douglas File.
240
peak of the congestion on 11 October ships that had been delayed longer than ten days had spent 1,674 ship days in port; by the end of November, this index had dropped to 200. At Algiers, where congestion had been worst on 11 October, conditions a month later were nearly normal with only 6 vessels awaiting berth of a total of 38 in port. One salutary result of the improved situation was a lessening of the need to use landing craft in routine logistical operations.43 The Mediterranean port crisis did not seriously affect the Allied war effort in that region, but it did cause bad feeling between the British and American shipping authorities, paralleling in some ways the differences on strategy that were simultaneously developing. Despite British assurances, the whole question of the use of American shipping aid in a manner designed to permit the expansion of British overseas trade in wartime was due to come up for discussion at the Cairo Conference late in November.
cutbacks in outward sailings from the United States to the Mediterranean increased the surplus and made it possible to shift a sizable block of cargo ships to the Pacific in November and December to meet the growing demands of preparations for the Central Pacific offensive.44 Moreover, the availability of cargo shipping ceased to be even a theoretical limitation on the advance shipment of supplies to the United Kingdom for invasion forces. The decisions at Quebec cleared the air considerably with regard to BOLERO, justifying the action taken by OPD on 13 August to extend the preshipment program to include the ETOUSA troop basis into 1944. In the theater a more definitive troop basis for the Normandy invasion was rapidly developed, and in November it received War Department approval. In its final form it provided for 1,418,000 U.S. troops to be in the United Kingdom on D-daya figure very close to the QUADRANT estimate. Of this total (designated the first-phase troop basis), 626,000 were ground force troops, 417,000 AAF, and 375,000 Services of The Progress of Bolero Supply. Theater estimates for the ultiOne reason the Mediterranean lock- mate build-up on the Continent brought up had no really serious consequences, the grand totalthe second-phase troop for all the inefficient use of cargo ship- basisto 2,583,000. With these figures, ping it involved, was because that com- which remained relatively firm, the War modity had become relatively abundant Department was able to proceed rapidly in the Atlantic in the fall of 1943. The with the designation of units and the preparation of more accurate movement forecasts. This gradual shift from type (1) Ibid. (1). (2) Memo, Col Joseph J. Billo for Col George A. Lincoln, 3 Dec 43, sub: Shipping units to actual units definitely assigned Turnaround in Mediterranean, ABC 381 Strategy Sec to the operation as the basis for proPapers (7 Jan 43) 160-95, Tab 173. (3) Bykofsky and graming advance shipments of material Larson, The Transportation Corps: Operations to the theater eliminated much of the Overseas, pp. 205-07. (4) Graph showing trend of
43
ship delays in overseas theaters is in ASF Monthly 44 See below, ch. XIX. Some ships for Pacific and Progress Report, 31 Aug 44, sec. 3, Transportation, p. 48. (5) Msg, Corbett to Schneider, WSA, 23 Nov CBI destinations were loaded out from Atlantic and Gulf coast ports. 43, OPD Exec 5, Item 14.
241
uncertainty that hitherto had clouded new equipment for continuing the prethe future of the preshipment pro- shipment program in new production resulting from Army Supply Program regram.45 Special operational requirements also quirements for rearming the French divicould be developed within the frame- sions. Since French rearmament materwork of the outline OVERLORD plan. Be- iel held a higher priority for shipment ginning in June 1943 the theater sub-than preshipped BOLERO materiel, howmitted a series of "keyed" operational ever, to actually get it reassigned to the projects, including a very important one preshipment program was not a simple 46 for the rehabilitation of the port of Cher- matter. In the period following QUADRANT bourg, and the ASF undertook to fit procurement of the necessary material into the invasion build-up moved at least into the Army Supply Program. Project ma- second, if not into high gear. Troop terial, like organizational equipment, movements from the United States spurtthus became an integral part of the ed upward from 46,000 in August to total ETOUSA demand against which 77,000 in September and 156,000 in Ocadvance shipment was to be made. The tober. Cargo shipments reached 907,principal remaining problems were the 000measurement tons in September and lack of a priority high enough to pro- a 1943 high of 1,018,000 in October. duce cargo in volumes commensurate Troop movements from the Mediterwith the shipping now available and the ranean and from Iceland were carried capacity of the ports and the supply or- out generally as scheduledthe 5th Inganization in Britain to absorb ship- fantry Division moved from Iceland to ments. The priority problem was the England late in August; the 1st and 9th Infantry Divisions, the 2d Armored Divimore pressing. QUADRANT plans for the movement of sion, and the 82d Airborne Division came one U.S. division from Iceland and four in from the Mediterranean, mainly in from North Africa and for completion November. Nevertheless, neither the of the rearming of eleven French divi- personnel nor the cargo build-up in the sions in North Africa by the end of De- end actually met the QUADRANT schedcember 1943 somewhat complicated ule. The shortfall in cargo shipments shipping arrangements and intensified was the more serious of the two, threatthe problem of filling cargo ships. Under ening as it did to defeat the plan to the QUADRANT arrangement, the four space these movements over the whole U.S. divisions moving from the Medi- period in order to prevent overloading terranean would leave their equipment of British facilities in the period just 47 behind for the French divisions, and before D-day. In large measure, the failure to meet pick up new equipment in Great Britain from the preshipped stockpile for the QUADRANT schedule was a consetype units. The division moving from Iceland would be equipped in the same (1) Leighton, Problem of Troop and Cargo Flow, way. Theoretically, the ASF could find pp. 84-101. (2) On French rearmament, see below,
46
Chapter XXVIII. 47 Leighton, Problem of Troop and Cargo Flow, pp. 87-91.
242
quence of the same factors that had November one of the regular troop conbeset the program earlierlow priority voys from the United States to England and complications resulting from the de- was diverted to the Mediterranean to mands of the Mediterranean campaign. handle part of the 4-division movement. As noted, cargo shipping was not a prob- As a result BOLERO troop movements in lem; personnel shipping, on the other November fell to 68,000 from 156,000 hand, continued to be in short supply, the previous month, and ASF officials and this shortage contributed to the de- again had to search for cargo to fill the shipping space that would have been lay in the build-up. Certain supporting units originally in- occupied by the equipment of the outcluded in transfer plans for the four going troops. Although in September U.S. Mediterranean divisions were held and October almost all allocated cargo back to support operations in Italy, and space for BOLERO was filled, ASF fell in response to Eisenhower's request, two well behind again in November and Denew U.S. divisions, the 85th and 88th, cember. Shipments dropped from the were set up for shipment to Italy in De- October peak of over a million tons to cember to partially compensate for the 848,000 in November, and rose only to divisions transferred to England. Most 910,000 in December, when they had of the shipping space was found by using been expected to reach 1.25 million tons. personnel capacity available on cargo "We haven't yet filled the total number ships, although some diversion from of ships for any month since August," planned troop movements to the Euro- an ASF planner complained early in De49 pean theater was required. Moreover, cember. Against the QUADRANT schedequipping the two divisions necessarily ule the shortfall was about 56 notioncut into the cargo bank available for al sailings (10,000 measurement tons 50 BOLERO. Officials in ASF thought there each) . Even though personnel shipwas enough surplus equipment in the ping was in shorter supply, the troop Mediterranean theater to equip the divi- build-up came nearer to meeting its goal. sions after they arrived, even granting At the end of December 1943, 773,753 that materiel left by the four departing divisions must be used for French rearm(1) Memo, Theater Br for Dir Plng Div ASF, ament. But the theater pointed to com- 1 Dec 43, sub: Supply Situation, ETO, Plng Div File #75. (2) See Table, Appendix B-5. bat losses in Italy, and OPD instructed Historical (3) Diary, Theater Br, Plng Div ASF; weekly entries ASF to supply the two divisions with of planning figures in the Diary for from mid100 percent of their noncontrolled items August through December 1943 show considerable and 50 percent of their controlled items variation, but the evidence generally supports the shortfalls described. of equipment. 48 This calculation is based on a total QUADRANT Moreover, the complex schedule of goal for the quarter of 334 sailings (298 on Army troop movements in and out of the Medi- account plus 36 on U.K. Import Program ships), as communicated to the ASF from Quebec on 20 August terranean areas inevitably affected the 104 for October, 105 for November, and 125 for flow of both troops and supplies to the December. Diary, Theater Br, 20 Aug 43, Pl Div United Kingdom. Toward the end of ASF. Actual sailings carried approximately 2.78
49 50
48 Diary, Theater Branch, entries for 4, 6, 21, 24 Sep 43, 4, 8 Oct 43, and 11 Nov 43, ASF Plng Div.
million measurement tons or the equivalent of 278 notional sailings. Compare figures in Ruppenthal, Logistical Support I, 138.
BOG-DOWN IN THE MEDITERRANEAN U.S. troops were in the United Kingdom, as against the QUADRANT target of 814,300. Moreover, the flow of service troops was stepped up during the last four months of the year, tripling the strength 51 of the ETOUSA Services of Supply. Despite a substantial volume of advance cargo shipment during these months, the failure to use all the available shipping space again reflected a lag in the preshipment program. Low priority was still the root of the problem. The effects of low priority were twofold: it diminished the net total of cargo of all kinds available for BOLERO, and it resulted in unbalanced shipments, for the priorities system applied more particularly to items in short supply. Thus, in the shipments of organizational equipment made through the end of August 1943 for type units on the ETOUSA troop basis, there were numerous shortages of critical itemsin signal equipment, for example, which the ASF had not even attempted to preship. On 24 September ETOUSA complained bitterly of the situation and asked for a delivery schedule that would assure full equipment for all divisions 45 days before arrival of personnel. Stock Control Division, ASF, found in an item-by-item survey, that the situation was less alarming than the theater had painted it, but pointed out that "shipments have reached the point where the existing priority is not sufficient to forward balanced stocks."52 Col. Frank A. Henning, Acting Chief of Stock Control Division, urged that the priority
Ruppenthal, Logistical Support I, 132, 232. (1) Memo, Col Henning, Actg Dir Stock Control Div, for Dir Opns ASF, 2 Oct 43. (2) Msg, W-4888 WXCB 505, London to AGWAR, 24 Sep 43. Both in Log File, OCMH.
52
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for preshipment be raised at least above that of troops in training. Officials who were in closest touch with strategic developments, both OPD and ASF, were not yet ready to take this step. Col. Carter B. Magruder of Planning Division, ASF, was reported by Colonel Henning to feel that
in view of tactical considerations we would not be justified in increasing the priority of this project for the sole purpose of providing the theater commander with equipment 45 days in advance of the arrival of units simply to permit him comfortable time for distribution. Colonel Magruder stated that all written directives pointed to OVERLORD as the main effort, but that the fluidity of the tactical situation at the present time was such that he considered it a definite possibility that the emphasis would be taken from this operation in favor of augmentation of forces in the Mediterranean. . . ,53
51
Further study by Stock Control Division indicated that the total amount of equipment for the OVERLORD troop basis could probably be laid down in the United Kingdom by D-day (then planned for 1 May 1944) if the priority for signal equipment were raised by 1 December 1943 and for the rest of the technical service equipment by 1 January 1944. If cargo had to be found to fill all available ships, then the priority must be raised by 1 November. With these assurances concerning the total amount, which seemed to take little note of the problems of overloaded British ports and distribution within the theater, higher authority was apparently satisfied. One small concession was made late in Octobercurrent theater priorities (A-1-b-8 for ground equipment; A-1-b-4 for a i r ) were extended to cover
53
Ibid. (1).
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GLOBAL LOGISTICS AND STRATEGY: 1943-1945 of global war. The long daylight hours of summer were no longer a consideration, and relatively little time remained even for using advance shipments to spread the load on British ports and inland transportation facilities with a view to avoiding congestion just before D-day. In general, the flow of troops in late
1943 was rapidly catching up with the flow of cargo. On 1 November 1943 an estimated 1,040,000 tons of preshipped equipment were available for issue in the United Kingdom. Two months later, despite the continued flow of supplies, these stocks had dwindled (through issue to troops) to less than half that amount 56 445,000 tons. In short, preshipment was only a limited success in 1943, since it had failed to achieve its larger purposes. By the end of the year its continuation was justified mainly as a convenient method of shipping in bulk all organizational equipment, necessary maintenance, and special operational supplies that must be on hand for a 1 May 1944 D-day. The major questions now were whether these supplies could actually be provided on time under existing priorities, and whether, if they were loaded in the United States in the intervening months, British ports and inland transport facilities could handle the deluge of incoming freight. It might well be argued that the delays in executing BOLERO in 1943, of which the shortfall in the preshipment program was probably the most significant aspect, made almost inevitable the postponement of D-day beyond May 1944, though this point is not clearly
56 (1) Memo, ASF for OPD, 4 Nov 43, sub: QUADRANT Decisions. (2) Memo, Dir Plans and Opns, ASF, for CG ASF, 4 Jan 44, sub: SEXTANT Decisions. Both in Historical File #9, Plng Div ASF.
shortages against TOE's of units scheduled to sail before the end of 1943. In reality, this hardly involved priorities for advance shipments at all, because by that time all further shipments would be less than 60 days in advance of troops
sailing in November and December. Certainly little of it could arrive in ETOUSA in time to permit the 45 days for distribution demanded by that theater. The real preshipment problem, by the end of October, involved units scheduled to embark in 1944. For these the priority for advance shipment remained low in the A-2 category.54 As the prospects for filling available shipping in November faded, pressures for a revision of priorities mounted. The only alternative appeared to be a cutback in the schedule of allotted ships to bring cargo space in line with ASF capacity to ship. At least partially facing up to this situation, ASF on 6 November formally requested from OPD an A-2-b priority for preshipment against the 1 May 1944 troop basis with a special priority of A-1-b-1 for automotive equipment to insure supply of heavy vehicles direct from production. OPD approved this request on 10 November, but the upgrading did not go into effect until the 22d, too late to have any appreciable effect on November shipments.55 By early December 1943 the situation had reached a point where more farreaching decisions were needed. Priority for preshipment in itself could no longer be considered the basic issue. It was rather the priority of the European theater and of OVERLORD in the whole scale
(1) Ibid. (2) Leighton, Problem of Troop and Cargo Flow, pp. 109-11. 55 Ibid. (2).
54
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training of troops, and the development of administrative plans and schedules had created a momentum that could have been arrested only by some cataclysmic event, such as a German debacle in the Mediterranean or in Russia and imminent collapse of Hitler's regime. No such event seemed in the cards when the Cairo Conference convened late in
November.
CHAPTER X
World War II. American shipyards poured out 19.2 million dead-weight tons, more than two-and-one-third times as much as in 1942 and, added to the 1942 output, exceeding the President's original goal for 1942-43 by more than 3.2 million tons. In ocean-going merchant shipping alone, this mammoth output registered a net gain of 15.2 million tons over American losses in 1943; it was mainly responsible for a net increase of 16.4 million tons in Allied and neutral shipping during the year. As early as October, statisticians could jubilantly report that the vast cumulative deficit in Allied and neutral shipping that had existed since the beginning of the war in Europe had finally been wiped out. Henceforth, the charts would show a steeply climbing curve above the inventory level of September 1939. At the end of 1943 the U.S. ocean-going merchant fleet alone stood at 29.4 million deadweight tons, almost two-and-a-half times as large as it had been when the Euro1 pean war started. That the shipping tonnage built in 1943 was not even greater was largely because of a shortage of steel. By late spring 1943 the Maritime Commission had
(1) U.S. Maritime Commission, Statistical Summary, Tables A3 and A-4. (2) Lane, Ships for Victory, p. 638. (3) ASF Monthly Progress Report, sec. 3, Transportation, 31 Mar 44. (4) Behrens, Merchant Shipping, p. 23.
1
The year 1943 was the greatest year for Allied merchant shipbuilding in
SHIPS, LANDING CRAFT, AND STRATEGY established a goal of 21 million tons of shipping for the year, but under military protest that steel allocations for such a program would cut too far into other essential military production, the goal had to be reduced to 18.9 million tons. As indicated, the goal was exceeded by 300,000 tons, largely by squeezing more steel, through improved management, from raw stock inventories and backlogs of fabricated parts in the shipyards themselves.2 Over 1,200 of the 1,949 ships of all types built in this record-breaking year were Libertys (70 percent of total deadweight tonnage), more than twice the number built in 1942. Yet the spectacular performance of the shipyards in 1943 was not wholly a matter of the application of mass production techniques to standardized, easy-to-build ships such as the Liberty. The output of standard cargo vessels (C-types), built to peacetime standards, was three times that of the year preceding, and the number of military types built by the Maritime Commission for the armed servicescombat loaders, Navy tankers, troop transports, escort carriers, frigates, and LST's more than quadrupled. The number of minor and special types, such as concrete and wooden ships, ore carriers, and tugs, multiplied more than eightfold over the 1942 program. These were signs of the beginnings of a transition from emer(1) On the dispute over allocation of steel see Ltr, JCS to Donald M. Nelson, Incl to JCS 282/5, 10 Jun 43, title: Third Quarter Allocations of Steel, and JCS 500/3, 18 Sep 43, title: Allocation of Steel Plate for Fourth Quarter, with related papers in ABC 411.5 (4-28-63 and 11 Sep 43). (2) Leighton and Coakley, Global Logistics, 1940-43, pp. 625-29. (3) Lane, Ships for Victory, pp. 334-53, especially charts page 345. (4) Maritime Comm, Statistical Summary, Table B-10.
2
247
gency shipbuilding programs that emphasized simplicity of design, standardization, and rapid construction, toward more diversified programs designed to meet specialized military needs.3 Twenty-One Million Tons for 1944
How these specialized military needs would figure in the 1944 program was not apparent in the planning early in 1943 for ship construction during the following year. The first phase of that planning involved instead a bitter controversy between the War Production Board and the Maritime Commission over the relative merits of standardization and mass production of cargo ships versus smaller production of faster, higher quality vessels. Independently of any stated military need the Maritime Commission had, as far back as September 1942, introduced the Victory ship, a fast (16.5 knots) carrier, slightly larger than the Liberty and a better all-around vessel. It was designed with half an eye to postwar commercial competition, although it was not so well adapted for that purpose as the standard C-type cargo ships normally built in American shipyards before the war. For wartime use, its potentialities were obvious: its speed reduced the need for naval escort and made it suitable for conversion as a troop carrier. In a sense, too, the Victory was a product of the steel shortage, though it used more steel than the Liberty. Since there seemed little prospect of the shipyards getting enough steel to build all the Libertys they were capable of building, the Maritime Commission decided
3 (1) Maritime Comm, Statistical Summary, Table B-3. (2) Lane, Ships for Victory, pp. 574, 637-38.
248
Maritime Commission resisted WPB's proposals and denied its jurisdiction in longer to build. Shipyards with the best matters relating to vessel design. The records in turning out Libertys were two agencies thus reached an impasse scheduled to convert to the Victory in that could only be broken by higher the latter part of 1943. The commis- authority. Who or what that higher ausion's 1944 program, as it stood in April thority would be remained for a while 1943, called for 524 Victory ships, 369 in doubt. Then on 15 July Charles E. C-type vessels, and only 367 Libertys in Wilson, executive vice-chairman of a total goal of 19.2 million dead-weight WPB, put the problem to the Joint Chiefs of Staff by asking for a statement tons.4 The program immediately came under of strategic shipping requirements for sharp attack from the War Production 1944. In this form, the question was Board, which wanted the commission to referred to the Joint Military Transporreduce the number of types in order to tation Committee for detailed study.5 increase total output. The chief spokesThe JMTC made no pretense of reman for this point of view was William calculating military requirements for F. Gibbs, a naval architect of national shipping. Instead they listened to an prominence, who was named Controller exposition of the respective positions of Shipbuilding under WPB in Decem- and then examined the military implicaber 1942 and in March 1943 became tions of each. On the main question, the chairman of a new Combined Shipbuild- JMTC was impressed by the military ading Committee (Standardization of De- vantages offered by fast cargo carrierssign) under the CCS. The details of the fewer losses, lower escort requirements, controversy cannot be recounted here, more round trips and more cargo debut by July 1943 Gibbs and WPB had livered per year, smaller crew requireforced a revision of the 1944 shipbuild- ments, better adaptability to conversion ing program to increase total tonnage to as troop carriers. Some of these points, 21 million (22.3 million tons including to be sure, had been challengedfor exconversions) with a marked shift of ample, until fast ships became available emphasis back toward the mass-produced in large numbers (probably in 1945), Liberty. In the July plan 814 Libertys they would have to be used along with were to be built, along with 340 Vic- slow ones in convoys where their speed torys and 314 standard C-type vessels. would be a wasted asset. However, the This new program, essentially a com- 21 million tons of shipping the Maripromise, did not end the controversy. time Commission planned to build in WPB pressed for elimination of the C- 1944, would, according to JMTC caltype ships entirely in favor of one fast culations, support an overseas Army deship, the Victory, using a single standard-
the yards' extra capacity should be used to construct better, faster ships that took
ployment of five million men by the end of 1944, together with all other military
(1) For details of the controversy, see Lane, Ships for Victory, pages 587-604. (2) Memos, Wood for Somervell, 13 Jul 43 and 9 Aug 43, folder CsofS Jt
and Comb 1942-44. Hq ASF.
5
(1)
Summary,
Tables A-4, B-10. (2) Lane, Ships for Victory, pp. 28, 574-77, 607. (3) See Table 21, p. 258, below.
250
and civil commitments. Strategy for 1944 and 1945, as now foreseen, was built around this scale of deployment, which was also the estimated maximum for which the country was expected to be able to produce munitions. It followed that more shipping would not be needed perhaps could not even be usedand this cut the ground from under the WPB argument. Admiral Leahy summed up the case in a letter to Wilson on 9 August:
The [CS believe . . . that shipping . . . will not continue to be the bottleneck of our war effort overseas, that limitations in production of war products other than merchant shipping will govern. The urgent necessity to produce the greatest possible number of ships in a given time, met by mass production of Liberty ships, therefore becomes less compelling.
shipping apparently settled the controversy, although neither the WPB nor the Maritime Commission recognized
the JCS as a superior authority in matters relating to ship construction. The 21-million-ton program of July stood for the time being. The JCS endorsement of the program was nevertheless premature, for it took into consideration
neither the amount of steel required for a program of such magnitude nor the growing demands for specialized types of military shipping. In the July program military types accounted for only
2.3 percent of proposed 1944 construction.7
Once the increased demands for steel engendered by the 21-million-ton program became apparent, the JCS was forced to reconsider. Early in September 1943 the Maritime Commission opened Since the beginning of the shipbuilding the battle over fourth-quarter steel alloprogram, the fast C ships, particularly the C2 and C3, have best met the strategic cations with a request for 225,000 tons needs. . . . They are now being rapidly con- more steel than it had been allotted in verted as combat loaders and as combina- the third quarter, citing as justification tion passenger and cargo to fill vital mili- the need to meet first-quarter 1944 schedtary needs. The C4 is building in direct ules under the new building program. response to Army requirements. The in- The plate requested (1,725,000 tons) creased speed of these faster ships reduces the danger of loss of troops and cargo from represented 64 percent of the total submarine attack, shortens the time of turn- amount available for the Army, Navy, around, decreases the requirements for es- and Maritime Commission together incorts and saves crew manpower. . . . This stead of the 60 percent the commission experience leads to the conviction that our had been receiving. This posed a threat strategic needs in 1944 will best be met by to military production programs for the maximum number of fast ships.6 which steel plate was already shortThe JCS, Leahy concluded, "endorsed" Army trucks, harbor craft, landing mat, the Maritime Commission's program for steel drums, naval combat vessels, and, above all, the vital landing craft pro1944. This verdict from the group repre- gram. On the recommendation of the senting the principal users of merchant Joint Administrative Committee, the JCS on 14 September asked WPB to (1)JCS 448/1, 12 Aug 43, ltr, Leahy to Wilson, hold fourth-quarter steel plate alloca6
9 Aug 43, title: Large Dry Cargo Ships. (2) JCS 448, 7 Aug 43, rpt by JMTC, same title. (3) See also draft of (1) in OCT HB, Gross Day File 1943, Case 197.
SHIPS, LANDING CRAFT, AND STRATEGY tions to the 60-40 ratio then prevailing, and directed the JAdC to restudy military requirements for steel to bring allocations to the three principal users "into more effective balance." Finally, on 22 September, the JCS informed the chairman of the Maritime Commission, Rear Adm. Emory S. Land, in some embarrassment (and in contradiction of the record) that their earlier "endorsement" of the 1944 building program referred only to types of vessels and not to the aggregate size of the program. They added that the JAdC had been instructed to examine military shipping needs in order to determine "the total program that can be undertaken without impinging on other necessary military pro8 grams." This casual announcement flashed a danger signal to Admiral Land. The JCS, he replied, were at liberty to examine the Maritime Commission's program insofar as it related to military requirements, but they had no jurisdiction whatsoever over merchant shipbuilding, and he could not recognize their authority to review the shipbuilding program "in relation to programs other than military programs."9 Regardless of the merits of this contention, the Maritime Commission was, in fact, swim8 (1) Ltr, Leahy to Land, 22 Sep 43, Incl in JCS 501/1, 22 Sep 43, title: Endorsement of Maritime Comm Shipbldg Program 1944, with related papers in ABC 561 (7 Aug 43), Sec 1. (2) Ltr, Leahy to Nelson, 14 Sep 43, Incl in JCS 500/1, 14 Sep 43, title: Allocation of Steel Plate for Fourth Quarter. (3) JCS 500, 13 Sep 43, rpt by JAdC, same title. (4) Min, 26th mtg JAdC, 13 Sep 43; 27th mtg, 14 Sep 43. (5) Min, 114th mtg JCS, 14 Sep 43; 115th mtg, 21 Sep 43. 9 Ltr, Land to Leahy, 9 Oct 43, Incl to JCS 501/2, 16 Oct 43, title: Endorsement of Maritime Comm Shipbldg Program.
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ming against the tide. All the war agencies were under heavy pressure from the Office of War Mobilization to cut back their supply requirements. The huge shipbuilding program for 1944, larger even than that for 1943, invited attack, particularly since the JCS were on record as stating that in 1944 merchant shipping would no longer be the bottleneck of the war effort. On 28 September the President directed James Byrnes to have the Joint Production Survey Committee (JPSC) of the JCS review the entire shipbuilding program of the Navy, Army, and Maritime Commission. Roosevelt's instructions indicated that he had in mind primarily combat types, and that the study of possible cuts in merchant shipbuilding should be left to the Maritime Commission. Byrnes chose, ostensibly as a matter of administrative convenience, to interpret the directive broadly, and, over the protests of Land and Douglas, ordered the commission to submit its recommendations directly to the JPSC. He added a revealing comment on the report that the commission had already submitted in defense of its program: Assuming all ... uncertainties . . . there seems little room for doubt that the actual production of ships in accordance with [the program] will lead, after the first quarter of 1944, to an accumulation of merchant tonnage, for which there will be no wartime need and which it will be difficult and unnecessary to man and use under the manpower deficiency with 10which we will be at that time confronted.
10 (1) Ltr, Byrnes to Land, 16 Oct 43, folder Maritime Comm Proc Rev Bd 1945, WSA Conway File. (2) On the procurement review boards, see above, Chapter IV. (3) Memo, President for Byrnes, 28 Sep 43, filed with JCS 501/2, 16 Oct 43, title: Endorsement of Maritime Comm Shipbldg Program.
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Pending completion of the survey, the President on 18 October provisionally authorized the Maritime Commission to proceed with its 1944 program (21 million tons of ocean-going shipping), with the understanding that the decision would be reviewed in January. But the commission had read the signs. On 29 October, its procurement review board reported to Byrnes that, if sufficient steel were provided to permit building at the existing rate through the first half of 1944, schedules could probably be cut back about 20 percent beginning in July. 1 1
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assumed concurrent advances in the Central, South, and Southwest Pacific, in the last instance accelerated by six months over the QUADRANT schedule. The planners made ample allowances for the fact, as Rear Adm. Bernhard H. Bieri explained, that "distances in the Pacific precluded quick turnaround and rapid shifting of combat tonnage from one area to another." Additional allowances were provided for a lapse of three months between the delivery of a new vessel in the United States and its readiness for assault, and for an accelerated and expanded amphibious training program on
ticipated by 1 October 1944. Its avowed purpose was to provide assault lift in the Pacific theaters for ten amphibious divisions by October 1944 and for two more by the end of 1944, not counting lift available in landing ships and craft. It
(1) JCS 507, 18 Sep 43, memo by COMINCH, title: Combat Loader Reqmts for USN, ABC 561 (18 Sep 43). (2) As of 1 October 1943 the Navy reportedly had 30 APA's and 14 AKA's in service. CCS Memo for Info No. 154, title: Landing Craft Reports, ABC 561 (31 Aug 43) Sec lA. 14 JPS 285/1, 4 Oct 43, rpt by JWPC, title: Shipbldg Program of Maritime Comm for 1944.
13
or no value," they agreed to accept them as long-range estimates subject to quarterly review. The Joint Planners accordingly sent them on to the Joint Administrative Committee for consideration in connection with the review of the ship construction program the JCS had directed in September.16 The whole issue was beclouded during most of October by an assumption in the joint committees that the combat loader program could be accomplished by conversions in Navy shipyards without substantially affecting the Maritime Commission's ship construction program. On this assumption, the JMTC, from which the JAdC had requested estimates of shipping requirements for 1944 and of new construction necessary to meet them,
(1) Ibid. (2) Quotation from Min, 105th mtg JPS, 6 Oct 43. 16 (1) OPD Notes on JPS 105th Mtg, 6 Oct 43, ABC 561 (7 Aug 43), Sec 1. (2) Min, 106th mtg JPS, 6 Oct 43.
15
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on 27 October in effect re-endorsed the Navy yards. If the 160 combat loaders Maritime Commission program. The were put into the 1944 building procommittee reported a need for as much gram, the JLC reported, they would disas 18.7 million dead-weight tons of new place from the building program 386 dry cargo shipping in 1944 and con- fast cargo ships (mostly Victorys) and cluded that the 16.7 million tons pro- about 30 tankers. The committee programed by the Maritime Commission posed, however, to cut more than twice (making up, with tanker tonnage, the this number of tankers in order to re21-million-ton program) would be a safe lease still more steel plate (at 4,200 tons goal only because of uncertainties sur- per tanker) for other programs, mainly rounding requirements in the last landing craft. By these means, it was quarter of the year.17 The Navy had de- hoped that steel plate allocations to the cided meanwhile that it had nothing commission during the first three months like the yard capacity to carry out the of 1944 could be held down to 60, 55, conversions, and on 24 October had and 50 percent, respectively, of the supasked the Maritime Commission to esti- ply available for the three major claimmate the impact of constructing the com- ants (the Maritime Commission was bat loaders from the keel up in its facili- then demanding 61.1, 62.2, and 58.5 perties. The Joint Logistics Committee (the cent) . The net reduction in the whole successor to the Joint Administrative shipbuilding program for 1944 would 19 Committee) had therefore finally to face be about 3.5 million dead-weight tons. Neither the small proposed reduction an entirely new factor in framing its rein the number of combat loaders nor the port for the JCS.18 Time by now had grown short since postponement in deliveries caused more 10 November was the deadline for plac- than a ripple of dissent. These modificaing mill orders for steel plate to be rolled tions, the JWPC noted, might somewhat in the first quarter of 1944. On 5 No- reduce "flexibility," but the original provember the Joint Logistics Committee gram had evidently embodied it in more (JLC) turned in its report. Under pres- than ample measure. The size and imsure from the Maritime Commission and plication of even the reduced program, ASF, the committee had pared down the on the other hand, alarmed ASF officials, number of combat loaders to 130 APA's who had been worried from the start and 30 AKA's and postponed the deliv- over the impact of the combat loader ery date for most of them to the last program on ship tonnages needed for three months of 1944; the AGC's were the ordinary tasks of moving and supto be obtained through conversion in plying troops. "Undoubtedly more combat loaders are needed," General Gross admitted, ". . . but the number . . . 17 JMT 35/1, 27 Oct 43 (JLC 17), title: Steel Allocations to Army, Navy, Maritime Comm for should be more carefully justified and 1943-44. approved before shipping for other needs (1) Ltr, Rear Adm Howard L. Vickery, Mari18
time Comm, to Adm Badger, ACNO Log Plans, 28 Oct 43. (2) Memo, Col Stokes, Chief Planning Div, OCofT, for Col Magruder, 1 Nov 43, sub: Interim Rpt Shpg Situation. Both in folder Shpg vs Pers vs Supply, ASF Plng Div.
(1)Ibid (2). (2) JCS 569, 5 Nov 43, rpt by JLC, title: Allocation of Steel Plate and Endorsement of Maritime Comm Shipbldg Program.
19
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is so easily tossed aside."20 ASF officials The JLC report was formally considwere concerned over an estimated deficit ered by the JCS on 9 November, but of 233 cargo sailings in the last quarter little was said about strategic foundaof 1944 and about 100 small (4,000-ton) tions. It was the day before the deadline freighters needed for the Southwest Pa- for placing first-quarter steel orders, and cific that the JCS had not yet formally Admiral King, flanked by Admirals requested from the Maritime Commis- Home and Badger, made the most of sion. This fourth-quarter deficit, to be this circumstance to counter Somervell's sure, rested on such dubious assump- request that the report be studied before tions as full American responsibility for it was approved. After a spirited debate, rehabilitation and economic support of in which Somervell stood alone against occupied territory, growing lend-lease the report, General Marshall ended the commitments, and, finally, a continuous discussion by suggesting the JLC proincrease in deployment to Europe to the posals be accepted, with steel plate allovery end of 1944. As General Lutes ad- cations for January to be made firm and mitted, these assumptions were incon- those for February and March to be sussistent. If the war in Europe ended in pended until 15 December. The shipOctober there would hardly be an in- building situation as a whole was to be crease in lend-lease commitments or in reviewed again in January, as the Presideployment to Europe; if it did not, the dent had already directed. Letters were burden of rehabilitation and economic formally dispatched to WPB and the support of liberated or occupied terri- Maritime Commission requesting adjusttory was not likely to be so large. ments in the 21-million-ton program to Nevertheless, there was something accommodate the 160 combat loaders.22 akin to sleight of hand in the ease with The JCS decision coincided with the
which the supporters of the combat loader program now wrote off new cargo ship and tanker tonnage for which the JMTC
other pressures on the Maritime Commission for reduction in its program, and by 20 November 1943 the commission had readjusted its sights for 1944 along lines indicated by the JCS. The 20 November program showed a net reduction of slightly over three million dead-weight tons. It provided for 171 new combat loaders instead of the 160 asked for, and in compensation reduced the number of C-4 troop transports from 27 to 17. It increased the number of Victorys at the expense of standard cargo vessels, while the number of Libertys remained very nearly the same. Over-all, by various
22 (1) Min, 122d mtg (suppl) JCS, 9 Nov 43. (2) Ltrs, Leahy to Nelson and Leahy to Land, 9 Nov 43, Incls to JCS 569/1, 9 Nov 43, title: Allocations of Steel Plate. . . .
had foreseen a need only nine days earlier. Faced with a Navy attempt to have the combat loader program approved by informal JCS action, General Lutes insisted that it be formally considered and suggested that the ASF "press for an approved strategic plan as foundation." 21
20 (1) Memo, Gross for Somervell, 8 Nov 43, sub: Comments on JCS 569, OCT HB Gross Day File, 1943, Case 245. (2) JPS 285/2, 8 Nov 43, rpt by JWPC, title: Shipbldg Program of Maritime Comm, ABC 561 (7 Aug 43), Sec 1. 21 (1) Memo, Lutes for Styer, 5 Nov 43, and Memo for Dir Opns, 6 Nov 43. (2) Memo, Col Stokes for Gen Gross, 6 Nov 43. Both in folder Current Opns, ASF Plng Div, Case 45.
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adjustments the Maritime Commission program cut the anticipated deficit in cargo ship sailings in the fourth quarter of 1944 from 233 to 164. Even at this lesser cost, ASF spokesmen were not satisfied. On 25 November Brig. Gen. Walter A. Wood, ASF member on the Joint Logistics Committee, challenged the JCS decision as having been made in undue haste and "without clear justification" and asked that the JLC draw up "a more thoroughly prepared program of ship construction in 1944."23 By this time ASF opposition seemed to be directed less at the scope of the combat loader program as such than at the general failure of the JCS committees to really integrate the shipping study with proposed strategy or to stipulate the use and control of the huge pool of combat loaders when they were not engaged in amphibious operations. The Navy's defense of its combat loader program, despite an allusion to the possibility of using the vessels "to supplement overall troop and cargo requirements as primary operational needs would permit" had not been reassuring on the latter score.24 General Wood's paper never emerged from the lower committees for consideration by the JCS. Following the SEXTANT Conference, the Joint War Plans Committee re-examined the combat loader requirements in the light of decisions reached there on Pacific strategy and concluded that the combat loaders should not be made available according to the quantities and schedules of the
23 Memo, Dep Dir Plans and Opns, ASF, for Secy, JLC, 25 Nov 43, sub: Review of JCS 569 to Determine Maritime Comm Construction Program for 1944, file CG ASF 1943-44, Hq ASF. 24 JPS 285/2, 8 Nov 43.
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Navy's current program for building combat vessels, and on 8 January 1944 it filed a second equally uncritical report endorsing the programs for building other types.28 The JPSC report was apparently accepted as the January review the President had ordered. By this time even the ASF seemed to be satisfied. A Planning Division report noted: "At first it was believed that the reduction in dry cargo tonnage demanded by the heavy combat loader program would cause serious shortages of dry cargo space. Continual examination has developed that these fears were groundless."29 The Maritime Commission viewed the future less serenely and, as it turned out, in some respects more prophetically. In January its Procurement Review Board replied to a request from the Office of War Mobilization for a report on possible cutbacks in the event the European war ended in 1944. The board pointed out that heavy merchant shipping losses could be expected in the Normandy landings and subsequent operations, and that no requirements had yet been submitted for supporting civil economies in occupied Europe, for maintaining occupation forces, or for carrying on the war in the Pacific. In the light of these immense unknown factors, the board considered that further cutbacks would be 30 unwise.
(1) JCS 573, 7 Nov 43, rpt by JPSC, title: Rpt on Army, Navy, and Maritime Comm Shipbldg. (2) Min, 141st mtg JCS, 11 Jan 44. 29 Memo, Lt Col Cooper for Chief Strat Log Br, Plng Div, ASF, 7 Jan 44, sub: Shpg Situation . . ., folder Shpg vs Pers vs Supply, ASF Plng Div. 3 (1) Rpt of Maritime Comm Procurement Review Bd, 17 Jan 44, folder Maritime Comm Proc Rev Bd 1945, WSA Conway File. (2) Rpt of Maritime Comm Procurement Review Bd, 11 Feb 44, folder Reading File, WSA Douglas File.
28
SHIPS, LANDING CRAFT, AND STRATEGY More Landing Craft: The "Percentage Game"
Although the Navy's plans as early as June 1943 had contemplated a moderate increase in landing craft production in the fall, the first strong impulse for a new "crash" program on the scale of
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ly: (1) a 35 or even a 25 percent increase in monthly output could not be attained before spring of 1944, and (2) the rate of acceleration before then would be about the same for any program, regardwas not designed for a two-front war. less of its ultimate size.32 A companion piece to the Navy's big Studying the report later in the month, new combat loader program, it was the Joint Administrative Committee conshaped by the demands of the Pacific cluded that a 35 percent increase would war, not the war in Europe. have a "real, though not destructive efOn 17 August the Navy's Bureau of fect" on various Army and Maritime Ships, in response to Admiral King's tele- Commission programs, and advised that phoned inquiry from Quebec, reported no more than a 25 percent increase be that it would be possible to expand pro- undertaken for the present. The comduction of landing craft by as much as mittee recommended that the necessary 35 percent. (On the following day King steel be contributed in equal amounts told the conference that no increase over the next six months by the three greater than 25 percent was being major users, and thereafter by the Navy considered) .31 The greatest limitation alone. Costs were estimated to the would be the output of diesel engines, (1) Memo, BuShips for VCNO, 17 Aug 43, sub: the power plant for all principal types Additional Ldg Cft Program, app. A to JCS 462, except LST's. Steel requirements would rpt by JAdC, 30 Aug 43, title: Landing Ships and require cuts in Army and Maritime Com- Cft, Means of Increasing U.S. Production. (2) See
32
that undertaken in 1942 came in August 1943. In that month pressure to produce more landing craft became heavier in both main sectors of the warin the Pacific as a result of the JCS decision to seek means of defeating Japan within a year of the defeat of Germany; in the European war as a result of the appearance of the OVERLORD outline plans and demands from many quarters to strengthen the OVERLORD assault. At the same time, the unmistakable completeness of the victory over the U-boat promised to release facilities and materials hitherto pre-empted by construction of escort vessels. Yet the new landing craft program
mission allocations, not to mention other Navy programs, during the remainder of 1943 and early 1944; from spring of 1944 on, steel production was expected to be more adequate. As for facilities, the Bureau of Ships report ruled out those used in the major combat vessel program, indicated that the yards to be released by cutbacks of submarine chas-
ers were unsuitable in one way or another, and advised against assigning the building of LST's to Maritime Commission yards as had been done the year before. All this seemed to point to the yards engaged up to then in building
escort vessels, especially since these yards had performed most brilliantly in the crash landing-craft program the previous winter. Two conclusions emerged clear-
31
also Memo, Wood for Somervell, 18 Aug 43, sub: Expansion of Production of Landing Ships and Craft, folder Future Opns, ASF Plng Div, Case 19.
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Army, 9 million square feet of landing mat, 125 medium tanks, 360 flat cars, and 5,500 heavy trucks; to the Navy, 65 destroyer escorts and 12 submarine chasers; to the Maritime Commission, 35 Liberty ships. On 9 September the JCS endorsed these recommendations with
the stipulation that by the 20th the JAdC should have ready a more thorough study
of a 35 percent increase in the program.33 Meanwhile, the Joint Deputy Chiefs of Staff (JDCS) had directed the Joint Planners to determine the "exact percentage" of increase in each type that would result from boosting the whole program by 25 percent. This was a poser,
and monthly schedules (on which directed average output was based) as incentives to greater production, setting both goals and schedules higher than was justified by a realistic estimate of capabilities. What Navy officials actually expected to be produced was often difficult to determine. The JDCS directive to the Joint Planners implied that the basis used in the Bureau of Ships report for calculating the actual increase might not necessarily be used. Did it mean, an OPD officer wondered, that the percentage should be applied to actual current
33 (1) JCS 462, 30 Aug 43. (2) JCS 462/1, 8 Sep 43; and JCS 462/2, 15 Sep 43, same title. (3) See also papers in OPD 560 Security II, Case 66.
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to its bureaus on 13 September became the "implementation" of the JCS directive of 9 September, rather than of the COMINCH directive of the 6th, and the JAdC was free to recommend either that the program be left at the level to which the Navy had raised it or that it be still 37 further augmented. The real significance of the Navy's new program was not a matter of percentages, but of types and timing. The entire emphasis was put on a brand new type of craftthe LCT (7), a longer and heavier model than the LCT (6), with a cruising radius of 1,500 miles and ocean-going capabilities. It was essentially a smaller edition of the LST, equipped with the characteristic bow doors of that vessel, and in fact was soon to be renamed landing ship, medium (LSM). Production had not yet begun. First deliveries were expected in May or June 1944, rising to a monthly level of 25 by October at the earliest. Not only would the new ship contribute nothing to the war in Europe, but the production effort it would absorb would detract heavily from the output of older types. Apart from the LCT (7), the new program promised an increase of only 15 percent over the old program in gross tonnages of craft produced per month. It added only two LST's to the existing average monthly output, and no LCT (6)'s at all. None of the scheduled increases, finally, was expected to be realized before spring of 1944. In short, the program was designed specifically, very nearly exclusively, for the war in the Pacific.
37 (1) JAdC 56/1, rpt of subcom, 13 Oct 43, title: Ldg Cft and Ships, Means of Increasing U.S. Production, ABC 561 (30 Aug 43). (2) Comments by General Tansey, 26 Oct 43, on JCS 462/4, OPD Exec 9, Book 13, Case 51.
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As the JWPC reported on 27 September, the increased output would permit a marked acceleration of amphibious operations by the latter part of 1944 but "the QUADRANT decisions relative to 38 OVERLORD . . . will not be affected."
and war industries mobilized to the hilt, landing craft production could only be expanded by diverting steel, components, facilities, and labor from other programs, and even the present level of output was endangered by a shortage of engines. Production officials feared even more the displacement of labor and unsettling of established wage patterns that such a shift might cause. Beyond the production problem loomed the equally baffling one of finding manpower for additional crews. To attempt to increase landing craft output on a large scale would produce effects, the British Chiefs of Staff were warned, that would be "disastrous and permanent." The effort was nonetheless made and proved less disrup-
General Morgan wanted first to liquidate the existing deficit, then to strengthen the assault on the front then planned. On 30 September Morgan explained his ideas to the British Chiefs in detail.
He reminded them that the assault lift promised him at TRIDENT "bore little or
with this allotment would be barely possible, and then only by skimping dangerously on the immediate follow-up. Two divisions, which for lack of assault lift would have to be preloaded in conventional shipping, could not enter the
39 (1) Quotation from Memo, Vice Chief of Navy Staff, 22 Sep 43, sub: Availability of LCT for OVER38 LORD. (2) Notes on Br COS Mtg for COSSAC, dated (1) JPS 270/1, rpt by JWPC, 27 Sep 43, title: Ldg Cft and Ships, Means of Increasing U.S. Pro- 4 Oct 43. Both in SHAEF SGS 560, vol. I. (3) M. M. Postan, "History of the Second World War, United duction. (2) JAdC 56/1, 13 Oct 43. (3) MFR to Msg, Kingdom Civil Series," British War Production Morgan for Barker, 6 Nov 43, OPD 560 Security II, Case 102. (4) ONI 226, Allied Landing Craft and (London: Her Majesty's Stationery Office, 1952), pp. Ships, 7 Apr 44. 292-93.
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son, Chairman of the U.S. War Production Board, then visiting in England, Morgan had received a distinct impression, he reported, "that we could obtain more craft from the United States." Actually, Nelson had already, on 27 September, cabled an urgent message to Wilson of the WPB:
I am convinced that landing craft, especially LCT and LST types, are the most important single implement of war in the European theater. The requirements have been grossly underestimated, in my opinion. The whole landing craft program should without fail be advanced at least one
month. My conviction is that 25,000 or more lives depend on our doing this. Do everything possible to investigate this program at once. My suggestion would be to secure the best production man you can get to speed up the production of landing craft with the objective of stimulating even more
In Washington Navy officials whom Wilson approached with his chief's anxious message already knew, from the report of the JWPC submitted on 27 September, that the expanded landing craft production ordered three weeks earlier held no promise for OVERLORD and that any substantial increase in output before spring was considered unlikely. Wilson accordingly got no encouragement and little or no information. "No one in the lower echelon," stated one Navy official after more than a week of fruitless inquiries from WPB, "is competent to
41
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TABLE 22REQUIREMENTS VERSUS ALLOCATIONS, ASSAULT SHIPPING FOR OVERLORD 30 SEPTEMBER 1943
a Includes 2 British, 1 U.S. divisions, Commandos, and Rangers. Serviceability factors applied: assumed 90 percent of available LST's, 85 percent of landing craft, and 100 percent of all other ships and craft serviceable on D-day. b Includes LSI(L)'s. LSI(M)'s, LSP's, LSI(S)'s, LSI(H)'s, and LSH's. c The additional division, whether British or U.S., was to have 1 LSH. A U.S. division would have 2 LSI(L)'s, besides the 6 APA's noted; a British division would require 8 LSl(L)'s to carry support craft. d Includes LCF's, LCG(L)'s, LCG(M)'s, LCG'(Spec), LCS(L)'s, LCS(M)'s, LCS(S)'s. See note f. e Included a deficit of 72 LCG(L)'s, LCG(M)'s, and LCF's, partly offset by surplus in LCS types. f Rocket launching LCT's listed separately for no apparent reason. g Includes LCVP's, LCP(L)'s, LCP(R)'s, LCP(L)'s Smoke, LCA(H)'s. Source: Table attached to Memo, Gen Morgan for Secy COS, 30 Sep 43. OPD 560 Security II. Case 62.
give you the material to answer the cable."42 One possible reason for the Navy officials' evasiveness was that the staffs were still awaiting the JAdC study, ordered a month before, on the feasibility of further increases in landing craft production. After several extensions of the deadline, the study at last appeared on 13 October. The committee had reversed its earlier verdict. A 35 percent increase over the basic program, it now reported, would be perfectly feasible, the chief condition being a prompt expansion of diesel engine production, and steps were already being taken to do this. Since the
Quoted from Ltr, L. W. Powell to C. E. Wilson, 8 Oct 43, in Mowry, Landing Craft and the War Production Board, pp. 29-30.
42
outlook for steel had improved, the impact on other programs would be less severe than had been expected: the Navy would lose 29 more destroyer escorts, the Maritime Commission one more Liberty ship, the Army about 2,000 trucks it had already decided were not needed anyway. The cost, an OPD officer commented, would not be heavy "compared to the strategic importance of the landing craft program."43 Certainly the proposed program promised an impressive yield. The 35 percent increase in numbers of craft to be produced per month amounted to a 57 percent increase in gross tonnages over the basic program. Also LST production would rise to 28
43 OPD Notes on JCS 120th Mtg, 26 Oct 43, ABC 561 (30 Aug 43).
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the planned southern France landings in spring 1944. Even this would not release enough craft to meet Morgan's bill of requirements for an improved and enlarged assault.46 Although the Army members of the JWPC presumably went along with the verdict, it did not pass unchallenged in the Army staff. Col. George A. Lincoln, soon to become deputy chief of OPD's influential Strategy and Policy Group, objected particularly to the implication that resources allotted for operations in the Pacific and even for the still embryonic southern France project could not No matter what our efforts, no appre- be touched without "disrupting" apciable change in OVERLORD availability can proved strategy. While the demands of be expected at this late date. Any drive on the Pacific war had multiplied, OVERone type craft, for example LCT (5), would LORD had been held to an assault shipaffect our total program in favor of a craft ping budget that was demonstrably obthat now has limited use.45 solete, even though OVERLORD was supThe JAdC report of 13 October thus posed to be the supreme effort against appeared to rule out the only likely Germany and the defeat of Germany had means of providing more craft for been accorded primacy over the defeat OVERLORD. Exploration of other sources, of Japan. OVERLORD, according to the prompted by the British Chiefs' propos- JWPC, had been allotted enough reals on 24 September to mount another sources to give it a "reasonable chance U.S. division in the assault, had been no of success." Should not OVERLORD be more productive. On 1 October the Joint allotted, Lincoln demanded, all it needWar Plans Committee had emphatically ed "to give assurance of success"? "The rejected diversions from the Pacific or U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff," he declared, Southeast Asia and affirmed that only "cannot face history if OVERLORD is a in the Mediterranean could significant failure or only a bloody partial suc47 numbers of craft be found to strengthen cess." OVERLORD, and then only by sacrificing General Marshall was sufficiently worried over the OVERLORD assault about this time to consider supporting WPB's (1) JAdC 56/1, 13 Oct 43, JLC 12, 20 Oct 43,
44
same title (a slightly revised version of JAdC 56/1). (2) Memo, A. D. Douglas and Capt Donald R. Osborn, Jr. for Adm Bieri, 13 Oct 43. (3) Memo, Gen Hugh C. Minton, Dir Production ASF, for OPD, 8 Nov 43, and OPD MFR, 22 Nov 43. All in ABC 561 (30 Aug 43). 45 (1) Paper by Gen Tansey on JCS 462/4, 26 Oct 43, OPD Exec 9, Book 13, Case 51. (2) Memo, A. D. Douglas and Capt Osborn for Adm Bieri, 13 Oct 43.
(1) JPS 228/4, rpt by JWPC, 1 Oct 44, title: OVERLORD Assault. (2) JPS 228/5, 7 Oct 43, same title. Both in ABC 384 (9 Jul 43), Sec 1. 47 (1) Memo, Col Lincoln for Col Roberts, 18 Oct 43, sub: OVERLORD Assault. (2) OPD Notes on JPS 105th Mtg, 6 Oct 43. Both in ABC 384 (9 Jul 43), Sec 1.
46
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efforts to persuade the Navy to accelerate production of landing craft, but apparently decided finally not to do so. Lincoln's suggestion that the Navy should give up some of the craft earmarked for the Pacific was not pressed. At least a few OPD officers felt that too much was being made of the problem. "Landing craft alone cannot win the war," one observed. "There will never be enough . . . and any increase must necessarily be an increase within a balanced program."48 In any case, the final JPS draft reply to the British Chiefs' recommendations for enlarging the OVERLORD assault was an even more forceful statement of Navy views than had been the JWPC's report three weeks earlier. Whether more landing craft should be taken from the Mediterranean to reinforce OVERLORD should, the JPS paper suggested, be left for the OVERLORD commander to decide. A few craft might be scraped together from the Middle East, training pools, and other "miscellaneous sources." But no further benefit for OVERLORD could be expected from new production, and any diversions at the expense of the Pacific would "require a major modification of plans for prosecution of the war against Japan and . . . involve political and psychological considerations of grave importance to the Nation. This source is therefore rejected." The JCS concurred, and the British Chiefs were so informed on 23 October. On 26 October the JCS approved the 35 percent increase in the landing craft program and just two weeks
(1) OPD MFR, 1 Oct 43. (2) Memo, Lt Col Edward B. Gallant for Gen Handy, 18 Oct 43, sub: Ldg Cft Production Program. Both in OPD 561, vol. I, Case 14.
48
SHIPS, LANDING CRAFT, AND STRATEGY production] may be too much to ex50 pect." For understandable reasons the JCS had no wish to inform the Russians of this blow to OVERLORD'S prospects. At the Moscow Foreign Ministers Conference in October, in fact, Maj. Gen. John R. Deane, the American military representative, played up the new landing craft program as the best proof the Western Allies could offer of their firm intention to go through with the cross-Channel invasion. Deane declared to the Soviet representatives:
The effects of such a readjustment [in production] are felt not only in England but throughout the breadth of the United States including the California coast. Such a change in production affects the shipyards along the coast and the engine manufacturers in the Middle West. It is inconceivable that such a dislocation of industry would be permitted if the intention to launch the operation was questionable.51
267
This was on 20 October, the day after the JCS had discussed the JWPC report on the implications of the new program and had decided to tell the British that no more landing craft would be forthcoming for OVERLORD.
( 1 ) L t . Gen. Sir Frederick Morgan, Overture to Overlord (New York: Doubleday and Company, Inc.,
50
A little more than two weeks later Admiral King, without warning, reversed that same verdictat least in principle. On 5 November, while the CCS were discussing the retention of LST's in the Mediterranean, he abruptly announced that during the coming six months, over and above previously scheduled shipments, he would send 23 LST's, 24 LCI (L) 's, and 24 LCT's to the Unit52 ed Kingdom for OVERLORD. For the LST's and LCI (L) 's these were roughly the equivalent of the one month's extra output (at current levels) that Nelson had asked for. Whether it represented an unexpected windfall in production or was a belated concession by the Navy to the pressures to increase the OVERLORD lift can only be conjectured. Whatever the reason, the Bureau of Ships now was predicting a somewhat larger output than had been estimated two weeks earlier more than enough of LCI (L) 's and LCT's to permit the modest addition to OVERLORD allocations. Production of these craft had shot ahead of even the Navy's incentive schedules for three months past. The 24 LCI (L) 's would only partly restore the cut in the U.S. allocation of this type of vessel made
(1) Min, 126th mtg CCS, 5 Nov 43. (2) Memo, Adm King for Comdr 12th Fleet, 5 Nov 43, sub: BOLERO Ldg Cft Schedule, ABC 561 (31 Aug 43), Sec 1-B. The shipment schedule was as follows:
52
p. 105. (3) Paper by Gen Tansey, 26 Oct 43, OPD Exec 9, Book 13, Case 51. (4) Msg, Wilson to Reed
(London), 27 Oct 43, quoted in Mowry, Landing Craft and the War Production Board, p. 30. (5) Min, 72d mtg WPB, 2 Nov 43, in Civilian Production Administration, Minutes of the War Production Board, January 20, 1942 to October 9, 1945, Historical Report No. 4 (Washington, 1946), p. 287. 51 (1) Rcd of mtg of Tripartite Conf . . . Moscow, 20 Oct 43, OPD Exec 5, Item 12. (2) At the Tehran Conference American representatives made substantially the same claim. See Min of Mil Mtg (EUREKA), 29 Nov 43.
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at QUADRANT, but they more than covered the requirements recently laid down by the OVERLORD planners. As for LCT's, the problem was not one of production but one of shipment. LCT's shipped to the United Kingdom either had to go "piggy-back" on LST's or be broken into sections and loaded on freighters. Many LCT's were constructed in the Middle West, and freezing weather would prevent much of the winter output from being moved over inland waterways to Atlantic ports. LCT's, the Navy said, were available for OVERLORD if they could be moved.53 The outlook for LST's was less promising. October deliveries had taken a sharp dip, and the November output was to continue below that of August and September. More disturbing was the lag in Navy contracting. In September and early October the Navy had canceled more than 300 destroyer escorts from its building program, releasing yards that had gained experience the year before in constructing LST's. But only one LST contract had been let to one of these yards (in September, for 25 LST's) ; and no more were to be let to any of them until December. No deliveries from these yards were expected before February 1944. The vessels scheduled for delivery through January had been contracted for no later than June 1943 and most of them many months earlier.54 Nevertheless, the output of LST's predicted for the winter and early spring
53 (1) Notes to Appendixes in Memo, Secy JPS for listed officers, 6 Nov 43, sub: Preparations for Next U.S.-Br Staff Conf, ABC 337 (11 Jan 45), Sec 1-A. (2) Mowry, Landing Craft and the War Production Board, tables on pp. 28, 72-73. 54 Mowry, Landing Craft and the War Production Board, pp. 33-36, and app. B.
(Table 23) Nor had King allotted the entire anticipated winter production of LST's to OVERLORD. Six were to be converted to
amphibious repair ships (ARL's) destined for use in the Pacific; five more, from October production, were assigned to the Central Pacific. The remaining 12 from October deliveries now assigned to OVERLORD included 10 originally destined at QUADRANT for the Pacific as loss replacements for the Marshalls operation in January; from November deliveries another LST was similarly diverted. These diversions evidently were possible because the Central Pacific had already received its full quota of allocations, a month ahead of schedule. In effect, King
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a The remaining 2 from predicted production were allocated to training. * Shipments normally were made in the second month after delivery. c Includes three from training. d Actual production was 16, but calculations evidently assumed 17. e These S would be too late for an early May D-day. f Includes three from training. g These S might be too late for an early May D-day. Source: (1) CCS 329/2, 26 Aug 43, title: Implementation of Assumed Basic Undertakings and Specific Operations for Conduct of the War, 1943-44, Annex V, app. B. (2) CCS 428 (Rev), 15 Dec 43, title: Relation of Available Resources to Agreed Operations, Annex V.
had added to the three-months' production of LST's already assigned to OVERLORD about two-thirds of the meager October output, now no longer absolutely essential in the Pacific, plus half of the small expected increase in production during the three months following. Together with the accompanying LCT's and LCI (L) 's, the increases left a deficit, against General Morgan's latest requirements for a strengthened assault, of 16 LST's, 365 LCT's, 188 support craft, and 15 combat loaders.55
(1) For QUADRANT schedules and allocations, see CCS 329/2, 26 Aug 43, Annex V, app. B, especially Tables I and II, and JPS 228/1, 2 Aug 43, appendixes
55
The net result of American decisions just before the Cairo Conference to boost production of both combat loaders and landing craft served mainly to underwrite the Pacific campaigns after mid-1944 for which specific strategic plans did not yet exist. They went far to assure that the supply of assault shipand notes. (2) For the 5 November shipment schedule and allocations, see appendixes to Memo, Secy JPS for listed officers, 6 Nov 43; and CCS 428 (Rev), 15 Dec 43, title: Relation of Available Resources to Agreed Operations, Annex V. (3) For September estimates, see above, Table 22, p 264. Note that the 83 LST's in the new shipment schedule represented an increase of 21, not 23, over the QUADRANT schedule; evidently the QUADRANT schedule had been cut back in the interim.
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GLOBAL LOGISTICS AND STRATEGY: 1943-1945 OVERLORD beyond the 1 May target date. New U.S. production schedules promised more craft by June or Julybut not by May. Another month or two would permit use of the LST's in the Mediterranean to complete the build-up of supplies in Italy and exploitation of opportunities for amphibious landings in the rear of the Germans. The situation, like the rate of the BOLERO build-up, constituted a basic handicap for the American staffs going to the conferences at Cairo and Tehran with instructions to insist on a May target date for OVERLORD.
ping would be no barrier to a vast acceleration of the Pacific war in that period, even if the war in Europe did not end in the meantime. If Admiral King's belated concession of craft for OVERLORD involved some small encroachment upon Pacific interests, it still fell far short of meeting General Morgan's stated requirements for an enlarged OVERLORD assault. With the additional prospect that LST's would be tied up in Italy well beyond their scheduled dates of departure for the United Kingdom, the assault shipping situation alone argued for a postponement of
CHAPTER XI
"We are now beginning to see the full beauty of the Marshall strategy," Sir Alan Brooke bitterly noted in his diary. "It is quite heart-breaking when we see what we might have done this year if our strategy had not been distorted by the Americans."3 The British Chiefs of Staff served notice on Washington that to a dangerous pitch. The reaction in at the forthcoming conferences they inLondon to the twin crises in Italy and tended to bring to a head the whole the Aegean has been noted earlier.2 The issue of the relation between current worsening situation in the Mediterra- operations in the Mediterranean and the nean, combined with Washington's re- various preparatory deployments and refusal to consent to the emergency meas- deployments for OVERLORD agreed upon ures the British proposed to meet it, at Quebec in August. They then drew had produced among the British leaders up a careful statement of their position not merely resentment, but a hardening on OVERLORD and Mediterranean stratedetermination to do something about it. gy, together with a set of proposals for action in the Mediterranean theater to The meetings were held from 22 November be placed before the Americans at the through 7 December 1943. Roosevelt and Churchill conference. To these proposals, which met at Cairo (22-27 November) for the first time in were fully expected to produce a showa formal conference with the President of China, Generalissimo Chiang Kai-shek. At Tehran (28 down, perhaps even a crisis in Allied November-1 December) they met for the first time relations, the Prime Minister gave his with Marshal Stalin. From 2-7 December the West4 hearty endorsement. ern leaders held additional conferences at Cairo. For preparations for these conferences, see Matloff, In Washington a similar mood preStrategic Planning, 1943-44, Chapter XV, and vailed. General Morgan, who had been Churchill, Closing the Ring, Chapter 17. For discussions of grand strategy see Matloff, Strategic exposed to it during his recent visit, warned his superiors in London of Planning, 1943-44, Chapter XVI; Ehrman, Grand Strategy V, 155-202; Richard M. Leighton, "OVER"American indignation at certain trends
1
LORD Versus the Mediterranean at the Cairo-Tehran Conferences," in Greenfield, ed., Command Decisions, pp. 255-85; and Leighton, "OVERLORD Revisited: An Interpretation of American Strategy in the European War 1942-1944," American Historical Review, LXVIII, 4 (July. 1963), 919-37. 2 See above, ch. IX.
3 Diary entry for 25 Oct 43, quoted in Arthur Bryant, Triumph in the West, copyright 1959 by Arthur Bryant, p. 36. This and later quotations from this book are reprinted by permission of Doubleday & Company, Inc. See also pp. 30-44. 4 Ehrman, Grand Strategy V, 118-21.
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GLOBAL LOGISTICS AND STRATEGY: 1943-1945 strong paternal attachment to the crossChannel invasion concept, the sense of impending crisis was particularly intense. OVERLORD was considered the legitimate offspring and reincarnation
of ROUNDUP, and for the Army staff had become a symbol of the American way in war and of the dominant doctrines of American strategic thinkingthe direct approach, the power drive, the setpiece attack, meticulous preparation and massive logistical supportthe antithesis of the opportunism and indirection that the Americans believed to be the British way. OVERLORD seemed to promise an escape from the involutions of Mediterranean strategy and the quicksands of Mediterranean politics, a means of forcing the war in Europe to a climax and quick victory, thus enabling the United States to turn its full power against Japan. The expectation of an attack on the OVERLORD strategy was in itself sufficient to arouse strong emotions.7 Behind this feeling lay two and a half years of growing distrust of British motives, embittered by the pent-up impatience and frustration growing out of a drift of events in the European war that seemed somehow usually to have acceded to British aims and perhaps even responded to British manipulation. According to this view, reflected in various staff studies and position papers drawn up in preparation for the forthcoming conferences, Churchill had been the real architect and Roosevelt only a pawn in the postponement of the cross-Channel invasion in summer of 1942, in violation of British pledges made in April. As a consequence, invasion preparations
7 The following analysis is based largely on staff papers in ABC 381 Strategy Sec Papers (7 Jan 43), 131-59 and 160-95.
in Allied strategy in the Mediterra5 nean." The feeling was hardly new, but it was more intense than before and it colored American attitudes toward the substantive issues to a degree not evident in earlier pre-conference periods when essentially the same issues had been on the block. American indignation had developed from a rankling suspicion, quickened by British actions and attitudes since midsummer, that the British secretly intended somehow to sidetrack, weaken, or indefinitely postpone OVERLORD, subordinating it to peripheral and indecisive ventures in the Mediterranean that would serve their own long-range political purposes. Now, at long last, the true aims of the British seemed about to come out in the open. Not only the sharpness of British reaction to the crisis in Italy, but, even more, the readiness with which they sought to link the fortunes of OVERLORD with the developing situation in the Mediterranean, combined with the ominous warning that the issue would be raised at Cairo and Tehran, seemed to leave no room for doubt that the whole OVERLORD-centered strategy was under attack. And, for all the misgivings the prospect inspired in Washington, the staffs faced the showdown boldly and with feeling akin to relief.6
Perfidious Albion and Inscrutable Ivan
In the Army staff, which since the days of the old ROUNDUP plan had felt a
5 (1) Ltr, Barker to Handy, 17 Nov 43, Exec 5, Item 15, folder 3, Case E20. (2) See above, ch. X. 6 See, for example, OPD Draft Memo, CofS for President, 8 Nov 43, sub: Conduct of European War, OPD Exec 9, Book 13, Case 81.
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In its present frame of mind the Army staff was inclined to gloss over or ignore many aspects of Anglo-American collaboration since Pearl Harbor. Staff papers reviewing the history of that collaboration made no mention of British efforts late in 1942 to keep alive the American invasion build-up in the British Isles at a time when the Americans seemed willing to let it die, of the rise in British production of landing craft during the first half of 1943 while U.S. output declined, of the assignment to OVERLORD of surplus British landing craft in the Mediterranean while surplus American craft were retained for possible landings in southern France, of persistent British efforts against American opposition to strengthen the planned cross-Channel assault, or of the immense investment the British had already poured into the invasion preparations. Above all, the staff tended to ignore the implications of the full mobilization of British manpower, which made imperative a major effort to defeat Germany in 1944 because thereafter the scale of Britain's war effort must inevitably diminish.8 In the eyes of the Army staff, the British attitude toward the BOLERO program during the past year and a half appeared "indifferent" and "cool" in contrast to their "enthusiasm" for Mediterranean operations and their "alacrity and resourcefulness" in seeking to increase the forces in that theater.9
8
1940-43, pp. 482-86, and above, chs. VII-X. (2) Ehrman. Grand Strategy V, 42-47. 9 (1)OPD Draft Memo, CofS for President, 8 Nov 43. (2) SS 180, 7 Nov 43, U.N. Overall Strategy in Europe-Africa Area, ABC 381 Strategy Sec Papers (7 Jan 43) 160-95, Tab 180. (3) OPD paper [circa 12 Nov 43], Course of Action at SEXTANT, OPD Exec 9, Book 13, Case 119. (4) Greenfield, American Strategy in World War II: A Reconsideration, pp. 41-45.
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GLOBAL LOGISTICS AND STRATEGY: 1943-1945 the Army staff had become convinced that British leaders were deliberately plotting to create a situation in which abandonment, dilution, or indefinite postponement of the cross-Channel operation would appear to be unavoidably dictated by circumstances. The Western Allies' contribution to the war against Hitler would be limited to strategic air bombardment and indecisive ground operations along the southern periphery of Europe, leaving to the Russians the
The Army staff therefore discounted heavily the assurances of British leaders, from Churchill on down, that they fully intended to go through with the crossChannel invasion, and branded as disingenuous the rationale of their Mediterranean strategy as essential to the success of OVERLORD. In the context of this belief, British references to the conditions in the OVERLORD plan stipulating that the
operation should not be undertaken if
German strength in the West rose above certain levels seemed to take on an omin- task, for which they had displayed such ous significanceeven though the U.S. talent, of crushing the German Army. Chiefs of Staff had themselves accepted Those who held this view of British inthe conditions along with the plan. tentions accepted also its corollaries Churchill's insistence upon these condi- that the British were willing to gamble tions at Quebec caused particular con- in Europe against the near certainties cern. "The British," one staff paper ob- of slowing momentum, drag-out, even served, "always extremely cool toward stalemate; and that, in order to hoodOVERLORD, have repeatedly stated the wink their allies, they were prepared to conditions which must exist before see the great invasion build-up in the OVERLORD can be mounted. They feel British Isles carried to completion, with that it is doubtful that all of these con- attendant deprivation of the war against Japan, even though in the end the whole ditions will be met."10 Behind the British reservations, it was massive effort would go for naught. Staff widely believed, lurked a fear of coming papers foretold the eventual role of the to grips with the German Army on invasion forces in hyperbolically gloomy ground of its own choosing, a desire to terms: "a gigantic deception plan and wait until the process of defeat and ex- an occupying force"or "a huge military haustion on other fronts crumbled the force that is to sit idle awaiting either defenses of western Europe from within. the achievement of military victory by OVERLORD would then be replaced by our Russian allies, or the success of a RANKINa mop-up action, or, in the gamble on political and psychological President's words, "a railroad inva- disintegration within the German cita12 sion."11 An Anglophobe minority on del of Europe." In the midst of these forebodings, the Washington staffs in the second week of SS 180, 7 Nov 43. ( 1 ) I b i d . (2) OPD Paper [circa 12 Nov 43], November received a rude shock. Gen10
11
Course of Action at SEXTANT. (3) SS 133/3, 4 Nov 43, Survey of Conditions Prerequisite to Launching of OVERLORD, ABC 381 Strategy Sec Papers (7 Jan 43) 131-59, Tab 133/3. (4) OPD Paper [circa 12 Nov 43], U.S. Courses of Action in Case SEXTANT Decisions Do Not Guarantee OVERLORD, OPD Exec 5, Item 12a. (5) JCS 533/6, 16 Nov 43, rpt by JPS, title: Recom-
mended Line of Action. ... (6) For Roosevelt's remark see Min, 124th mtg JCS, 17 Nov 43. 12 (1) OPD Paper [circa 12 Nov 43], sub: U.S. Course of Action. ... (2) OPD Draft Memo, CofS for President, 8 Nov 43.
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joint Russian and British demand at Tehran for a major shift to the Mediterranean or, worse, to the eastern Mediterraneanat the expense of the 14 cross-Channel invasion. There was a flurry of staff activity. Old staff studies on Balkan operations were resurrected and new ones prepared. All of them led to the familiar conclusions, summed up in a recommendation already made to the President just before the arrival of Deane's message, that "the Balkan-Eastern Mediterranean approach to the European Fortress is unsuitable," and that no additional Allied resources should be committed to that region even to secure Turkish intervention.15 Facing what threatened to be the major crisis in Allied strategy since the ARCADIA Conference almost two years earlier, the Army staff was resolute but pessimistic. Through the studies prepared for General Marshall on the eve of the Cairo-Tehran conferences ran one dominant theme: the unacceptable strategic consequences and logistical costs of shifting the main effort in 1944 to the Mediterranean. In the present advanced state of preparations for OVERLORD, General Marshall told the President on the way to Cairo, such a reorientation would leave more than a million tons of American war materiel stocked in the United Kingdom and would disrupt an administrative apparatus reaching all the way back to the Rocky Moun14 See Memo, Col Lincoln for CofS, 10 Nov 43, sub: Msg from Gen Deane . . . , ABC 381 Strategy Sec Papers (7 Jan 43) 160-95, Tab 181/1. 15 (1) Memo, Adm Leahy for President, 9 Nov 43, sub: U.N. Strategy in Balkan-E Mediterranean Region, OPD Exec 9, Book 13. (2) JCS 558, 1 Nov 43, and JCS 558/1, 5 Nov 43, same title. (3) See also studies and corresp on Balkan operations in ABC 381 Strategy Sec Papers (7 Jan 43) 160-95,andin OPD Exec 9, Book 13.
276
tains without producing any decisive military results or even assured help to the Russians.16 Curiously enough, however, the American staffs explored no alternative courses of action (other than a shift to the Pacific) or possible bases for compromise with the British and Russians. In particular they appear to have made no examination of the contingency of which the British Chiefs had given clear forewarning: a proposal for a short postponement of OVERLORD, with its possible advantages in terms of added time for transatlantic deployment of troops, materiel, and, above all, assault shipping. To the expected Anglo-Soviet proposals the Army staff had, in fact, only one recommended answer: abandon OVERLORD, continue strategic bombing against Germany and limited offensives in the Mediterranean, and go all out in the Pacific. The pessimism of the staffs apparently infected their chiefs. In the final shipboard conferences with the President en route to Cairo, the JCS spoke almost as though British proposals for an invasion of the Balkans were already before them. General Marshall told the President:
In their formal position on the strategy of the European war for 1944, then, the U.S. Chiefs of Staff stood pat on the basic grand design centering in OVERLORD with a 1 May 1944 target date as "the primary U.S.-British ground and air effort against Germany," preceded by the final phases of the combined bomber offensive, intensifying according to plan. Emphasis on the role of air power was made even more explicit than heretofore. OVERLORD'S principal objective was stated to be to secure the Channel ports and to establish bases for Allied air power on the Continent, preparatory to launching a major air offensive "designed to precipitate the collapse of enemy resistance prior to a general assault on the hostile ground forces in the advance into the heart of Germany." Balanced forces were to be held in readiness for a quick move across the Channel before D-day if the opportunity presented. With respect to the Mediterranean, the U.S. Chiefs reaffirmed the principles of limited liability and subordination to OVERLORD: in Italy maximum pressure with forces already allocated in order to create conditions favorable to OVERLORD and an "eventual" entry into southern France; in the eastern Mediterranean no We have to see this Balkan matter finfurther operations other than minor ished up ... the British might like to ditch commando raids, bombing of selected OVERLORD at this time in order to undertake operations in a country with practi- targets, and supply of guerrilla forces, cally no communications. If they insist on "so long ... as the present strategic situany such proposal we could say t h a t . . . we ation in this area remains substantially
will pull out and go into the Pacific with all our forces.17
16 (1) Min, JCS mtg with President [on USS Iowa], 19 Nov 43, OPD Exec 2, Item 11. (2) OPD Paper,
11 Nov 43, Opns in Mediterranean, ABC 381 Strategy Sec Papers (7 Jan 43) 160-95. (3) JCS 533/7,
U.S.-Br Stf Conf, SEXTANT, ASF Plng Div. This memo directed the preparation, on a few hours' notice, of a staff study on the logistical implications of a major redeployment to the Pacific beginning
in January 1944.
277
They were prepared, they asserted, to carry out the cross-Channel invasion "as soon as the German strength in France and the general war situation gives us a
(1)CCS 398, memo by U.S. CsofS, 18 Nov 43, title: Specific Opns for the Defeat of Germany and Her Satellites 1943-44. The paper also alluded to plans for operations in collaboration with the USSR aimed at bringing Sweden into the war in the event that OVERLORD could not be executed and for coordination with the USSR in other areas. (2) For an account of negotiations and planning on these matters at the Moscow Conference and subsequently, see Matloff, Strategic Planning, 1943-44, pp. 296-99,
good prospect of success," but they insisted that unless the Allies pursued an aggressive course of action in the Mediterranean during the coming winter and
and John L. Snell, Illusion and Necessity: The Diplomacy of Globar War, 1939-45 (Boston: Houghton Mifflin Co., 1963), pp. 141-42.
278
spring, such conditions were unlikely 19 to develop. After this ominous manifesto the program of Mediterranean operations that it served to introduce was somewhat anticlimactic. The British proposed that the Allies should advance in Italy only as far as the Pisa-Rimini line; extend more aid to the Balkan partisan forces in the form of weapons, supplies, technical assistance, and commando raids; try to bring Turkey into the war before the end of the year; and, with Turkish help, capture Rhodes, clear the Aegean, and open the Dardanelles to Allied shipping. Chastened by their recent setback in the Aegean, the British made Turkish intervention a prerequisite for the attack on Rhodes, thus assuring adequate air cover from the mainland. German garrisons on other Aegean islands would be smoked out by air attacks or left to starve. All forces required, including air, were already on hand in the Middle East, and the assault shipping, which would have to come from the Mediterranean pool, would be needed for only a short time. Beyond Rhodes stretched a vista that Churchill hoped would attract the Russians. With Allied supplies flowing to Turkey and through the Straits into the Black Sea, Allied air squadrons ensconced in Anatolia, and Allied antiaircraft and technical units stiffening the Turkish army, Turkey might attack Bulgaria with reasonable hope of success. Rumania and Hungary, already threatened by the USSR from the northeast, would be caught in a squeeze, and the
19 (1) CCS 409, note by Br COS, 25 Nov 43, title: OVERLORD and the Mediterranean. (2) Ehrman, Grand Strategy V, 109-12.
686. (2) CCS 409, 23 Nov 43. (3) Matloff, Strategic Planning, 1943-44, pp. 278-79, 339. 21 Min, 129th mtg JCS, 24 Nov 43. 22 (1) JCS 611, rpt by JPS, 26 Nov 43, OVERLORD and the Mediterranean. (2) Mins, 127th mtg JCS, 22 Nov 43; 132d mtg, 28 Nov 43. (3) Min, 2d Plenary Mtg, SEXTANT, 24 Nov 43. (4) Ehrman, Grand Strategy V, 104-21, 165-67. (5) CCS 409, 25 Nov 43.
279
23 Diary entry, 25 Nov 43, quoted in Bryant, Triumph in the West, p. 57.
24 Min, JCS mtg, SEXTANT, 26 Nov 43. 25 (1) Min, 131st mtg CCS, 26 Nov 43. (2) Min, JCS mtg, SEXTANT, 25 Nov 43. (3) JCS 612, 27 Nov 43.
in effect, superimposed upon it a drive to the Po), was the impact upon OVERLORD that would result from the retention of assault shipping in the Mediterranean. The British timetable"Rome in January, Rhodes in February" terminated in a 1 July OVERLORD. By Eisenhower's own reckoning his program would delay OVERLORD until 1 August; the American staff thought it would rule out a full-scale cross-Channel invasion in 1944 altogether. Their pessimism on this score owed something to Eisenhower's own analysis in a recent message of the immediate outlook for the drive on Rome, which the JCS had hoped to expedite by their recent acquiescence in the theater's request for delaying the departure of the 68 OVERLORD LST's. It now appeared that the planned amphibious landings south of Rome could not be launched until the main drive had reached a point, in the general area of Frosinone (a little more than halfway between Naples and Rome), from which it could link up with the beachhead within 48 hours, since winter weather made over-the-beach maintenance precarious. Field commanders had no hope of getting so far until mid-December at the earliest, and they were worried over the growing weariness of the troops. Eisenhower emphasized that an amphibious hook was the only alternative to exhausting frontal attacks, which would require more divisions than he now had and would again, as in the initial build-up in Italy, tie up assault shipping in prolonged ferrying of troops, vehicles, and supplies. Yet he seemed not at all confident of carrying off the operation successfully. "In any event," his message had concluded with disturbing ambiguity, "it is essential that these
280
LST's remain in the area." In his testimony at Cairo he indicated that he would like to have, over and above the larger numbers of craft needed for build-up and maintenance, a full division assault lift constantly on hand to slash around the enemy's coastal flanks whenever opportunity offered. Admittedly "not sure of his figures," he said he would have to keep all this shipping, along with some additional personnel transports, "for a considerable part of the winter ... at least until the end of January." His staff officers at Cairo, more cautious, said "indefinitely."27 Regardless of the pros and cons of the British Mediterranean program, the Americans bridled at the British Chiefs' remarks on the "sanctity" of OVERLORD. The Joint Planners professed astonishment that the British could fail to appreciate "from our common experience to date that without a target date, firmly and honestly accepted by all, no major operation can be mounted successfully." To them the British attitude seemed clearly to betray an intention "to relegate OVERLORD to an operation of opportunity."28 The Americans had
(1) Memo by CinC AFHQ, 22 Nov 43, Incl to CCS 379/7, 27 Nov 43, title: Retention of LST's in Mediterranean. (2) Fifth Army History, Part IV, Cassino and Anzio, pp. 11-12. 27 (1) Min, 131st mtg CCS, 26 Nov 43; 132 mtg, 30 Nov 43. (2) Min, JCS mtgs, SEXTANT, 24, 25, 26, 28 Nov 43. (3) JCS 611/1, rpt by JLC, 26 Nov 43, title: OVERLORD and the Mediterranean. (4) Min, 2d Plenary Mtg, SEXTANT, 24 Nov 43. (5) American and British estimated timetables for Mediterranean operations and ship movements differed considerably. The U.S. staffs allowed more time for intratheater movement, repairs, and rehearsals attendant on the Rhodes operation, and less time for passage to the United Kingdom and training and rehearsals for OVERLORD, than did the British. 28 JCS 611, rpt by JPS, title: OVERLORD and the Mediterranean, app. A.
26
also, however, to consider an alternative proposal by the British that held promise of permitting the Rhodes assault without postponing OVERLORD: namely, to transfer the needed assault lift from India at the expense of the planned Allied offensive in Burma.
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the form of landings in the Andaman it would provide a base for future amIslands, southwest of Rangoon, in March phibious landings on the mainland and or April 1944. This operation (BUCfor bombing the new Bangkok-MoulCANEER) had been tentatively endorsed mein railroad, which gave the Japanese by both the British and the U.S. Chiefs in Burma direct overland connections 31 of Staff, although it, along with the oth- with the Gulf of Thailand. Churchill er features of the general plan, still made no secret of his distaste for BUCawaited formal approval at the highest CANEER and had earlier declared that if levels. BUCCANEER was, then, the am- he could not have CULVERIN he would phibious part of the general plan send the British assault shipping back (CHAMPION) submitted to Chiang at to the Mediterranean. At Cairo he exCairo.30 panded on the idea: If the Americans The plan immediately ran into heavy would not accept CULVERIN, and if they weather. Hardly anyone, in fact, had refused to postpone OVERLORD the few much enthusiasm for BUCCANEER, except weeks necessary to carry out the attack perhaps Chiang, who had not been in- on Rhodes and move assault shipping formed of its objective but may have back to the Mediterranean, then why learned of it through private channels; not take the shipping needed for Rhodes in any event, while at Cairo he sug- from southeast Asia? BUCCANEER might gested the Andamans as a likely target be postponed rather than canceled. for an amphibious operation. The most "There really cannot be much hurry," serious defect of BUCCANEER was that it he remarked. "The capture of the Anseemed to have little connection with damans is a trivial prize compared with the mainland operations it was intended Rhodes, and also it can be undertaken to support, and hardly represented a at any time later in the year."32 threat serious enough to provoke a That Churchill was willing to enterstrong enemy reaction. The U.S. Chiefs tain the idea of carrying out BUCCANEER of Staff preferred it to CULVERIN, but at all, despite his aversion to it, could were not committed to any particular be attributed to the position taken at operation. Admiral King favored a land- Cairo by Chiang Kai-shek. The Generaling on the mainland near Moulmein issimo immediately branded the whole with a view to cutting across the isthmus Burma plan as inadequate. As a price to Bangkok, but such an undertaking for his participation in a more ambitious was not thought feasible with the assault one, moreover, he demanded an immeshipping available. Evidently the most diate increase in the airlift far beyond that could be said for BUCCANEER was that
(1)Ehrman, Grand Strategy V, 148-53. (2) Charles F. Romanus and Riley Sunderland, Stilwell's Command Problems, UNITED STATES ARMY IN WORLD WAR II (Washington, 1956), ch. II. (3) Vice-Admiral the Earl Mountbatten, Report to the Combined Chiefs of Staff by the Supreme Allied Commander, Southeast Asia, 1943-1945 (London: Her Majesty's Stationery Office, 1951) (hereafter cited as Mountbatten Report), p. 27. (4) Matloff, Strategic Planning, 1943-44, chs. XIV-XVI.
30
(1) Mountbatten Report, p. 27. (2) Romanus and Sunderland, Stilwell's Command Problems, p. 51. (3) King and Whitehill, Fleet Admiral King, pp. 50910. (4) Ehrman, Grand Strategy V, 162. (5) Min, 129th mtg CCS, 24 Nov 43. 32 (1) Msg, Prime Minister for Br COS Com, 21 Nov 43, quoted in Churchill, Closing the Ring, p. 686. (2) Ehrman, Grand Strategy V, 114, 159. (3) Min, 2d Plenary Mtg, SEXTANT, 24 Nov 43. (4) Romanus and Sunderland, Stilwell's Command Problems, p. 66. (5) Min, 131st mtg JCS, 26 Nov 43.
31
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the capacity of available transport aircraft and explicit guarantees from the British that the land operations would be supported simultaneously by major co-ordinated naval and amphibious attacks. Chiang's attitude caused the Western military leaders to close ranks.33 A moderate increase in airlift was ordered, but the Chinese were told unequivocally that they must choose between an offensive in Burma and expanded ferry operations, since both competed for transport aircraft. As for BUCCANEER, the U.S. Chiefs of Staff did not at first push hard for it, agreeing to postpone debate pending decisions yet to be taken on the broader strategy of the war against Japan and the British role in it. In the CCS, therefore, Chiang's demand for an amphibious operation was carefully and noncommittally "noted," with merely a promise of future "consideration." Churchill himself sharply challenged Chiang's view of the interdependence of the naval and amphibious phases of CHAMPION and the land operations. He pointed out that in the absence of accessible bases and because of the time needed for redeployment from the Mediterranean British naval forces would not be able to provide direct support for the landings. Finally, he told Chiang emphatically that no definite undertaking could then be given to carry out an amphibious operation in conjunction with the land campaign.34
(1) See Marshall's outburst quoted in Joseph W. Stilwell, The Stilwell Papers, arranged and edited by Theodore H. White (New York: William Sloan Associates, Inc., 1948), p. 255. (2) Min, 129th mtg CCS, 24 Nov 43. (3) Min, 130th mtg JCS, 25 Nov 43. 34 (1) Churchill, Closing the Ring, p. 328. (2) Ehrman, Grand Strategy V, 162, 164-65, 571. (3) Min, 128th mtg CCS, 23 Nov 43. (4) Romanus and Sunderland, Stilwell's Command Problems, p. 65. (5) Min, 1st Plenary Mtg, SEXTANT, 23 Nov 43.
33
accepts this as fact (Grand Strategy V, 165). Matloff (Strategic Planning, 1943-44, p. 350) noncommittally cites Churchill's statement in the reference noted.
It may be significant that the President, in the interview with Marshall and Stilwell mentioned above, seemed from his remarks to have had the Andamans operation on his mind. The most convincing evidence is to be found, as shown below, in the abrupt change in the attitude and position of the JCS on the morning of 26 November. See also Romanus and Sunderland, Stilwell's Command Problems, pp. 63-71, and Bryant, Triumph in the West, pp. 63, 73.
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by the addition of some 22 new LST's, not to mention 10 more now allocated but unlikely to reach the United Kingdom in time for a May assaultand this without encroaching on Pacific allocations of February and later output.38 Final decision had to wait, then, until the Russians showed their hand. At the last Cairo meeting with the British (on 26 November), the U.S. Chiefs of Staff stressed the sanctity of BUCCANEER, but were strangely noncommittal on OVERLORD and the Mediterranean. Sir Alan Brooke asked them whether they understood that "if the capture of Rhodes and Rome and Operation BUCCANEER were carried out, the date of OVERLORD must go back?" Marshall assured him they did. Would it not be better, urged Brooke perplexedly, to postpone BUCCANEER rather than OVERLORD? What if the Russians demanded both a strong Mediterranean offensive and an early OVERLORD? The situation had become embarrassing. Finally, Admiral Leahy offered a broad hint: the U.S. Chiefs of Staff "were not in a position to agree to the abandonment of Operation BUCCANEER. This could only be decided by
(1) See below, Chapter XII, for results of this inquiry. (2) Msg, FDR [Roosevelt] to Byrnes, Dir OWM, 23 Nov 43, OPD Exec 5, Item 14. (3) Msg, Byrnes to President, 25 Nov 43, in JCS Memo for Info 171, 27 Nov 43, ABC 561 (30 Aug 43). (4) Mowry, Landing Craft and the War Production Board, pp. 30-32. For other indications that the American staff at Cairo was seriously considering a postponement of OVERLORD, see (5) Memo, Col A. D. Reid for Gen Handy, 26 Nov 43, sub: Movement of OVERLORD Divs, OPD Exec 5, Item 15, folder 3, Case E17, containing a reference to a "four to six weeks" delay in OVERLORD; and (6) Memo, Gen Tansey for Gen Handy, no date, sub: Production of Ldg Cft, OPD Exec 5, Case E15, showing estimated production of LST's, LCI(L)'s, and LCT's under the existing program for April, May, and June.
38
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meant as much as about two months' delay in OVERLORD?"40 Up to this point the atmosphere had been cordial. To the pleased surprise of the Western leaders, Stalin opened his remarks with an almost casual promise that the Soviet Union would intervene in the war against Japan as soon as Germany was defeated. This statement confirmed and strengthened the more tentative offers the Soviet Premier had made on earlier occasions. His next words brought the discussion abruptly to a tense climax. He declared bluntly that to him the whole Mediterranean program appeared to involve an excesEnter Anvil, Compromise sive dispersion of forces. OVERLORD, he on Overlord said, should be made the "basic" operaAt the opening general meeting at tion for 1944; and all others, however Tehran on 28 November, the three prin- attractive, should be regarded as divercipals, at Stalin's brusque suggestion, sions. He saw only one useful possibility promptly got down to business. Roose- in the Mediterranean, an attack on southvelt noted in his opening remarks the ern France followed by a drive northpossibility that OVERLORD might have ward toward an eventual junction with to be postponed "for one month or two the main OVERLORD forcesthe classic or three," and spoke of the operations pincers strategy, which the Russians had in the Aegean, in the Adriatic, and in employed so often in their own theater. Italythat were being considered to re- Why not, he blandly suggested, suspend lieve German pressure on the Eastern the Italian campaign immediately in orFront. OVERLORD, he pointed out, would der to release forces for this operation, draw off to the west more German divi- and then launch OVERLORD two or three 41 sions than any of the Mediterranean ven- months later? Whatever the reasons for the sudden tures, and he urged that, if possible, it not be delayed "beyond May or June." evaporation of Stalin's recently displayed Churchill presented the British case, interest in Mediterranean operations elaborating on the promising opportun- and for his return to the familiar deities that could be exploited in the east(1) Min, 1st Plenary Mtg EUREKA, 28 Nov 43. ern Mediterranean without detriment (2) See also Robert E. Sherwood, Roosevelt and Hopeither to the campaign in Italy or to kins: An Intimate History (New York: Harper & Bros., 1948), pp. 777-81. Marshall and Arnold were OVERLORD. How would Marshal Stalin, not present, having misunderstood the time of the he asked, regard this prospect "even if it meeting. According to Sherwood, Roosevelt also
40
the President and the Prime Minister." There was little more to say. The Americans accepted the British program as a basis for discussion at Tehran but on the contradictory assumption that it "would in no way interfere with the carrying out of Operation BUCCANEER." The British departed with the distinct impression, as Lt. Gen. Sir Hastings L. Ismay reported to the Prime Minister, that the Americans, now rigid against any tampering with BUCCANEER, contemplated a postponement of OVERLORD "with equanimity."39
(1) Min, 131st mtg CCS, 26 Nov 43. (2) Ehrman, Grand Strategy V, 166-67.
39
mentioned the possibility of landings in southern France. 41 (1) Min, 1st Plenary Mtg, EUREKA, 28 Nov 43.
(2) Ehrman, Grand Strategy V, 174-76.
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could be worked into the crowded schedule only by postponing OVERLORDfor which, up to this point, Stalin had stipulated no date.43 The Soviet Premier's lack of interest in what he may have regarded as mere details in the grand design of a long-awaited major second front in the West was understandable. Following Roosevelt's and Churchill's rather
careful exposition of those details, how-
sure against the Germans and, as Churchill promptly asserted, for the British the capture of Rome was both strategically and politically imperative. Stalin seemed, moreover, not to have grasped the constraints that shipping and
landing craft placed upon the timing
ever, Stalin's analysis of the problem must have appeared to the Western military leaders present to reflect an appalling ignorance of, or indifference to, the hard realities of amphibious warfare. At this juncture Roosevelt interposed. Stalin's proposals, he said, had raised a
serious problem of timing. A choice must be made: either undertake Churchill's Aegean operations, which would delay
lack of shipping to deploy them elsewhere. He missed the point that the southern France operation and the landings in the Adriatic had been suggested
as mutually exclusive alternatives, and
that the Rhodes operation was very modest in scope. When Churchill reminded him of this last fact, Stalin conceded
OVERLORD a month or two or, as the Soviet Premier had suggested, "attack [southern] France one or two months before the first of May and then conduct OVERLORD on the original date." (Italics supplied.) His own preference, he added, was for the latter alternative.44
Churchill was caught off balance. Nothing in the President's earlier remarks had suggested any intention to
that on those terms the capture of Rhodes might be worth undertaking. But it was obvious that if both the Rome and Rhodes operations were to be carried out, or even only the latter, the proposed landing in southern France two or three months before OVERLORD
As Herbert Feis points out (Churchill, Roosevelt, Stalin: The War They Waged and The Peace They Sought [Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University
42
insist on adherence to the 1 May target date for OVERLORD. On the contrary, Roosevelt had appeared to accept the
idea of postponement, urging only that
Press, 1957], p. 258), since October the Russians had suffered a temporary setback on the front southwest of Kiev, and this may have made Stalin more wary of an Anglo-American offensive in the eastern Mediterranean, which might lead to an extension of Western influence into southeastern Europe before the arrival of the advancing Soviet forces.
it be brief; and, when the Cairo meetings ended, his military advisers had seemed resigned to the inevitability of some delay. By now implying that Stalin had demanded a 1 May date (although he had not, in fact, done so), the Presi(1) Churchill, Closing the Ring, p. 355. (2) Ehrman, Grand Strategy V, 175. 44 (1) Min, 1st Plenary Mtg, EUREKA, 28 Nov 43. (2) Ehrman, Grand Strategy V, 176.
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dent may have hoped to enlist support for an early and definitely scheduled invasion. If so, it was an adroit maneuver, for Stalin failed to challenge the innuendo. Its significance was not lost on Churchill, who immediately protested the idea of condemning twenty or more divisions in the Mediterranean to inactivity "solely for the purpose of keeping the May date for OVERLORD," and chided the President for the "rigid timing" of the program he had proposed.45 Stalin had shown his hand. For the Americans, the nightmare of an AngloSoviet demand for a shift to the Mediterranean had been dissipated in the comforting assurance that the Soviet
45 (1) Min, 1st Plenary Mtg, EUREKA, 28 Nov 43. (2) Ehrman, Grand Strategy V, 176.
leaders once more stood solidly for the primacy of OVERLORD and shared the American aversion to operations in the eastern Mediterranean. That the Russians shared American suspicions of British motives quickly became apparent when, in the course of the following day (29 November), both Churchill and Brooke, under polite but persistent questioning by their hosts, were repeatedly obliged to go through the ritual of af46 firming their loyalty to OVERLORD. At a meeting of the military representatives on the same day the Soviet representa(1) Min, Military Mtg, EUREKA, 29 Nov 43. (2) Min, 2d Plenary Mtg, EUREKA, 29 Nov 43. (3) See also Churchill's account of Stalin's castigation of General Brooke at the banquet on the evening of 30 November, in Closing the Ring, pages 386-88.
46
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tive, Marshal Klementy Voroshiloff, indicated no very specific notions as to what should be done in the Mediterranean or when. In answer to Sir Alan Brooke's observation that a landing in southern France so long in advance of OVERLORD might be crushed before the latter could get well under way, Voroshiloff merely reasserted rather woodenly that the operation would be a valuable complement to OVERLORD. Anyway, he added, Stalin did not insist on a southern France operation. All other undertakings in the Mediterranean, "such as Rome, Rhodes, and what not," were diversions that, if carried out at all, should be "planned to assist OVERLORD and certainly not to hinder it." Evidently the Soviet Premier had no intention of becoming embroiled in Western squabbles over Mediterranean strategy. According to Voroshiloff, however, Stalin did insist on OVERLORD and "on the date already planned."47 Thus the issue was finally joined on the timing of OVERLORD. On this same 29 November Roosevelt, now committed to a May OVERLORD and evidently confident that with Soviet support he could win, sent a message to Washington tardily instructing Byrnes to call off the
the 23d. "The increase in critical types . . . ," the President explained, "does not become effective soon enough to justify change in present construction programs."48 At the plenary meeting that afternoon, Stalin set forth his position
Min, Military Mtg, EUREKA, 29 Nov 43. (1) Quoted in Mowry, Landing Craft and the War Production Board, p. 31. (2) For acceleration of landing craft production in response to Roosevelt's message of the 23d, see below, Chapter XIII.
48 47
in the language of an ultimatum: OVERLORD "must be carried out by the limiting date." He also pressed for an early appointment of a commander for the operation. Soviet forces, he promised, would match the invasion from the west by a simultaneous offensive from the east.49 Churchill held the floor for most of the session with a spirited defense of the British Mediterranean program. He vainly tried to draw out Stalin on his proposed southern France operation, for which, as he pointed out, no plan had yet been drafted; as Brooke had already done, he warned that if the attack were too weak or launched too early, it would invite disaster. On the other hand, if a two-division amphibious lift could be left in the Mediterranean, bright possibilities opened upturning movements along the Italian coasts, then a swift capture of Rhodes, finally, an invasion of southern France in conjunction with OVERLORD. OVERLORD might have to be set back by six or eight weeks, or (here Churchill introduced the alternative for the first time at Tehran) the needed assault shipping could be brought back from India. Anyway, Churchill concluded, if the handful of vessels needed for Rhodes could not somehow be found, proposed speed-up in landing craft pro- it was unreasonable to suppose that the duction about which he had inquired on larger number required for an invasion
of southern France or any other diversionary operation in support of OVERLORD could be provided. His reminder that OVERLORD could not be undertaken at all unless there were a reasonable ex(1)Min, 2d Plenary Mtg, EUREKA, 29 Nov 43. (2) According to Churchill, Stalin told him at lunch on the 30th that he wanted OVERLORD in May or in June in order for it to synchronize with the Soviet offensive. In the event the Soviet offensive started on 23 June. See Churchill, Closing the Ring, pp. 380, 383.
49
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on that basis. General Eisenhower would be allowed to keep the 68 OVERbrought from Stalin a sarcastic query: LORD LST's in the Mediterranean until Would OVERLORD be ruled out if there 15 January in order to ensure the early were 13 instead of 12 mobile German capture of Rome. By British calculadivisions in France and the Low Coun- tions, this meant that OVERLORD could tries on D-day? Churchill assured him not be earlier than Junebut to satisfy it would not.50 Stalin the British Chiefs of staff were Stalin made no attempt to answer willing to define this as "in May." They Churchill's arguments. He ignored the were also prepared to support an operaallusion to BUCCANEER, restated his de- tion against southern France. Most immand for a May OVERLORD, and indi- portant, they would agree that no ascated his preference for a southern sault shipping earmarked for OVERLORD France invasion to be launched two or should be retained in the Mediterranean three months before OVERLORDor, if specifically for the Rhodes operation. this were not possible, simultaneously The key to this last concession lay in with OVERLORD or even a little later. All their final proposition: as a result of other operations in the Mediterranean Stalin's momentous pledge on the 28th he regarded as diversions. Roosevelt fin- to enter the war against Japan after Gerally interposed to suggest a date for many's defeat, they argued, the role of OVERLORD "certainly not later than 15 China in the coalition had been autoor 20 May, if possible." Churchill matically reduced and the whole case for promptly and emphatically dissented, an offensive in Burma in spring 1944, and the atmosphere again became tense. including BUCCANEER, had been weakFinally, the problem was referred to the ened. The British therefore hoped to military representatives to work out be- persuade the Americans to cancel BUCfore the next afternoon when final de- CANEER and send its assault shipping back cisions would be reached.51 to the Mediterranean, where it could be Despite the appearance of a deadlock, used to help mount the southern France a compromise was beginning to take operationand, as a likely by-product, form. Both Stalin and Roosevelt had re- the attack on Rhodes as well. If the frained from insisting on a 1 May date. Americans refused to cancel BUCCANEER, Before lunch the next day (30 Novem- the burden would be upon them to find ber) Churchill decided to agree to a assault shipping for southern France elsedate sometime in May, and that morn- where, leaving the same probability that ing the British Chiefs of Staff came to it could also be used for Rhodes.53 the meeting with their American oppoMeanwhile, the U.S. Chiefs of Staff, sites with specific proposals worked out confident in the assurance of Soviet support, had worked out their own position. (1) Min, 2d Plenary Mtg, EUREKA, 29 Nov 43. The assault shipping now in the Medi(2) Churchill, Closing the Ring, p. 371. (3) Ehrman, terranean could be safely kept there unGrand Strategy V, 179.
50
51 (1) Min, 2d Plenary Mtg, EUREKA, 29 Nov 43. (2) Churchill, Closing the Ring, p. 370. (3) Ehrman, Grand Strategy V, 180. (4) Sherwood, Roosevelt and Hopkins, p. 788.
(1) Churchill, Closing the Ring, p. 376. (2) Ehrman, Grand Strategy V, 181. 53 Ehrman, Grand Strategy V, 181.
52
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build-up following the assault would be very slow, and that no attack on such a scale would be likely to succeed. Moreover, the British did not believe the OVERLORD assault vessels to be used in Italy could be moved back to the United Kingdom in time for a May D-day if they left the Mediterranean after midJanuary; and they continued to express their oft-repeated fears that the landing craft allotment for OVERLORD was inadequate. Brooke flatly asserted in his diary that a 1 May ANVIL, simultaneous with 55 OVERLORD, was "an impossibility." Caught between contradictory logistical estimates, the discussion deadlocked. Nevertheless, the afternoon deadline was at hand, and the Russians had to be given an answer. The military leaders therefore agreed (falling back on the subterfuge suggested by the British) that the Russians could be told "we will launch OVERLORD during May in conjunction with a supporting operation against the south of France on the largest scale that is permitted by [available] landing craft," with a target date, for planning purposes, the same as that for OVERLORD. The advance in Italy would continue as far as the Pisa-Rimini line, and the 68 LST's requested by Eisenhower would be left in the Mediterranean until 15 January. The fate of BUCCANEER and the Aegean operations was reserved for discussion at Cairo.56 Thus hopefully, or perhaps resignedly, the Western military leaders added
(1) Ibid. (2) Quote in Bryant, Triumph in the West, p. 64. (3) Matloff, Strategic Planning, 1943-44, pp. 365-66. (4) Harrison, Cross-Channel Attack, p. 125. (5) On Eisenhower's views, see above, Chapter IX.
55
(1) Min, 132d mtg CCS, 30 Nov 43. (2) Ehrman, Grand Strategy V, 182. (3) Msg FAN 281, 1 Dec 43, CCS to Eisenhower, OPD Exec 3, Item 13.
56
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GLOBAL LOGISTICS AND STRATEGY: 1943-1945 be brought into the war before the end of the year. The attitude of the Turks themselves, which in the last analysis could make or break British fortunes in the eastern Mediterranean, was soon to be tested anew in negotiations at Cairo. American opposition (with, on this point, only lukewarm Soviet support) had centered on the proposed operations in the Aegean, for which Admiral King had warned he would not under any circumstances turn over American landing craft. On the other hand, the introduction of an assault lift requirement for ANVIL, which the Americans were virtually committed to meet, promised to increase the available pool of assault shipping. If the timing of the two operations at opposite ends of the Mediterranean could be worked out, American insistence on mounting one to the exclusion of the other might prove difficult to maintain.58 The British made it clear that in any event they intended to press on with their plans for the Aegean and that, in view of Stalin's firm pledge of participation in the war against Japan, they now considered BUCCANEER fair game. That operation was, in fact, even more vulnerable than before, since Admiral Lord Louis Mountbatten, Supreme Allied Commander, Southeast Asia, in his most recent plan provided for a considerably stronger assault with increased requirements for assault, shipping and carrier-borne aviation. Even though Admiral King had promised to provide the carriers, and the other means were
(1) Min, 131st mtg JCS, 26 Nov 43. (2) See Hopkins' strong statement on Aegean operations in Sherwood, Roosevelt and Hopkins, pp. 793-96. (3) CCS Memo for Info 165, 2 Dec 43, title: Military Conclusions of the EUREKA Conference.
58
another major amphibious undertaking to their already crowded agenda for mid1944, leaving unanswered the knotty questions of timing and provision of means that its introduction had raised. The political leaders, facing an impasse, were in no mood to cavil. On the same afternoon, two days after Stalin had dropped his bombshell, the Big Three ratified the CCS program and declared OVERLORD and ANVIL the "supreme" operations of the Western Allies in 1944. No breath of discord ruffled their meeting. As Churchill declared, it was inconceivable that the United States and Great Britain, "with their great volume of production, could not make the necessary landing craft available."57
291
sault lift in the Mediterranean would not exceed one and two-thirds divisions and might be even less. After a halfhearted attempt to hew to the Tehran line, the JCS conceded the need for at least a two-division assault, and on 4 December Admiral King, in a surprise move, offered to meet the ANVIL assault shipping deficit from new production previously allotted to the Pacific. The total extra lift required was calculated at the time at 3 XAP's, 12 motor transport (MT) ships (these were especially fitted to carry deck loads of vehicles), 26 LST's, and 31 LCT's. King promised to provide all the XAP's and LST's, and 26 of the LCT's which the LST's would carry to the theater. The MT ships were, or would be, available in the area. The five additional LCT's could be taken from craft earmarked for OVERLORD and replaced from the contingent Admiral King had promised for OVERLORD on 60 5 November. King's offer opened no breach in JCS opposition to the Rhodes operation since, as he made clear, the new ships and craft could not reach the Mediterranean in time to be used for it. On the other hand, although they almost covered the calculated deficit for a 2division ANVIL assault, they fell short of guaranteeing this operation. They left no margin for unforeseen contingencies, and many on the American as well as on the British side considered
(1) Min, 133d mtg CCS, 3 Dec 43. (2) Min, 3d Plenary Mtg, SEXTANT, 4 Dec 43. (3) CPS 131/1, 3 Dec 43, title: Amphibious Opns Against South of France. (4) Msg 10131, Adm Badger to VCNO, 5 Dec 43, OPD Exec 4, Item 13. (5) CCS 424, rpt by CPS and CAdC, 5 Dec 43, title: Amphibious Opns
60
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even a 2-division assault too weak. Moreover, OVERLORD'S own weakness, even after the allocations of 5 November caused growing uneasiness. Time was growing short. OVERLORD and ANVIL were now designated the supreme operations for 1944. The responsible com61 manders were about to be named, and few doubted that when they reviewed the existing plans they would demand a more ample provision of means. At the plenary meeting of 5 December Harry Hopkins elicited from the military leaders, after some sharp cross-questioning, the remarkable admission that although they had given the stamp of approval to a 2-division ANVIL and a 3-division OVERLORD, they believed nevertheless that both operations should be strengthened.62 After two days of discussions at Cairo, the problem had taken on new dimensions. Instead of merely mounting the ANVIL assault at a fixed scale, it now seemed necessary to provide a pool of assault shipping large enough to mount both ANVIL and OVERLORD on a scale as yet undetermined but adequate to give both operations a reasonable margin of safety. Precisely how much shipping would be needed could not be known until the plans were revised and developed in detail. The very uncertainty on this score lent force to the British argument that it would be folly to commit precious assault shipping irrevocably to a venture in southeast Asia that even the U.S. Chiefs of Staff conceded to be of secondary importance. At the plenary meeting on the 5th,
61 The President announced General Eisenhower's appointment as OVERLORD commander on 6 December. 62 Min, 4th Plenary Mtg, SEXTANT, 5 Dec 43.
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cabled Chiang the bad news, presenting the same alternatives arrived at by the Chiefs of Staff that morning.65 Chiang's reply had not yet been received, but the President was due to leave Cairo the following morning and the conference decisions could not wait. Accordingly, the alternatives presented to Chiang were both included in the final SEXTANT paper approved by the President and Prime Minister at the plenary meeting on the night of the 6th. In the light of the Generalissimo's known attitude, there could be little doubt that he would reject the first alternative; there was considerable doubt that he would accept even the second. Actually, by ruling out any worthwhile substitute for BUCCANEER and by so informing the Chinese leader forthwith, the President had thrown away an option that might have been acceptable to Chiang, inasmuch as the latter had never been told precisely what sort of operation was contemplated, but only that it would be a major one. At the time the conference decisions were approved, however, the leaders had Mountbatten's word for it that nothing less than BUCCANEER would serve. Later in the month he changed his mind, but by then the President's message had left Chiang in no mood for compromise. In any case, Mountbatten's small residue of assault shipping was soon to be swallowed up in the maw of swelling European requirements. On 7 December the worldwide redeployment of assault shipping dictated by the SEXTANT decisions began as the CCS ordered Mountbatten to send 15 LST's and 6 LSI (L)'s-the
65 (1) Msg, President to Chiang, 5 Dec 43, OPD Exec 10, Item 70. (2) Min, 5th Plenary Mtg, SEXTANT, 6 Dec 43.
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a-vis the Mediterranean, and, indeed, its 69 very execution were finally assured. Like the classic query, "When did you stop beating your wife?" this interpretation accepts as fact what is actually the nub of the issue, namely, the American allegation that the British, and Churchill in particular, had never intended to go through with OVERLORD and only resigned themselves to do so under Soviet pressure at Tehran. In reality, both Churchill and Brooke, forced repeatedly by the Russians to state their intentions concerning OVERLORD, stood firm. At the end of the conference their position was the same as it had been before: OVERLORD would be the main effort of the Western Allies in Europe, and, as far as the British were concerned, it would be carried out, as Churchill told Stalin on 30 November, "provided the enemy did not bring into France larger forces than the Americans and British could gather there."70 In essence, this was the reservation already spelled out in the OVERLORD outline plan and accepted by the U.S. Chiefs of Staff themselves. Whether Brit69 For example, Sherwood (Roosevelt and Hopkins, p. 788) states that Churchill at the plenary meeting on the 29th "bowed to the inevitable" accepted OVERLORD) by promising Stalin that "Britain would hurl every ounce of her strength across the Channel at the Germans." Admiral Leahy in
his memoirs (I Was There, p. 209) speaks of the decision on a May OVERLORD (which he represents as a capitulation by the British, not a compromise) in the same sense: the British "fell into line." See also Harrison, Cross-Channel Attack, pp. 125-26; Cline, Washington Command Post, p. 229; Matloff, Strategic Planning, 1943-44, pp. 365, 384-85; and
Maurice Matloff, "The ANVIL Decision: Crossroads of Strategy," in Greenfield, ed., Command Decisions, p. 287; also Kent Roberts Greenfield, The Historian and the Army (New Brunswick, N.J.: Rutgers University Press, 1954), p. 54; and Trumbull Higgins, Winston Churchill and the Second Front (New York: Oxford University Press, 1957), pp. 212-13, 244. 70 Churchill, Closing the Ring, p. 380.
ish leaders secretly harbored reservations of a more far-reaching nature is not known now (except by themselves) and probably will never be known. Certainly the Americans had no basis at the time, other than hearsay, for suspecting that they did. The historian's position is likely to depend largely on where he decides to place the burden of proofon the Americans to demonstrate that their suspicions were based on fact, or on the British to show that their professions were sincere.71 As for Stalin's stand on OVERLORD, it was no more than a restatement of the familiar "second front" theme dinned into Western ears from the time of the German invasion down to the Moscow Conference of October 1943. The most puzzling question it raises is why the U.S. Chiefs and staffs accepted so readily General Deane's erroneous predictions before the Cairo-Tehran Conferences. It may be doubted whether Stalin at Tehran was taken in by the transparently vague formula suggested by the British and U.S. Chiefs of Staff to define the target date for OVERLORD, but there is no indication in his recorded utterances at the time that he attached any importance to fixing the date more precisely than sometime in May or June. His pronouncements on OVERLORD added nothing to earlier Anglo-American agreements on the relation between the cross-Channel operation and operations in the Mediterranean. The most significant decision at Cairo-Tehran was not the designation of OVERLORD and ANVIL as "supreme" operations in 1944, but the corollary CCS decision of 5 Decem71 See Feis" interpretation of Churchill's position at Tehran in Churchill, Roosevelt, Stalin, pp. 261262.
296
GLOBAL LOGISTICS AND STRATEGY: 1943-1945 mandy and southern France, the advance up the Italian Peninsula, the sweep across France to the Rhine. The decisions foreshadowed the events; it is less certain that they shaped them as well. ANVIL, for instance, though now closely linked to OVERLORD, faced a precarious future and, in the form in which it was eventually carried out, could not have been justified by the arguments used at Tehran. Within a few weeks after the conferences, unforeseen circumstances were playing havoc with the decisions on Turkey, the Aegean, Italy, and southeast Asia. As for OVERLORD, Stalin's insistence upon it undoubtedly enhanced the likelihood that the means would be found to execute the operation even if there should be an unforeseen increase in German power. On the other hand, American staff thinking had already been moving in that direction, and the massive preparations for the invasion had generated a momentum difficult, if not impossible, to arrest. Any radical change of direction or of emphasis at this time let alone laterwould have caused an upheaval in plans and preparations more costly than many military defeats. As a practical matter, the war in Europe had progressed beyond the point of no return. Even the date was hardly any longer in the realm of strategic decision. After Tehran strategic planning was pointed toward a late May or early June OVERLORD (though the administrative staffs continued for some time to work toward an early May deadline). In the end the actual date of OVERLORD was dictated, as Churchill has remarked, mainly "by the moon and the weather."74
74
ber to explore the possibility of strengthening the two assaults. This decision, which virtually invited the responsible commanders to demand the means they considered necessary, formally recognized what the JCS since spring of 1943 had refused to concedethat the limit placed on the size of the OVERLORD assault at the TRIDENT Conference was arbitrary and unrealistic. It vindicated the stubborn efforts of the British since early 1942 to persuade the Americans to provide more assault lift for the operation.72 To Stalin's stand at Tehran can also be attributed the declaration that OVERLORD and ANVIL would be the supreme operations for 1944, with the stipulation that "nothing must be undertaken in any other part of the world" to jeopardize their success. Never before had the primacy of the European war been affirmed in such sweeping terms. The statement wiped out at one stroke the U.S.dictated provisos at TRIDENT that in the face of reverses in the Pacific the United States would intensify its effort there even at the expense of the war in Europe, and for the first time spelled out the corollary implicit in the Germany-first coalition strategy. In principle, at least, the war in the Pacific was now subordinate to the war in Europe in the American scheme of things as well as in the British.73 Coming when they did, the decisions at Cairo and Tehran relating to the war in Europe have taken on a retroactive luster from the dramatic events of the following summerthe invasions of Nor72
in World War II: A Reconsideration, pp. 34-35, 40-41. 73 CCS 426/1, 6 Dec 43.
CHAPTER XII
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GLOBAL LOGISTICS AND STRATEGY: 1943-1945 tember 1944. British shipping was expected to carry 736,000 troops, more than half of the 1,340,400 U.S. soldiers scheduled to sail to Britain from January through September. In all this picture of expanding promise, only one warning note sounded: The flood of troops moving across the North Atlantic depended heavily on continuous shuttling by the great British-controlled passenger liners Ile De France, Nieuw Amsterdam, Aquitania, Mauretania, and the Queens and no allowance was made for possible interruption in service. With the target date now only four months distant, and completion of the program dependent on monthly troop movements of 150,000 men, the losseven serious damaging of one of the "monsters" would be little short of disastrous.3 As for cargo shipping, there were no "unmanageable" deficits in prospect. Even the rosy expectations of expanding tonnage at the time of the Quebec Conference had been exceeded by a substantial margin. The British- and American-controlled dry cargo fleets had grown by the end of the year to a total of 41.7 million dead-weight tons, 800,000 more than predicted in August and almost 6.5 million more than the tonnage available in mid-1943.4 Shipping losses from
3 (1) CCS 428 (Rev), 15 Dec 43, Annex VII, Part IV. (2) Ruppenthal, Logistical Support of the Armies I, 129-32. (3) On the QUADRANT schedules see below, Chapter VIII. 4 (1)ASF Monthly Progress Reports, 31 Mar 44, sec. 3, Transportation, p. 12; 30 Sep 43, p. 6.
mentalmost a million more than had been sent during the entire preceding year. The British, with 200,000 tons of troop shipping in excess of that expected in August, were prepared to make an even more massive contribution to this movement than before by transporting more than 800,000 American troops overseas between January and October 1944, over and above handling their own commitments. (Table 24) The planned British contribution was concentrated on the U.S. build-up for OVERLORD, the increase in American lift being mainly reserved for the Pacific. Army forces in Pacific theaters and in CBI were to be built up by mid-1944 to strengths 167,000 greater than contemplated at Quebec, and 45,000 troops were to be redeployed out of the Alaskan area. Accelerated by shipments from the United States east coast, deployment to the Pacific was expected to draw abreast of objectives, thereby eliminating the deficit forecast at Quebec. QUADRANT deployment objectives for the Mediterranean theater had also been raised, in the main simply to reflect the large volume of movements to that area that had occurred since the earlier conference. MTOUSA strength on 1 January 1944 stood at 613,000 against a QUADRANT estimate of only 495,800. At Cairo, with the intrusion of ANVIL, an additional 40,700 troops were scheduled to sail for the Mediterranean between January and April 1944; after that date the theater strength was expected to remain stable. The 1 May 1944 target for the OVERLORD build-up was now set at 1,366,100, slightly below the QUADRANT objective and the ETOUSA troop basis for the operation, with average monthly movements of 100,000 thereafter through Sep-
under U.S. operation grew from 16.77 million tons on 30 June 1943 to 21.62 million tons on 31 December 1943; the British-controlled fleet from 18.53 million tons to 20.08 million tons. These figures exclude United Nations and neutral shipping not working on British Empire or U.S. services, and vessels owned by or under bareboat charter to the U.S. Army and Navy.
300
August through November 1943 hovered in the neighborhood of 200,000 deadweight tons monthly, despite the reappearance of a U-boat pack in the North Atlantic armed with a new weaponacoustic homing torpedoes. Meanwhile, the shipyards each month were adding six or seven times this tonnage to the merchant fleets. It seemed a reasonable expectation that in the year to come British- and American-controlled merchant shipping might grow another ten million tons or more.5 Nevertheless, the British shipping budget showed a deficit of 2.7 million deadweight tons for the first half of 1944 and slightly more thereafter. As at Quebec, the chief task of the shipping experts was to absorb it into the American budget. Even though the British deficit was 500,000 tons smaller now than anticipated at Quebec, it did not go unchallenged by the Americansa symptom of the coolness that had developed between
U.S. and British shipping authorities.6 The Americans sharply questioned the British goal for the U.K. Import Program in 1944 26 million tons even though it was substantially lower than
the QUADRANT estimate and slightly less than the amount actually imported in 1943. They argued that, whatever the need, it was unrealistic to expect that Britain's ports, roads, railways, and storage facilities could handle all this freight along with the immense burdens attend5
U-Boat War. (2) ASF, Control Div., Statistical Review, World War II, p. 144. Copy in OCMH. (3) ASF
Monthly Progress Report, sec. 3, Transportation, 31 Mar 44, p. 15. 6 (1) See above, ch. IX. (2) The British budget actually showed 650,000 more dead-weight tons of
shipping in operation in 1944 than had been counted on at Quebec, but the military services were expected
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SHIPS UNDER CONSTRUCTION AT LOS ANGELES ish areas of responsibility, identified in the shipping budget as the "cross trades." At QUADRANT, 2.25 million dead-weight tons had been budgeted for these cross trades; by December 1943 actual employment had risen to about 3 million, and the British proposed to allot 3.1 million tons to them during the coming year. The additional 850,000 tons coincided neatly with the reduction in shipping allotted to U.K. imports for the first half of 1944, and it was to this program that U.S. aid was almost entirely pledged. To the American shipping authorities it looked very much as though the British were simply shifting more than threequarters of a million tons of their shipping from import services vital to the joint war effort into permanent services abroad in order to pave the way for the revival of their commerce after the war in the process inflating the deficit that the United States was asked to absorb.8 As in other areas of Anglo-American distrust, this suspicion was not susceptible of proof. The substantive issue really came down to the question of the essentiality of the overseas services the British wanted to expand, and in debating this point the Americans were somewhat at a disadvantage. In the end, without too much argument, the British won their case. The American shipping rep8 (1) Behrens, Merchant Shipping, pp. 343-53, 394-96. (2) Memo, McCulloch for Reed, 17 Nov 43, sub: Allocation of WSA Ships to KMS Convoys, WSA Douglas File BMSM Misc. (3) See below, Table 25, p. 304.
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resentatives at Cairo, while insisting that U.S. aid must not rise above the levels agreed to at Quebec, made no determined effort to lower it. U.S. tonnage for "maintenance of the war-making capacity of the British Empire" was budgeted at the very same amounts which, three months earlier, had been calculated as sufficient to make up a British deficit 500,000 tons greater than the one it now purported to meet. If anyone at Cairo wondered how this came to pass, the fact has not been recorded. Negotiations at Cairo were mainly concerned with the distribution, not the amount, of American shipping to be employed in British services. The British had given notice in the fall of 1943 that they wanted a more flexible arrangement that would permit them to switch their American allocations from one route to another as the situation dictated. Cases in point were their requests in October and November for U.S. ships of the required size and speed for the KMS convoys to the Mediterranean, and disagreement over this practice had been primarily responsible for the coolness of their relations with the U.S. War Shipping Administration.9 At Cairo Lewis Douglas offered a solution: The United States would resume the "Eastern customaries," ten recently discontinued American sailings monthly on British account to the Red Sea and Indian Ocean areas, thus permitting the British to transfer American vessels of suitable types allotted to them under bareboat charter from these routes back to the Atlantic where they would be available to fill out KMS convoys to the Mediterranean. In addition, 16 "flexible custom9
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a peak of 120 ships in the Mediterranean, 100 in U.K. waters, and 120 in the Pacificall during the first quarter of 1944. (Tables 25 and 26) These arrangements made for a very tight budgetwithout deficits, to be sure, but also without the fat (and suspect) surpluses of the QUADRANT budget. As far as the estimates for the first six months of 1944 were concerned, the shipping authorities gave a cautious endorsement. For the period following, they warned, "the situation . . . is susceptible of such wide and unpredictable changes that only by frequent review can any variations that promise materially to affect the position be satisfactorily dis13 posed of." To American military officialdom the decisions on OVERLORD at Cairo and Tehran came as a long-awaited green light for BOLERO, replacing one that hitherto had alternated frustratingly between red and flickering yellow. With OVERLORD now unequivocally in top strategic priority, it now became possible to free BOLERO cargo shipments from the administrative priority restrictions that since April 1943 had artificially prevented full use of the abundant shipping available. On 9-10 December, ASF officials again approached OPD, pointing out that the existing priorities of the European theaterA-1-b-4 for air equipment and A-1-b-8 for groundwould not permit shipment of necessary supplies in time for the OVERLORD operation. They urged OPD to raise these priorities to A-1-b-1 and A-1-b-2 respectivelythat is, to the
(1) Comments of Lord Leathers and Mr. Douglas, 7 Dec 43. (2) Memo, Col Stokes for Gen Wylie, 26 Dec 43, sub: SEXTANT Conf Decisions, folder Implementation of SEXTANT Decisions, ASF Plng Div.
13
304
a b c d For After When Actually, the allowing translating Mediterranean, this figure forthe an was average British provides shown deficit of 1,500 under for into average tons two requirements on entries: of each 70 ship ships "Tonnage against carrying in the thePermanently first U.S. military quarter, budget, cargo Abroad" 39 allowance for in U.S. the (2.2) second was Army and made forces quarter, "Additional forin (1) the 36imports in United the Tonnage third of Kingdom. British Temporarily quarter. cargo For in Operating to and Within the Same Areas" (0.9).
OVERLORD, provides for one-half (agreed upon as British share) of following requirements: 625,000 tons of coastal shipping for the first three months and 100,000 tons thereafter, besides 160 MT ships in the first month, 100 in the second, 70 in the third. In addition, provides 90 ocean-going stores ships (9,000 dead-weight) to be taken up about middle of second month of OVERLORD, for British account only. Includes no allowance for expected requirement to ship naval aircraft and landing craft to the Pacific in the second half of 1944 for the build-up of a British task force. BOLERO sailings, (2) the effect of the bareboat chartering program, and (3) 10 customary sailings of U.S. ships monthly from North America to south and east Africa and the ANZAC area. After these allowances, the following U.S. sailings were estimated as required in the first half of 1944: (a) 10 Eastern customary sailings per month from North America to India and the Red Sea; (b) 60 sailings per month from North America (including the Gulf ports) to the United Kingdom; (c) 16 flexible customary sailings per month from North America to Italy and North Africa (equivalent to 22 sailings from North America to the United Kingdom). These sailings were estimated to be covered by the U.S. budget, except for a small manageable deficit under (c); for the third quarter, the deficit was estimated to be equivalent to (a) and (b) above, plus 19 flexible customary sailings, equivalent to 26 per month from North America to the United Kingdom, which was expected to prove manageable. Movement of coal to Italy was to be met by subsequent arrangements between BMWT and WSA, probably by WSA ballasters carrying coal from India during first quarter, and an allowance was therefore not carried in the British budget. Source: CCS 428 (Rev), 15 Dec 43, title: Relation of Available Resources to Agreed Operations, Annex VII, Part II.
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Requirements cover British deficits to extent indicated in the British budget. As in the QUADRANT budget, each BOLERO cargo ship
Operational retentions are not included in total requirements, but are allowed for in total sailings available.
carried about 1,500 tons of British import cargo, and U.K. import vessels carried equivalent of 12 shiploads of measurement cargo each
month on the U.S. Army account. Source: (1) CCS 428 (Rev), 15 Dec 43, title: Relation of Available Resources to Agreed Operations, Annex VII, Part III. (2) Table, Summary Reqmts for Cargo Shpg . . . SEXTANT, no date, OCT HB Plng Div Studies, Misc Shpg Info, p. 96.
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very top of the overseas theater priority solved, but too late which was, of scaleand to apply them to advance ship- course, better than not at all. Still to be ments as well as to equipment accom- dealt with were the consequences of this panying troops. With a 45-day lag be- failure: the gap between reception and tween arrival and distribution in the the- handling capacity in the United Kingater, it was obvious that relatively little dom and the flood of traffic soon to material could now be shipped in ad- arrive. vance of troops for a 1 May OVERLORD. A uniform priority for normal and adAssault Shipping: The New vance shipments would enable ASF to American Program make the most of the few weeks remaining for advance shipments, thus spreadAssault shipping had been the critical ing the flow of cargo as evenly as pos- logistical issue at Cairo and Tehran. sible over the entire period. In their final report to the President OPD acquiesced a week later. On 21 and Prime Minister, the CCS urged that December a formal directive established "every effort must be made, by accela uniform theater priority of A-1-b-2 for erated building and conversion, to proall shipments to the European theater vide essential landing craft for the Euroinvolving items needed for the invasion. pean Theater."15 The estimates written The directive specifically included sup- into the SEXTANT resources paper, howply shortages for units already in the ever, indicated no expectation that any theater, supplies preshipped against the additional craft would actually be proinvasion troop basis, and supplies for vided from these sources. Along with operational projects through D plus 90 the somewhat ritualistic characterizacategories that previously had had sepa- tion of assault shipping as a general botrate and lower priorities.14 tleneck, in fact, appeared the optimistic The way was thus paved for a massive prediction that "there should be suffiacceleration of the build-up in the few cient landing craft to carry out approved months remaining before OVERLORD. It operations."16 This optimism rested, in was late in the day. The effects of the the last analysis, on the general assumpnew priority would not begin to be felt tion that combat loaders, the mainstay until February, bringing shipments to of Pacific amphibious operations, could their peak about the same time that be shifted from one main axis to the British ports, depots, and inland trans- other in the Pacific as needed, and that port were swamped with outbound traf- LST's, LCT's, and LCI (L)'s could be fic for the assault. This was precisely redeployed with similar flexibility in the what the British had feared and repeat- Mediterranean and OVERLORD areas. edly warned against; it was what the Yet the assumption that landing craft preshipment program had been designed in European waters could be used, in to avoid. The priority problem had been rapid succession, in a landing on the Italian coast in December and in an as(1) See above, ch. IX. (2) TAG Ltr to CsTechSvcs, sault on Rhodes at the end of February
14
21 Dec 43, sub: Priorities for ETO (U.K.), SPX 400.22 (21 Dec 43) OB-S-SPDDL-M. (3) Leighton, Problem of Troop and Cargo Flow, pp. 115-17.
15
16
CCS 426/1, 6 Dec 43. CCS 428 (Rev), 15 Dec 43, Annex V.
INVENTORY AND AFTERMATH ASSAULT SHIPPING ALLOCATED FOR OVERLORD AND ANVIL
307
and could then be assembled, refitted, and redeployed for both the OVERLORD and ANVIL assaults sometime in May, was, to say the least, tenuous. Even more tenuous was the assumption that the assault shipping allocated for OVERLORD and ANVIL was sufficient for both operations to be executed simultaneously. For the present, over and above the TRIDENT and QUADRANT allotments the planners could count on the vessels assigned from Southeast Asia, most of about two months of U.S. production of LST's, LCI (L)'s, and LCT's pledged by Admiral King on 5 November and 4 December, a few more U.S. and British assault transports, and an indeterminate number of new British LCT's. (See table above.) The craft allotted, the logistical planners recorded, "should provide a satisfactory lift for both OVERLORD and ANVIL." 17 With these assurances in hand, the CCS awaited the verdicts of the commanders who were to carry out the operations. Admiral King's willingness to divert additional vessels from American production for OVERLORD and ANVIL probably owed something to the accelerated production schedules set in train in September 1943.18 As indicated earlier, the 17 Ibid.
18
new schedules did not actually provide for any substantial increase in time to benefit a 1 May OVERLORD: they did, however, promise a marked increase for Pacific campaigns after mid-1944. King's Cairo offer of 26 LST's and 31 LCT's for ANVIL was ostensibly based on the new target date "in May" (that is, early June), which presumably would make available another month's production. The 26 LST's were to be taken from an estimated February and March output of 48specifically, from the 38 previously allocated to the Pacific, since 10 had already been allocated to OVERLORD. It is a reasonable supposition that Admiral King was willing to accept this diversion from Pacific allotments early in 1944 in anticipation of the increased output that would be available for the Pacific later in the year. The offer was accompanied by a warning that the operation against Truk, the main Japanese base in the Carolines, might be adversely affected. Actually, the possibility of bypassing Truk was already under discussion and in the event was realized.19 Moreover, by this time King may have been counting on an even greater augmentation of the landing craft program
19 See Min, 123d mtg JCS, 15 Nov 43, and 124th mtg, 17 Nov 43; also below, ch. XVI.
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GLOBAL LOGISTICS AND STRATEGY: 1943-1945 through August. The estimated increases, by month, were:21
LST Total ....... 50 LCI(L) 71 LCT(6) 116
than the 35 percent increase ordered in October. It will be recalled that the President, evidently with a postponement of OVERLORD in mind, had cabled OWM Director Byrnes from Cairo to investigate immediately the prospects of increasing the program during the first five months of 1944 "on the assumption that [it] takes precedence over all other munitions of war." Even on this assumption, Byrnes found when he consulted the production people, only meager increases could be expected through March, but in April and May output could be raised substantially.20 Partly because immediate steps had to be taken to insure that the steel plate would be available in the event the President ordered the increase, Byrnes decided, in consultation with Army, Navy, and WPB officials, to go ahead with the augmented program. By the time the President replied from Tehran on 29 November that the increases would come too late to do OVERLORD any good, the vast undertaking was already in trainrolling mill schedules had been revamped to turn out 39,000 more tons of plate in December, steps had been taken to move up delivery of components by three months, and special priority assistance had been ordered. In the main, the revised program involved a three-months' acceleration of production of LST's, LCI(L)'s, and LCT's, with the aim of delivering by 31 May all vessels previously scheduled for delivery
3 10 20 38
10 21 35 50
One more important modification in the landing craft program was made about the same time, and must be noted. In the latter part of November U.S. forces landed on Tarawa in the Gilbert Islands and after one of the bloodiest actions of the Pacific war destroyed the enemy garrison. A major lesson drawn from the experience was the usefulness of the amphibious tractor (LVT) for carrying assault troops over offshore reefs that landing craft could not surmount. Without the 125 LVT's used by the 2d Marine Division in the assault, the troops might not have got ashore at all, and, indeed, this number proved to be too few to maintain the momentum of the attack. Production of LVT's, armored and unarmored, had risen by November to slightly more than 300 per month. To double that output within the next few weeks, as was now demanded, seemed out of the question, and no substantial increase was expected before June 1944. Nevertheless, the program objective was immediately raised from 2,620 to over 6,000, and incentive sched-
21 (1) See schedules in JCS 569/5, rpt by JLC, 18 Dec 43, title: Allocation of Steel Plate for Feb20 (1) See above, ch. XI. (2) Quoted from Msg, Mar 1944, app. B. (2) Mowry, Landing Craft and President to Justice Byrnes, 23 Nov 43, OPD Exec 5, the War Production Board, pp. 38-41. (3) Memo, Item 14. (3) Mowry, Landing Craft and the War Clay for Somervell, 26 Nov 43, sub: Allocation of Production Board, p. 31. (4) JCS Memo for Info Steel Plate for 1944; and Memo, Styer for Somer171, 27 Nov 43, title: Ldg Cft Production. (5) Memo, vell, 27 Nov 43, sub: Status of Allocation of Steel Ad Hoc Com for CsofS, 28 Nov 43, ABC 561 (30 Plate, folder CG ASF 1943-44, Hq ASF. (4) Memo, Aug 43). Ad Hoc Com for CsofS, 28 Nov 43.
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small coastal cargo shipsand in production of merchant shipping promised to relieve pressures in many sectors of war production. In the main, despite all the head-shaking of the experts in September and October and even the misgivings aroused by the President's message to Byrnes on 23 November, indications were that the whole program might be absorbed with little or no derangement of other war production.23 For OVERLORD and ANVIL, however, the augmented program still held out no prospects of a substantial increase in assault lift. Like the September and October program increases, the more recent ones promised to bestow virtually all their benefits on the Pacific war. This was the inescapable, and ironic, outcome of the President's belated recognition of the needs of the war in Europe, which had prompted his message from Cairo on 23 November. The planners at Cairo had based their allocations on the Navy's 1November production schedules and merely added to the QUADRANT allocations for Europe the two increments bequeathed by Admiral King and the shipping ordered back from southeast Asia. Subsequent increases in American production were automatically allocated to the Pacific. Moreover, Admiral King's concessions to the needs of the European war, in effect hypothecating future increases in production, clearly implied that any further allotments to OVERLORD and ANVIL from the same source would depend on Navy officials' judgment as to how much could be spared
23 (1) See above, ch. X. (2) Mowry, Landing Craft and the War Production Board, pp. 33-52. (3) OPD MFR, 22 Nov 43, ABC 561 (30 Aug 43). (4) Memos, Clay for Somervell, 26 Nov 43; and Styer for Somervell, 27 Nov 43. (5) JCS 569/5, 18 Dec 43.
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from the Pacific. In any case, under the most optimistic expectations very little scheduled U.S. production of LST's remained that could be diverted in time to be used in European operations. For the first three months of 1944 the old LST production schedules had provided for a total output of 72. The crash program raised this total expectation to 79, of which 58 had now been allocated to OVERLORD and ANVIL. It was problematical whether all vessels that came off the ways in March could reach either the Mediterranean or the United Kingdom in time for landings in late May or early June. The new program thus joined the list of measures, not too little but too late, to meet the need for assault shipping in the European war.
In the last analysis, however, the Rhodes operation depended on the attitude of Turkey, for the British had made Turkish entry into the war a prerequisite to its execution. Negotiations with the Turks at Cairo, in which President Roosevelt also participated, had left Churchill in a hopeful frame of mind, and conversations on the military level were scheduled to follow at Ankara.25 As the Cairo meetings ended, prospects seemed reasonably good that the eastern Mediterranean would soon be ablaze. Then on 17 December the CCS received General Eisenhower's preliminary report on his nearly completed outline plan for ANVIL, and with it the incidental news that HERCULES, the Rhodes operation, was now tentatively scheduled for 22 March, the earliest date
24
25
INVENTORY AND AFTERMATH by which the assigned British division would be ready. What particularly caught the attention of the U.S. Chiefs of Staff was Elisenhower's announced intention to use the ex-Andamans assault shipping for HERCULES, evidently without considering whether, if committed so late, it could be released in time for a May ANVIL. For the latter undertaking, the Allied commander demanded a full 3-division lift, and he blandly inquired whether the necessary shipping could be found "from any source having a priority on resources lower than ANVIL."26 The CCS did not at once debate the question of the size of ANVIL, since detailed requirements had not yet come in and would have to be studied in connection with those for OVERLORD, which were also being re-examined. But the U.S. planners, under instructions from the JCS, promptly produced a study purporting to demonstrate that any assault shipping used for Rhodes late in March could not be released in time for ANVIL; if the two operations were executed seriatim, HERCULES would have to be scheduled no later than 1 February. This conclusion was dictated by the limiting factors introduced into the problema full thirty-day tie-up of shipping at Rhodes, two weeks voyage time from Rhodes to the ANVIL staging area, three to four weeks for overhaul, two weeks for staging before ANVIL. As an Army officer candidly put it, the object of the study was "to prove that it will not be possible to mount HERCULES without prejudice to ANVIL." Not surprisingly,
(1) Msg NAF 552, Eisenhower to CCS, 17 Dec 43, Incl to CPS 131/3/D, 18 Dec 43, title: Assault Lift for ANVIL, ABC 384 (1 Nov 43), Sec 2-A. (2) Min, 138th mtg (Suppl) JCS, 21 Dec 43.
26
311
the argument was "based on the worst 27 conditions." But it was the Turks, not the JCS, who settled the fate of HERCULES. In the military conversations at Ankara on 12 December they abruptly raised the ante on the military aid demanded as the price of intervention, influenced at least in part by a growing realization that the United States was lukewarm if not hostile to their entry into the war. Though the British made some concessions, by the third week in December negotiations had reached a stalemate. While the Americans continued to worry lest the British yield still more, or undertake unilateral action, by 23 December Churchill himself had despaired of the Turkish attitude and was ready to write off the Rhodes operation. On Christmas Day he minuted laconically to the British Chiefs of Staff, "Rhodes is not on." A few days later, when the Army staff in Washington got the word, someone scribbled an exultant finis to the whole episode "The PM has quit!!"28 The Prime Minister was impelled toward his decision not only by the attitude of the Turks but also by the worsening situation in Italy. By mid-December it appeared that the landings south of Rome would also be called off. This amphibious operation had been planned in
27 (1) Army Comment on JCS 639, 24 Dec 43, ABC 381 Strategy Sec Papers (7 Jan 43) 196-213, Tab 202/1. (2) JCS 639, 23 Dec 43, rpt by JPS, title: Assault Lift for ANVIL. 28 (1) Pencil note on draft study, 30 Dec 43, in ABC 381 Strategy Sec Papers (7 Jan 43) 196-213, Tab 209. (2) Related papers in this file. (3) Ehnnan, Grand Strategy V, 212-13. (4) Churchill, Closing the Ring, pp. 430, 433. (5) Negotiations with the Turks dragged on through January, but on the 31st the British abruptly cut off all military aid to Turkey. On 7 February the CCS released forces that had been earmarked for Aegean and Turkish operations.
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November as a one-division assault at Anzio to be executed on 20 December, but its timing depended on a prior advance by Fifth Army up the Liri Valley to positions within supporting distance of the beachhead. Fifth Army's drive, which jumped off on 1 December, soon bogged down and by the middle of the month it was clear that it would be nowhere near its objective in time for the scheduled landings on the 20th. By the time that date arrived, SHINGLE, as the operation was now called, had first been postponed, and then canceled.29 At this juncture Prime Minister Churchill, recovering at Carthage from a bout with pneumonia, intervened to demand from the British Chiefs a detailed accounting for what he termed the "scandalous" failure to employ the amphibious resources available in the Mediterranean. The result was the revival of a suggestion already made by Lt. Gen. Mark W. Clark, Fifth Army commander, that the discarded plan be reviewed and enlarged to provide for a 2-division assault, which was judged strong enough to seize and hold a bridgehead until Fifth Army could link up with it. On 23 December both Eisenhower and Alexander endorsed the idea, and by the 25th the target date had been set for 20 January.30 For the 2-division "cat-claw," as Churchill called SHINGLE, the bill of
(1) Ehrman, Grand Strategy V, 207-209. (2) Fifth Army History, IV, 14-15. 30 (1) Msg, Prime Minister to COS, 19 Dec 43, and Msg, COS to Prime Minister, 22 Dec 43, quoted in Churchill, Closing the Ring, pp. 429-30. (2) Ehrman, Grand Strategy V, 209-10. (3) Report by the Supreme Allied Commander, Mediterranean, to the Combined Chiefs of Staff on the Italian Campaign, 8 January 1944 to 10 May 1944 (Washington, 1946) (hereafter cited as Wilson Despatch), p. 11.
29
It was thus clear from the outset that, if the gap were to be closed, some of the 68 OVERLORD LST's in the Mediterranean would have to remain there past the 15 January departure date. The question was, how many and for how long? If some leeway could be found in the schedules for intertheater passage and repair and training in the United Kingdom for OVERLORD, some delay in departure might be accepted. By the same token, the 15 ex-Andamans LST's, and possibly even the 26 from the United States promised for ANVIL, might be turned to SHINGLE'S account by proceeding directly to the United Kingdom, thus
31 (1) Ehrman, Grand Strategy V, 210, 214. (2) Churchill, Closing the Ring, pp. 431, 435. (3) Maj. James D. T. Hamilton, The Invasion of Southern France, ch. II, "The Shadow of ANVIL," pp. 33-35, MS, OCMH. (4) CPS Memo for Info 14, 17 Jan 44, and 15, 19 Jan 44, ABC 561 (31 Aug 43), Sec 1-A.
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On the same day, without waiting to hear from the British Chiefs, Churchill appealed directly to Roosevelt, urging that unless the 56 LST's were held back the whole Mediterranean campaign would be ruined. He assured Roosevelt that "various expedients" were under study by which the three weeks lost for OVERLORD preparations could be regained, and added parenthetically that he had decided to sidetrack his Aegean 33 plans "in these higher interests." In London, the British Chiefs were not entirely convinced by Captain Power's arithmetic, and they dreaded the explosion they expected the Prime Min-
ister's request to set off in Washington. The best alternative they could offer, however, was to hold back 48 instead of 56 LST's for SHINGLE, while sending the ex-Andamans LST's straight on to the United Kingdom. This would put less strain on the OVERLORD docking program than Churchill's scheme, but it would give SHINGLE, at most, only 84 LST's (against Churchill's 92) and then only on the unrealistic assumption that all would be operational when the landings took place. Rather bluntly the British Chiefs pointed out to Churchill that he seemed to be staking everything on SHINGLE and passing all the risks on to OVERLORD and ANVIL, whereas the Cairo-Tehran decisions would seem to demand precisely the contrary. Neither plan, they thought, left an adequate margin for contingencies, although theirs was less objectionable. Moreover, they
33
25 Dec 43, quoted in Churchill, Closing the Ring, pp. 436-37; also pp. 433-36. (2) Msg, Prime Minister to COS, 25 Dec 43, quoted in Ehrman, Grand Strategy V, 216-17.
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did not expect a favorable reaction from 34 the Americans. To the JCS, as to the British Chiefs, Churchill's proposal seemed to leave very little margin of safety for OVERLORD, and they were sceptical of the still unrevealed "expedients" by which the lost time was to be made up. On the other hand, they felt compelled to yield to what seemed the evident necessity of mounting the Anzio operation in order to get to Rome and the defensible line beyond that was considered essential for the support of ANVIL. Churchill's apparity," General Handy counseled Marshall, "to eliminate HERCULES from further consideration. . . ,"35 The upshot was that when Churchill read the President's reply on 28 December he was pleasantly surprised. Roosevelt agreed to retention of all 56 British LST's for the Anzio landings on 20 January, making only the expected reservation that OVERLORD and ANVIL must not be endangered as to timing or strength. He also wanted the 15 ex-Andamans LST's to go on to the United Kingdom, where they would arrive by mid-February, while 15 of the OVERLORD LST's in the Mediterranean would stay there for ANVIL. Churchill was quite ready to accept this amendment, and replied forthwith with a fervent "I thank God for this fine decision which engages us once again in wholehearted unity upon a great enterprise."36
34 (1) Ehrman, Grand Strategy V, 216-17. (2) Msg COS(W)1035, Br COS for CCS, 31 Dec 43, OPD 360 Security, III, Case 117. 35 (1) Memo, Handy for CofS, 27 Dec 43, sub: Proposed Msg from President to Prime Minister. . . . (2) Memo, CofS for Adm Leahy, no date. Both in ABC 561 (31 Aug 43), Sec 1-B. 36 Msg, Prime Minister to President, 28 Dec 43,
The search for LST's for SHINGLE, which did not end with "this fine decision," played a part in the final liquidation of plans for amphibious operations in southeast Asia. Casting about for all possible sources, the British Chiefs had originally suggested to the Prime Minister that the three LST's remaining in southeast Asia after the departure of the ex-Andamans shipping might also be recalled. These vessels were British-built LST(1)'s, faster and more seaworthy than the American LST (2)'s. If they could reach the Mediterranean by 20
in the Anzio landings. If not, they could go on to the United Kingdom and substitute for three OVERLORD LST's, or stay in the Mediterranean for ANVIL. Since the SEXTANT Conference, however, a new amphibious project had emerged in Admiral Lord Louis Mountbatten's theater. Despite his "all-or-nothing" reaction to the query from the CCS at Cairo whether any lesser substitute for BUCCANEER might be feasible, only four days thereafter Mountbatten had submitted a plan for a new venture, Operation PIGSTICK, a small seaborne landing on the Mayu Peninsula behind Japanese lines in the Arakan. PIGSTICK might support either the original mainland operations or the more limited ones recently proposed. While it was being discussed in Washington and London, Mountbatten on 21 December offered the plan to Chiang on his own responsibility as fulfillment of the original promise of an amphibious operation. The Generalissimo, however, in his reply to the President's message of 5 December, had already inand Msg, President to Prime Minister, 28 Dec 43, Churchill, Closing the Ring, pp. 440-41.
ent concession on Rhodes was another January, which seemed possible though lure"we should grasp this opportun- far from certain, they might take part
315
they could only acquiesce in the fait 38 accompli. By the end of December, SHINGLE thus appeared to have in sight a grand total of 95 LST's, of which the theater commanders hoped 90 would be operationalseemingly a more than ample allocation, since General Alexander on the 29th had thought he could make do with only 84. But it soon appeared there were other problems. General Clark informed Alexander on 2 January that after the departure of the 12 OVERLORD LST's on 5 February, allowing for losses, damage, and resumption of the build-up on Corsica, only 6 LST's would remain to carry supplies and vehicles to the Anzio beachhead. Clark said he needed at least 24 for the first two weeks, and 10 thereafter for an indefinite period. The Prime Minister made short work of this crisis. By figuring losses and damage more closely, by reducing the number of vessels assigned to Corsica, and by spacing the departure schedule of 33 OVERLORD LST's over the entire month of February (the remaining 8 were to refit in the Mediterranean before their
departure), Churchill was able to assure the theater commanders that they would have 25 LST's for supply operations until the middle of February and half this number until the end of the month. With these arrangements completed, Churchill could report to Roosevelt on 8 January that "everyone is in good heart
(1) For the discussion of PIGSTICK, see CCS 452 series. (2) Min, 119th mtg JPS, 1 Jan 44. (3) OPD paper, 5 Jan 44, sub: PIGSTICK Should Not Be Canceled, with related corresp in ABC 381 Strategy Sec Papers (7 Jan 43) 214-27, Tab 217. (4) Ehrman, Grand Strategy V, 222-23. (5) Romanus and Sunderland, Stilwell's Command Problems, p. 81. (6) The assault vessels remaining in SEAC in addition to the three LST's, included 3 LSI(L)'s, 1 LSI(H), 12 LCI(L)'s, and 2 LSD's. See JCS 639, 23 Dec 43, app. B.
38
316
and the resources seem sufficient" stretching the Tehran agreement. Eisenwhich, considering the misgivings of all hower and Montgomery, recently apthe American commanders, was some- pointed Supreme Commander and Deputhing of an overstatement.39 (Table 27) ty Commander, respectively, for the crossThe effort to find LST's for the Anzio Channel operation, had told him that, operation added a significant postscript from a preliminary look at the OVERto the Tehran compromise on OVER- LORD plan, they were both shocked by LORD'S target date. In the interests of the weakness of the planned assault. It prudence, and for administrative pur- was likely, Churchill wrote the British poses, the target date had continued to Chiefs confidentially, that after the new be regarded as early May, and fading commanders had studied the plan they prospects for operations in the Aegean would ask for a postponement of D-day might under other circumstances have to, perhaps, 3 June or even 6 June prompted an American attempt to abro- (when the moon phase would be favorgate the Tehran agreement altogether in able). Eisenhower had gone so far as to favor of a fixed 1 May date. It quickly suggest that he would be willing to telebecame evident, however (Captain Pow- graph Stalin to that effect. Churchill er notwithstanding) that delaying the did not pursue the matter, but the prosdeparture of the OVERLORD LST's from pect of a delayed D-day offered, as he the Mediterranean until late in Febru- remarked, "something to veer and haul 41 ary would leave almost no margin against on." an early May dateif, indeed, it could be met at alland would leave very little margin, as General Handy told his On 22 January the Anzio landings chief on the 27th, "even though OVER- went off without a hitch"a model of LORD is not launched until late May." amphibious operations," General Wilson Churchill himself, for all his enthusiastic said of them in his report. Landing endorsement of Captain Power's calcu- craft losses on the first and following lations, apparently conceded the prob- days were negligible; the weather was ability.40 By the end of December, more- fine except for two days (the planners over, Churchill had reason to expect that had expected only two good days out other considerations might result in of seven), and troops and matriel flowed into the beachhead at a phenom(1) Morison, SicilySalernoAnzio, pp. 326-28, enal rate. By the end of the second day app. III. According to Morison, only 74 LST's par- the assault convoy was almost completeticipated in the Anzio landings. (2) Msg, Prime Minly unloaded, and within two weeks ister to President Roosevelt, 8 Jan 44, quoted in Closing the Ring, p. 447. (3) Ehrman, Grand Strat- 70,000 men, 21,940 vehicles (including 380 tanks), and 27,250 tons of stores had egy V, 219-20. (4) Fifth Army History, IV, 17. (5) Churchill, Closing the Ring, pp. 446-47. (6) Wilson been landed. During the last ten days Despatch, pp. 19-22. (7) Martin Blumenson, "General Lucas' Decision at Anzio," in Greenfield, ed., of January the daily average discharge of cargo into the beachhead was over Command Decisions, pp. 254-56. (1) Memo, Handy for CofS, 27 Dec 43, sub: 3,600 tons, and it fell very little below
39
40
Proposed Msg President to Prime Minister . . . . ABC 561 (31 Aug 43), Sec 1-B. (2) Churchill, Closing the Ring, p. 440.
41 Msgs, Prime Minister to Br COS, 29 Dec 43 and 26 Dec 43, quoted in Closing the Ring, pp. 442, 436.
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On 1 January there were actually in the Mediterranean 69 British and 36 U.S. LST's, making a total of 105.
direct (instead of to the Mediterranean, as planned at SEXTANT), make the total of 68 LST's assigned at SEXTANT to be sent to OVERLORD from the Mediterranean. Note that the figure of 41 British LST's in the table "To the United Kingdom after SHINGLE" reflects the retention of 15 British LST's in the Mediterranean out of the 56 earlier destined for OVERLORD before the decision to send the 15 ex-BUCCANEER LST's directly to the United Kingdom. c Losses, attrition, and serviceability not considered. Losses of LST's in the Anzio operation totaled 4 vessels, 3 British and one U.S. Source: Compiled by Richard M. Leighton from various sources cited in the text.
that level during the entire following month. The landing of vehicles in a ratio of more than one to every four soldiers reflected a performance by LST's and LCT's far beyond the most optimisS3 LST's being sent from the Mediterranean to the United tic The expectations. It also meant that the forces holding the beachhead had, as Churchill acidly commented, "a great superiority of chauffeurs," at the expense of infantry.42 By the end of February,
b
been poured into the beachhead to stem enemy counterattacks that very nearly obliterated it, the flow of supply, still dependent to a great degree on landing ships and craft, had proved more Kingdom, added to the 15 ex-BUCCANEER LST's which were going than adequate. "Plans originally made for 50,000 men," the Prime Minister gleefully wrote to Field Marshal Smuts, "are now comfortably supporting 170,000." 43 Comfortable though the support may have been, it could be continued only by keeping LST's and LCT's at Anzio to maintain the flow of supply, a fact that was to weigh heavily in the future planning for OVERLORD and ANVIL.
43 Msg, Prime Minister to Smuts, 27 Feb 44, quoted in Closing the Ring, p. 493.
PART FOUR
FINAL ASSAULT ON EUROPE
CHAPTER XIII
now enjoyed a pre-eminence, but one that still required a definition of its relationship with ANVIL, an operation which had also been accorded an overriding priority at SEXTANT, and was scheduled to be executed at the same time as OVERLORD.
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for an increase in assault shipping that would permit a 3-division lift. The OVERLORD planners, however, had faced a deficit of assault shipping even after the new allotments made at SEXTANT, and before Montgomery's new demand. A conflict between the two operations was consequently inescapable. General Morgan, while he differed from Montgomery in favoring use of the additional assault lift mainly to strengthen the follow-up rather than the initial assault, agreed that the necessary resources should come from ANVIL. The southern France operation, he reminded the British Chiefs on 6 January, had been conceived in the original OVERLORD plan as a diversionary threat that would materialize into actual landings only if the weakness of enemy defenses promised easy success. He did not hesitate to recommend a return to this concept in the interests of strengthening OVERLORD.1 The British Chiefs found Montgomery's and Morgan's arguments persuasive since, as they informed the Prime Minister on 14 January, there seemed no other way to find additional assault lift for OVERLORD short of reducing Pacific operations, a suggestion no one in London was prepared to make. To leave OVERLORD weak in order to make ANVIL strong, they said, would create "the serious risk of our falling between two stools 2 and of both operations failing." General Smith, whom Eisenhower had retained as his Chief of Staff, was also convinced, and shortly afterward Montgomery set the top headquarters planners to
1 (1) Harrison, Cross-Channel Attack, pp. 159-60, 165-67. (2) Ehrman, Grand Strategy V, 232-34. (3) Msg, NAF 552, Eisenhower to CCS, 17 Dec 43. 2 Msg, Br COS to Prime Minister, 14 Jan 44, SHAEF SGS 560, vol. II.
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96 additional LCT's that could be expected from British production if the early May target date for OVERLORD were postponed a month. Eisenhower told the CCS he was willing to accept such a postponement if he could be "assured of then obtaining the strength required." Nothing was said about new American
production.3 With regard to ANVIL, Eisenhower was in an embarrassing position in view of his recent plea for a 3-division lift for that operation and his belief that a real assault on southern France would help OVERLORD more than a feint. If means could be found, he said, the ideal would be a 5-division OVERLORD plus a 3-division ANVIL"or, at worst, a two division ANVIL." If the only means of building
GENERAL MONTGOMERY
an adequate OVERLORD was to reduce ANVIL to a one-division threat, Eisenhower reluctantly endorsed that solution, 4 but "only as a last resort." From the British Chiefs came enthusiastic agreement. OVERLORD, they thought, should be built up to five divisions "whatever the cost to ANVIL or any other
3
(1) Ibid. (2) Msg, Eisenhower to CCS, 23 Jan 44. (3) Msg, Montgomery to Eisenhower (eyes only), 10 Jan 44. (4) SHAEF Memo, 23 Jan 44, sub: Computation of Methods of Employment of Additional Resources. All in SHAEF SGS 560, vol. II. (5) Harrison, Cross-Channel Attack, pp. 166-67. (6) Ehrman, Grand Strategy V, 233-36. (7) Neither Ehrman nor Harrison recognizes the fictitious character of the OVERLORD assault shipping "requirements." That they were fictitious is borne out by documents cited in (1) and (3) above, and the point was explicitly commented on a month later by U.S. officers sent 5 from Washington to participate in the planning. (1) Msg, OZ 456 COS (W) 1094, Br COS to JSM See below, p. 334. Wash, 26 Jan 44, SHAEF SGS 560, vol. II. (2) Ehr4 Msg, Eisenhower to CCS, 23 Jan 44. man, Grand Strategy V, 237.
projected operations," and should be scheduled for late May or early June when it could better profit from the promised Soviet offensive; ANVIL should be mounted on a 2-division-plus scale, if possible. Actually the British saw little hope for ANVIL if OVERLORD were strengthened, and thought the small amount of assault shipping that would remain in the Mediterranean after the required diversions might be better employed in maintaining the impetus of the offensive in Italy.5 The date of OVERLORD was quickly settled. Churchill, confident that Eisenhower and Montgomery would recommend a target date early in June during a moon phase corresponding to the original early May date, had discussed the matter with the British Chiefs and then
324
taken it up with Roosevelt. He argued that the Tehran agreement would permit any date up to the end of May, and in any case the preliminary feints and air bombardment would mark the real beginning of the operation. The commanders, he thought, should be allowed some latitude in fixing the exact date of the landings, and he saw no need to solicit Stalin's approval. Roosevelt replied noncommittally that any decision should await the recommendations of the commanders. When the Joint Chiefs received the London proposals at the end of January, their first reaction was to accept a 31 May target date, since more assault shipping would then be available, but to resist an explicit extension into June. A few days later, they conceded that a 31 May target date would give the Supreme Commander sufficient latitude to launch the operation as late as 2 June. The concession was really little more than a formality, for by the end of January detailed planning and preparations had reached a stage where the exact date was more a question of administration than of policy. The London staffs, as General Smith told General Handy via transatlantic telephone, had already assumed that "we have a week one way or the other," and were actually figuring on 6 June as the most probable date. Handy raised no objection.6
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one, a proposition that seemed more real opinion, bias, and purpose of the planin Washington than it did in London ners. where preoccupation with OVERLORD The London proposals to strengthen naturally tended to overshadow the OVERLORD found the staffs in Washingclaims of ANVILand where the British, ton mired deep in the statistics of ANVIL, at least, were inclined to see prosecution into which they had been drawn by of the Italian campaign as more im- Eisenhower's recommendations in midportant to the support of OVERLORD than December for a 3-division assault. Hasty ANVIL would be. estimates, made in the absence of any The U.S. planners in Washington, statement of requirements from the theconvinced that nothing less than a 2-divi- ater, established little except the likelision ANVIL assault would do, critically hood that the lift thus far earmarked scrutinized the assertion, hardly chal- for ANVIL would not be enough for a lenged in London except by the Supreme 3-division assault. Then on 29 December Commander himself, that if OVERLORD the theater's detailed requirements were were to be strengthened ANVIL must be received, calling for 15 LST's and 15 reduced. They started by re-examining LCT's over and above existing allocaANVIL not OVERLORD, analyzing the esti- tions. With the air still thick with unmated requirements of a 2-division as- settled statistics on arrangements for sault and matching them against cur- the Anzio landings, no one in either rently planned allotments in the hope of Washington or London was able to squeezing out a surplus to strengthen reconcile the theater's availability estiOVERLORD. Finally they proceeded to a mates with those of the central planning critical re-examination of OVERLORD'S staffsnot so surprising, perhaps, since 5-division requirement and of the re- the planning staffs were hopelessly at sources allegedly available to meet it. variance among themselves. The effort The findings of an inquiry undertaken to find a common basis for calculation in this spirit were likely to be quite dif- dragged on through January, while the ferent from those based on the premise American staffs awaited SHAEF's statethat the claims of OVERLORD were un- ment of the needs of an expanded OVER7 equivocally overriding. From this point LORD. of view the inclination was, first, to inThe above generalities are based on a detailed terpret requirements liberally for both analysis of the following staff papers: (1) CPS 131/5. operations, then to fatten OVERLORD 4 Jan 44, title: Assault Lift for SHINGLE, OVERLORD, while starving ANVIL; from the other, ANVIL, with Incls, in ABC 384 (1 Nov 43), Sec 2A. requirements would be tightly interpret- (2) Min, 121st mtg JPS, 12 Jan 44. (3) JCS 639, 23 Dec 43, interim JPS rpt, title: Assault Lift for ANVIL. ed in order to squeeze both operations (4) Memo, Col Billo for Chief, S&P Gp, OPD, 22 into the framework of available assets. Dec 43, sub: Assault Ships and Ldg Cft for Opn Interpretation was the key, for both as- ANVIL; and Memo, 7 Jan 44, same sub, ABC 381 Sec Papers (7 Jan 43), 196-213, Tabs 202 pects of the calculationthe numbers of Strategy and 202/1. (5) CCS 424, 5 Dec 43, title: Amphibious vessels and the size of forces a given num- Opn Against South of France. (6) Memo, Billo for ber of vessels could liftdepended heavi- Chief, S&P Gp, OPD, 30 Dec 43, sub: Comparison Figures Given in NAF 569 with those in JCS 639 ly on variable or speculative factors that of and SS 202, with related papers in ABC 561 (31 could hardly fail to be influenced by the Aug 43), Sec 1B.
7
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What gave the American staffs most cause for concern in this statistical controversy was the low serviceability factor used by the British in their calculations. This factor, a percentage of all vessels available in a theater, was used to estimate the number expected on the basis of past experience to be actually serviceable at the time an operation was to be executed. At Quebec in August 1943 the British and American staffs had agreed to use for OVERLORD planning serviceability factors of 90 percent for LST's and 85 percent for LCT's and LCI (L)'s; and, in planning Mediterranean operations, 85 percent for LST's, 80 percent for LCI (L)'s, and 75 percent for LCT's. Since American experience in both the Mediterranean and in the Pacific had, in the meantime, consistently bettered these estimates, averaging something like 95 percent for all landing ships and craft, American planners understandably considered the QUADRANT rates as unreasonably low. On the other hand, the British, with older vessels and equipment and possibly a less efficient maintenance system, had not done nearly so well, and held to the QUADRANT rates, insisting that it was "very much better to plan on too little and then have a bonus" than to face an unexpected shortage at the last moment.8 The Americans insisted just as strongly on a 95 percent serviceability factor.
Applied to the problem of finding means to strengthen OVERLORD without reducing ANVIL, their optimism produced spectacular, if varied, results. Eisenhow(1) Msg, RED 445, JPS London to JPS Washington, 4 Jan 44, Incl F, CPS 131/5, 4 Jan 44. (2) Memo for ACofS, OPD, unsigned, 21 Jan 44, sub: Assault Lift for European Opns, ABC 384 (9 Jul 43), Sec 1.
8
er's estimates of the needs for a 3-division ANVIL had been based on serviceability rates purportedly drawn from Mediterranean experience which the U.S. planners found too low; the latter calculated that an assault force of eight regimental combat teams could be mounted with the same shipping that, according to theater estimates, would only carry seven. Similarly, one officer proceeded to show that if 95 percent of the vessels, British and American, expected to be on hand for OVERLORD could be made serviceable, additional lift for almost 9,000 personnel and 1,300 vehicles over and above current estimates would accrue. Another calculation, using the same data for vessels on hand and rated capacities, boosted that estimate to almost 26,000 personnel and 3,600 vehicles for OVERLORD and an additional 7,400 personnel and 700 vehicles for ANVIL. With no more effort than that required to punch the keys of the
adding machine, here was a lift of more than 33,000 personnel and 4,300 vehicles that could be used to strengthen the OVERLORD assault. By including three
BOLERO XAP's, Mountbatten's residual shipping from southeast Asia, and the surplus that would be released if ANVIL were held to a 2-division assault, the staff could predict a grand total in assault lift of 72,000 personnel and 5,900 vehicles that theoretically might be scraped together to strengthen OVERLORD an "optimum," as the author of the computation admitted, "which undoubtedly will not be achieved"; but still something to shoot at.9
(1) Memo for Gen Roberts, unsigned and undated, sub: Assault Shpg for European Opns. (2) Tel Conv, Adm Bieri and Gen Roberts, 30 Dec 43. Both in ABC 561 (31 Aug 43), Sec 1-B. (3) Unsigned Memo for ACofS, OPD, 21 Jan 44. (4) In the event
9
OVERLORD AND ANVIL Based on these computations of paper riches, the general opinion in Washington in mid-January 1944 was that there would be no need to divert any ANVIL shipping at all to OVERLORD. That Eisenhower and the British thought otherwise became apparent when the Supreme Commander's formal recommendations for a 5-division OVERLORD, closely followed by the British Chiefs' enthusiastic endorsement, reached Washington toward the end of the month. Jarred by the size of Eisenhower's listed marginal requirements (6 combat loaders, 47 LST's, 72 LCI(L)'s, and 144 LCT's), which gave no indication of the calculations behind them, the Joint Chiefs immediately sent a detailed questionnaire back to London asking the number of craft expected to be available, rated capacities, serviceability factors, and other details pertaining to the load10 ing plan. The SHAEF reply was prompt, brusque, and not altogether enlightening. "I would emphasize" the message began, "that there is one main question to which an answer is required now. Will the additional lift asked for OVERLORD be provided?" The technical questions were answered in detail,11 but the Washington planners found it imposAmerican optimism as to serviceability rates proved
327
sible to reconcile their own figures on expected availability with those of the theater staff and hence could give no categorical answer to Eisenhower's pointed question. For instance, in the case of LCT's, the Washington planners estimated there would be 890 available for an early June OVERLORD while the theater estimated there would be only 636.12 During the first week in February Washington and theater planners feverishly sought to clear up the discrepancies in a series of messages and transatlantic telephone conferences. By the 6th they were able to agree on figures that became the basis for calculation on both sides of the Atlantic. For the most part, the Washington planners conceded the battle and accepted theater estimates. At the same time they were able to make a few scattered, though tangible, additions to the OVERLORD lift: 3 XAP's from the BOLERO convoys (other than the 3 already allotted to ANVIL), besides 27 more LCT's and 30 more LCI (L)'s, some of the last two types partly at the expense of training but most of them from spring production. The Joint Chiefs further suggested that Mountbatten's single remaining LSI (L) should also be assigned to OVERLORD, together with two more that he had recently been ordered to send back to the Mediterranean.13
12 The source of the discrepancy appears to have been the question of the cutoff date for new LCT's for OVERLORD from British production and the
justified. Actually, 99.3 percent of all U.S. assault shipping and 97.6 percent of all British assault shipping on hand in the United Kingdom on D-day were used in the cross-Channel assault. See Harrison, Cross-Channel Attack, note 44, p. 171. 10 Msg, JCS to Eisenhower, 25 Jan 44, SHAEF SGS 560, vol. II. 11 Msg B-55, Eisenhower to JCS, 28 Jan 44, SHAEF SGS 560, vol. II. Rated capacities were set at 300 personnel and 60 vehicles per LST, 200 personnel per LCI(L), 55 personnel and 11 vehicles per LCT. There would be 2,530 vehicles per assault division and 550 vehicles per assault regimental combat team (RCT).
method of accounting for the 105 LCT's to be converted to support craft. See Msg 43, AGWAR to
SHAEF (for Smith's eyes only), 28 Jan 44, SHAEF SGS 381 OVERLORD-ANVIL, vol. I. 13 (1) JCS 658/1, 30 Jan 44, rpt by JPS, title: Recommendations of SCAEF on OVERLORD and ANVIL. (2) Ltr, Gen Handy to Gen Smith, 2 Feb 44, with attached Memo, Col Billo for Col Lincoln, 2 Feb 44, sub: Reconciliation of Figures in SEXTANT Estimates . . . , and supporting tables, ABC 561 (31 Aug 43), Sec 1-B.
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The resultant estimates are shown in Table 28. Even with conservative estimates of
total availability, the U.S. staff was able, by means of the magic wand of high serviceability, to transform what London insisted was a deficit into a fat surplus.
bits and pieces to be added, OVERLORD 95 percent serviceability factor only to would have an assault lift totaling about American vessels, they still produced fig- 177,000 men and over 20,000 vehicles. ures that showed that the shipping al- On the assumption that the heavily reinready allocated to OVERLORD would be forced divisions would average about sufficient to mount an assault of 61/3 24,000-25,000 men and on the reduced
divisions by 31 May, while ANVIL would have enough for 2, maybe even 22/3 divisions. The additional American lift proposed (3 XAP's, 27 LCT's and 30 LCI (L)'s) they thought would accomscale of 2,500 vehicles per division adopted by the theater planners, these totals were reckoned in Washington to be the equivalent of 7 or 7-1/3 divisions in personnel lift and 8 divisions in vehicular
modate roughly another combat team, and the 3 British LSI (L)'s about 6,000 more troops. To these gains might be added, the staff pointed out, assault lift for another OVERLORD combat team if the British could only attain a 95-percent level of serviceability among their 14 own vessels. London agreed to make all three LSI (L)'s available as suggested, but on the serviceability question the British Admiralty obstinately held its ground, arguing that repair facilities were already stretched to the limit and that training and rehearsals would tie up craft right to the last minute.15 So the London planners won a second conces-
lift. The findings stood up, moreover, under the scrutiny of the British planners in Washington so that General
Handy could cable triumphantly to London on 7 February: "Combined planners agree . . . there is lift for at least seven divisions . . . leaving a two-division ANVIL lift."16 This optimistic conclusion, General Handy learned in a telephone conversa-
4 Feb (1) 44, JCSSHAEF 658/1, SGS 30 Jan 560, 44. vol. (2) II. CCS (2) The 465/3, British 31 Jan did 44, memo by U.S. COS, title: Recommendations of SCAEF on OVERLORD and ANVIL. 15 (1) Msg OZ 632, COS(W) 1127 to Britman Wash, concede that the rate for LST's might be improved in the Mediterranean.
14
(1) Msg R-9085, Handy to Smith (eyes only), 7 Feb 44. (2) Tel Conv, Handy and Smith, 8 Feb 44. (3) Msg R-9135, Handy to Smith, 8 Feb 44. (4) Msg 76, Marshall to Eisenhower (eyes only), 7 Feb 44. All in OPD Exec 10, Item 52A. (5) Msg JSM 1496, Britman Wash to War Office, 8 Feb 44, SHAEF SGS 560, vol. II. (6) CCS 465/6, 6 Feb 44, memo by U.S. COS, title: Recommendations of SHAEF. . . . (7) These conclusions do not appear altogether consistent with those in JCS 658/1, which indicated a lift, even with higher serviceability, of only about 7 divisions (6 1/3 plus 1 RCT plus 6,000 personnel). Possibly this was a result of differences in the loading capacities used in the two sets of calculations.
16
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a Includes 1 British LSI(L) in Southeast Asia and 2 British LSI(L)'s in use as troop carriers which could be made available for either OVERLORD or ANVIL.
Includes 30 additional offered by JCS on 31 January 1944. Source: (1) Memo, Col Billo for Col Lincoln, 2 Feb 44, sub: Reconciliation of Figures in SEXTANT Estimates . . . , ABC 381 Strategy Sec Papers (7 Jan 43); 227-40/10, Tab 240. (2) Memo, U.S. Secy CPS for CPS, 6 Feb 44, sub: Recommendations of SCAEF . . . , ABC
the theater although both groups of planners were now using approximately the same figures on vessel availability. The difference, clarified in messages on the following day, revolved around rated capacities of the vessels. The so-called Includes 27 additional offered by JCS on 31 January 1944. 7-division lift, General Smith carefully explained, actually was to provide for
b
slice of 31,000, not 25,000, men), 5 for the initial assault, and 2 brigade groups to be assault loaded in the follow-up. The rest of the 2-division follow-up force was to be preloaded in ordinary
transports. The total force to be lifted in assault shipping was now estimated at 176,475 men and 20,111 vehiclesall of which, according to Washington estimates, would be neatly covered by the
expected available lift. But the theater staff still figured a substantial deficit (about 20,300 men and 2,200 vehicles) for which they said an additional LSI (H), 42 LST's, and 51 LCI (L)'s would be needed. These vessels were not additional to the stated requirement of 23 January, but represented the unfilled residue after deducting the resources scraped together since that date. The issue, Washington planners decided, boiled down to the technical question of how many troops and vehicles could be loaded on the larger more valuable types of vessels, principally the
LSI (L)'s. American naval experts in Washington and British naval experts in London differed on the question, and Smith and Handy concluded after a final sharp wrangle on 9 February that
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"Apparently," Churchill noted when he saw the paper, "the two-division lift for ANVIL is given priority over OVERLORD."19 Whether this interpretation could in fact be placed on the JCS move depended on which estimates of available assault lift proved correct those produced in Washington or those produced in London. One or the other set (or both) must be wrong. The British Chiefs, after four days of discussion with the Prime Minister, still contended that the deficit was genuine, and that to meet it ANVIL must be reduced to a one-division threat. Such a threat, they still thought, would contain as many divisions as Were likely to be shifted north to oppose OVERLORD anyway. They underlined the difference in their approach to the problem:
In the first place we feel that the fundamental consideration . . . is the chance of a successful OVERLORD, and that the right approach . . . is therefore to build up OVERLORD to the strength required by the Supreme Commander and then allocate what additional resources can be found to the Mediterranean.
Moreover, they reminded the British, Stalin had been promised at Tehran a supporting operation, not a threat, in southern France. On these premises, the Joint Chiefs took the stand that ANVIL must be mounted on a 2-division scale, no less, while OVERLORD should be carried out merely "with as large an assault lift as possible," and the Supreme Commander should be authorized to redis-
17 (1) Tel Convs, Smith and Handy, 8 and 9 Feb 44. (2) Msg R-9135, Handy to Smith, 8 Feb 44. Both in OPD Exec 10, Item 52A. (3) Msgs, Smith to Handy, B-212, 8 Feb 44; and B-134 and B-135, 9 Feb 44, 18 CCS 465/3, 31 Jan 44, memo by U.S. COS, title: SHAEF SGS 560, vol. II. (4) Memo, Marshall for Dill, 9 Feb 44, Exec 10, Item 66. (5) Memo, Marshall Recommendations of SCAEF on OVERLORD and for Leahy and King, 9 Feb 44, sub: OVERLORD-ANVIL, ANVIL. 19 Churchill, Closing the Ring, pp. 511-12. ABC 384 Europe (5 Aug 43).
The British Chiefs flatly rejected, moreover, the proposal to give Eisenhower authority to reallocate shipping between OVERLORD and the Mediterranean, insisting that this authority rested exclusively with the Combined Chiefs "who alone have the means of judging every
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validity, and its rugged terrain possessed defensive capabilities almost equal to those of Italy. The French forces rearmed in North Africa could be used just as effectively in northern France. The British Chiefs consequently recommended that ANVIL "as at present planned," be canceled and that General Wilson's amphibious resources be reduced to a one-division lift to be used as he saw fit. 21 "The British and American Chiefs of Staff," Marshall told Eisenhower on 7 February, "seem to have completely reversed themselves and we have become Mediterraneanites and they 22 heavily pro-OVERLORD." Army planners in Washington were not impressed by the British arguments. There were, they contended, enough landing craft for both OVERLORD and a strong ANVIL; enough air, ground, and naval forces for both ANVIL and the campaign in Italy. There was not enough shipping to move French forces out of the Mediterranean, and AFHQ estimates had consistently indicated doubt that all the forces available in the Mediterranean could be supported in Italy. Even if they could, an augmented effort in Italy would hardly be worth the price. The Germans could be contained there with forces on the spot. ANVIL, the Americans argued, would serve far more effectively to bring into action against the enemy all available forces at the climax of the European war and to pin down German divisions that might otherwise be moved immediately against the OVERLORD lodgment area. In this sense ANVIL was as "strategically interwoven" with OVERLORD as the promised
20 (1) Msgs OZ 631, COS(W) 1126 to Britman Wash, 4 Feb 44; and OZ 632, 4 Feb 44, SHAEF SGS 560, vol. II. Quotes from former. (2) Msg RED 491, JPS London to JPS Wash, 7 Feb 44, AGC 384 Europe (5 Aug 43), Sec 2-A. (3) British staff calculations of the deficit, in terms of specific types of 21 vessels, varied somewhat from the statement by Msg, OZ 631, COS(W) 1126, 4 Feb 44. 22 Eisenhower's staff on 9 February but the impact Msg, Marshall to Eisenhower (eyes only), 7 Feb was the same. 44, OPD Exec 10, Item 52a.
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"How much of this pressure is Montgomery and how much is Eisenhower?"25 cerned both the factual determination Eisenhower's prompt reply, despite its of resources available for the two Euro- tone of earnest candor, did not quite pean operations and the appraisal of face up to Marshall's query. He conceded their adequacy. They were willing to the strategic value of a strong ANVIL, but yield to British insistence that the allo- at the same time insisted on the absolute cation of resources between theaters was need to insure the success of OVERLORD. a matter solely within CCS jurisdiction. His aim, as two weeks earlier, was still But they were determined not to give a 5-division OVERLORD and a 2-division up ANVIL, and on this score they suf- ANVIL. He denied that "pressure" had fered some uneasiness during the first been exerted or that "localitis" had set week in February because of indications in, but he seemed not to grasp the sigfrom Eisenhower that he might be lean- nificance or the depth of disagreement ing toward the British position. On between Washington and London over 7 February General Marshall bluntly ANVIL. The crucial question, whether asked the Supreme Allied Commander the available lift would be sufficient for to state his views. Was he prepared to a 2-division ANVIL after OVERLORD'S reinsist, Marshall queried, that OVERLORD quirements were met remained, as Marmust be assigned all available assault shall dryly informed his colleagues, "in shipping over and above a one-division the air."26 A few days earlier, Prime Minister lift in the Mediterranean, even though the Combined Planners in Washington Churchill had suggested to the Presinow agreed, contrary to the views of the dent that the Joint Chiefs come to LonLondon planners ("or Montgomery, I don and, with their British counterparts, don't know which"), that there was suf- try to break the deadlock at the conferficient lift for at least a 7-division OVER- ence table. Involved at the moment in a LORD and a 2-division ANVIL? "If you debate on Pacific strategy with repreconsider this absolutely imperative, then sentatives of the Pacific theaters, the it should be done that way. . . . I merely Joint Chiefs were unwilling to hold anwish to be certain that localitis is not other full-dress conference on European developing and that the pressures on strategy so soon after Cairo-Tehran. you have not warped your judgment."24 They consequently decided to designate Eisenhower as their representative to reach agreement with the British Chiefs (1) Memo, Gen Handy for Gen Roberts, 5 Feb
23
44, sub: OVERLORD and ANVIL, ABC 384 Europe (5 Aug 43), Sec 2A. (2) CCS 465/6, 6 Feb 44, memo by U.S. COS, title: Recommendations of SCAEF . . ., and JCS 658/2, 5 Feb 44, same title. 24 (1) Msg 76, Marshall to Eisenhower (eyes only), 7 Feb 44. (2) Msg W-10678, Eisenhower to Marshall (eyes only), 6 Feb 44. Both in Exec 10, Item 52a. (3) CCS 465/6, 6 Feb 44.
25 Tel Conv, Smith and Handy, 7 Feb 44, OPD Exec 10, Item 52a. 26 (1) Msg W-10786, Eisenhower to Marshall (eyes only), 8 Feb 44, OPD Exec 10, Item 52a. (2) Memo, Marshall for Leahy and King, 9 Feb 44, sub: OVERLORD and ANVIL, ABC 384 Europe (5 Aug 43), Sec 2-A.
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and to send General Hull, chief of OPD's using all landing craft returning from European Theater Section, and Admiral their first missions. Moreover, the ferry Cooke, the Navy's chief planner, to Lon- service could be augmented by 68 addidon to present the conclusions of the tional LCM's (carrying an incidental Washington staffs on technical aspects of contribution of additional vehicles) if the questions involved. The decision to 2 LSD's and 2 LSG's, expected to be send technical experts grew out of a fear available, were assigned to bring them that Eisenhower, however loyally he to the scene. To these expedients, evidently based might support American views on the strategic value of ANVIL, might be influ- on the U.S. Navy's experience in the enced on technical matters by the opin- Pacific, the British Admiralty imposed ion of his principal naval adviser, Brit- objections that large transports crammed ish Admiral Cunningham. "You had bet- with troops, as well as LSG's and LSD's, ter," General Smith had warned Handy, were too valuable to expose to enemy "send a senior admiral, because the fire for long periods during unloading. It also objected to ferrying on the prowhole thing hinges on loading. . . ,"27 Arriving in London on 12 February, posed scale on the ground that it would 28 Hull and Cooke plunged into a round aggravate the traffic problem. of conferences with the SHAEF planners General Eisenhower was sufficiently at Norfolk House. They quite easily impressed by the arguments of the Washdemonstrated that in the aggregate there ington group to order a general re-exwas ample personnel and vehicle ca- amination of the existing plan to deterpacity already in sight to meet OVER- mine whether its tactical framework LORD requirements, if full advantage could be covered by a reduced assault were taken of the bunk capacity of lift. Strong opposition was soon evident LSI (L)'s, APA's, XAP's, and AKA's, and in the 21st Army Group planning staff, of the small boats that these landing which found the various expedients disships carried on their davits (this despite cussed in the SHAEF meetings unsuited the fact that 3 of the 21 LSI (L)'s count- to the tactical plan. The lift for Comed on were not now expected to be con- mando and Ranger units, the planners verted from troop carriers in time). pointed out, was swallowed up in the Landing both troops and vehicles from gross totals, apparently on the dubious these vessels, the Washington repre- assumption that these special troops sentatives urged, could be greatly accel- were to be crowded into attack transerated by organizing a ferry service im(1) Memo for CofS, SHAEF, 13 Feb 44, sub: mediately following the first assault wave,
28
(1) Ibid.(2). (2) Quote from Tel Conv, Handy and Smith, 9 Feb 44. (3) Msg, Marshall to Eisenhower, 9 Feb 44. Both in Exec 10, Item 52a. (4) OPD MFR, 12 Feb 44, sub: Recommendations of SCAEF . . ., OPD 381 Security, vol. VIIA, Case 217. (5 Matloff, Strategic Planning, 1943-44, p. 418. (6) Hull and Cooke were accompanied by Colonel Lincoln of the OPD staff and Capt. Donald R. Osborn, Jr., of Admiral King's staff, as principal advisers.
27
Personnel and Vehicle Lift for OVERLORD. (2) Memo, 13 Feb 44, sub: Comparison of Available Lift for OVERLORD with That Used for Plng Purposes. . . . (3) Min of spec mtgs at Norfolk House 0930, 13 Feb 44; 1500, 13 Feb 44; 1000, 14 Feb 44. All in OPD 560 Security, vol. III, Case 125. (4) The LSD's, of which four in all had been produced by this time, could transport loaded small craft and launch them at sea. Two were then in the United Kingdom, one in the Mediterranean, and one in SEAC; only one had actually been allocated to OVERLORD.
334
ports along with other forces. To use LSI(L)'s, APA's, XAP's, and AKA's crammed with troops and vehicles on the first three tides, instead of LST's and LCI (L)'s, would not merely endanger these valuable ships and their contents, but, because of the time required to discharge vehicles, would delay uniting troops and vehicles into fighting formations ashore. Slow vehicle discharge would also, they contended, seriously retard the build-up. The army group staff also strongly seconded the objections of the Admiralty to Hull's and Cooke's proposed ferry service and employment of LSD's and LSG's.29 How much of this opposition really stemmed from technical considerations, the Washington representatives could not be sure. The London planners were naturally reluctant to scrap the results of weeks of arduous staff work. By persistent questioning, Hull and Cooke learned for the first time that SHAEF requirements, in specific numbers and types of assault shipping, had originally borne little relation to any specific conception of the OVERLORD assault, but had been calculated simply by adding together earlier OVERLORD allocations, half of the lift assigned to ANVIL, and roughly a month's additional output of new landing craft in the United Kingdom.30 The a priori assumption that ANVIL must be
29
(1) Memo, Gen Smith for ANCXF, 15 Feb 44, SHAEF SGS 560, vol. II. (2) 21st Army Gp Memo on Implications of SHAEF Proposals . . . , 17 Feb 44. return for the lift of a couple of thousand (3) Msg W-1152, Eisenhower to Marshall (eyes only), administrative vehicles on the third tide 14 Feb 44. Both in SHAEF SGS 381 OVERLORD-ANVIL. in landing craft, which might perhaps (4) Memo, 13 Feb 44, sub: Comparison of Available be carried almost as well as in AKA's Lift. . . . 30 (1) Msg, COMNAVEU to COMINCH, 14 Feb 44, SHAEF SGS 560, vol. II. (2) Memo, Col Lincoln 31 for Gen Roberts, 16 Feb 44, in ABC 384 Europe (5 Memo, Montgomery for SCAEF, 16 Feb 44, Aug 43), Sec 1A. SHAEF SGS 560, vol. II.
Yet by the following day, 17 February, the purely technical disagreement apparently had narrowed to the proposed use of attack transports instead of LST's for lifting some 2,400 vehicles in the assault, mainly on the third tide (D plus 1)roughly equivalent to the lift of the 42 additional LST's the SHAEF planners had requested on the 9th. LST's would, of course, also solve the problem of slow vehicle discharge in the build-up. "It looks," remarked Colonel Lincoln, "as if we are throwing away ANVIL, an effective diversion during the critical period sometime after D plus 8 . . . in
335
deadline for arrival 30 days before the operation could informally be reduced 34 to two weeks. In the planners' meeting on 14 February, in fact, Admiral Cooke cautiously admitted the possibility that 10 new LST's might be brought from the United States for OVERLORD, but even if these did materialize in time (and Cooke made no promises), a deficit of 32 would still remain. The Americans renewed their old argument for higher serviceability rates and, since the British still refused to budge on this question, the U.S. Navy command in the theater finally undertook to assure a serviceability rate of 95 percent for the American landing ships and craft used in OVERLORD. On paper, this would produce seven more LST's. Overloading LST's by two or three vehicles each might add the equivalent of seven to ten more. But at best these expedients represented probabilities that might not materialize. The British had little faith in them, preferring the "certainties" of taking the needed LST's from ANVIL.35 On 18 February an uneasy compromise emerged. The 21st Army Group staff, whether relying on American assurances of higher serviceability or on a reassessment of their own needs, dropped 7 LST's from the requirement of 42, and 30 LCI (L)'s from the require(1) Tel Convs, Handy and Smith, 4 and 8 Feb 44. (2) Quotation from 8 Feb conversation. (3) Msg R-9085, Handy to Smith (eyes only), 7 Feb 44. All in OPD Exec 10, Item 52a. 35 (1) Min of spec mtgs at Norfolk House, 1000 and 1100, 14 Feb 44, with related papers in OPD
34
560 Security, III, Case 125. (2) Min spec mtgs 1615,
17 Feb 44, and 1100, 18 Feb 44, SHAEF SGS 381 OVERLORD-ANVIL, I. (3) Memo, Lincoln for Hull, 17 Feb 44. (4) Memo, Lincoln for Cooke, 17 Feb 44, sub: Serviceability and Loading of Ldg Cft, SHAEF SGS 560, vol. II.
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ment of 51. It was then proposed that 20 LST's and 21 LCI (L)'s be taken from ANVIL (the vessels to depart the Mediterranean for the United Kingdom not later than 1 April) and, by way of compensation for the LST's, to transfer to the Mediterranean the 6 more or less unwanted AKA's, which represented roughly their equivalent in vehicle lift and were more suitable for amphibious employment under Mediterranean weather and tide conditions than in the Channel. The remaining deficit of 15 LST's, it was hoped, might be absorbed by the various "probabilities" higher serviceability, overloading, and new American production. Upon the lastnamed source Eisenhower put in a strong bid for at least 7 new LST's, which might be used in the build-up even if they could not arrive in time for the assault. The proposal was contingent also upon allocation of 3 British LSI (L)'s, 2 LSD's, and 64 more cargo ships for the buildup, as well as the necessary escort groups for the extra convoys of personnel ships that would be needed in the build-up to compensate for the reduction in LCI (L)'s. To all these arrangements Montgomery acceded, though with a marked lack of enthusiasm, and Eisenhower forwarded them to the British Chiefs as his and the American Chiefs' 36 solution to the problem. The British Chiefs were of the opinion "that both OVERLORD and ANVIL are skimped" but were prepared to accept, though reluctantly, the proposed allocations of assault shippingif, that is, AN-
36 (1) Memo by SCAEF, 18 Feb 44, sub: Assault Shpg and Cft for OVERLORD. (2) Memo, Gen Smith for SCAEF, 18 Feb 44, sub: Reassessment of Assault 37 (1) Msg COS(W) 1156 to JSM, Wash, 19 Feb 44, Shpg. . . . Both in OPD 560 Security, III, Case 125. OPD Exec 3, Item 16. (2) Ehrman, Grand Strategy V, (3) Min, spec mtg at Norfolk House, 1700, 18 Feb 44, 230-31. SHAEF SGS 381 OVERLORD-ANVIL, I.
OVERLORD AND ANVIL decision, and for the present they wanted to go ahead with plans for ANVIL, conceding meanwhile that all ground combat forces in the Mediterranean should be regarded as available for the drive on Rome. In the normal process of pulling tired divisions out of the line for rehabilitation, the necessary forces could be readied for ANVIL, and the whole situation could be reviewed about 1April. In the meantime, the proposed transfers of assault shipping should be approved, and the United States would undertake to provide the requested seven LST's, largely at the expense of training new crews. The Joint Chiefs instructed Eisenhower, as their designated representative, to approach the British Chiefs again with a view to securing either agreement "or carefully stated disagreement" on the ANVIL question. To this charge they added a pointed reminder from the President that the United States was "committed to a third power" to carry out the operation.38 General Eisenhower, still convinced that OVERLORD needed a diversionary landing in southern France, had come to share British doubts as to the likelihood, given the situation in Italy, that ANVIL would ever come off. Worried about OVERLORD itselfas he saw German strength across the Channel inching closer to the stipulated maximum the planners would accept the Supreme Commander sought to preserve "flexibility," a word that appeared with increasing frequency in his correspondence and
38
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speech about this time. He wanted to postpone as long as possible decisions and preparations that would make it impossible to transfer ANVIL resources to OVERLORD, to draw from Italy or elsewhere formations earmarked for ANVIL, or to make other dispositions to meet a developing situation.39 How far his desire for flexibility had led Eisenhower to deviate from the U.S. Chiefs' conception of Mediterranean strategy emerged on 22 February when he met with the British Chiefs to work out a final compromise. He succeeded in persuading the British to postpone cancellation of ANVIL but only by conceding on behalf of his own superiors that ANVIL was only one, even though the favored one, of various alternatives that might be undertaken to support OVERLORD after the situation in Italy had cleared. The U.S. Chiefs, he asserted, "would be prepared to regard as implementation of the undertaking at Tehran any diversionary operation, whatever its name, on the largest scale possible with the resources at General Wilson's command after meeting the require40 ments of the battle of Italy." On this basis it was agreed that planning and preparations for ANVIL (with a 2-division assault and a 10-division build-up) would go ahead along with plans for alternative projects, but only so far as they did not interfere with the battle in Italy, which must have overriding pri39 (1) Msgs, Eisenhower to Marshall (eyes only), W-11152, 15 Feb 44; W-11500, 19 Feb 44; and W-11674, 19 Feb 44. (2) Min of spec mtgs at Norfolk House, 4, 17, 18 Feb 44. All in SHAEF SGS
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ority over all Mediterranean operations. General Wilson would assume for the present that the proposed disposition of assault shippingexchange of 20 (mostly British) LST's and 21 British LCI (L)'s from the ANVIL allotment for the 6 OVERLORD AKA'swould go into effect about 1April. But all arrangements and plans were to be reviewed on 20 March in the light of the situation then prevailing in Italy, and if it were then decided to cancel ANVIL, OVERLORD would get as much of its assault shipping over and above a one-division lift as could profitably be used. The whole arrangement, as Lord Ismay informed the Prime Minister with some satisfaction, supported the British position on all essential points; at the same time, in deference to the Americans, it did not "entirely close the door on ANVIL." On 26 February the President, the Prime Minister, and the Combined Chiefs approved. As far as the U.S. Chiefs were concerned, however, the agreement involved no abandonment of their preference for ANVIL over any alternative if events in Italy permitted the release of needed forces. Everything now depended on what happened in Italy during the next four weeks.41
what these measures should be reagitated the assault shipping question. Once again LST's were the heart of the problem. Under the new arrangements for deployment of landing craft for OVERLORD and ANVIL, 41 LST's (almost all British) were scheduled to move from the Mediterranean to the United Kingdom, 13 at the end of February, 14 more about 20 March, and a final 14 early in April. In April, also, 26 new American LST's, each carrying an LCT piggy-back, were scheduled to arrive in the Mediterranean, earmarked and specially equipped for use in the invasion of southern France. The crisis at Anzio upset these arrangements. General Alexander, expecting further counterattacks, proposed to relieve one tired division in the beachhead, bring in an extra division, and step up the general rate of reinforcement and supply. In a message to the British Chiefs on 29 February General Wilson
asked as an emergency measure that he be allowed to retain for two more weeks the 13 LST's due to depart that day, A second message the same day asked for a further extension to 1 April, and for postponement of the departure of 14 more LST's scheduled to leave later until the 26 new American LST's arrived in the theater.42 Wilson's first request, for emergency retention of 13 LST's, was approved without demur, but a lively three-cornered discussion ensued among Washington, London, and the theater over subsequent provisions for carrying out
42 (1) Msg MEDCOS 47, Wilson to COS, 29 Feb 44. (2) Msg, Alexander to CIGS, 28 Feb 44. (3) Msg, CINCMED to Admiralty, 28 Feb 44. All in SHAEF SGS 560, vol. II. (4) CCS 379/8, 1 Mar 44, Memo by Br COS, title: Retention of LST's in Mediterranean, with Incl. (5) Ehrman, Grand Strategy V, 244-45.
Anvil Postponed
Within two days developments in the Anzio beachhead demanded new emergency measures, and the controversy over
(1) Quotation from Memo, Ismay for Prime Minister, 23 Feb 44, SHAEF SGS 560, vol. II. (2) Related papers in same file. (3) Min, 147th mtg JCS, 21 Feb 44. (4) Matloff, Strategic Planning, 194344, p. 421. (5) Harrison, Cross-Channel Attack, p. 172. (6) Forrest C. Pogue, The Supreme Command, UNITED STATES ARMY IN WORLD WAR II (Washington, 1954), pp. 114-15.
41
OVERLORD AND ANVIL Alexander's program at Anzio. At first the British Chiefs proposed canceling all planned LST movements from the Mediterranean and, instead, to assign to OVERLORD the 26 new American LST's allotted to ANVIL together with their deck-loaded LCT's, which would sail directly from the United States to England, and to retain in the United Kingdom 3 of the 6 AKA's recently scheduled for movement to the Mediterranean. For the precious LST's, this arrangement would avoid "wasting three weeks of their useful life" in passage to the United Kingdom during the period when the Anzio beachhead had to be nourished.43 But the substitution of AKA's for LST's, even though providing
a roughly equivalent lift, ran directly contrary to the recent verdict of the Norfolk House conferences and Eisenhower strenuously objected. The British Chiefs then reshaped their proposal, with Eisenhower's concurrence, to provide that in addition to the 26 LST's from the United States 15 British LST's would be transferred from the Mediterranean early in April.44 The modified British proposal provided a bonus for OVERLORD in the form of the 26 piggy-back LCT's. For ANVIL it would offer 26 older British LST's to replace 26 new American ones equipped with additional davits for carrying small boats. General Wilson objected to the substitutions and the U.S. Chiefs supUndated draft msg, Br COS to JSM Wash, ca. 29 Feb 44, in SHAEF SGS 381 OVERLORD-ANVIL, vol. I (ser. 31 926-28). 44 (1) Ibid. (2) Msgs, COS(W) 1183 and 1184, 29 Feb 44, COS(W) 1195, 7 Mar 44, to JSM Wash. (3) Min, 78th mtg Br COS, 29 Feb 44. All in SHAEF SGS 560, vol. II. (4) CCS 379/8, memo by Reps Br COS, 1 Mar 44, title: Retention of LST's in Mediterranean.
43
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ported him. The latter proposed that Wilson be allowed to retain the 13 LST's until 1 April, and that further dispositions be postponed until 20 March when the whole fate of ANVIL was to be reviewed. Should ANVIL then be canceled, there would be ample time to transfer landing craft from the Mediterranean for OVERLORD. If ANVIL were not canceled, Wilson should then be permitted to retain 14 of the additional 28 LST's scheduled to depart for the United Kingdom until the first 12 of the 26 American LST's arrived. As alternatives, the last 14 of the 26 American craft could be sent either directly to the United Kingdom or by way of the Mediterranean in order to drop off their new LCT's for
ANVIL.45
The British proposal would insure that the new American LST's would all arrive in the United Kingdom by the end of April and join the OVERLORD assault forces in the first week in May. Under the American proposal, on the other hand, the first 13 LST's, if retained in the Mediterranean until 1 April to support the beachhead, would have to refit after their arrival in the United Kingdom, and therefore could not join the assault forces until the third week in May. Both the British and General Eisenhower felt that this delay would seriously handicap OVERLORD. On 9 March Eisenhower addressed a sharp protest to the Joint Chiefs, warning against the tendency in Washington to skimp on OVERLORD assault shipping and complaining that the results of the Norfolk
45
title: Retention of LST's in Mediterranean. (2) JSM 1558 to Br COS, 4 Mar 44, SHAEF SGS 381 OVERLORD-ANVIL, vol. I. (3) Msg COS(W) 1195 to JSM Wash, 7 Mar 44.
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GLOBAL LOGISTICS AND STRATEGY: 1943-1945 daily average of nearly 5,100 tons of supplies was unloaded over the beaches, 1,100 tons more than the goal Alexander had set. By the end of the month the logistical situation was excellent, and even earlier than that the last serious German counterattacks had been beaten off. With improving weather and diminishing enemy fire on the beach, LCT's and DUKW's could be used more continuously to unload large freighters in the harbor, reducing the need to rely on LST's.48 But the victory at Anzio was only a defensive one, and the situation in Italy remained a stalemate. In midMarch new Allied attacks on the Cassino front failed. On 21 March General Wilson sent in his and Alexander's appraisal of the Mediterranean situation. The spring offensive in Italy was now planned to begin on 15 April; a junction of the southern forces with the beachhead troops, the Allied commanders believed, could not be expected before mid-May, the capture of Rome not before mid-June. Forces and assault shipping could be assembled and reorganized for ANVIL no sooner than ten weeks after the link-up with the beachhead, pushing D-day back to the end of July at the earliest. Wilson, who regarded ANVIL as a risky and unprofitable undertaking anyway, again recommended that ANVIL be canceled immediately and planning for any landings in southern France be limited to the assumption that they would be unopposed. He thought the most profitable alternative would be to continue the offensive in Italy, using a one-division-
House conferences had left OVERLORD "fifteen LST's short in the interest of keeping ANVIL alive." He bluntly expressed the view that ANVIL seemed more than ever a forlorn hope and that transfer of some of its landing craft to OVERLORD was "inevitable."46 The very next day, the U.S. Navy offered a solution to the difficulty in the form of a new sailing schedule for the 26 American LST's. The first 20 would now reach the Mediterranean by 31 March and the remainder by 10 April, assuring adequate support for Anzio until the spring offensive. On the basis of this undertaking, the Joint Chiefs suggested that the first 13 of the OVERLORD LST's now in the Mediterranean should depart for the United Kingdom about 20 March as originally scheduled, and the remaining 28 early in April after refitting, as they were relieved by LST's arriving from the United States. To this arrangement the British agreed, but on the understanding that any further losses among the 41 OVERLORD LST's would be made good by the United States and that very probably only 22 of the 28 could actually be refitted in time to meet the scheduled sailing dates.47 As an emergency measure, the retention of LST's at Anzio paid for itself during the month of March, when a
46 (1) Msg, Eisenhower to JCS, 9 Mar 44, SHAEF SGS 560, vol. III. (2) Msg COS(W) 1195, 7 Mar 44. 47 (1) Msg, JSM 1564 to Br COS, 9 Mar 44. (2) Msg COS(W) 1204 to JSM Wash, 10 Mar 44. (3) Min, 82d mtg Br COS, 10 Mar 44. (4) Msg, JSM 1565 to Br COS, 10 Mar 44. All in SHAEF SGS 381 OVERLORDANVIL, vol. I. (5) Msg, Marshall to Eisenhower, 12 Mar 44. (6) Msg, Handy to Smith, 12 Mar 44. (5) and (6) in OPD 560 Security, III, Case 130. (7) Memo, 48 Brig Redman to Col MacFarland, 20 Mar 44, in (1) Bykofsky and Larson, The Transportation ABC 561 (31 Aug 43) Sec 1-B. (8) Corresp and Corps: Operations Overseas, p. 211. (2) Fifth Army papers, 11-18 Mar 44, in SHAEF SGS 560, vol. III. History, vol. IV, Cassino and Anzio, 168-70.
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ing. Washington estimates concluded that such delaying tactics might hold up an Allied advance to the Pisa-Rimini line for six months, and Wilson's reports indicated that only eight Allied divisions could be supported north of Rome. Thus the Americans could envisage no more profitable employment for the surplus Mediterranean forces than a strong thrust into southern France, timed to take place as soon after OVERLORD as resources would permit. Indeed, for the Joint Chiefs the capture of Rome had lost its appeal, though they conceded that the Anzio forces must be joined with the main front at all costs.52 Even for a delayed invasion of southern France, there remained the question whether the ANVIL assault lift should be reduced to one division in order to give Eisenhower what he wanted. Happily, the Joint Chiefs were spared a hard choice. On 23 March the Navy reported that the requested 26 LST's and 40 LCI (L)'s, if taken from the Mediterranean for OVERLORD, could be replaced by new vessels from the United States now slated for the Pacific, and that they could arrive in the theater toward the end of 53 June. It may be more than a coincidence that this offer followed by about a week another move by General Somervell to
52 (1) Memo, Col Lincoln for Gen Roberts, 22 Mar 44, sub: What Shall We Do About ANVIL, ABC 384 Europe (5 Aug 43), Sec 9A. (2) Memo, Gen Handy for CofS, 23 Mar 44, sub: German Capabilities As to Withdrawal of Divisions from Italy . . . , ABC 381 Strategy Sec Papers (7 Jan 43) 227/40/10. (3) Ltr, Gen Handy to Sir John Dill, 23 Mar 44, OPD Exec 10, Item 66. (4) CCS 465/13, 24 Mar 44, memo by U.S. CsofS, title: OVERLORD and ANVIL. 53 Memo, Capt Osborn for Adm Bieri, 23 Mar 44, sub: Study of Ldg Cft Withdrawals from Mediterranean and Replacement for Later ANVIL, ABC 384 Med (26 Oct 43), Sec 1A.
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dislodge some of the Navy's assault shipping from the Pacific on behalf of OVERLORD and ANVIL. On 14 March he had called General Marshall's attention to the disparity between allocations for the war in Europe and the "secondary effort" in the Pacific, raising the question "whether Eisenhower should be reinforced in combat loaders and landing craft at the expense of Nimitz while 54 there is yet time to do so." Even though OPD smothered Somervell's proposal with facts and figures to show that movement of assault shipping from the Pacific to Europe was not required and that in any case, it could not be accomplished in time, the demonstration of the latter point was less than conclu55 sive. The Navy's actual offer of 23 March, however, did not involve movement of LST's and LCI (L)'s from the Pacific, but diversion to the Mediterranean of craft from new production slated for the Pacific. The most plausible explanation of the offer is to be found in the prospective mushrooming of landing craft production as a result of the decisions of December 1943. LST production shot up from a low of 18 in February 1944 to 28 in March; in April it reached 50, and in May a record high of 82, and it was to continue at an average rate of better than 40 per month through January 1945.56 While most of this upsurge in production would come too late to
Memo, Somervell for CofS, 14 Mar 44, OPD 560 Security, vol. III, Case 125. 55 (1) Memo, Col Lincoln for Gen Handy, 16 Mar 44, sub: Time Required to Ship LST's from Pacific to England, OPD 560 Security, vol. III, Case 125. (2) See Matloff, Strategic Planning, 194344, pp. 421-22. 56 CPA, Official Munitions Production, p. 100.
54
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Pacific operations only on condition that it is agreed by the British Chiefs of Staff that preparations for the delayed ANVIL will be vigorously pressed and that it is the firm intention to mount this operation in support of OVERLORD with the target date indicated.59
This, as the British interpreted it, was more than a bribe; it was an ultimatum "holding the pistol of withdrawing craft at our heads," Sir Alan Brooke angrily called it.60 British tempers were not improved when the Americans pulled out all stops in emphasizing the sacrifice their offer involved for Pacific operations. There is little evidence that any real prospective shortage existed in the types of craft involved in any specific scheduled operation in the Pacific, however great the chronic shortage in that area of all types of floating equipment. The real limiting factor emerging in Pacific operations at this particular time was not landing craft and ships but ordinary cargo shipping. Ironically enough, only a few weeks later cancellation of ANVIL was to make possible a transfer of cargo shipping from the Atlantic to the Pacific that was to go far to meet 61 that shortage. Though unaware of this situation, the British nevertheless had a strong impression that the Pacific had not been stinted on assault shipping as had the European
59 CCS 465/13, memo by U.S. CsofS, 24 Mar 44, title: OVERLORD and ANVIL. 60 (1) Min, 12th mtg SCAEF, 27 Mar 44. SHAEF SGS 381 OVERLORD-ANVIL, vol. I. (2) See Brooke diary entry, 19 Apr 44, quoted in Bryant, Triumph in the West, p. 134. 61 (1) Ibid. (2) Msg, From D 183, Dill to Br COS, personal, 1 Apr 43, OPD Exec 10, Item 66. (3) Matloff, Strategic Planning, 1943-44, pp. 424-25. (4) See below, Chapters XIV and XIX, on the Pacific shipping situation.
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GLOBAL LOGISTICS AND STRATEGY: 1943-1945 was most likely to dothe British expected the Germans to stand and fight in Italy; the Americans expected them to withdraw and delay. To the British a great battle south of Rome held the best promise of helping OVERLORD by holding German divisions in Italy and away from the Normandy beachhead. The Americans were convinced that only the threat, followed by the reality, of a full-scale invasion of southern France (the only place where all the remaining disposable Allied forces in the Mediterranean could be brought into action) would prevent the detachment of large enemy forces from that area and Italy for use against OVERLORD. Thus the British thought that to agree to the JCS proviso and immediately commit themselves to preparation for ANVIL would close the door on any major effort
in Italy by forcing the premature with-
None of this resentment was evident in the carefully worded British reply; however, the Joint Chiefs still sensed in it an attempt, as Sir John Dill reported, "to accept their legacy while disregarding the terms of the will."63 On both sides, therefore, there was an undercurrent of resentment in negotiations during the next three weeks, which may even have been decisive in the outcome. The area of agreement was, as a matter
of fact, very broad and the margin of
disagreement remarkably narrow. Both sides agreed that the touchstone of Mediterranean strategy must be support of OVERLORD; they agreed that the offensive in Italy must be carried out to link the main Allied forces with the Anzio beachhead; neither proposed to cancel ANVIL; and both admitted in principle that plans must be kept flexible, leaving the door open to whatever course of action events might dictate. The dispute boiled down almost entirely to a question of the timing of ANVIL, with the implications it had for the effort in Italy. It hinged on divergent views of what the enemy
Min, 12th mtg SCAEF, 27 Mar 44. (1) Ibid. (2) CCS 465/14, memo by Reps Br COS, 28 Mar 44, OVERLORD and ANVIL.
63 62
drawal of forces from that area. Wilson's first report indicated the spring offensive would start in mid-April and the link-up with the Anzio forces would occur in May. Under this estimate, ANVIL could not be launched before the end of July. A week later a revised theater plan postponed the spring offensive another month, pushing ANVIL even further into the future. While the British, as a concession to American insistence, agreed to set a planning date of 10 July for ANVIL, they refused to commit themselves in advance to a schedule of preparations that would involve withdrawing
troops from Italy regardless of consequences. For their part the Americans insisted that forces for ANVIL could be withdrawn from Italy without endangering the Allied position or expectations there, and that to postpone the final decision on
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what to do after the link-up would be The British had, in fact, little reason tantamount to surrendering the initia- to yield. The assault shipping that contive to the Germans. Better, they stituted the American bargaining weapthought, to force the enemy into the on was not at this point as essential to position of waiting passively, all forces British designs in the Mediterranean as committed, in expectation of Allied at- it was to American. While the British tacks in both Italy and southern France. would have preferred to have a 2-diviThey sharply criticized the postpone- sion lift available for either ANVIL or ment of the spring offensive in Italy, further landings in Italy, they were unand urged that General Wilson be im- willing to pay the price the Americans pressed with the necessity for aggressive demanded. Churchill and the British action without "ideal arrangements." Chiefs made their final pleas on 16 Underlying it all was a lingering suspi- April, but by that time the Americans cion, even at this late date, that British had made up their minds: If ANVIL was designs in Italy still reflected something to be of any use to OVERLORD, most less than a whole-hearted commitment American staff officers thought, it must toOVERLORD. be mounted before the end of July, and "The implication," angrily wrote the forces must be withdrawn from Italy British Chiefs on 31 March, "that in the during the first half of May. On 8 April British view Mediterranean strategy is word came from General Wilson that he any less subservient to OVERLORD than could no longer postpone troop disposiin the American view is particularly tions for the coming offensive in Italy. painful to us on the eve of this the These would preclude launching ANVIL greatest of our joint ventures. We fully before the end of July "at the earliest." realise and equally deplore that time is Since the British were evidently deterbeing lost, but we think a right decision mined to postpone decision, a July ANis even more important than a quick VIL seemed to be out and any support one."65 Doubtful whether the "pressure" for OVERLORD must come from the contemplated by the Americans would weight of operations in Italy.66 measure up to their own notions of what It remained for the Joint Chiefs to might be required if the Germans decid- decide whether to go through with their ed to fight it out south of Rome, they offer of additional landing vessels thus remained unconvinced that an unequiv- leaving open the option of a later ANVIL, ocal immediate decision on ANVIL would or to withdraw them as they had threatbe "right." Distressed though they were (1) Msg OZ 1985, Prime Minister to Dill for by the postponement of the beachhead Marshall, 16 Apr 44. (2) Msg COS(W) 1284 to JSM battle until mid-May, they had been con- Wash, 16 Apr 44. Both in Exec 3, Item 16. (3) CCS vinced of its necessity by General Alex- 465/21, 17 Apr 44, memo by Reps Br COS, title: ander, who made a flying visit to London OVERLORD and ANVIL. (4) SS 240/4, 8 Apr 44, sub: OVERLORD and ANVIL, ABC 381 Strategy Sec Papers for this purpose. (7 Jan 43) 227-240/10, Tab 240/4. (5) MEDCOS 85,
64
66
See exchange of views between U.S. and British Chiefs of Staff in CCS 465 series, CCS 465/14-20, 28 Mar-8 Apr 44, all titled: OVERLORD and ANVIL. 65 Quoted in Ehrman, Grand Strategy V, 253.
64
Wilson to Br COS, 8 Apr 44, ABC 384 Europe (5 Aug 43), Sec 9-A. (6) Draft Msg, Marshall to Prime Minister, undated, OPD 381 TS, Case 217. (7) See Brooke diary, entries for 8 Apr, 11 Apr 44, quoted in Bryant, Triumph in the West, p. 132.
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ened to do. Feeling, in the words of General Handy, "that a point had been reached where strong action must be taken," the JCS took the latter choice, and the British representatives were so informed at the CCS meeting on 8 April.67 On the 18th, after a final flurry of correspondence with Churchill, the Joint Chiefs approved the directive to General Wilson drawn up by the British Chiefs, which, within the broad mission of containing German forces on behalf of OVERLORD, gave him a free hand to use the lift he would have after the OVERLORD withdrawals "either in support of operations in Italy, or in order to take advantage of opportunities arising in the south of France or elsewhere." Preparations for amphibious operations were not to interfere with the forthcoming offensive in Italy, which was to be launched as soon as possible. Nothing was said about providing additional landing vessels from the United States.68
while, all his assault shipping would be held in readiness for whatever opportunity presented itself, whether in Italy, southern France, or the Adriatic. Wilson stressed the fact that the small amount of this shipping available to him (in an earlier message he had said it would suffice for only two combat teams rather than a division) would limit his ability to seize any opportunity in southern France or elsewhere except in an unopposed landing.69 OPD officers noted that, although Wilson stated that the Italian offensive would absorb all his army except security forces, some five divisions were specifically mentioned as not so employed. The British Chiefs had also noted this, and told the JCS they had asked Wilson to come to London to discuss with them and with Eisenhower his plans for using these divisions in the best interests of OVERLORD. They particularly wanted to know, they said, how Wilson would react if the Germans decided at an early stage of the Italian offensive to withdraw to Anvil Revived the Pisa-Rimini lineprecisely the possiTen days later the Joint Chiefs relent- bility that most worried the U.S. Chiefs. ed. General Wilson's reply to the direc- Washington planners noted with intertive apparently revived hopes that the est that the British Chiefs, despite their still-warm corpse of ANVIL might be recently expressed views, were still conbrought back to life. The Mediterranean sidering a southern France invasion, commander said he was planning to de- even though a small one, as early as velop a "positive threat" to southern OVERLORD D-day plus 20. This concesFrance during the critical OVERLORD sion, however, was coupled with a new period by air action, ostentatious assault and interesting suggestion that bore the training of unengaged divisions in distinctive mark of Churchill's fertile North Africa, and possibly a small-scale mindan alternative landing in the Borlanding on the island of Elba. Mean- deaux region of western France. Churchill had sounded out his military advisers
67 (1) Min, 157th mtg JCS, 8 Apr 44. (2) Min, 154th mtg CCS, 8 Apr 44. 68 CCS 465/22, 18 Apr 44, memo by U.S. CsofS, title: OVERLORD and ANVIL. The directive was sent as COSMED 90, 19 Apr 44.
(1) MEDCOS 100, Wilson to Br COS, 23 Apr 44, Incl to CCS 561, 27 Apr 44, title: Opns in Support of OVERLORD. (2) MEDCOS 85, Wilson to Br COS, 8 Apr 44, ABC 384 Europe (5 Aug 43), Sec 9A.
69
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ish Chiefs a strong incentive to try to meet American specifications for the projected use of additional assault shipping. The upshot of the London meeting with General Wilson, the British Chiefs informed Washington on 7 May, was that the alternatives for Mediterranean amphibious operations were narrowed to four general areas, the final choice to depend on the outcome of the Italian offensive and OVERLORD. Two areasthe neighborhood of Ste in the Gulf of Lions, and the Riviera farther eastwere in southern France; the other twothe Gulf of Genoa, and somewhere north of Romewere in Italy. The British promised that preparations for any of the alternative Mediterranean operations would be put in train without awaiting the results of the Italian offensive. These preparations would include regrouping and retraining of American service troops, the recently arrived U.S. 91st Infantry Division and two French armored divisions. Any planning for operation CALIPH, they had decided, had best be transferred to Eisenhower's staff in London. Conspicuous by its absence from the list of projects was an Adriatic operation, discreetly omitted (though still on the theater's planning agenda) as a result of intimations from Washington that the United States planned to send no occupation forces whatever into the Balkans. The British planners calculated that for any of the alternative operations Wilson could scrape together a one-division lift a "somewhat scratch collection" Wilson called itand that the shipping conditionally offered by Admiral King would provide lift for another division. "It would be an immeasurable advantage," the British Chiefs tactfully observed at
on such a scheme (given the code name CALIPH) early in February, but this was the first time it had been mentioned in the councils of the CCS. The U.S. Joint Planners were inclined to throw cold water on it, citing the long haul for landing craft, the problem of air cover, the submarine menace, and the difficulties of supply. Nevertheless, the plan provided another indication that the British were now considering seriously the problem of finding useful employment for all forces in the Mediterranean at the time OVERLORD reached its climax.70 Implicit in all this discussion was the possibility that with more assault lift Wilson might be able to help OVERLORD more and, if the Americans provided the lift, they still might be able to influence the uses to which it would be put. At the CCS meeting on 28 April Admiral King remarked that the approaching discussions between General Wilson and the British Chiefs seemed to raise the hope that ANVIL "or some similar operation" might be revived and added that, speaking for himself, if some definite operation should eventuate "he would be prepared to recommend . . . that a month's supply of U.S. landing craft 71 should be made available. . . ." Though the offer received little further definition during the meeting, it gave the Brit70 (1) CCS 561, 27 Apr 44. (2) Memo, Lt Col Paul W. Caraway for Lt Col William H. Baumer, Jr., 28
(4) Ehrman, Grand Strategy V, 259-62. (5) JCS 843. 1May 44, rpt by JPS, title: Opns in Support of OVERLORD. 71 (1) Min, 158th mtg CCS, 28 Apr 44. (2) It should be noted that King's offer came toward the end of a month when LST production had reached 50.
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the end of their report of the London meeting, "to be able to count on the early arrival in the Mediterranean of the 26 LST's which the U.S. Chiefs of Staff at one time had in mind to allot to 72 ANVIL." To this formula the Americans agreed, in order, as Admiral King explained, "to 73 keep ANVIL alive." ANVIL was indeed alive, but not a July ANVIL. A month had passed with no decision and no preparations, since the early April estimate that only an immediate decision, with preparations launched promptly thereafter, would permit a July ANVIL. The 26 LST's that the Joint Chiefs had then thought of sending to the Mediterranean should have arrived before the end of June. The JCS now undertook to send 19 LST's, carrying the same number of LCT's; the last ten would not reach the Mediterranean until about 20 July. They would replace, one for one, the 19 lately withdrawn from the Mediterranean for OVERLORD in accordance with the decision of 24 March.74 Three other LST's had been sent a few days earlier to compensate for the transfer of three Mediterranean LST's on short notice to the United Kingdom as replacements for two lost and one damaged by German E-boats in late April during OVERLORD exercises off the Eng72 (1) Msg COS(W) 40, Br COS to Britman Wash, 7 May 44. (2) JP 44 (100) (Final), rpt by Br JPS, 4 May 44, title: RANKIN Case C, Responsibilities of AFHQ. (3) JP 44(125) (Final), Aide-Memoire by Br JPS, 2 May 44, title: Mediterranean OpnMEDCOS 101. (4) Min, 143d mtg Br COS, 3 May 44, and 147th mtg, 6 May 44. All in SHAEF SGS 370.2/2, Opns from Med in Support of OVERLORD. 73 Min, 162d mtg (Suppl) JCS, 9 May 44. 74 The JCS had yielded to British reasons for sending only 19 LST's and 19 LCT's from the Mediterranean instead of the 26 LST's Eisenhower had asked for.
75
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Italy to stabilize the front there. On the other hand, an assault on the Italian coast somewhere between Civitavecchia and Pisa might become necessary if the Germans succeeded in holding farther south than the Pisa-Rimini line. In that case, Wilson warned, he would probably need more assault shipping of the shore77 to-shore type. ANVIL and Italy continued to compete for resources. If in the course of the protracted negotiations from January through May 1944 ANVIL lost its place as one of the two supreme operations for 1944 that had been decided upon at Tehran, OVERLORD was, by contrast, assured the assault shipping it needed. In place of the 191 LST's which the Washington planners had on 6 February assumed would be enough, successive transfers from the Mediterranean and a small extra increment from the United States provided a total of 234 for OVERLORD on D-day, 6 June 1944. Twenty-seven additional vessels (20 from the Mediterranean, 7 from the United States) were allocated to OVERLORD as a result of the mid-February Norfolk House conferences; 19 more came from the Mediterranean as a result of Eisenhower's representations and the postponement of ANVIL in late March; and 3 were sent from the Mediterranean to replace the 3 OVERLORD LST's lost in training. Also, 61 LCI (L)'s and a number of LCT's were withdrawn from the Mediterranean and brought to the United Kingdom as a result of decisions to strengthen OVERLORD essentially at the expense of ANVIL. Barring a shift of assault shipping
77 MEDCOS 110, Wilson to Br COS, 17 May 44, SHAEF SGS 370.2/2, Opns from Mediterranean in Support of OVERLORD.
CHAPTER XIV
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GLOBAL LOGISTICS AND STRATEGY: 1943-1945 shipping, after the chronic shortages of 1943, now seemed abundant and promised to become more soto such an extent that zone of interior commands seemed likely to have difficulty finding trained and equipped units to meet movement schedules. Some of the expanding troop lift capacity was in converted Liberty ships that could, if necessary, be reconverted for cargo carriage at relatively low cost in time and labor, thus providing an element of flexibility. For cargo shipping, the ASF thought in January, the chief uncertainty lay in the still undefined and potentially huge demand for relief and rehabilitation supplies in the wake of conquests in Europe.4
The bright outlook for shipping was
the Army was still 200,000 men short of this goal, largely because of a lag in Selective Service inductions. It was with some reluctance that General Marshall had deferred indefinitely the activation of 15 divisions in the strategic reserve, gambling that a total of 90 ground combat divisions with supporting troops would be enough to win the war. Behind the gamble was the hope that Germany could be defeated without a protracted land campaign in Europe on the scale of that in World War I. As far as ground combat troops were concerned, the pinch would not be felt in the first stages of OVERLORD and ANVIL, but late in the year if German resistance proved stubborn. The shortage of service troops seemed to be the more immediately pressing problem. During January General Somervell bombarded the Chief of Staff with memoranda showing a clear deficit of 40,000 service troops for ANVIL and an uncertain outlook for OVERLORD, not to mention a further deficit of 112,000for the later stages of Pacific operations. Because of the generally stringent manpower situation, Marshall turned down Somervell's pleas for revision of the troop basis, and warned theater commanders to economize in their use of service troops. At the end of January an ASF study showed a shortage of 62,500 service troops against a "balanced" troop basis for OVERLORD and ANVIL, quite apart from Pacific and zone of interior requirements.3 As for shipping, staff officers dared to hope that their worries were over. Troop
(1) See above, ch. VI. (2) Matloff, Strategic Planning, 1943-44, pp. 408-12. (3) Memo, Somervell for CofS, 19 Jan 44, sub: SEXTANT Reqmts for Service Troops, with related papers in file SOS Svc Troop Reqmts for Present and Proposed Opns, ASF Plng
3
somewhat dimmed in the first three months of the year when construction dropped behind 1943 levels. In January 1944 Maritime Commission yards delivered only 131 ships, less than two-thirds
of the peak December production, and, while output rose in the months following, throughout 1944 it stayed well under the 1943 average. Early in April the JCS took the Maritime Commission sharply to task for the slowdown, which reflected slackening effort in the yards as well as the smaller size of the 1944 building program. Fortunately, an unexpected diminution in ship losses in the same period neatly offset the reduced output, so that military authorities had at their disposal at the end of March just about the same amount of shipping they
had anticipated.
Div. (4) Memo, Somervell for CofS, 28 Jan 44, sub: ASF Units Required for Overseas, and inclosed Study, in History Planning Div ASF, app. 12-A. 4 Memo, Cooper for Actg Chief, Strat Log Br, 7 Jan 44, Plng Div, ASF. 5 (1) See above, ch. X. (2) Memo, Isadore Lubin
THE OVERLORD-ANVIL BUILD-UP In any case, the real dangers ahead in spring 1944 lay elsewhere than in the shipyards. On 4 February Admiral Land, in a letter to Secretary of State Hull concerning a Brazilian request for shipping, dropped a comment that contrasted startlingly with the current optimism of the military authorities:
May I say candidly that the shipping position, insofar as we can see it, for the next five or six months is as tight as it has been at any time since the war started. The reason is that as each theater of war has become active, huge tonnages have been necessarily retained for operational purposes.6
353
way. Shipping held overseas for extended periods, for whatever reasons, meant less shipping for moving cargo outward from the United States. Isadore Lubin, statistician for the Munitions Assignments Board, told the President early in April that he expected five million dead-weight tons of shipping to be tied up for local use during the next few months. At about the same time shipping authorities were beginning to anticipate deficits in both the Atlantic and the Pacific in April and Maythe first harbingers of a situation which before the end of the year was to develop into a major shipping crisis.7
The Final Build-up for Overlord
"Operational purposes," in the context in which Admiral Land used the term, covered a wide variety of uses, including not only intratheater troop and cargo movements directly involved in military operations but also all the manifold demands of theater maintenance and communications and the use of ships as floating warehouses where inadequacy of port facilities slowed discharge. Up to this time, except for a brief period in the early fall of 1943 in the Mediterranean, the retention of shipping for local use had attained serious proportions only in the South and Southwest Pacific, where the problem had become acute during December and January. By spring of 1944 the practice had spread to the Central Pacific and to India in lesser proportions, and there was every reason to believe it would appear in northwestern Europe when the invasion got under
for President, 6 Apr 44, sub: Shpg Reqmts for Next 4 Months, WSA Conway File Misc. (3) ASF Monthly Progress Report, 31 Mar 44, Sec 3, Transportation. (4) Ltr, Gen Marshall [for JCS] to Adm Land, 8 Apr 44, JMTC Papers 1944, WSA Conway File. 6 Ltr, Adm Land to Secy State, 4 Feb 44, folder Reading File, WSA Douglas File.
Increased demands for operational shipping for OVERLORD originated not only in the revised plan for an enlarged assault but also in a growing imbalance in the build-up, a result of the 1943 delays in the preshipment program. The supply build-up reached its climax in the first five months of 1944, profiting from the top priority assigned to it in December. On several occasions other theaters had to be deprived of units or supplies earmarked for them in order to meet urgent demands for the invasion forces. Ports, camps, depots, and staging .areas in the United Kingdom were flooded by incoming troops and supplies. With troop lift plentiful, U.S. troop strength in the British Isles rose rapidly from 774,000 at the end of December to 1,527,000 by the end of May 1944, more than had been anticipated
(1) Memo, Lubin for President, 6 Apr 44. (2) JMT 44/M, 2 Mar 44, title: Opnl Use of Shpg by Theater Comdrs. (3) On Pacific shipping, see below, Chapter XIX.
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BAILEY BRIDGE SECTIONS AND OTHER ENGINEER SUPPLIES IN OPEN STORAGE, Ashchurch, England.
either at Quebec or at Cairo. This total was achieved despite increasing competition for facilities, toward the end of the period, between debarking troops and preparations for outloading movement. The competition delayed the arrival of some combat and service elements recently added to the ETOUSA troop basis, but the OVERLORD forces available on D-day were clearly adequate in num8 bers and reasonably well-balanced.
fects, like those of any transfusion, were not felt immediately. December shipments showed little change, and even in January only 100 ships were filled against expectations of 147. A January survey revealed, meanwhile, the extreme imbalance of the stockpile built up in Great Britain during the first eight months of the preshipment programfor example, Quartermaster equipment for 18 divisions, but Signal equipment, a more crit9 Cargo flow still lagged far behind ical category, for only five. troop flow, if matched against the QUADThe imbalance would, of course, soon RANT and SEXTANT schedules. While top be rectified in the process of catching up priority had released large amounts of with the total arrears in cargo movement. cargo for BOLERO shipments, the full ef- But the volume of shipments now
See Ruppenthal, Logistical Support Armies I, 231-34.
8
of the
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Neither had been anticipated in the SEXTANT estimates of operational shipping for OVERLORD, which had provided for more orthodox employment of cargo vessels160 MT ships and 625,000 tons of coastal shipping, mostly British, for the immediate build-up on the Continent. These requirements grew as plans took shape. On 23 January Eisenhower asked the CCS, as part of the shopping list for an expanded OVERLORD assault, for 64 more MT ships, and for all 224 to be preloaded for the immediate buildup. The coastal shipping requirement held at 625,000 tons, but SHAEF planners were soon demanding that 250,000 tons be marked for retention after the original D-plus-42 release date. To supplement the coasters they also wanted up to 126 ocean-going "stores ships," 48 of them for the period before D plus 42. In all, by May the revised OVERLORD plan provided for a tie-up of over three million dead-weight tons of merchant shipping in operational service for a month or more after D-day besides the great assault armada and the huge ton11 nages shuttling across the Atlantic. With the utmost pressure behind them, all these requirements for merchant shipping were provided for in one way or another, and the load was divided between British and Americans on as equitable a basis as circumstances would permit. (Table 30)
The Uncertainties of Anvil
356
Source: Ltr, Conway to Reed, 22 May 44, folder Misc 1944, WSA Conway File.
conception the operation was expected to be mounted, in the main, with resources already in the Mediterranean. The central problem was thus one of disengaging troops, material, and shipping from the Italian campaign. ANVIL had certain additional needs, however, which the Americans, as its sponsors, had to
meetmore service troops, special operational supplies for the task force and follow-up, shipping for the same kind of operational uses as in OVERLORD, and, of course, assault shipping, object of the contention described in the preceding chapter. The first two posed no insuperable problems. ANVIL'S priority was high enough to dislodge the operational supplies needed, and various planned expedients were brought to bear on the service troop shortagebreaking up and
reforming as service units the 2d Cavalry Division and other ground combat units, diverting others from Pacific theaters, putting pressure on the French to provide their own service support, and using 12 Italian POW units in rear areas. To provide the operational shipping promised to be more difficult. ANVIL requirements, like those of OVERLORD, began to grow as soon as the theater staffs got to work on the plan. On 1 January AFHQ estimated its shipping needs for a 2-division assault as 227 MT ships (267 ship loadings) for the first 30 days, 147 of them to be preloaded for the initial
12 (1) Memo, Somervell for CofS, 19 Jan 44. (2) Memo, Wood, Dep Dir P&O, ASF for CG ASF, 5 Apr 44, sub: SEXTANT Decisions, file Misc TS, ASF Plng Div. (3) Leo J. Meyer, Logistics and Strategy in the Mediterranean Theater, MS, OCMH, draft chapter, Theater Logistical Preparations for ANVIL.
357
months. This scheme, hopefully, would reduce the whole Atlantic deficit to a "manageable" 75 sailings spread over the three months of April, May, and June. The CCS in Washington endorsed this plan and on 25 January sent the estimates back to the theater for com14 ment. Meanwhile, on 23 January Eisenhower had sent in his request for 64 more MT ships for OVERLORD. The demand for prestowed ships was also in the offing, and there was a good chance of increased shipping demands for Italy, where the campaign hung in the balance. The British Chiefs of Staff in London, apparently after only a cursory examination of the figures developed in Washington, on 4 February affirmed that the provision of more MT ships for both OVERLORD and ANVIL would "seriously upset allocations agreed at SEXTANT," that no British shipping was available for the purpose, and that in their opinion the major Atlantic programs could not, in the critical months of April and May, "make any significant contributions." The obvious solution, they argued, was to reduce ANVIL to a one-division threat and reallocate any shipping thus released to 15 OVERLORD. This argument, paralleling the current British position on assault shipping for the two operations, at once injected the merchant shipping problem into the mainstream of the OVERLORD-ANVIL, debate. The American staffs distrusted British cargo shipping estimates even more than British assault shipping estimates,
14 (1) CCS 470, 17 Jan 44, rpt by CMTC, title: Personnel and Cargo for ANVIL. (2) Min, 142d mtg CCS, 21 Jan 44 (Suppl). (3) Msg COSMED 11, 25 Jan 44, CCS to SACMED. 15 Msg OZ 632, COS(W) 1127 to Britman Wash, 4 Feb 44, SHAEF SGS 560, vol. II.
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but expert opinion in Washington at the moment appeared to support the British contention. At the request of the Combined Staff Planners, representatives of WSA, the British Ministry of War Transport, and the U.S. Army Transportation Corps met hurriedly on 6 February, a Sunday, to consider the problem. Their conclusion, duly reported to the CPS two days later, was prompt, emphatic, and apparently unanimous: if the requirements of both main operations were to be met, other Atlantic programs would have to be cut during the March-June period by the equivalent of 245 cargo ship sailings. Then on 9 February, whether after second thoughts or because of pressures
brought to bearin any case, for reasons still obscurethey issued a revised statement: Shipping could be found for both OVERLORD and ANVIL "without cuts in other programs of so radical a nature as to be incapable of being handled directly by agreement between the shipping authorities and claimants for shipping." They added a warning:
These assurances are based on certain schedules of retentions and releases in theaters, definite as to both number and time, which have been furnished by the military authorities. The shipping authorities point out that under the most favorable circumstances the provision of shipping required will place a serious strain on merchant shipping resources and leave absolutely no
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the Italian campaign and to postpone final decision on ANVIL until 20 March.18 This decision not only underwrote OVERLORD'S shipping requirements at the expense of ANVIL if necessary, but also left ANVIL at the mercy of increased demands for the Italian campaign. These increased demands for Italy were not long in coming. For the spring offensive General Wilson planned to move 7 fresh divisions and replacements onto the peninsula, and certain other forces to Corsica, during the seven weeks beginning on 20 Februaryin all, some 276,000 troops and 44,000 vehicles. A week after the CCS decision of 25 February, he sent in additional shipping requirements for 180 MT ship sailings in the Mediterranean during March and 160 sailings during April40 and 100 sailings, respectively, higher than the SEXTANT estimates. In so doing he entered his bid for at least the entire original ANVIL allotment of operational shipping.19 Washington and London staffs were to wrangle over these requirements for the next month and a half. The issues and the attitudes were the same as those involved in the assault shipping controversy. The Americans tried to save ANVIL from obliteration under the rising shipping demands of the Italian campaign, while the British were determined to support the campaign in Italy regardless of the effect on ANVIL. One of the Cairo agreements had been that the two countries would share equally the burden of
During the next few days WSA exhorted its regional directors overseas to expedite ship turnarounds and addressed like appeals to the Army and Navy. No more was said about the deficit of 245 sailings predicted on the 6th. Meanwhile ASF, working now toward an early June Dday, was planning the special ANVIL shipments the theater had requested. The requirement for flatted ships was fixed at 96, of which 64 were to be loaded by early April. With the loading of the first of these ships in February the specific build-up for ANVIL, expected to continue through May, got under way.17 American plans and preparations for ANVIL went ahead, however, without British agreement. The CCS counterproposal of 25 January for meeting ANVIL shipping requirements brought no immediate decision, even after the change of heart on the part of the shipping authorities. In London the British insisted on looking at the problem in terms of the original theater requests. The whole issue was soon overtaken by the events, described earlier, that led the CCS on 25 February to give an overriding priority within the Mediterranean theater to
16 (1) CMTC 53/1, rpt by Combined Military Transportation Committee, 9 Feb 44, title: Recommendations of SCAEF. . . . (2) Memo, Gen Gross for Gen Somervell, 6 Feb 44, sub: Shpg Statements in CCS 465/5, OPD 560 Security, III, Case 129. (3) CCS 18 465/7, 8 Feb 44, rpt by CPS, title: Recommendations (1) See above, ch. XIII. (2) Memo, Stokes for of SCAEF. . . . Connor, 29 Feb 44, sub: ANVIL Shpg Allocations, 17 (1) Msg, Douglas to WSA Reg Directors, 12 Feb OPD 560 Security, III, Case 125. 19 44. (2) Ltrs, Douglas to Gen Somervell and Adm (1) Msg, Wilson to Br COS and JSM, 20 Feb 44, Horne, 12 Feb 44. Both in folder Conserv of Shpg, ABC 384 Post-HUSKY (14 May 43), Sec 2. (2) CCS WSA Douglas File. (3) Meyer, draft chapter, Theater 470/1, 11 Mar 44, memo by Br COS, title: Personnel Logistical Preparations for ANVIL. and Cargo Shpg for ANVIL, with Incls.
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providing cargo shipping to support operations in Italy. The British were always willing to provide their share; dispute focused on what they regarded as the American commitment. The JCS readily agreed to furnish their March quota of sailings, on the assurance of WSA that it could be provided without strain, but they balked at providing the April quota of 80 sailings, 50 of them additional. To do so without disturbing the ANVIL reserve, the JMTC predicted, would produce an "unmanageable" May deficit of 118 sailings in the Atlantic, more than a quarter of the total scheduled for major military and civilian programs. WSA was willing to consider an Atlantic deficit of 75 sailings in May as "manageable," and to meet it by cuts or adjustments in nonmilitary programs, but that would require furnishing only 37 instead of 80 ships for internal movements in the Mediterranean in April. After scrutinizing Wilson's requirements, the Joint Chiefs concluded that his build-up program was designed to provide forces for the whole campaign to capture Rome, not solely for the operation aimed directly at joining the Anzio beachhead with the main front, the only one that in their opinion had been granted overriding priority. They consequently recommended to the British Chiefs that Wilson be asked to review his requirements in this light, on the supposition that, once the link-up was consummated, necessary resources would be devoted to preparations for
ANVIL. 20
20 (1) CCS 470/1, 11 Mar 44. (2) CCS 470/2, 23 Mar 44, memo by U.S. CsofS, title: Personnel and Cargo Shpg for ANVIL. (3) Msg, Douglas to Kalloch, 17 Mar 44, with related corresp in folder N Africa, WSA Douglas File. (4) JCS 761, 14 Mar 44, rpt by JMTC, title: Personnel and Cargo Shpg for ANVIL.
THE OVERLORD-ANVIL BUILD-UP the Atlantic in the next three months. Moreover, a long-brewing shipping crisis in the Pacific had come to a boil, and representatives from the Pacific theaters were about to meet with the shipping staffs in Washington to seek a solution.23 To meet the Mediterranean requirement at least in part, the JMTC recommended, in keeping with a theater proposal, that sailings of 22 ANVIL flatted ships be applied to the April requirement for Italy, but with a warning that such expedients must be carefully regulated if shipping was to be available for mounting ANVIL at a later date. These 22 sailings, with 28 American carry-overs from March and the original U.S. commitment of 30 sailings in April, would make a total U.S. contribution of 80 sailings in that month20 less than the British had proposed, and 28 less than the U.S. quota under a 50-50 split for 24 March and April. In the angry atmosphere of the debate over a July ANVIL, then reaching its climax, the JCS reply to the British on 7 April merely reiterated that Wilson should re-examine his requirements for the next three months with a July ANVIL in view. A few days later, however, having decided to give up ANVIL altogether, they relented to the extent of undertaking to provide the 80 sailings in April as recommended by the JMTC. But they declined to make any further commitments, even in the face of an urgent plea from General Wilson that he must have his full April shipping allocation by 14 April in order to avert an interruption
See below, ch. XIX. 24 (1) JCS 761/2, 6 Apr 44, rpt by JMTC, title: Shpg Reqmts, Med Theater. (2) Msg, WARX 17229, Gross to Stewart, 1 Apr 44, and Msg WSNA 645, Conway to Kalloch, 28 Mar 44, folder Algiers 1944, WSA Conway File.
23
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of the scheduled flow of troops into Italy during the second half of the month which could have dangerous implications for the offensive due to jump off on 10 May.25 In the end General Wilson got his 195 sailings after all. At a CMTC meeting on 14 April WSA representatives refused to support unequivocally the Army's contention that the 20 additional sailings requested could be provided only at the expense of OVERLORD. It developed that the formidable four-months' deficit reported a few days earlier by the JMTC had already been dissipated in the ebb and flow of day-to-day requirements and availabilities. Atlantic programs for May were now in fair balance, though deficits amounting to some 80 sailings in a grand total of up to 1,500 were in the offing for June and July. An arrangement was finally worked out under which the British would provide the 20 disputed sailings in April as a loan, to be repaid in U.S. sailings during succeeding months.26 These arrangements to provide Wilson his operational shipping for the April build-up had a curious aftermath in the context of the continuing speculation about Atlantic deficits during this period. On 18 April a new directive was sent to General Wilson giving the coup de grce to a July ANVIL. As a result, it now appeared that there would be a surplus of cargo shipping in the Atlantic even after the mushrooming demands of OVERLORD were met. Wilson had already fixed his May requirements for opera25 (1) CGS 470/5, 7 Apr 44, memo by U.S. CsofS, title: Shpg Reqmts, Med Theater. (2) CCS 470/6, 10 Apr 44, memo by U.S. CsofS, same title. (3) CCS 470/9, 14 Apr 44, memo by U.S. CsofS, same title. 26 (1) Min, 85th mtg CMTC, 14 Apr 44. (2) Min, 155th mtg CCS, 14 Apr 44. (3) CMT 49/3, 14 Apr 44, title: Shpg Reqmts, Med Theater.
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GLOBAL LOGISTICS AND STRATEGY: 1943-1945 for ANVIL in order to release them for operations that had been definitely approved. Before the end of March OPD had decided to cancel some shipments of operational supplies and troop units, and proposed that ANVIL'S high priority for critical items be dropped to the bottom of the list of active theaters, below that for even the CBI. Early in April second thoughts took hold. ASF officials closely watching the progress of the strategic debate argued against the change in priorities, since there seemed some likelihood that the American position might prevail. If the priority were lowered only to be raised again at a later date, the momentum of preparations would be broken and difficulties certainly encountered in providing supplies on short notice. On 6 April OPD, having ascertained that the JCS still had hopes of mounting ANVIL in time to be of help to OVERLORD, decided to leave it for the present in the priority immediately below OVERLORD. Preparation of the flatted cargo vessels and their movement to the theater continued, though at a slower pace.28 The respite was temporary. Two weeks later OPD, reviewing the recent top level decisions, concluded that ANVIL had now been definitely ruled out and called a halt to administrative preparations. All outstanding requisitions for supplies specifically for the invasion of southern France were canceled, loading of ships was stopped, and movements suspended except for one convoy almost ready to
(1) Memos, Gen Roberts for ACofS OPD, 23 Mar 44, and 6 Apr 44, sub: Shipment of Troop Units and Supplies for ANVIL, with related corresp in ABC 381 Strategy Sec Papers (7 Jan 43), 227-240/10, Tab 240/2, and 240/11-240/24, Tab 240. (2) Memo, Gen Wood for CG ASF, 5 Apr 44, sub: SEXTANT Decisions, file Misc TS, Plng Div ASF.
28
tional shipping at 135 sailings, including 10 MT ships to simulate a movement against southern France while OVERLORD was being launched. For June he tentatively estimated that he would need 60, and for July 30 sailingsalways assuming that no further operations, in southern France or elsewhere, were decided upon. Under a 50-50 split, the U.S. share would come to only 68 sailings in May, 30 in June, and 15 in July, as contrasted with earlier estimates based on a southern France operation of 125, 196,
and 116 sailings, respectively. The Pacific Shipping Conference, concurrently meeting in Washington to seek means of alleviating the developing shipping crisis in the Pacific, was thus presented with an unexpected windfall. U.S. shipping authorities agreed to transfer more than 200 ships from the Atlantic to the Pacific during the next several months. Even after the transfer, they found it possible to allow for an additional 50 internal Mediterranean sailings per month from July onward against the faint possibility that a post-OVERLORD invasion of southern France might still be carried out. 27 ANVIL'S uncertain future also complicated logistical preparations for it at the administrative level. These preparations slowed down immediately after Wilson's and Eisenhower's recommendations on 23 March, and with the decisions of midApril came virtually to a halt. The first impulse in both ASF and OPD was to suspend the whole process of loading and shipping supplies and troop units
(1) On the Pacific shipping crisis see below, Chapter XIX. (2) JCS 762/4, 26 Apr 44, rpt by JMTC, title: Shpg Reqmts, Med Theater. (3) Msg, MEDCOS 88, Wilson to Br COS, 11 Apr 44, Incl in JCS 761/3, 13 Apr 44. (4) Msg WSNA 736, Conway and Bissell to Kalloch, 28 Apr 44, folder Algiers 1944, WSA Conway File.
27
THE OVERLORD-ANVIL BUILD-UP sail. By this time, 64 flatted vessels had been loaded and most of them had already sailed; all 64 eventually did reach the Mediterranean. OPD further ruled that both vessels and supplies could be used to support operations in Italy, as the British had contended all along. In the event the results were less devastating than might have been expected. Lt. Gen. Jacob L. Devers, U.S. theater commander and commander-designate for ANVIL, decided to freeze stocks in depots and on flatted ships that had been earmarked for ANVIL, and maintained the freeze against pressures from the War Department to make them available for operations in Italy.29 Devers' optimism was soon justified. The liquidation of ANVIL preparations had scarcely been orderedand on operating levels was still being executed when hopes for the operation were revived. ANVIL, it appeared at the end of April, still had the edge over alternative undertakings, and on 28 April Admiral King renewed his offer of assault shipping with less restrictive conditions. On 12 May Alexander's forces launched their offensive in Italy. By the 17th it was progressing so well that Wilson reported good prospects for launching a 2-division ANVIL (now definitely his first choice) between mid-August and mid-September.30 On 13 May, General Wilson forwarded revised estimates of shipping requirements for continuing the campaign in Italy and for a possible southern France
29 (1) Memo, Gen Handy for Dir P&O, ASF, 26 Apr 44, sub: Priority for ANVIL, with accompanying MFR, in ABC 381 Strategy Sec Papers (7 Jan 43) 227-240/10. (2) Meyer, draft chapter, Theater Logistical Preparations for ANVIL. 30 See above, ch. XIII, and Ehrman, Grand Strategy V, 263-67.
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operation in August. He added 100 sailings to the 90 earlier estimated as sufficient for internal maintenance in June and July (including those for operations in Italy). For a new ANVIL in August he said he would need 100 MT ships preloaded before D-day, 150 cargo sailings in each of the first two months of the operation, and 50 sailings in the third month. Intratheater troop lift requirements amounted to 22,000 per month during June and July for Italy, and 32,000 for the initial ANVIL movements; for the follow-up convoys, a lift of 16,000 would suffice. In conclusion he pointed out that, even though a definite decision to launch the operation could not yet be made, shipping must be assembled in the theater by the end of June if it was to be preloaded for an August ANVIL. Preparations must therefore begin immediately.31 In the calmer atmosphere that now prevailed, arrangements were amicably worked out before the end of May to meet these requirements and to divide the burden equitably between British and American shipping. Basically they called for an approximately even split, with the British to provide somewhat more than half the shipping for the Italian campaign, in which they were primarily interested, and the United States somewhat more than half that for ANVIL, its own primary concern. Troop shipping arrangements were complex, but the cargo shipping burden was to be equally shared, taking both operations into account. U.S.-controlled cargo shipping in the Mediterranean by this time included all 64 flatted ANVIL ships, which it was estimated in Wash31 Msg, MEDCOS 107, Wilson to Br COS, 13 May 44, SHAEF SGS 560, vol. IV.
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Before these instructions could be sent, the ASF raised a further difficulty. The cessation of preparations for ANVIL in April and the lowering of its priority had brought the expected consequences. Supplies earmarked for the operation had been released, some of the service units had been shipped to other theaters, and multiplying demands for specially loaded vessels for OVERLORD were GENERAL DEVERS eating into depot stocks in the United States. ASF officials thought, nevertheington would be almost enough to meet less, that ANVIL'S supply needs could be the whole American quota of sailings in met except for a few critical items June and July and most of the U.S. (heavy engineer supplies and heavy arshare of the 100 preloaders. The rest tillery ammunition) if the original pricould be provided from the contingency ority were restored. There was also a allowance of 50 ships authorized in April possibility that replacements for some and expected to become available by of the diverted service units could be July.32 improvised in the theater. The crux of Thus, on the eve of OVERLORD, it ap- the matter was the time required to peared that the merchant shipping (and, restore momentum to ANVIL preparaas has been noted, the assault shipping tions. Originally an interval of 97 days as well) needed for an August ANVIL had been expected between receipt of could be provided. The CCS agreed that the first requisitions (late in January) Wilson should be informed that he could and the sailing of the final supply concount on the necessary shipping for in- voy in May. While this schedule could ternal maintenance movements in June now be telescoped, additional allowance and July, and, for planning purposes, had to be made at the beginning of the on having the shipping for a revised AN- process for preparation and dispatch of VIL in August as well, but that the ship- new requisitions to replace those canceled, and at the end for transit, un(1) CCS 470/15, 26 May 44, rpt by CMTC, title: Shpg Reqmts Med Theater. (2) Msgs exchanged between Conway and Kalloch, 14-29 May 44, in folder Algiers 1944, WSA Conway File.
32
(1) Ibid. (1). (2) CCS 470/16, 26 May 44, memo by Reps Br COS, 26 May 44, title: Shpg Reqmts, Med Theater.
33
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ported that he could now definitely promise an amphibious operation on the scale of ANVIL, with a target date of 15 August. Somewhat ambiguously he added, "planning is being carried out on the assumption that the launching of ANVIL at this date will fit into the general European picture," and he asked for firm allocations of shipping, supplies, and troops. Two days earlier the British Chiefs had already notified him that his shipping requirements would be met under the stipulations to which the CCS had agreed. The CMTC now recommended that Wilson's whole request be approved.36 At that moment the JCS were on their way to England to confer with the British on future strategy in Europe and to visit the beachhead that Eisenhower's forces were carving out on the Normandy coast. The future course of operations in the Mediterranean would be discussed in that context.
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Atlantic was favorable enough to permit some relaxation of protection and an acceleration of convoy schedules. Convoys between Halifax and the United Kingdom were suspended and those between New York and British ports significantly speeded up and enlarged. They were to run thereafter in three speed groups10, 9, and 8 knotson alternating cycles ranging from 5 to 9 days within a span of 45 days with no set limits placed on the number of ships in a sin37 gle convoy. One measure of the improvement was the extent to which actual sailings exceeded WSA forecasts made early in the year. Late in February WSA was counting on 379 sailings in March and only 374 in May; three months later the May figure had increased to 539 and the forecast for June stood at 555. The improvement was not entirely a matter of more plentiful tonnage; it also reflected growing efficiency in ship operations. Whether as a result of WSA's concerted efforts following the early February wrangle over ANVIL shipping or not, there was a marked speed-up in ship turnarounds. (The British Ministry of War Transport took similar steps to speed the turnaround of British shipping.) Improvement was especially marked in the Mediterranean. During January and February, at the height of the battle at Anzio, the volume of shipping in the Mediterranean was building
37 (1) COMINCH Memo FX-3723, 31 Mar 44, sub: New Schedule for NATL Trade Convoy, folder Convoys, WSA Conway File. (2) Samuel Eliot Morison, "History of United States Naval Operations in World War II," vol. X, The Atlantic Battle Won: May
up at an alarming rate, and the shipping staffs began to prepare for another congestion crisis. It did not materialize, however, largely because of a rapid increase in the rate of discharge over the beaches at Anzio in March. At Naples, meanwhile, tonnages handled in March were so great that U.S. officials there could claim, with some justification, that it was the "largest allied military port in the world."38 Faster turnarounds in the Mediterranean were accompanied by a reduction in retentions of WSA vessels for operational purposes in April and May to well below the SEXTANT estimate of 120. The theater reported no retentions in mid-February; by 8 May the figure had fallen to 38, rising thereafter to 66 at the end of May as ANVIL shipping began to assemble. In any case, the net result of all factors was that the number of ships returning from the Mediterranean to the United States increased from 91 in February to 144 in April. Comparable improvements in turnarounds were achieved during the same period by U.S. shipping in British ports. Early in January WSA vessels were spending, on the average, 26 days in these ports in an over-all turnaround time of 80 days on the North Atlantic run. In mid-April these figures had dropped to 18 days and 70 days, respec39 tively.
(1) Official Commendation to the 6th Port, 13 Apr 44. The claim was true if only Army cargo was considered, but the New York port handled far more cargo of all kinds. (2) Shipping tables in folder Reqmts and Avlbles, WSA Conway File. (3) Ltr, Kalloch to Douglas, 18 Feb 44, folder N Africa, WSA Douglas File. (4) Memo, Nickell for Conway, 30 May 44, folder Italy, WSA Conway File. 39 (1) Ltr, Conway to Reed, 15 May 44, folder Reading File 1944, WSA Conway File. (2) Corresp in folder Algiers 1944, WSA Conway File.
38
1943-1945 (Boston: Little, Brown and Company, 1956) describes the course of the battle against the submarine during this period. (3) Control Div, ASF, Statistical Review, World War II, p. 37.
THE OVERLORD-ANVIL BUILD-UP The general speed-up in ship turnarounds in the Atlantic area was therefore a major factor in creating a favorable outlook for OVERLORD and ANVIL during May despite the simultaneous rise in requirements for the former operation, as well as in making possible the
transfer of a sizable block of shipping to the Pacific. Combined with the concomitant rise in over-all tonnages, it also made possible American contributions to the Soviet protocol and British import programs during the first five
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lion, and the movement of cargo in U.S. bottoms against this goal had exceeded commitments by 45 shiploads. Although responsible British officials still insisted that they had accepted dangerous reductions in food and raw materials stocks in setting the original goals for 1944,
there seemed to be some reason to suspect (as British official historians have
subsequently confirmed) that the stock levels in question, in reality well above any realistic appraisal of need, had come to be regarded as sacrosanct.42 The British did not contest the necessity for holding back domestic imports temporarily in order to provide berthing space for incoming BOLERO shipments, asking only that they be compensated later. It was agreed that up to half a million tons of imports over a period of four months would be deferred, the vessels carrying them to be diverted to anchorages for later discharge. This expedient would make room for only about half of that amount of incoming BOLERO cargo, owing to the larger bulk of military supplies. The British also undertook to step up rail movements and the discharge rate in ports, and U.S. Army authorities agreed to turn over additional locomotives. These arrangements, worked out on the lower levels, were presented in a formal request from General Eisenhower to the Prime Minister on 24 May, and accepted by Churchill on condition the Unit(1) JCS 879, 27 May 44, rpt by JMTC, title: Present Critical Port Situation in U.K. (2) Min 155th mtg, Br COS, 12 May 44. Annex I: Min to Prime Minister on OVERLORD Shpg Reqmts, SHAEF SGS 560, vol. IV. (3) Postan, British War Production, pp. 215-16. (4) R. J. Hammond, "History of the Second World War, United Kingdom Civil Series," Food: The Growth of Policy (London: His Majesty's Stationery Office, 1951), pp. 271-82. (5) Behrens, Merchant Shipping, pp. 401-02, 406-07.
42
months of 1944 that substantially exceeded commitments, thus creating credits to be drawn upon later if necessary.40
There was one dark cloud in this generally bright sky. By the middle of May transatlantic cargo shipments were threatening to overwhelm British ports. In April the movement of cargo had reached a total of 1,637,690 tonsan increase of almost 700,000 over January
and more than 300,000 tons over and above the theater's indicated capacity
to receive. Shipments in May, including some prestowed ships and the first 18 commodity loaders, came to more than two million tons and were scheduled to continue at that level during June and
July.41
The impending crisis brought a demand from U.S. military authorities for a reduction in British import movements to ease the congestion. Fortunately, with a backlog of credits already built up, the import program was well able to absorb a temporary cut. The 12-million-ton goal set at Cairo had
subsequently been reduced to 12 mil40 JMT 50/6, 4 May 44, title: Shpg Reqmts and Availabilities, Pac Opns. 41 Leighton, Problem of Troop and Cargo Flow, pp. 138-40.
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GLOBAL LOGISTICS AND STRATEGY: 1943-1945 All 67, nevertheless, represented the true measure of the extent to which shipping was already being used to store rather than to move cargo. The prospects were that the situation would become worse before it got better. In June 119 BOLERO ships were scheduled to reach England, and shipping officials hoped that by shunting import cargoes temporarily aside all 119 could be discharged. But the ASF had been able to keep the number down to this level only by diverting more and more cargo into commodity loaders for discharge on the Continent. At least 27 commodity loaders were already scheduled to reach the United Kingdom in June, and they were only a small fraction of the scores destined to arrive in June, July, and August. Continental accommodations would also have to be found for the gathering fleet of MT and stores ships that were to transfer cargo stored in England across the Channel. Whether the artificial harbors and whatever ports the invading forces might succeed in opening up would suffice to absorb all this shipping was the great imponderable facing shipping authorities as D-day for OVERLORD drew near. "So far," observed one WSA official with unconscious irony on 3 June, "the position does not appear unmanageable."45
folder London 1944, WSA Conway File. (3) Msg, London to BMSM, 25 May 44, folder BMWT, WSA Conway File. 45 (1) Msg, HAL 733, Reed to Conway, 3 Jun 44. (2) Behrens, Merchant Stripping, p. 405. (3) Msg NA 8071, Conway to Reed and Kerr, 29 May 44, folder London 1944, WSA Conway File.
ed States would make up the import deficit later in the year. The JCS, on their part, agreed to later compensation with the proviso that it should only be sufficient to enable the British to meet their 43 original import goals for 1944. These arrangements helped to resolve the immediate problem of discharging BOLERO cargoes needed in the United Kingdom in order to assure that troops crossing the Channel had their full allotments. On 19 May 38 cargo ships, all carrying BOLERO cargo, were awaiting discharge at anchorages in British waters for want of berthing space. Two weeks later, as the OVERLORD armada was getting under way, 67 ships were at anchor, but only 7 of them carried BOLERO cargo, and 3 of the 7 were reefers held up for lack of port storage and refrigerator capacity, not for lack of berths. Nineteen of the others were prestowed and commodity loaded ships destined for unloading on the Continent. The 48 conventionally loaded idle ships were, as a WSA official remarked, "a good measure of the excess of arrivals over and above U.K. handling and clearance capacity."44
43 (1) Ibid. (1) and (2). (2) Msg, WARX 45591, JCS to Eisenhower, 2 Jun 44. (3) Msgs HAL 689, Reed to Land for Conway, 12 May 44; and HAL 312, Reed to Conway, 24 May 44; folder London 1944, WSA Conway File. (4) Msg S-52375, Eisenhower to Marshall (eyes only), 23 May 44, ABC 540 (27 May 44). (5) Churchill, Closing the Ring, p. 712. (6) Compare Ruppenthal, Logistical Support of the Armies I, 239, who holds that there was an "impasse" which was resolved only two weeks before D-day. 44 (1) Ltr, Reed to Conway, 30 May 44, folder U.K. 1944, WSA Conway File. (2) Msgs, HAL 721 and 733, Reed to Conway, 27 May and 3 Jun 44,
CHAPTER XV
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had earmarked for possible commitment the French 2d Armored Division, had in Europe 65 of the Army's 89 divisions. been brought to England to join the On D-day 28 of them were already in OVERLORD forces. The other 7 were in the European area8 in the Mediter- the Mediterranean, 4 of them actively ranean, and 20 in the United Kingdom. engaged in Italy, and 3 in North Africa 2 The 7th Armored Division was en route and Corsica. to England, and the 80th Infantry DiviThe dominant aim of the Army staff sion was preparing to move there in was to find ways to rapidly deploy July. With these movements, 39 divi- enough of this latent American power sions would remain in the United States, to northwestern Europe to crush the most of them in an advanced state of German Army in the west. JCS deploytraining. As of mid-June up to 35 were ment schedules in mid-June were still earmarked for Europe and only 4 defi- conservative, visualizing a movement of nitely scheduled for the Pacific. How only about four divisions to Europe per many actually went to Europe would month beginning in August. There was depend, of course, on how long it took ample troop and cargo shipping in the to defeat Germany. Any forces remain- Atlantic to accelerate these schedules, ing in the United States in strategic re- and, while the supply of some types of serve at the end of the war in Europe equipment was limited, the OVERLORD would be deployed against Japan, and priority could be counted on to provide their places taken by combat weary divi- sufficient quantities. The bottleneck, it sions withdrawn from Europe. Addi- was soon apparent, was reception capactional ground forces required for the ity for both troops and supplies in defeat of Japan, over and above those France, and it was to decisively influence already in the Pacific or in strategic both the developing tactical situation reserve, would have to be redeployed in Normandy and the course of the sum1 from Europe. The scheme for progres- mer's debate on strategy. In the southern theater the central sive deployment into the main battle in northwestern Europe is shown in Table problem was how best to employ the forces already in the area. There were 31. In addition to the American forces 26 British, American, French, and Polish there were now 8 French divisions re- divisions in Italy; only 3 French and armed with American equipment and one recently arrived U.S. division (91st serving under Allied command. One, Infantry) remained uncommitted in North Africa. The problem was famil(1) Deployment of Allied Divisions, 31 May, 30 iar: should these forces be concentrated June, 31 July, 31 August 1944, prepared in Log Gp, OPD, Misc 320.2, folder Deployment 1941-45, in Italy to mount a really serious threat to the enemy's southern flank, or should OCMH. (2) JCS 521/6, 11 Jun 44, rpt by JPS, title: Strategic Deployment of U.S. Forces to 30 Sep 45. the Italian front be stabilized with lim(3) Matloff, Strategic Planning, 1943-44, apps. D-1 ited forces in order to open a new secand D-2. (4) Roland G. Ruppenthal, Logistical Suptor in southern or western France. Britport of the Armies, Volume II: September 1944May 1945, UNITED STATES ARMY IN WORLD ish and American perceptions of the
1
WAR II (Washington, 1959) (hereafter cited as Ruppenthal, Logistical Support of the Armies II), Table 8, 282-83.
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TABLE 31PLANNED DEPLOYMENT OF U.S. DIVISIONS ASSUMING GERMANY NOT DEFEATED 11 JUNE 1944
Source: JCS 521/6, 11 Jun 44, title: Strategic Deployment of U.S. Forces to 30 Sep 45.
dom for transshipment to the Continent under procedures similar to those for pre-D-day movements, including preshipment of their equipment. For the second three months, during which it was expected most units would move from the United States directly to the Follow-up Continent, the theater requested that OVERLORD follow-up plans provided all general purpose and combat vehicles for one division to be shipped from the be preshipped to the United Kingdom United States to England in July and for assembly and transshipment, and 4 in August, making a total of 26 divi- that all other equipment accompanying sions in the theater. On the Continent troops be combat loaded and/or force the build-up was expected to reach 21 marked to the destination of troops. For divisions by D plus 90 (later equated troops arriving after the first six months, to 31 August 1944). In the initial stages the theater wanted equipment prethe flow of combat troops would pre- shipped to destinations on the Contindominate but the plan envisaged a bal- ent.4 anced combat and service force on the The War Department agreed readily Continent by the end of August. Begin- to continue preshipment to the United ning in September the build-up was ex- Kingdom until 31 August. Because of pected to continue at a rate of 3 to 5 congestion in British ports, however, divisions (with balanced supporting much of the initial equipment of the forces) per month, most of them to be June-August build-up divisions had to shipped directly from the United States be loaded on prestowed ships and comfor discharge on the Continent.3 modity loaders for discharge on the ConThe European theater's proposed pro- tinent. It soon became evident, morecedures to govern this build-up were over, that the other features of the thereceived in Washington late in Decem- ater plan could not be carried out. ber 1943. For the first three months Equipment was still not plentiful troops would be sent to the United King- enough to permit advance shipment on
Ruppenthal, Logistical Support of the Armies I, 298-99.
3 4 Ltr, Hq ETOUSA to WD, 24 Dec 43, sub: Preshipment of T/E Equipment, AG 400.22 (5-16-43) (1), Sec 1A.
question were inevitably different. The capture of Rome and the launching of OVERLORD set the stage for the last round in the Anglo-American debate on the strategy for defeating Germany.
372
so lavish a scale without deprivation to other theaters and troops in training, particularly if movements of combat units to Europe were to be accelerated. Vehicular requirements would have to be supplied in part by rehabilitated vehicles, which normally were shipped on wheels rather than packaged for overseas assembly. The double handling involved in preshipment to England and transshipment to the Continent could hardly be justified for vehicles on wheels, as it could for packaged ones, by savings in shipping space. Procedures for shipping troop equipment after D plus 90 remained unsettled, therefore, until well after D-day. The theater insisted that whatever the arrangements troops must receive their equipment and be ready to go into action within 15 days after arrival. The solution ultimately devised was the socalled Red List procedure, which was to be in effect during the second three months. Equipment for each unit was assembled and shipped in bulk in cargo convoys timed to arrive about the same time as the troops themselves or a little earlier. After D plus 180, the War Department ruled, troops would move with their equipment under normal procedures. The preshipment program thus came formally to an end on 31 August 1944, though some advance shipments continued to trickle overseas as late as October to make up for units on the preshipment troop basis whose movement had been postponed.5 Meanwhile, almost from the start, logistical operations were plagued by in5
Flow, pp. 123-30, 141-46. (2) Wardlow, The Transportation Corps: Movements, Training, and Supply,
pp. 157-59.
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armies in front of the Seine, the weight of the American offensive was thrown in that direction. The forces diverted into Brittany were smaller than planned, and the Germans clung tenaciously to the ports. Before these could be captured, the Allies had partly encircled and crushed the Germans west of the Seine, then plunged on toward the German border without the ports or the supply lines needed to support so rapid and massive an advance. Enough American forces were diverted to Brittany to take Saint-Malo (17 August) and Brest (18 September), but by the time Brest fell, badly wrecked by its defenders, the
decision had already been made that the Breton ports were too far from the main axis of advance to justify their rehabilitation and use. Thus for almost four months after the launching of OVERLORD its logistical support had to be brought in over the beaches and through Cherbourg, smaller ports in Normandy, and a few small ports on the north coast of Brittany that had not even figured in the original plans.6
For detailed treatment, see Ruppenthal, Logistical Support of the Armies I, Chapters X through XIV, and Ruppenthal, Logistical Support of the Armies II, Chapters 1 through IV.
6
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GLOBAL LOGISTICS AND STRATEGY: 1943-1945 American divisions. This would, they hoped, lead to a consolidated singlefront drive into Germany and an end to the European war in 1944. The British, even more anxious to end the war in Europe quickly because of growing strains on their economy and manpower, took a different view. With all their forces committed soon after the launching of OVERLORD and a large proportion of them in Italy, the British looked to an exploitation of the gains of May and June in Italy as the most effective complement to OVERLORD in breaking through Germany's last defenses in 1944. To General Alexander the long-delayed break-through in Italy created for the first time a real prospect of striking at, or at least threatening, areas as vital to Germany as those menaced by the cross-Channel invasion. In the first week of June he was confident that if allowed to keep his forces intact he could push on without a pause to the line Pisa-Florence-Ancona by the end of July, and in another month could break through the Gothic Line defenses (anchored on Pisa and Rimini) and into the Po Valley. From there he would be in a position in September to turn either west toward Turin and Genoa and thence into France, or east toward Padua, Venice, and through the Ljubljana Gap into the Danube Basin. The latter threat, Alexander estimated, would compel the Germans to reinforce in Italy by at least ten more divisions, regardless of the cost to other fronts, and in his opinion would assist OVERLORD far more powerfully, as well as sooner (since the threat would become apparent to the Germans long before September) than any entry into southern or western France.
Nevertheless, the force build-up on the Continent during the first three months fell only slightly behind schedule. By early September (D plus 90) 20 of the 21 scheduled U.S. divisions were in France, and the French 2d Armored Division, supported over the American supply line, had also crossed the Channel. The initial imbalance in combat and service troops had been redressed much as planned. There was mounting pressure, meanwhile, to speed the flow of troops in September and the months following. But by this time the lack of ports was cramping support of the forces ashore, and Eisenhower was reluctant, and the theater SOS even more so, to agree to any acceleration. For while the force build-up continued on schedule the supply build-up fell far behind. With few deep-water berths for ocean-going vessels, shipping piled up off the Normandy coast, and there was an inevitable temptation to use the ships as floating warehouses. By the end of August, moreover, Allied forward elements were racing for the German border with no assurance that they could be supported over bombed-out transportation lines. A logistical crisis was in the making.7 Anvil Versus Italy Against the background of this developing situation in northwestern Europe the debate over ANVIL and operations in Italy moved toward its conclusion. The Americans were soon to find their principal justification for an invasion of southern France in the prospect of securing additional ports of entry for
Ruppenthal, Logistical Support of the Armies II, 1-8, 276-83.
7
THE AFTERMATH OF OVERLORD Alexander's ideas gained no immediate support, even from his superior, General Wilson. On 7 June Wilson, although he had already read Alexander's report, notified the British Chiefs that he was now definitely prepared to carry out an amphibious operation with a 15 August target date and asked for the needed additional resources. The British Chiefs were not yet ready to settle finally on ANVIL as the choice, but agreed that it was necessary to proceed with the allocation of shipping, supplies, and service troops.8 The CCS considered the matter at some length during the second week of June while the JCS were in England to take stock of the new situation. Both sides rejected Alexander's views. It was agreed that he should pause at the PisaRimini line to disengage forces for a separate amphibious operation elsewhere in at least 3-division strength. Neither side took a rigid position on the alternatives presented, the same ones discussed in May, although more interest than formerly was expressed in the possibility of landings at the head of the Adriatic in the event the Russians
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seille area or at Ste), on the Bay of Biscay coast, or at the head of the Adriatic. The choice would depend upon the progress of OVERLORD, the direction and progress of the impending Soviet offensive, and German reactions. As the Americans desired, the target date would be 29 July, provided this did not prejudice the campaign in Italy, and the assault would be on a scale of 3 divisions, perhaps with a one-division airdrop. Wilson and Eisenhower were asked to confer and submit their views 9 without delay. Insofar as the CCS showed a preference, they deplored the difficulties of the advance from Marseille up the Rhone Valley and noted the advantages to be gained by early capture of Bordeaux either by overland movement after a landing at Ste or by direct assault in the Bay of Biscay. The expressed preference for Bordeaux reflected growing concern in Washington and at SHAEF over the reception capacity in western France for incoming U.S. divisions, a concern that temporarily dampened the old American enthusiasm for the Toulon-Marseille version of ANVIL. decided to strike southward through the Bordeaux was, after all, closer to the Carpathians into the Danube Basin. United States, to England, and to the The Americans insisted that the target beachhead than was Marseille. date should be moved up from 15 Meanwhile, the old problem of proAugust to 29 July. viding a 3-division amphibious lift for Accordingly, the CCS on 14 June ANVIL had seemingly been solved. On notified General Wilson that after the basis of lighter than expected losses achieving his main objectivedestruc- in the Normandy landings, SHAEF estition of German forces south of the Pisa- mated that 15 attack transports, 24 Rimini linehe should halt and launch LST's, 24 LCI (L) 's, one AKA, and one an amphibious operation against south- LSD could be released and sent to the ern France (either in the Toulon-Mar(1) Info notes of 163d mtg CCS, 11 Jun 44, at
9
(1) Ehrman, Grand Strategy V, 345-46. (2) See above, ch. XIV. (3) CCS 561/5, 10 Jun 44, memo by Reps Br COS, title: Opns in Support of OVERLORD.
Stanwell, Middlesex, England, prepared by U.S. Secy, OPD Exec 9, Book 19, Item 838. (2) Ehrman, Grand Strategy V, 268-70. (3) Matloff, Strategic Planning, 1943-44, pp. 467-69.
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Mediterranean in time for the assault. The JCS promised to send 9 more LST's and 23 to 25 LCT's from rising U.S. production. With what he already had in the theater, Wilson would then have well over the required 3-division lift.10 The range of choice was soon narrowed. By now, despite the on-againoff-again decisions, preparations for ANVIL had generated a momentum of their own. The build-up of air forces on Corsica was far advanced, western Mediterranean ports were ready to assume their outloading functions and, partly as a result of General Devers' action in retaining his ANVIL stockpiles intact, necessary supplies were on hand or in prospect. Only the Toulon-Marseille operation had been planned in detail, and the theater staff believed it was the only one that could be carried out by 29 July; the earliest date for either a Bay of Biscay or an Adriatic landing would be mid-August. While the ANVIL landings might be shifted westward to the Ste area, the beaches there were far more strongly defended than those east of Toulon, the lodgment area would be hard to hold against a counterattack, the ports were inadequate, and the route of advance toward Bordeaux was infinitely more difficult than that up the 11 Rhone Valley.
(1) Memo, SHAEF, 12 Jun 44, sub: Release of Shpg and Ldg Cft from Opn NEPTUNE, ABC 384 Europe (5 Aug 43), Sec 9-A. (2) Memo, Deputy Dir, P&O, ASF, for Gen Somervell, 17 Jun 44, sub: Opn ANVIL, OPD Exec 9, Book 19, Item 832. (3) Table, Status of Assault Shipping, Med, ANVIL, 16 Jun 44, ABC 384 Med (26 Oct 43), Sec 1-A. (4) The total lift available was estimated to be 77 LST's, 128 LCI(L)'s, 134 LCT's, and 24 attack transports. 11 (1) AFHQ Med JPS, Msg to SACMED concerning operations in support of OVERLORD, 19 Jun 44. (2) Brief for SACMED, 15 Jun 44, sub: Implications of Alternative Opns in Support of OVERLORD. Both in ABC 384 Europe (5 Aug 43), Sec 9-A.
10
377
from it was a slow withdrawal of German forces up the Rhone Valley until they established a common front with those in the north. The Italian operations, Wilson assured his superiors, were logistically feasible, and as a by-product would result in opening ports in northern Italy through which fresh divisions from the United States might be fun14 neled. The arrival of Wilson's message in London coincided with the Channel storm of 19 June. With over-the-beach supply of the forces ashore suddenly endangered, Eisenhower's advocacy of the southern France operation took on a new urgency. ANVIL, he argued, promised to provide a good port and the most direct route to eastern France, "where the great battles for the Ruhr will be fought." Alexander's forces did not directly threaten any vital area and their advance, though perhaps of some containing value, would neither surely divert German divisions from France nor open up ports for deployment of forces from the United States"one of the most important considerations." Nor would it, Eisenhower thought, have much positive effect before 1945a neat reversal of Wilson's case for Italy against south15 ern France. If, however, the dangerous situation on the Normandy beachhead heightened German reinforcements the Allies would Eisenhower's zeal for ANVIL, it also imreach the Ljubljana Gap that month. posed limits on the assistance he felt he ANVIL, on the other hand, would pro- could render at the very time the reduce no effect at all until mid-August, quirements were being raised. For a 15 and the best that could be expected August ANVIL, Wilson requested 50
13 (1) Msg, B-12995, Wilson to Eisenhower and Br COS, 19 Jun 44, SHAEF SGS 370.2/2, Opns from Med in Support of OVERLORD. (2) SAC Conf, Min of Spec Mtg with Gen Marshall and Gen Arnold, 17 Jun 44, ABC 384 (5 Aug 43), Sec 9-A.
Ibid. (1). Msg S-54425, Eisenhower to CCS, 23 Jun 44, SHAEF SGS 370.2/2, Opns from Med in Support of OVERLORD, vol. II.
15
14
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OVERLORD LST's rather than the 24 offered, and he wanted them released by 10 July to allow time for overhaul and arrival in the theater two weeks before the ANVIL target date. Wilson also wanted enough airborne lift for a full division. Meanwhile, Eisenhower's naval staff reported the build-up of vehicles in Normandy already 58,000 in arrears, and saw little hope of reducing the backlog until the latter part of July even if all the OVERLORD LST's could be retained. Reluctant to part with either the
LST's or any of his airborne troop carrier reserves, Eisenhower suggested as an alternative that if ANVIL could not be launched with good prospects before the end of August, one or two of the American divisions and all of the seven French divisions assigned to ANVIL might be sent instead to reinforce the Norman-
dy beachhead.16
Meanwhile, staff opposition in Washington to Wilson's proposed Italian drive had hardened. It rested not only on the objections voiced by Eisenhower, but generally on revived fears of involvement in the Balkans, and, more specifically, on doubts whether the French could be persuaded to engage in an operation leading away from their homeland or whether any sizable forces could be supported logistically north of the Apennines. In a note to London on 24 June the JCS again insisted that ANVIL was the only operation that would assure rapid concentration of maximum forces in France. They maintained that, even after withdrawal of the ANVIL contingent, more than sufficient forces
16
Gen Handy, 23 Jun 44, sub: Courses of Action in Med, ABC 384 Europe (5 Aug 43), Sec 9-A. 18 (1) JP 44 (161) (Final), rpt by Br JPS, 15 Jun
44, title: Exploitation from N Italy, ABC 384 Eur (5 Aug 43), Sec 9-A. (2) Winston S. Churchill, Triumph and Tragedy (Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company, 1953), pp. 57-62. (3) Bryant, Triumph in the West, pp. 164-66.
(1)
with related papers in SHAEF SGS 370.2/2, Opns from Med in Support of OVERLORD, vol. II.
379
ranean to western France. Churchill also pointed to the heavy preponderance of service "tail" in the July-September movement schedules for the American build-up and pleaded for a higher proportion of ground combat troops. Neither Churchill nor the British Chiefs, significantly, attempted to defend Alexander's proposals for an advance beyond the Ljubljana Gap into southern Hungary; they rested their case on the havoc they hoped to wreak on the enemy and throw away a priceless opportunity south of the Alps, where they fully exto destroy his forces in Italy. Far better, pected him to stand and fight. The the British thought, to leave the Allied British proposals thus hinged on two asarmies in Italy intact and concentrate sumptions: first, that the Germans would on the effort to funnel new U.S. divi- in fact make a major effort to hold sions directly to the OVERLORD front by northern Italy and, second, that the inincreasing intake capacity in western take capacity of ports, beaches, and France from the Loire northward. The the transportation network of western early capture of the Breton and Chan- France could be expanded sufficiently nel ports would do far more to help to accommodate the additional U.S. OVERLORD than would development of and French divisions. Churchill tersely a distant line of communications from summed up the case: "Let us resolve not Marseille. In the interim, the British to wreck one great campaign for the pointed out, much could be done to sake of winning the other. Both can be 20 develop smaller ports in Normandy that won." had not figured in the OVERLORD logisThe Americans refused to see the tical plan as well as increasing intake issue in this light. To them the heart capacity at ports along the western coast- of the British position was abandonment line as they were taken. of ANVIL, still regarded as an essential To this end they urged that Eisen- prop for OVERLORD, and an all-out prosehower be allowed to retain all the as- cution of the offensive in Italy with sault shipping scheduled to move to the ultimate objectives north of the Alps. Mediterranean for ANVIL. They further Hasty logistical studies persuaded them proposedseizing on Eisenhower's alter- that, as the President told Churchill, it native proposalthat the seven French was doubtful whether "within a decisive divisions and at least one U.S. division period, it would be possible to put into be brought around from the Mediter- the fighting beyond the Ljubljana Gap more than six divisions," and the bare (1) CCS 603/1, 27 Jun 44, memo by Reps Br possibility of an advance "into the BalCOS, title: Opns to Assist OVERLORD. (2) Msg 718, kans" (that is, across the northern tip of
19
Prime Minister to President, 28 Jun 44, ABC 384 Europe (5 Aug 43), Sec 9-A. (3) The quoted phrase appears in both papers.
20
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Yugoslavia) raised emotional hackles.21 The American staff denigrated British contentions that withdrawals for ANVIL would seriously impair Alexander's chances of reaching the Pisa-Rimini line and maintaining strong pressure on the Germans thereafter. They also heavily discounted the likelihood that the Germans would reinforce in Italy, and held to this view in the face of an intelligence report to the contrary produced by the British on 28 June. "The desire," asserted the Joint Chiefs, "is to deploy as many United States divisions in France and as quickly as possible. A successful advance by Alexander's force in Italy does not promote this possibility."22 The Americans made no attempt to answer the British argument for expanding the reception capacity along the west coast of France other than to insist that it was "definitely Eisenhower's responsibility." "The forces we are sending him from the United States," the President wrote, "are what he has asked for. If he wants divisions ahead of service troops he has but to askthe divisions will be ready." Until these forces in the United States were exhausted, Roosevelt said, he was "opposed to the wasteful procedure of transferring forces from the Mediterranean to OVERLORD."23
The twin problems of acceleration and balance had, in fact, been under study in Eisenhower's headquarters for some time, and Churchill's remarks about administrative "tail" gave them
(1) Msg, President to Prime Minister, 29 Jun 44, quoted in Ehrman, Grand Strategy V, 353-55. (2) CCS 603, 24 Jun 44. 22 (1) JCS msg 27 June, quoted in Ehrman, Grand Strategy V, 352. (2) CCS 603/2, 27 Jun 44, memo by U.S. CsofS, title: Opns to Assist OVERLORD.
23
21
Ibid. (1).
381
a consequence had to accept ordinary 26 troop transports instead.
The debate had a final, rather anticlimactic, chapter. The spectacular Allied break-through in Normandy at the
in an Adriatic operation and the observation that the British did not now contemplate, nor had they ever contemplated, "moving armies into the Balkans." Stalin, he added, would probably be pleased with the decision since it would open up eastern, middle, and southern Europe to Soviet control. On 2 July the CCS directed Wilson to execute ANVIL, if possible on 15 August.25 Dragoon and Its Aftermath The die was thus cast for ANVIL, now renamed DRAGOON. Logistical preparations once more went ahead at full speed. Early in July the withdrawal of
the three American and four French
end of July seemed to the British to alter the whole situation and led them to a last-minute revival of the scheme to feed the ten DRAGOON divisions through Breton ports, the capture of which, at the moment, seemed imminent. On 4 August Churchill personally appealed to the President urging this diversion, and the next day the British Chiefs urged the same course upon the JCS. The American staff rejected the proposal out of hand, arguing that since OVERLORD was still somewhat behind its original schedule, the need for the southern France operation had not lessened; capture of the Breton ports was
still uncertain, and, in any case, there
he could make do with only 24 (instead of the requested 50) OVERLORD LST's after all and Eisenhower promising to release them on 15 July rather than the 10th, along with some additional miscellaneous assault and naval craft. Eisenhower also promised the necessary troop
carrier aircraft and gliders. On the whole
were plenty of divisions in the United Kingdom and the United States to funnel into France whenever it became possible to do so.27 Churchill, meanwhile, had asked Wilson to report on the technical feasibility of the project. Wilson replied on 6 August that shipping was immediately available, including the vessels in which some of the DRAGOON assault forces had already embarked, to move seven of the
ten divisions to Brittany with their as-
DRAGOON seemed to be comfortably provided forso comfortably indeed that Wilson found himself unable to say in good conscience that his promised 6 LSI (L) 's were really essential for the immediate follow-up movement, and as
25 (1) Ehrman, Grand Strategy V, 355-56. (2) Matloff, Strategic Planning, 1943-44, pp. 471-73. Churchill also pointed out that Istria and Trieste were in Italy, not the Balkans.
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by the end of the month or by the first few days in September. Eisenhower would have to provide the reception capacity and any small craft that might be necessary. Sensing a new prospect for ending the European war in 1944, Churchill again appealed to Washingtonthis time to Harry Hopkins, since the President was on a trip to the Pacificstressing the impact that would be
As Hopkins had indicated, no careful study was ever made of the logistical feasibility of the Brittany operation, much less the one against Bordeaux. Yet, if the American decision seemed arbitrary at the moment, the turn of events on the European battlefield soon justified the decision against redeployment of the DRAGOON forces to Brittany or the Bay of Biscay. Instead of sweepproduced by thrusting ten fresh divi- ing into Brittany to seize the ports, sions into the main front. The Prime American armies threw the main weight Minister also approached General Eisen- of their offensive toward the Seine and hower with a variant undertaking aimed beyond. SHAEF soon decided that the farther south at Bordeaux. But although Seine and Channel ports, principally Le some of the SHEAF staff were taken by Havre and Antwerp, would have to prothe idea Eisenhower and Hopkins held vide the main support for Allied forces firm. Hopkins advised Churchill on 7 advancing rapidly toward the German border. Brest and Saint-Malo were not August: used after their delayed capture, and While 1 have seen no analysis of the Saint-Nazaire and Lorient remained in logistics involved, 1 am absolutely certain you will find the supply problem insur- German hands until the end. British mountable. Divisions are already available forces took Antwerp on 4 September for Eisenhower's immediate build-up which and Le Havre on the 12th. Le Havre was will tax the ports to the limit. Then, too, badly damaged and the Germans reno one knows the condition of the Brittany mained in control of the approaches to ports. . . . To change our strategy now would Antwerp for two months. The reception be a great mistake and 1 believe would delay rather than aid our sure conquest of capacity in western France through 28 which to feed the divisions from the France. . . . Mediterranean, or for that matter those On the following day Roosevelt added waiting in the United States, simply did his voice to the chorus of dissent. not develop. Churchill yielded and the debate finally Then, in the rapid advances across ended. Exactly one week later Allied France in August and September 1944, assault craft touched down on the the problems caused by lack of port cabeaches of the French Riviera. pacity were compounded by lengthening lines of communication. During the critical period in September, when advance Allied elements struck into the (1) Quoted in Ehrman, Grand Strategy V, 367. Siegfried Line, the limiting factor was The episode is treated in some detail on pages 363 not the number of divisions on the Conthrough 367. (2) See also Churchill, Triumph and Tragedy, pp. 67-71; Butcher, My Three Years with tinent but the ability to support the Eisenhower, p. 634; Eisenhower, Crusade in Europe, divisions already there at the farthest pp. 281-84; Matloff, Strategic Planning, 1943-44, pp. reaches of their advance. 473-74; Pogue, Supreme Command, pp. 224-26.
28
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success owed much, of course, to the swift advance of Eisenhower's armies across France, which threatened the rear of German forces in the south and forced them to disengage and withdraw. On the other hand, DRAGOON contributed nothing to OVERLORD itself except as the threat served to keep German forces in southern France while the main invasion was being launched, and it did not, any more than the Brittany or Bordeaux projects would have done, provide a solution for the major logistical problems in Europe in the critical months of September and October. Later, the new line of communications up the Rhone Valley did help to relieve the shortage of port capacity in northwestern Europe, which, even with this addi-
tion, continued to cramp operations on the western front until December. The ports in southern France were used to handle three divisions that sailed directly from the United States in October under the accelerated schedule, thus relieving the load on the ports and beaches in northwest France and in the United Kingdom. By the end of the year the divisional build-up in the European theater had reached 49 as opposed to the originally scheduled 43, not counting the 3 U.S. assault divisions in DRAGOON and the 7 French divisions that followed. By that time only 5 more American divisions remained in the strategic reserve for possible commitment to Europe. The deployment of U.S. ground combat power into the main front in northwestern Europe had been accelerated, but logistical limitations prevented its full employment when it was most needed. For by November the Germans had dug in along the Siegfried Line and the prospects of ending the war in Eu-
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GLOBAL LOGISTICS AND STRATEGY: 1943-1945 they declined to sanction any particular line of advance beyond the Po Valley so as to keep open the option of a westward movement along the Ligurian coast. Reinforcements to the Fifth Army were limited to divisions already scheduled to move to the Mediterraneanan American Negro infantry division (the 92d) and a Brazilian division, both scheduled to reach the theater in September and October. In August the U.S. 91st Infantry Division, which had arrived in North Africa in the spring, was 32 also committed in Italy. Despite the ANVIL withdrawals during July, Alexander's two armies pushed steadily forward during that month, reaching the Gothic Line by the beginning of August. There they had to pause to regroup, and did not resume the offensive until the 25th. For a time the operation went well; Pisa and Lucca fell to Fifth Army while Eighth Army pushed almost to Rimini on the Adriatic coast. On the eve of the second Quebec conference in September, Wilson and Alexander were confident that the Gothic Line could be breached and the Allies would be in the Po Valley before winter. But time and momentum had been lost, and these hopes were to be dashed before the end of September.33 The battle in Italy settled down into a long stalemate that was to endure until nearly the end of the war.
32 (1) CCS 603/8, 10 Jul 44, memo by Reps Br COS, title: Opns to Assist OVERLORD. (2) CCS 603/9, 12 Jul 44, memo by Reps Br COS, same title. (3) CCS 603/11, 24 Jul 44, memo by U.S. CsofS, 24 Jul 44, same title. (4) Related papers in ABC 384 Europe (5 Aug 43) Sec 9-A. (5) Ehrman, Grand Strategy V, 358-59. (6) Matloff, Strategic Planning, 1943-44, p. 475. 33 Ehrman, Grand Strategy V, 359-61, 529-31.
rope in 1944, which had seemed so bright in August and September, had gone glimmering.30 To the campaign in Italy, however, DRAGOON dealt a blow that may well have been decisive (though this, of course, cannot be proved) by prolonging the war in that sector through the winter and following spring. Seven divisions were withdrawn for southern France at the precise moment that the Germans were reinforcing their Italian front with eight fresh divisions; soon thereafter, as Allied pressures weakened, the Germans were able to withdraw four 31 divisions. In acquiescing to ANVIL early in July, the British Chiefs had clung to the hope that the Italian offensive might still be salvaged. Approving Wilson's revised plans for a drive through the Apennines to the Po, then north and northeastward to a line running from Venice westward to Brescia, they asked the Americans to support the campaign in the same spirit that they themselves were supporting ANVIL. For their part the British managed to scrape together from various corners of the Mediterranean the equivalent of two more divisions and nine air squadrons. But the Americans by now regarded the Italian front purely as a holding operation, and were already considering a transfer of the Fifth Army into France as soon as the Po Valley had been gainedor sooner, if General Alexander's drive should bog down in the Apennines. Accordingly,
30 (1) Ruppenthal, Logistical Support of the Armies II, 280-83. (2) See also Ruppenthal, "Logistics and the Broad-Front Strategy," in Greenfield, ed., Command Decisions, pp. 419-27. 31 Ehrman, Grand Strategy V, 350-51, 384.
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of the campaign. Their retention did permit the release of some of the oceangoing shipping. By the end of August For four months following the Nor- the Americans were using only 35 of mandy landings the immense pool of the 60 stores ships originally allocated Allied shipping concentrated in British to supplement and replace coasters, and waters and plying the North Atlantic the MT ship allocation had been resea-lanes proved more than adequate duced to 62. This was still 22 more than to its tasks. Preparations and shipping the original MT ship allotment, and no allocations for the southern France op- further releases were in prospect before 34 eration went forward, moreover, despite mid-September. Thus the pool of shipping engaged in the uncertainties surrounding it. The mounting of DRAGOON in August raised moving supplies across the Channel no unforeseen problems in the provision diminished very little before late August. Meanwhile more and more ships were of ocean-going tonnage. Ultimately, nevertheless, the failure being assigned to the transatlantic servto secure adequate port capacity in ice with an increasing number each northwestern Europe brought the in- month destined for discharge directly on evitable penalty. By the end of June the the Continent. The spectacular advances American supply build-up on the Con- of July and August, moreover, gained tinent was about 30 percent behind much ground but few ports. As early as schedule and the vehicular build-up July the inevitable consequence had beabout 35 percent behind. To speed up gun to appeara growing accumulation movements from the United Kingdom of cargo shipping ostensibly awaiting to the Continent the theater received discharge but actually serving as mobile an additional allotment of 34 MT ships depots from which the forces ashore and authorization to retain the entire drew supplies selectively as needed. At the end of June approximately 200 complement (258 all together) through the second month of the operation. The ships were scheduled to reach the Euronet effect was to add 118 ocean-going pean theater from the United States MT ships to the 140 already counted on during July and 200 more during Aufor July. At the same time, because gust. The theater proposed to unload Cherbourg was still not in operation and 100 on the Continent in July and 125 there were very few deep-water ports in Augustmostly commodity loaders. anywhere else in the beachhead, the By mid-July it was becoming ever more transfer of coasters servicing the Amer- evident that all these commodity loadican sector back to the British domestic ers could not be unloaded on the Contrade was postponed; coasters were in(1) On the original allocations, see above, Chapdispensable not only in the small ports ter XIV. (2) Ruppenthal, Logistical Support of the and on the beaches but for full utiliza- Armies I, 415-22, 426, and II, 124-26. (3) Papers in tion of the capacity of the larger ports folders London 1944, Cont M and S Com, U.K., as well. Almost all the coasters assigned BMSM 1944, WSA Conway File. (4) JMTC Memo 8, 24 Jun 44, title: Additional Cargo MT Shpg to the American and British sectors in No. for OVERLORD. (5) CMT 57/8, 29 Jul 44, rpt by fact remained in service right to the end CMTC, title: Shpg Reqmts for OVERLORD.
34
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GLOBAL LOGISTICS AND STRATEGY: 1943-1945 admitted Lt. Gen. John C. H. Lee, the communications zone commander, "on tactical advances and capture of additional anchorages and ports." Whether
these materialized or not, he felt that it was "the theater's responsibility to pro36 vide a flow of supplies." During August, ASF and WSA tried September, even as requests came in for
tinent, and WSA began to view the situation with alarm. Even by optimistic theater estimates, 76 commodity loaders
would still not be discharged at the end of July, and 129 more were scheduled to arrive in August, making a total of 205 to be unloaded during the latter month. It was difficult for WSA officials ships could be discharged in August,
to accept the theater's estimate that 133 hard to meet the theater's demands for
120 of them on the Continent. Even if continental discharge could be stepped up to that extent, it appeared that at
the end of August there would still be from 160 to 170 idle ships in north35 western Europe. These fears were well-founded. Only 76 cargo ships from the United States were discharged on the Continent in August, and by the end of the month 207 commodity loaders, loaded or awaiting return convoy, had accumulated in northwestern Europe. Meanwhile the July-August offensives generated even greater demands. In late July the theater hoped that, with Saint-Malo and probably other Breton ports coming into operation, and higher intake through the small ports, an average continental discharge rate of 27,000 tons per day might be attained in September (10,000 tons above the daily average in July) and 40,000 in October. With this expectation the theater first asked for 285 arrivals in September; pressed by the War Department it finally settled for 250 as the "irreducible" minimum. Of these 175 were for discharge on the Continent, 50 more than the theater staff really
additional September retentions for the build-up in southern France, and indications appeared of another rise in Pacific requirements. At first it seemed likely that the European demand could only be met by nearly suspending nonmilitary programs in the Atlantic, including both the U.K. Import Program and USSR Protocol sailings, and by reducing departures for the Mediterranean
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now in prospect, and the supply buildup in Siberia in anticipation of Soviet entry into the war against Japan, in October were to combine to make cargo shipping again, after almost two years of relative plenty, the principal limita40 tion on Allied strategy.
1944, the logistical crisis developing in northwestern Europe was only a cloud agreed to discharge some of the com- on an otherwise bright horizon as far modity loaders in British ports for later as the war with Germany was concerned. transshipment to the Continent. This The Germans were retreating on all was only a palliative. By the beginning three European fronts; in Italy and of October, with Le Havre not yet in France, indeed, they seemed about to operation and the approaches to Ant- disintegrate. In eastern Europe Soviet werp still in enemy hands, the pool of armies had swept through Bulgaria and idle and fully-loaded shipping in the Romania and had reached the Yugoslav 38 area still numbered 180 ships. frontier near Belgrade. Finland had By late September 1944, then, a new dropped out of the war. Only in Poland Atlantic shipping crisis was in the mak- had the Soviet armies temporarily halting, a part of the broader logistical ed. In Washington and London, Gerdilemma created in the European the- many's collapse before the end of the ater by the rapid advance of Allied year was confidently predicted, though armies eastward without adequate lines Churchill himself had serious doubts.41 of supply. It coincided with a similar The final decisions on the grand decrisis in the Pacific resulting from the sign for defeating Germany had been accelerated advance in that theater par- made and resources had been allocated ticularly the decision to invade Leyte to execute them. The only major ques39 ahead of schedule. These develop- tions still awaiting decision at the highments, together with new shipping re- est level concerned the possible transfer quirements for civilian relief in Europe of the U.S. Fifth Army from Italy to the western front, and future (necessar(1) Msg NA 9037, Conway to Reed, 8 Sep 44. ily limited) undertakings in the eastern (2) Msg NA 9008, Conway to Reed, 6 Sep 44. Both in folder London 1944, WSA Conway File. (3) Ltr, Mediterranean. The second Quebec conConway to Monroe, 24 Aug 44, folder Reading File ference therefore dealt mainly with the 1944, WSA Conway File. (4) Min, 35th mtg Cont war against Japan and political quesM and S Com, 13 Sep 44, folder M and S Com 1944,
38
WSA Conway File. (5) Memo, Donald for Conway, 16 Sep 44, folder Reqmts and Avlbles 1944, WSA Conway File. (6) Ltr, Conway to Gross, 29 Sep 44, folder Army 1944, WSA Conway File. 39 See below, chs. XVI and XIX.
See below, ch. XXII. (1) Ehrman, Grand Strategy V, 377-84, 395-403. (2) Churchill, Triumph and Tragedy, pp. 195-96.
41
40
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GLOBAL LOGISTICS AND STRATEGY: 1943-1945 To bring these developments into perspective, it is now time to turn to the logistics and strategy of the war against Japan in 1943 and 1944.
CHAPTER XVI
In terms of the allocation of American resources, the priority given the European war was never quite so overweening as even the TRIDENT formula, interpreted literally in terms of the traditional military principle of concentraish at TRIDENT, was defined as "to main- tion of force, might have indicated. Durtain and extend unremitting pressure ing 1942, in order to establish defensive against Japan with the purpose of con- positions strong enough to blunt the tinually reducing her military power force of initial Japanese drives, Amerand attaining positions from which her ican troops were committed in the Paciultimate surrender can be forced." Upon fic in as great numbers as in Europe the defeat of Germany, the "full re- and North Africa. These initial disposources" of the United States and Great sitions generated pressures of their own, Britain were to be directed toward bring- and the strategy of "unremitting presing about at "the earliest possible date" sure" was interpreted on the American the unconditional surrender of Japan.1 side as dictating continuous augmentaThe word extend in the formula stood tions, particularly as long as the major as a pointed reminder of American de- Allied effort against Germany was in the termination not to allow the priority Mediterranean, which Americans conaccorded the war in Europe to prevent sidered a peripheral theater. Admiral allocation of sufficient resources for the King and his staff became the confirmed war against Japan to enable the allies supporters of aggressive action in the to seize and maintain the initiative in Pacific; and Army planners, aware of the the Pacific and southeast Asia. The advantages to be gained by exploiting Americans did not, indeed, agree to ac- every opportunity to hasten victory over Japan and under similar pressures from their own theater commanders in Paci(1) CCS 242/6, 15 May 43, title: Final Rpt to President and Prime Minister (TRIDENT). (2) See fic areas, seldom found it either neces1
above, ch. III. (3) See also CCS 319/5, 24 Aug 43, title: Final Rpt at QUADRANT, and CCS 426/1, 6 Dec 43, title: Final Rpt at SEXTANT.
392
sary or expedient to recommend curtailment of the commitments required to carry out an aggressive strategy in that area. Whether the resulting scale of American commitments to the war against Japan constituted any conscious violation of the "Germany first" principle is a moot question. It would be more accurate to say that the commitments reflected a liberal interpretation of the TRIDENT formula. Moreover, in no small measure they reflected the power generated by the American military machine once the economy of the nation was fully geared to war, a power that enabled the Americans to wage war successfully on two fronts. A considerable part of the resources committed in the Pacific could not be used to great advantage in Europe in any case. The principal resource in this category was the rapidly growing U.S. fleet, the main body of which could find no profitable employment in the Atlantic. In this sense, the scope of the commitment to the Pacific war was determined in production plans and priorities dating back to 1940 that provided for a two-ocean Navy. The very existence of a large fleet in the Pacific served as a magnet for other resourcesArmy troops and planes, merchant shipping, landing ships and craft, and all the paraphernalia of supporting elements needed to put them to use. It was for these other resources, and principally assault shipping, that marginal needs in the Atlantic and Pacific were in clear competition. During 1943 the flow of Army troops and other Army resources to the areas of the war against Germany was considerably greater than that to the areas of war against Japan, a sharp contrast
393
ratio of Army-controlled shipping servAbout the main area in which the ing the two areas fluctuated from 3-2 competition for resources between Atto 5-4 in favor of the Atlantic front, the lantic and Pacific vitally affected stratetotal cargo shipping serving both Army gy in 1943-44, that of assault shipping, and Navy was in relative balance be- much has already been said and little tween the Pacific and Atlantic fronts by more need be added here. American the fall of 1944. Total figures for air- assault shipping was finally supplied in craft, Army and Navy, show a slight ample quantities for European operapreponderance in the Atlantic theaters tions, some at the expense of operations after mid-1943, but it should be noted in the Pacific, but failure to make a that the AAF's most significant new timely decision to provide those ample plane, the B-29 bomber, was committed quantities complicated strategic planonly in the war against Japan. Most ning for both OVERLORD and ANVIL at important of all, the largest, newest, and every turn and seriously weakened the best units of the U.S. Navyaircraft American position in the long strategic carriers, battleships, heavy and light debate with the British. The accelerated cruisers, destroyers, and submarines building program of fall 1943, pushed were concentrated in the Pacific, togeth- through at the insistence of the Navy, er with an immense supporting estab- promised an increasing supply in the lishment afloat and ashore. Along with Pacific as the year 1944 wore on, and the fleet went almost all the Navy's as- enough by mid-1945 to make possible sault transports (APA's) and assault a 10-division assault on the Japanese cargo ships (AKA's) with their smaller homeland without any substantial recraft, and they were the mainstays of deployment from Europe.6 When the amphibious operations over the long rapidly broadening scope of Pacific opocean distances of the Central Pacific. erations began to put a strain on availWhen the Normandy landings were able resources late in 1944, the critical made, the European and Mediterranean area was not assault shipping, but rather theaters had more LST's and LCT's, ordinary cargo shipping and Army rethen the truly critical types in those sources necessary for support of largeareas, although this had not been true scale land operations. of LST's during most of the period imThe "Germany first" strategy, in any mediately preceding. Amphibious vehi- case, as modified and interpreted in cles were divided between the two areas American councils, left enough sinews on a roughly equal basis in accordance for maintaining and extending "unrewith suitability and peculiar need. The European and Mediterranean theaters got a clear priority on Army-produced Strength of the Army. (2) Navy figures are from DUKW's, but the lion's share of the JCS 5 2 1 / 6 , 11 Jun 44 title: Strategic Deployment of U.S. Forces to 30 Sep 45. (3) The comparison of Navy-produced amphibious tractors, pe- cargo shipping in fall 1944 is based on JCS 1173, culiarly suited for use in operations 11 Nov 44, title: Remedies for Existing and Prospec5 tive Shortages in Cargo Shipping. (4) On the division against coral atolls, went to the Pacific.
(1) Army figures are taken from ASF, Statistical Review, World War II, and from STM-30, 1 Jan 48,
5
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GLOBAL LOGISTICS AND STRATEGY: 1943-1945 The remarkable progress of the war in the Pacific was attributable, for the most part, to the steady growth of the U.S. Fleet in that area. The Army nevertheless did commit to the Pacific in 1943 and 1944 at least one-third of its resources overseas a smaller commitment proportionately than in 1942, but it still meant more troops, more aircraft, more shipping, and better and more systematic supply support. This is not to say that the war in the Pacific ever became one of unlimited means. Inevitably, shortages limited the scope of operations, but resources did prove sufficient to permit several successive accelerations in the timetable. Insofar as priority affected the availability of means in the Pacific, it was largely a matter of Army resources and merchant shipping. In the Army's formal supply priorities structure, the European and Mediterranean theaters normally rated higher than the Pacific theaters, and this inevitably affected both the quantity and quality of support fur8 nished troops in the Pacific. It meant that on newer and better types of equipment and on critical items of all sorts the Atlantic theaters got first call if they could definitely prove they needed them. This was particularly true after SEXTANT, when OVERLORD was given overriding priority. That it worked certain hardships on the Pacific theaters and was a prime factor in creating a dual standard of living in the Pacific, a higher one for the Navy, and a lower one for the Army, is undeniable. It also meant that the Central Pacific, primarily a naval theater, was apt to suffer less for want of resources than the South8 On the priorities structure, see above, Chapter VI.
mitting pressure" in the Pacific in 194344. The war against Japan was kept going during that crucial period at almost the same level of intensity as the war against Germany. The year 1943 was a year of preparations and limited offensives in Europe and the Mediterranean as well as in the Pacific. During the summer and fall of the next year, 1944, the advances of American forces in the Pacific were just as spectacular, at times more so, than those in Europe. At the same time in 1944 that the supreme operation of the year, OVERLORD, was being mounted from the British Isles, Operation FORAGER against the Marianas was being mounted in the Pacific, involving in its assault phases almost as many troops and almost as much amphibious lift as the Normandy invasion.7 The really decisive campaigns against Japan were fought simultaneously with those against Germany. Though by the end of 1944 American forces were only as far as the Philippinesabout 1,800 miles from Japanattrition of Japanese air, naval, and merchant marine strength in these supposed preliminary campaigns had reduced Nipponese power to a shell. If in the basic strategy these advances had been designed only to secure bases from which a final decisive assault could be launched, they did in fact bring Japan so close to the brink of defeat that, when joined with the development of new and more destructive instruments of war, they rendered actual invasion of the industrial heart of Japan unnecessary.
7 For the forces engaged in Operation FORAGER, see Samuel Eliot Morison, "United States Naval
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west Pacific, where the predominant icies, procedures, and techniques best forces and the commander were from suited to the Pacific areas was necessarily the Army. Yet the volume of American slow. In the last analysis, it was the production after mid-1943 went far to China-Burma-India area that suffered negate the effects of lower priority. most acutely from the priority given the Truly critical matriel shortages be- European war, for it was the CBI that came fewer and fewer and resulted pri- was most frequently in direct competimarily from maldistribution. The Paci- tion for the very resources already comfic theaters were more likely to be short mitted to Europe a large land army with all its accouterments and British particular items than total quantities. A similar situation existed with re- naval resources. gard to Army troop units and merchant shipping. As long as there was a large A Strategy of Opportunism uncommitted pool of Army units in the Pacific strategy during the middle war United States, Pacific needs could be met 9 quite satisfactorily if shipping could be years was largely opportunistic. Though found to transport and support them, efforts began as early as the TRIDENT but by mid-1944 the military manpower Conference in May 1943 to develop an situation was becoming increasingly over-all plan for the defeat of Japan, it stringent as overseas deployment to both proved easier to agree on specific operEurope and the Pacific mushroomed. ations some months in advance than on With most of its remaining available any grand design. Elaborate timetables units slated for Europe, the Army could of operations prepared for each great not furnish the service and supporting international conference were generally troops needed for Pacific operations. In outdated by the time the next conferthis way the pinch of the "Germany ence met. The mobility of the Pacific first" strategy was finally felt. Similarly, Fleet, particularly its supply bases and allocations of merchant shipping were its great floating carrier air bases, and more adequate after QUADRANT for At- the development of new techniques for lantic than for Pacific areas. Each ship- employing land-based aircraft along the ping crisis in the Pacific was solved by fringes of Pacific islands made this apdiverting a temporary surplus from the proach a most feasible and successful Atlantic pool. In the fall of 1944, how- one. Moreover, the inability of Army ever, the mounting shipping demands The various Army and JCS papers concerned for support of the large Army forces de- with the development of Pacific strategy are not all ployed in Europe seemed to rule out any cited here individually except where they are quoted or developed in some detail. Complete accounts of further transfers. the development of Pacific strategy in this period In any case, low priority only aggra- are to be found in Matloff, Strategic Planning, vated logistical problems that geography 1943-44 and Louis Morton, Strategy and Command: The First Two Years, UNITED STATES ARMY created. Vast ocean distances and prim- IN WORLD WAR II (Washington, 1962) (for the itive facilities created demands for ship- earlier part of the period covered), and in Grace ping, construction, supplies, and service Hayes, Section IV: The War Against Japan, 2 vols., in History of the Joint Chiefs of Staff in World troops, that for all practical purposes War II, MS, JCS Historical Sec. When not otherwise were insatiable. The development of pol- indicated, this section is based on these three works.
9
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and Navy staffs to agree on any single line of attack made temporary modi vivendi a necessity. The fact that almost all resources in the Pacific were under American control and therefore subject to the direction of the JCS alone without consultation of the British facilitated rapid decision. After one final challenge at QUADRANT, the British Chiefs left questions of Pacific strategy and accompanying allocations of American resources entirely for American decision. Combined debate on matters relating to the war with Japan was confined largely to the questions of operations in southeast Asia and China and of the over-all strategic plan for the ultimate defeat of Japan in which it was initially expected these areas would play an important role. Roughly five different lines of advance figured in strategic planning for the ultimate defeat of Japan, three across the Pacific and two from India. The northern route across the Pacific ran from Alaska along the Aleutian chain and the Kurile Islands directly to Hokkaido, the northernmost of the Japanese home islands. All the other routes had as their vital objective the Luzon-Formosa-China coast area, from which Japan could be brought under devastating air attack or actually invaded by Allied ground forces. One Pacific line to these objectives proceeded northwest from Australia along the New Guinea coast and through the Bismarck Archipelago to the Vogelkop, thence to Halmahera Island, the Palaus, and Mindanao (the southernmost of the Philippine Islands). The second ran across the Central Pacific from Hawaii through the Gilberts, Marshalls, Carolines, Marianas, and Palaus, directly to Luzon in the Philippines, or to Formosa.
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MAP 4
at QUADRANT, where a revised and more detailed version was presented. The JCS at QUADRANT specifically rejected the concept and asked the planners for a new accelerated plan that would provide for the defeat of Japan within one year after the surrender of Germany.10 The search for such a formula inevitably drew attention away from China and southeast Asia where a maze of conflicting national purposesAmerican, British, and Chineseplagued
10
every effort, and to which areas resources (large ground forces and the British Navy) could not be made available until the end of the war in Europe. It fixed attention on the Pacific where the bulk of American naval strength lay and where American resources could be massed under the unilateral direction of the JCS. Though no specific plan for the defeat of Japan within one year after the surrender of Germany was ever approved, the stage was set for decisions at SEXTANT that would finally and definitely subordinate the campaigns in
398
southeast Asia and China to an accelerated advance across the Pacific.11 In the Pacific the northern line was quickly ruled out as a main route of advance. The cold climate and dense fogs of the Aleutians and Kuriles hindered both air and naval action, and the barren islands and rocky harbors were unsuited for major base development. In May 1943 Attu was taken in a bloody fight and in August Kiska was occupied without bloodshed. When these fundamentally defensive positions had been acquired, the advance stopped. The possible necessity for a northern line of supply to the USSR, should that country enter the war against Japan, kept
11 On strategy in China, Burma, and India see below, Chapter XXI.
planning for a possible advance through the Kuriles alive but activity was limited to air bombardment and surveillance. The future lay rather with the Central, South, and Southwest Pacific. In the Central Pacific naval forces could be most profitably employed, and in the South and Southwest the principal Army forces in the Pacific had already been committed. Until some time after the QUADRANT Conference, the South and Southwest Pacific continued to be the only active areas of operation. Although the South Pacific was a part of Admiral Nimitz' Pacific Ocean Areas command, the campaign waged there in 1943 was so integral a part of that waged by General MacArthur in the Southwest Pacific Area
PACIFIC STRATEGY AND ITS MATERIAL BASES that the JCS finally agreed that over-all strategic direction of the effort should be entrusted to MacArthur, thus settling the troublesome Pacific command problem for the operations of the next year and a half. The Pacific Military Conference in March 1943 had set the goals for the entire campaign, tailoring them to the resources available. The SWPA goal for the year 1943 was the occupation of the north coast of New Guinea as far west as Madang and of Cape Gloucester on the south coast of New Britain Island; meanwhile the South Pacific forces, under tactical control of Admiral William F. Halsey, were to advance up the Solomons ladder as far as the southern end of Bougainville. The ultimate goal, defined in a JCS directive that dated back to July 1942, was the Japanese stronghold of Rabaul on the northeastern tip of New Britain. Because the resources Halsey and MacArthur thought necessary were not available, the final reduction of Rabaul was postponed to the next year.12 The converging operations on Rabaul, designated CARTWHEEL, involved a series of major landings beginning in June 1943 and ending in March 1944. In SWPA successive amphibious assaults were successfully mounted against the
islands of Kiriwana and Woodlark, along the coast of New Guinea at Nassau Bay, Lae and Salamaua, Finschhafen, and Cape Gloucester, against Arawe on New Britain Island, Saidor (also on the New Guinea coast), and Manus Island. In the South Pacific assaults took place against
399
del islands, the Treasury Islands, Bou13 gainville, and Emirau Island. In each of these areas similar techniques were used. Japanese strongpoints were bypassed to the maximum extent possible, and attacks undertaken against weakly defended areas where air bases were then captured or constructed and base and harbor facilities set up. The strongpoints were then neutralized from the air bases, leaving the Japanese in bypassed areas to be slowly mopped up or to simply wither on the vine. The key to success lay in the establishment of air and naval supremacy that enabled the Americans to choose the point of attack and, once it had been chosen, to effectively isolate the Japanese forces holding it. The technique was so successful that, applying the doctrine of strategic opportunism, the JCS decided that Rabaul could be neutralized and bypassed. Yet, even with these techniques, the advance during 1943 was slow, and not until the spring of 1944 was the Bismarcks Barrier broken and Rabaul neutralized, opening the way for the advance along the north coast of New Guinea toward the ultimate objective in the Philippines. The Navy meanwhile was looking to the Central Pacific as an area in which
the Pacific Fleet could be far more profitably employed than around the islands to the south, and the pace of the advance thereby tremendously speeded. There was little argument about the eventual desirability of a drive across the Central Pacific; the issue was rather its timing and the emphasis to be placed upon
For a detailed account of these operations see John Miller, jr., CARTWHEEL: The Reduction of Rabaul, UNITED STATES ARMY IN WORLD WAR II (Washington, 1959).
13
New Georgia, Vella Lavella, and ArunOn these decisions of the Pacific Military Conference and the reasons for them, see Leighton and Coakley, Global Logistics and Strategy, 1940-43, pages 694-95.
12
400
it in relation to the campaign in the southwest. The Navy at first conceived that the advance in the Central Pacific should begin with an operation directly against the Marshalls, to be followed, when the situation permitted, by assaults on the far more difficult strongholds of the Caroline group, including the principal Japanese naval and air base at Truk. From thence two possible lines suggested themselves, one through the Mariana, Bonin, and Ryukyu Islands toward the Japanese home islands or Formosa, the other through the Palaus to the Philippines, Formosa, and the China coast. The second line was the one generally accepted until early in 1944, providing as it did for much closer co-operation with the forces advancing in SWPA toward the Philippines. MacArthur saw this advance toward the Carolines and Palaus as merely flank protection for the main attack from New Guinea northward, but Admiral King saw it as
the main effort and he had important support for his viewpoint even from members of the Army staff. Perhaps the majority of resources necessary to support two lines of advance were available in, or peculiarly suited to, one area or the other; yet, for certain vital elementsnotably trained and experienced amphibious divisions, assault shipping, and aircraftthere was clear and unmistakable competition. There was also in the offing competition for ordinary troop and cargo shipping between two theaters equally dependent upon water transport and for the resources of the South Pacific Area when its mission was completed by the neutralization of Rabaul. The Central Pacific advance was approved in principle at the TRIDENT Conference. In June 1943 the Joint Plan-
PACIFIC STRATEGY AND ITS MATERIAL BASES also revised to provide for the neutralization rather than the reduction of Rabaul, at least partially on the reasoning that neutralization would require fewer resources and would enable the South Pacific to release the 2d Marine Division and some amphibious lift. In place of the 1st Marine Division from SWPA, the Army's amphibiously trained but inexperienced 27th Infantry Division then in Hawaii would be used. These decisions were consolidated and extended in a timetable of specific operations presented by the JCS at the QUADRANT Conference. In this timetable the advance along the two axes in the Pacific was to be synchronized with the reconquest of Burma and the overland advance through China to the coast. The target date for the Gilberts was moved up to 15 November 1943, the assault on the Marshalls to follow on 1 January 1944, then Ponape in the Carolines on 1June, Truk on 1 September, and the Palaus at the very end of the year. It was expected that in SWPA, meanwhile, the neutralization of Rabaul would have been completed by 1 May 1944, followed by attacks on Manus Island 1 June, Hollandia 1 August, Wakde 15 September, Japen Island 15 October, and Manokwari on the Vogelkop 30 November, bringing both lines of advance to the approaches to the Philippines at the end of 1944. No definite priority between the two was set, but the JCS stipulated that "due weight" was to be given to "the fact that operations in the Central Pacific promise more rapid advance."14 This carefully stated conclusion gave rise to the British question whether it
14 (1) JCS 446, 6 Aug 43, title: Specific Operations in the Pacific and Far East, 1943-44. (2) See also above, ch. VIII.
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would not be better to curtail Southwest Pacific operations, concentrate on the Central Pacific, and free more resources for the war against Germany. While General Marshall's answer minimized this competition on the ground that most of the forces and reserves for the continuing offensive in the Southwest Pacific were already deployed, he did not really set British doubts at rest.15 And the competition Marshall so minimized flared up briefly immediately after QUADRANT as the costs of launching the Central Pacific drive were evaluated more closely. The major issue was personnel and cargo shipping, both ordinary and assault. The Navy's fleet of APA's and AKA's in the Pacific was still, in mid1943, meager, and the new production program was not yet launched. To assemble the vessels required for the Gilberts invasion necessitated withdrawals from the South Pacific and the Mediterranean and the swift return of transports used in the Kiska landings. The Marshalls operation would require more, most of them to come from new production in the United States. Analyzing the operational shipping requirements for both assaults32 APA's, 16 AKA's, 9 AP's, and 33 AK'son 31 August 1943, the Army Transportation Corps claimed that they exceeded the amount of assault shipping used in either TORCH or HUSKY, and that they (or acceptable substitutes) could be provided only at considerable expense to either the BOLERO-SICKLE build-up or outward troop movements to the South and Southwest Pacific, already well in arrears. At Somervell's behest, the matter was referred to the JCS
15 (1) Min, 110th mtg CCS, 17 Aug 44, Item 4. (2) See above, ch. VIII.
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and by that body to the Joint Staff Planners for study. By the time the planners submitted their report, the issue had narrowed to the question of nine ordinary troop transports (AP's), since it appeared that requirements for both assault vessels and ordinary cargo ships (AK's) could be met. And in the light of a recent JCS decision to ask the Maritime Commission to accelerate and augment the program for conversion of freighters to transports, the planners ruled that the 9 AP's for the Central Pacific could be provided by taking them off the transpacific run for four months. They admitted this would result in a continuing deficit in troop movements to the South and Southwest Pacific (mounting to 33,900 places by February 1944), but they felt that this deficit could be rapidly made up afterward as the fruits of the conversion program were realized and would not prevent the scheduled execution of operation CARTWHEEL. The planners calculated that the deficits in Pacific troop lift could be erased by April 1944 and SWPA provided with ample troops for post-CARTWHEEL operations.16 The planners' optimism was only partially justified by events. By October 1943 both troop and cargo shipping
16 (1) Memo, Dep Chief Plng Div OCT for Gen Somervell, 31 Aug 43, sub: Shpg for Seizure of Marshall Is, folder Transportation SOS 1943, Hq ASF. (2) JCS 471, 6 Sep 43, memo by CofS, USA, title: Pacific Opns and Availability of Shpg. (3) JCS 471/1 23 Sep 43, rpt by JPS, same title. (4) Min, 113th mtg JCS, 7 Sep 43, Item 10. (5) JCS 493, 10 Sep 43, title: Provision of Adequate Trooplift for Movement of U.S. Forces Overseas. (6) Samuel Eliot Morison, "History of United States Naval Opera-
tions in World War II," vol. VII, Aleutians, Gilberts, and Marshalls: June 1942-April 1944 (Boston: Little, Brown and Company, 1951), pp. 109-10. The AP's and AK's were used in lieu of AKA's and APA's for the follow-up or "garrison" elements.
PACIFIC STRATEGY AND ITS MATERIAL BASES the Central Pacific operation against Makin and Tarawa, the major shortage that developed was of LVT's, the amphibious tractorsthe only type of amphibious equipment, it proved, that could negotiate the barrier reefs off the coral atolls.18 The balance between resources and requirements in Pacific areas was most precarious as the Central Pacific drive got under way. Afterward, the situation improved. There was a slow but steady growth in the fleet of assault personnel and cargo shipping. On 1 November 1943 there were 30 APA's, 11 AKA's, and 12 APD's (converted destroyers) in all Pacific areas. By 1 May 1944, six months later, there were 45 APA's, 14 AKA's, and 17 APD's.19 The augmented APA-AKA, LST, landing craft, and amphibious tractor programs, developed in the closing months of 1943, promised to provide much more ample quantities of assault shipping by fall 1944 to support increasingly large-scale amphibious operations. Two more Engineer special brigades with their complement of
small landing craft were added in the meantime to SWPA resources. Simultaneously, the Navy successfully was resisting all attempts to cut back its over18 (1) Samuel Eliot Morison, "History of United States Naval Operations in World War II," vol. VI, Breaking the Bismarcks Barrier: 22 July 1942-1 May 1944 (Boston: Little, Brown and Company, 1950), pp. 234-59, 272-305. (2) Miller, CARTWHEEL, pp. 234-59, 272-305. (3) Philip A. Crowl and Edmund G. Love, The Seizure of the Gilberts and Marshalls, UNITED STATES ARMY IN WORLD WAR II (Washington, 1955), pp. 164-65. (4) On MacArthur's improvised fleet and small landing craft in SWPA, see below, Chapters XIX-XX. 19 (1) CCS Memo for Info, 23 Nov 43, title: Landing Craft Rpts, 1 Nov 43. (2) CPS Memo for Info 23, 23 May 44, title: Status Rpt of U.S. and British Landing Ships and Craft as of 1 May 1944.
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TANT an "Over-all Plan for the Defeat of Japan" was adopted by the combined staffs, definitely stating that "the main effort against Japan should be made in the Pacific" with the campaigns in the North Pacific, Southeast Asia, and China reduced to subsidiary roles. The necessity for establishing air bases in China for initial deployment of the B-29's within range of Japanese industry and for general air support to the Pacific effort as it neared the China coast was recognized, but neither China nor southeast Asia was any longer considered a decisive theater of conflict. Events at Cairo and Tehran that produced cancellation of British amphibious operations in the Bay of Bengal in order to release landing craft for European operations finally sealed the fate of these 21 theaters. Within the Pacific the central line was given a measure of favor, more than at QUADRANT but not enough to set up any hard and fast priority:
The advance along the New GuineaN.E.I.-Philippine Axis will proceed concurrently with operations for the capture of the Mandated Islands. These two series of operations will be mutually supporting. United Nations naval forces can be deployed to support successive operations along each Axis, and to prevent interference by hostile surface units with simultaneous operations in the two areas. Transfer of forces and resources from one area to the other is contemplated. When conflicts in timing and allocation of means exist, due weight should
The nature of the final thrust against Japan, whether by air and sea blockade or by invasion, was left purposely vague and the schedule of operations tentative in order to permit continuation of the strategy of opportunism. The SEXTANT timetable did, nevertheless, provide for a definite acceleration in the advance
across the Pacific and added a new target in the Central Pacificthe Marianas. Admiral King had long insisted that the Marianas were the key to control of the Central Pacific, but had little support for his contention until the fall of 1943 when the Army Air Forces also decided, because it had legitimate doubts of ever, being able to mount large-scale operations in China, that the Marianas could provide the best bases for mass employment of the VLR's. When SEXTANT convened the seizure of the Marianas had become an integral part of the plan for specific operations in the Pacific and was scheduled to begin on 1 October 1944, following the reduction of the Truk area in the Carolines, now scheduled to begin in July rather than September. VLR bombing from the Marianas would begin at the end of 1944 if this schedule could be met. The SWPA schedule was simultaneously accelerated to place the target date for operations against the Vogelkop in line with the Central Pacific schedule, to begin 15 August 1944 instead of 30 November.23
CCS 417, 2 Dec 43, title: Over-all Plan for the Defeat of Japan. 23 CCS 397, 3 Dec 43, Memo by U.S. CsofS, title: Specific Opns for the Defeat of Japan, 1944.
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The logistical planners had serious doubts that these accelerated schedules would prove feasible, but the CCS went on to agree that resources generally
would be available, with the possible exception of those required to launch the VLR program in China. To the Joint Logistical Committee it appeared the fulfillment would impose a heavy strain on supply lines, and that the program for the last half of the year could hardly be accomplished unless Germany were brought to her knees by midyear, freeing resources for redeployment to the Pacific. The committee otherwise foresaw shortages in shipping, aircraft, amphibian tractors, service troops, and critical items of organizational and project equipment. Prophetically, the JLC called attention to the tremendous
The SEXTANT timetable was mostly a shot in the darkan estimate of future possibilities rather than an operational plan. The operational plan had to be worked out by the JCS and the theater commanders in the period following the conference, and in this process the conflicting interests of the Army and Navy and of the commanders of the two major theaters, MacArthur and Nimitz, again emerged. Nimitz submitted plan GRANITE in early January, with a target date for the Marianas one month later than the SEXTANT schedule. MacArthur's RENO IV called for concentration of resources on the New GuineaHalmahera Mindanao line, quite in contrast to the thinking of the JCS. At a conference held between representatives of the two commands at Pearl Harbor late in January, the general consensus seemed to favor MacArthur's views, that is, to emphasize early entry into the Philippines and to discount the importance of the Marianas as well as the potentialities of strategic bombing with the B-29's. Though no plan was set on paper, the conferees generally seemed to favor as immediate steps completion of the Marshalls campaign by taking Eniwetok in the Central Pacific, and assaults by South Pacific forces on the Japanese stronghold of Kavieng on New Ireland and on the Admiralties by SWPA forces, with more than a suggestion that the Carolines and Marianas could then be bypassed in favor of a direct thrust against the Palaus by converging forces from all theaters to be followed by a move to Mindanao and Luzon in the Philippines. Admiral King was quick to point out that concentration on the SWPA line was not in keeping with SEXTANT decisions, and the AAF was now sold on the
(1) JPS 581/3, 4 Dec 43, rpt by JLC, title: Specific Opns for the Defeat of Japan. (2) CCS 428 (Rev), 15 Dec 43, title: Relation of Available Resources to Agreed Operations.
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need for the B-29 bases in the Marianas at the earliest possible date. While the argument waxed hot in the JCS, the rapidity with which Admiral Nimitz completed the next moves in the Central Pacific went far to settle it. The assault on Kwajalein, launched on 30 January 1944, went so well that the scheduled operation against Eniwetok was moved up from 1 May to mid-February on Nimitz' schedule and was actually executed on 19 February. Coupled with the Eniwetok assault came a massive carrier task force strike at Truk on 17-18 February that proved that base to be much weaker than had originally been supposed and opened up the possibility 25 of bypassing it. Not to be outdone, MacArthur also accelerated his operations. On 29 February he moved into the AdmiraltiesManus and Los Negros Islandstwo months ahead of the schedule that had called for this operation in April. Strategic opportunism had thus borne new fruits and made it imperative that the JCS decide on operations to be undertaken during the summer and fall of 1944.
On the Gilberts-Marshalls operation and their strategic significance, see Crowl and Love, Seizure of the Gilberts and Marshalls, particularly pages 372-74.
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up support coming "largely direct from the United States, via the Marshalls." Some such plan for mounting the final assault would be necessary, he thought, regardless of the route of approach.
There are no areas along the northern New Guinea coast now built up, nor are there any . . . where facilities can be readily developed to accommodate mounting operations greater than about one division. None of the positions in New Guinea are suitably developed or situated to support the campaign. Nor does it appear that the United States should expend its resources to develop extensive facilities in this area which is off the direct lines of communication, will very soon be in the back area, and over which it will have no control after the war.28
The positions taken by Army and Navy logisticians in this controversy reflected in no small degree the differences in methods of operation that were emerging in MacArthur's and Nimitz' theaters. In POA the long jumps across broad expanses of the ocean required primary reliance on combat loaders APA's and AKA'sfor movement from distant bases and on the Navy's fast-moving aircraft carriers for air support. In SWPA the moves were over much shorter water distances and were frequentAdmiral King insisted that there was ly shore-to-shore operations depending no intention of mounting more than a mostly on small landing craft. Only small small part of the expedition against For- numbers of combat loaders were availmosa or the Philippines from the Mari- able and support for troops once ashore anas, that it should be mounted instead depended for the most part on ordinary from such distant and separate points troop and cargo ships. Air support came as Hawaii, Manus, Milne Bay in New mainly from land-based aircraft. SimiGuinea, New Caledonia, Guadalcanal, larly, the Navy was developing elaboand Espiritu Santo, with routine follow- rate techniques for providing floating base support in the Pacific, using combat loaders and fleet auxiliaries, while the JCS 713, 16 Feb 44, rpt by JSSC, title: Strategy
26
in the Pacific. 27 Memo, Wood for Somervell, 20 Feb 44, sub: Strategy in the Pacific (JCS 713), folder Pac Theater, ASF Plng Div.
JCS Memo for Info 203, 11 Mar 44, memo by COMINCH and CNO, title: Mounting an Invasion Force for Luzon-Formosa-China Area.
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Army still clung to its belief in the necessity of large land bases. In advocating the long jump to Formosa King was obviously counting heavily on the output of the augmented combat loader program and on extensive use of floating bases. The ASF, by contrast, thought that this type of support would be entirely inadequate for troops engaged in a large-scale land campaign such as would be necessary either on Formosa or in the Philippines, and clung tenaciously to its stand that the Formosa operation would prove logistically infeasible unless Luzon were taken first.29 For the time neither the Joint Planners nor the Joint Logistics Committee could see any insuperable obstacle to a Formosa operation. Although noting that base development all along the line must be accelerated and that the whole strategic program would depend upon the Maritime Commission's meeting its combat loader construction schedules, they emphasized most strongly the necessity for an immediate strategic directive so that logistical preparations could go forward on a firm basis.30 In rendering their decision of 12 March 1944, the JCS arranged the priorities by operation rather than by area, though in deference to the wishes of Admiral King and General Arnold they declared the Marianas-Carolines-Palaus area most vital to entry into the Formosa-Luzon-China triangle. They instructed Nimitz to make plans for the seizure of the Marianas (target date 15 June), and the Palaus (target date 15
29 See Memo, Lutes for Somervell, 13 Mar 44, sub: Future Operations in the Pacific (JCS 713 series), History Planning Div ASF, app. 8-K. 30 JCS 713/1, rpt by JPS in collaboration with JLC, 10 Mar 44, title: Future Operations in Pacific.
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MAP 5
South Pacific Area, where the final combat operationagainst Emirauwas to be executed late in March. Early planning papers definitely favored POA, but the final version, approved by the JCS on 25 March 1944, went much further to meet SWPA's needs. (Map 5) MacArthur was allotted the six Army divisions from the South Pacific, the entire Thirteenth Air Force, and naval resources, including all PT boats and most of the smaller types of landing craft of the South Pacific Amphibious Force up
to and including LCT's. "All other combat troops and all service and supporting troops, when not required for the operation of bases retained in the South Pacific Area," were also to progressively pass to the control of SWPA as the area was phased out. Two Marine divisions, the Marine air forces, and nearly all the major naval units of Halsey's fleet, including all its aircraft carriers, were to go to POA. The Seventh Fleet, under MacArthur's control, was nevertheless allotted a certain minimum number of
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units, which Nimitz was to be obligated resources. In SWPA the Hollandia asto maintain, including 3 light cruisers, sault was successfully executed in April, 27 destroyers, 7 combat loaders, 60 and MacArthur followed it with landLCI (L) 's, and 40 LST's. ings at Sarmi in New Guinea, the islands The major consequence of this deci- of Wakde and Biak in May, Noemfoor sion was to increase the concentration of Island on 2 July, and Sansapor on the Army resources in the Pacific under Mac- Vogelkop on 26 July. Early in SeptemArthur and of naval resources under ber came the jump to Morotai in the Nimitz, leaving each commander short Molucca Islands, northeast of Halmaof the balanced force needed to execute hera, the next-to-the-last island stepping a major operation against either Luzon stone on MacArthur's planned route to or Formosa. Moreover, as far as the Army the Philippines. During the same periforces were concerned, the division of re- od POA forces carried out their assaults sources was a paper affair for it would on the Marianas and Palaus, attacking take time to move troops from one area Saipan and Tinian successfully in June, to the other. Also, because the South Pa- Guam in August, and Peleliu and Ancific retained major functions as a staging gaur in the Palaus in September. Prepaand rehabilitation area for POA and in- rations were advanced for an assault on stallations there had to be guarded and Yap to complete the isolation of Truk. supplies outloaded, service troops could The advances brought both theaters' not be moved to SWPA in phase with the forces by mid-September to the edges of combat troops they were supposed to sup- the inner citadel of Japanese defenses, port. The net effect was to aggravate the strategic goal since early 1943the the shortage of service troops in SWPA Philippines-Formosa-China coast trianat the same time that Nimitz was find- gle.33 ing that he also lacked adequate service Concurrent operations along the two troops to support a land campaign on axes produced an increasing strain on Formosa. This produced a continuing resources as lines of communication grew source of irritation between the two area longer, and both MacArthur and Nimcommands lasting almost until the end itz found it necessary to augment their of the war.32 local shipping fleets. A midsummer shipIn any case, the JCS directive of March ping crisis was resolved only by divert1944 did provide a blueprint for accel- ing additional shipping from the Atlanerated operations in the intermediate tic to the Pacific.34 As the two lines of stage in the Pacificthe approach to the advance converged on the objective area Philippines and Formosathat seemed shortages of all sorts began to crop up feasible within the limits of available in all categories of shipping, in troops, and in materials and labor for base con(1) JPS 391, 10 Feb 44, JPS 391/1, 24 Feb 44, and struction. The need for a final decision
32
JPS 391/2, 4 Mar 44, title: Redeployment of Forces in Pacific upon Completion of FOREARM and MERCANTILE. (2) JCS 713/5, 17 Mar 44, title: Redeployment of forces in Pacific following Opn RECKLESS. (3) Memo, Ritchie for Roberts, Chief, S&P Gp OPD, 16 Feb 44, sub: Discussion of JPS 391, ABC 320.2 (10 Feb 44).
For detailed histories of these operations see Robert Ross Smith, The Approach to the Philippines (Washington, 1953) and Philip A. Crowl, Campaign in the Marianas (Washington, 1960), both volumes in UNITED STATES ARMY IN WORLD WAR II. 34 See below, ch. XIX.
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the new plan he proposed to seize only a small area around Sarangani Bay in Mindanao, late in October, and to carry out his major operation against Leyte on 15 November, the date on which the JCS had scheduled the assault on Mindanao. Leyte was selected because of its superior harbor and its central location in the Philippines, and also because air bases there would be closer to target areas in Luzon, Formosa, and China. In view of the need to neutralize the air bases on Luzon, Nimitz interposed no objection to this increase in the scope of SWPA operations, although he foresaw that it would require most of the assault shipping and naval support that the Pacific Fleet could furnish; furthermore, he considered the timing "optimistic."35 That the timing had indeed been optimistic, MacArthur himself soon confirmed. On 23 July, saying he had learned that the amount of amphibious lift in the Pacific would be "less than that anticipated . . . for operations toward the end of the year,"36 the SWPA commander revised his target dates. Because the same amphibious lift would have to be used for both the Sarangani and Leyte operations, there would have to be 35 days between the two rather than 20 as originally planned. Also, because forces would have to remain at Sarangani five weeks before they could get air support from Leyte, he would have to undertake a preliminary operation against the Talaud Islands in October to secure air bases, thus postponing the date for the Mindanao invasion.
M. Hamlin Cannon, Leyte: The Return to the Philippines, UNITED STATES ARMY IN WORLD WAR II (Washington, 1954), pp. 2-4. 36 Msg CX 15229, GHQ to WD and CINCPOA, CM-IN 19231, 23 Jul 44.
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GLOBAL LOGISTICS AND STRATEGY: 1943-1945 the Formosa operation were postponed and the main strength of the Pacific Fleet and all available amphibious lift
The new timetable read: Talaud 15 October, Sarangani 15 November, and Leyte 20 December. Since the postponements would delay both the provision of air support and the return of amphibious lift and naval striking forces for the Formosa invasion, OPD looked diligently for some way to speed up the SWPA schedule. They found that MacArthur's figures on assault shipping were old estimates, far too low, and that there apparently would be enough in the Pacific to mount Sarangani and Leyte simultaneously. But this encouraging development only served to reveal the fact that the real bottleneck was not the quantity of assault shipping but the limited capacity of concentration areas and the timing of base and airfield development. MacArthur's revised timetable, for the moment at least, seemed the most optimistic estimate.37 This timetable was not developed primarily with the need for providing air support for the invasion of Formosa in mind. It was based on MacArthur's inflexible determination to go on to Luzon. On 27 August 1944 he presented the War Department with his plan, pre-
concentrated in the Philippines.38 As MacArthur's plan called for the use of naval resources necessary for the Formosa campaign, it soon became apparent that Nimitz' plans for Formosa in turn depended on Army resources,
considerably less mobile in character which could only come from MacArthur's command. In the final round of arguments over Formosa versus Luzon, the old question of mounting from distant bases was relegated to the background and a new one emergedwhether sufficient resources in cargo shipping and ground combat and service troops were available in the Pacific to support an invasion of Formosa. On 3 August 1944 the strength of the ground army in the Central Pacific came to only about 238,000, and Army deployment schedules contemplated no sizable augmentations anywhere in the Pacific until after the end of the war in Europe. The pinch on Army manpower occasioned by the concentration in Europe was finally being felt. There were, to be pared in pursuance of instructions under sure, enough combat infantry divisions the March directive, for securing the in the Central Pacific (6) to form, in whole Philippine Archipelago. Follow- combination with Marine divisions (5), ing Leyte, a 5-division assault, he pro- the sinews of the new Tenth Army, but posed to carry on with a 2-division am- there were insufficient artillery and servphibious assault on Aparri (on the ice troops to support them. Previous opnorthern coast of Luzon) on 31 Janu- erations in the Central Pacific had inary 1945, a combined airborne and am- volved relatively small land masses and phibious operation against southern had not required the large supporting Mindoro on 15 February, and finally a establishment necessary for an army op7-division assault on Lingayen Gulf, Lu- erating with a long land line of comzon, on 20 February. These designs ob- munications. The Marine divisions were viously could not be carried out unless self-sufficient units with enough organic
37 Teletype Confs, Washington-Brisbane, 9 and 25 Aug 44, OPD Exec 2, Item 1c.
38 Msg C-16693, GHQ SWPA to WD, CM-IN 24770, 27 Aug 44.
PACIFIC STRATEGY AND ITS MATERIAL BASES service support to enable them to sustain themselves in short island engagements but not enough to establish a real communications zone. Estimates of the exact troop shortage for a Formosa invasion varied, depending on whether Nimitz' concept of a limited operation to seize only the southern end of Formosa and a foothold on the China coast opposite were accepted, or the generally held Army opinion that occupation of all Formosa would eventually be necessary. Maj. Gen. Clark Ruffner, chief of staff of Army forces in POA, in a conference with OPD officers on 13 August, estimated the troop shortage for even a limited operation at 181,000 and stated further that direct shipping required from the west coast to support the Formosa operation would be "well beyond the capabilities of available shipping in the Pacific unless all shipping to SWPA is 39 stopped." Since the troops could not be had from the United States, the Navy tried to get them from SWPA, but MacArthur adamantly refused. When he reached the
Philippines, MacArthur told visiting OPD officers, "his supply line would be extended to the elastic limit of the service troops available to him and . . . the
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troops in the forward area."40 Reasoning that MacArthur would still have to support the same number of divisions whether he moved forward or not, OPD endorsed his position. The other possible source for filling part of the shortage lay in the South Pacific, where approximately 44,000 service troops were scheduled for release when the divisions there were moved into SWPA. Nimitz had been eyeing this particular asset for some months but again ran up against MacArthur's adamant insistence that SOPAC's service troops were required in
SWPA and irrevocably committed to that theater by the terms of the March JCS decision. OPD was more flexible in its attitude toward the South Pacific service troops, but still insisted that MacArthur's needs for the Leyte invasion must be met first.41 Faced with this serious shortage of service troops, and with the cargo shipping situation still a question mark, Army leaders generally came to believe that the Formosa invasion could not be carried out until resources were released from Europe. General Marshall suggested in the JCS meeting on 1 September that the most that could be done immediately was to issue a directive to MacArthur to proceed with the Mindanao and Leyte operations on schedule. Admiral King insisted that a directive ordering preparations for Formosa should also go forward arguing that the Army scale of service and artillery support was too high, that some service troops could in any case be withdrawn from the South
39 (1) Notes on Conf at Hq, COMGENPOA, 13 Aug 44, ABC 384 Pacific (1-17-43), Sec 5. (2) Memo, Gen Magruder for Gen Wood, 22 Jun 44, sub: JPS 267/1Seizure and Occupation of Formosa, folder Pac Theater, ASF Plng Div. (3) United States Army Forces Middle Pacific and Predecessor Commands, 40 7 December 1941-2 September 1945 (hereafter cited OPD Notes on Conf, 7 Aug 44 at GHQ, SWPA, as AFMIDPAC History), vol. II, 215-20, MS, OCMH. ABC 384 Pacific (1-7-43), Sec 5. 41 (4) OPD Weekly Status Map, 3 Aug 44. (5) Msg (1) Min, 171st mtg JCS, 1 Sep 44, Item 2. (2) 240957, NCR 426, CINCPOA to radio Washington, Draft Memo, OPD for CofS, 1 Sep 44, sub: Opns in Western Pacific. (3) Draft Memo, OPD for CofS, 5 CM-IN 20244, 24 Jul 44. (6) Msg 180437, NCR 8754 CINCPOA to COMINCH, CM-IN 16755, 18 Aug 44- Sep 44, same sub. Last two in OPD Exec 2, Item 1c.
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GLOBAL LOGISTICS AND STRATEGY: 1943-1945 Acceleration of the advance into the Philippines, bypassing Mindanao, gave MacArthur's arguments for moving on to Luzon an almost irresistible logic. He now reported that he could undertake the invasion of Luzon on 20 December and that reduction of that island would take no more than six weeks. The lengthy report of the Joint Logistics Committee, submitted to the JCS on 25 September, showed that no comparable acceleration in the date for Formosa would be possible, and that the earliest date that would permit redeployment of assault shipping after Leyte would be 1 February 1945. Even then, counting on transferring the service troops from the South Pacific and a few thousand from SWPA, and using all other possible expedients, there would still be a shortage of 69,000 supporting troops for the limited operation to seize only part of Formosa if there were no redeployment from Europe. The deficit would be larger if two more divisions had to be included in the follow-up to carry out the occupation of the northern part of the island. The report stated that there would also be deficits in service troops for the Luzon operation, but they would not be so serious in character as on Formosa, and that friendly Filipino labor could be counted on to make up most of them. These facts forced the JLC to the conclusion that adequate resources for the Formosa operation would not be available until three months after the defeat of Germany, but would be sufficient to permit an advance to Luzon sixty days after the invasion of Leyte regardless of what happened in the European war. The JMTC, studying independently the availability of cargo and
Pacific and naval construction battalions substituted for others, and that all the remaining deficit could be made up by redeployment from Europe after the defeat of Germany, then thought to be imminent. But the logistical problem was forcing King to take the defensive, and the JCS decided to first ask the Joint Logistics Committee to make a thorough study and report. Meanwhile, they ordered preparation of a directive for the seizure of Leyte with a target date of 20 December.42 Before the logistical planners' report was ready, events in the Pacific forced a reappraisal of the situation. Admiral Halsey, conducting carrier strikes against the central Philippines on 12-14 September 1944 in support of the Palaus operation, found resistance so surprisingly weak that he reported that there were few if any Japanese on Leyte; he therefore suggested that intermediate operations, against Yap by Central Pacific forces and against Talaud and Mindanao by SWPA forces, be canceled and a direct landing be made in Leyte Gulf. The force intended for the invasion of Yap, XXIV Corps, could be made available to MacArthur along with the amphibious craft and carriers in Halsey's task force. MacArthur accepted on the 15th and the JCS, then at the second Quebec conference, quickly instructed MacArthur to invade Leyte on 20 October, 43 two months ahead of schedule.
(1) Memo, King for JCS, 4 Sep 44, JCS 713/12, title: Troops for Occupation of Formosa. (2) Min, 171st mtg JCS, 1 Sep 44, Item 2. (3) JCS 713/10, 4 Sep 44, memo by COMINCH and CNO, and JCS 713/11, 4 Sep 44, memo by same, titles: Employment of Marine Divisions in Formosa Opn. (4) JCS 713/13, 5 Sep 44, title: Proposed Directive to CINCSWPA and CINCPOA. (5) Min, 173d mtg JCS, 7 Sep 44. 43 Cannon, Leyte: The Return to the Philippines, pp. 8-9.
42
PACIFIC STRATEGY AND ITS MATERIAL BASES personnel shipping, foresaw deficits in cargo shipping for either operation, but generally supported the JLC conclusions as to their relative feasibility. The conclusions of the two committees, viewed in the light of a now diminishing prospect for an early end to the war in Europe, forced Admiral King to bow to the inevitable. He proposed that POA forces reorient the direction of their attack, moving against the Bonins (target date 20 January 1945), and the Ryukyus (target date 1 March). The question of whether Formosa would still have to be taken remained in abeyance, although there was ample reason to believe that it as well as the China coast could now be bypassed and, with the Philippines and Ryukyus in American hands, a final thrust against the "industrial heart of Japan" could be 44 mounted. Plans called for the use of bases in the Ryukyus and possibly on Luzon to supplement the B-29 strategic bombing offensive being mounted from the Marianas. Any hopes that significant results could be achieved by bombers operating from China had long since been dashed by repeated logistical failures and the successful Japanese offensive against the U.S. airfields in east China.45 Meanwhile, the decision had been taken at the Quebec Conference of September 1944 that air bombardment and blockade would probably not suffice to bring about a final victory and that invasion of Japan would be necessary. The sched(1) Msg C-18103, GHQ SWPA to WD, CM-IN 19803, 21 Sep 44. (2) JCS 1070, 26 Sep 44, rpt by JLC, title: Availability of Resources for Pacific Operations. (3) JCS 1070/1, 30 Sep 44, rpt by JMTC, same title. (4) JCS 713/19, 3 Oct 44, title: Future Operations in Pacific. 45 See below, ch. XXI.
44
415
ule proposed at the time was based on taking Formosa on 1 March 1945 and moving from there to the China coast,
the Bonins, and Ryukyus between March and June, then mounting a final assault on southern Kyushu in October and on Honshu (the Tokyo Plain) in December 1945.46 This schedule was of course tentative, and was based on a hoped-for German surrender in fall 1944. It had to be adjusted immediately to the decision to take Luzon instead of Formosa, and again later to the prospect of a long extension of the war in Europe. Yet the main outlines of the plan for the final campaign against Japan had taken clear shape. When informing Admiral King of his final decision that he considered the Luzon operation better than Formosa, General Marshall on 22 September 1944 remarked: "The major difficulty in planning for the coming months is a shortage of resources, particularly those which must be furnished by the Army, such as service troops, and those required to support land forces, such as cargo shipping."47 King's rejoinder that "both at the present time and throughout our campaign the major shortage has been Naval amphibious resources"48 was a more accurate appraisal of the past than of the present or future. Augmentation of the amphibious lift in the Pacific was now going on so rapidly that it would soon no longer be a real limiting factor, except insofar as it had to be used for
(1) CCS 417/8, memo by U.S. CsofS, 9 Sep 44. title: Opns for the Defeat of Japan, 1944-45. (2) On the OCTAGON decision see below, Chapter XXII. 47 JCS 713/15, 22 Sep 44, memo by CofS, USA, title: Future Opns in Pacific. 48 JCS 713/16, 25 Sep 44, memo by COMINCH and CNO, title: Future Opns in Pacific.
46
416
logistical purposes. The campaigns in the Philippines and in the Ryukyus were to put far greater strain on cargo shipping resources than on assault shipping. Looking to the ultimate invasion of Japan, the great need was for rapid construction of bases and development of a
CHAPTER XVII
Kwajalein, Saipan, Ulithi, Manus, Milne Bay, Finschhafen, and Hollandia. Battlefronts separated from one another by long expanses of water made it difficult to operate the kind of supply pipeline that funnels men and materials to the
atolls or for coastal fringes of larger islands well-suited to development of airfields, ports, and other base facilities. Along the Central Pacific line particularly, battles between U.S. and Japanese forces were usually short, though violent; although these contacts were more pro-
418
longed in the South and Southwest Pacific, decisive victories frequently came quickly after the landings. For the most part only small combat forces, at least in comparison with those engaged in Europe, were involved in each operation. Simultaneously, other combat forces carried out mopping-up operations and prepared base defense lines, while service forces feverishly prepared the bases required for the next campaign. The construction effort was in many ways the key to the pace of the advance, particularly in the Southwest where land-based aircraft were necessary to neutralize Japanese strongholds and isolate Japanese garrisons in the next target area. If the Japanese were not, in the last analysis, such formidable opponents as the Germans, their preference for death to surrender, and the mere physical difficulties of mounting operations against their entrenched positions, combined to make them seem so. The war in the Pacific was a naval, air, and engineers' war more than a land war conducted along orthodox lines. The battle was, as always, the payoff; however, much of the secret of American victories lay in the successful marshaling of superior resources to conquer the logistical problems involved in island-to-island assaults. The massive resources of an industrial economy that they managed to so marshal dwarfed the Japanese effort, even though, to Americans accustomed to the best of everything, logistical support seemed at times to be woefully inadequate. In a theater of vast ocean distances shipping, large and small, was the prime element in logistics, for ships were the main method of transport within the theaters as well as from the United States to Pacific bases. Much of this shipping had
419
to organize joint staffs composed of officers from both services and were not to function in the dual capacity of joint force commander and commander of a service component of the force unless so directed by the JCS. The joint force commander would normally exercise his command through assigning missions to service or task force commanders, giving his subordinates the responsibility for determining the "tactics and technique of the force concerned"; he would also leave administrative matters in the hands of service commanders to the max2 imum extent possible. Under this system Nimitz and Halsey disposed of large Army forces, while MacArthur had under his command Marine Corps units and the U.S. Seventh Fleet. MacArthur was also a supreme Allied commander with sizable Australian forces at his disposal. The naval forces in SWPA were also Allied and Admiral Thomas C. Kinkaid doubled in the role of Allied naval commander and commander of the U.S. Seventh Fleet. Nimitz had few Allied components in his command (only the New Zealand units in the South Pacific) , but he also had a double role (by consent of the JCS) as Commander in Chief, POA (CINCPOA) and Commander in Chief, Pacific Fleet (CINCPAC). As CINCPAC he exercised strategic control over the entire U.S. Pacific Fleet, shifting its resources as circumstances required. While the permanent components of the Seventh Fleet in SWPA were excepted from this arrangement, they were supplemented for major op2 (1) JCS 263/2/D, 20 Apr 43, title: Unified Command for U.S. Joint Opns. (2) Unified commands had been governed by the principles set forth in Joint Action of the Army and Navy, prepared by the Joint Board in 1927 and last revised in 1935.
420
erations by major units from the main fleet that remained subject to Nimitz' call. Army commanders in Nimitz' area, Lt. Gen. Millard F. Harmon in the South Pacific (COMGENSOPAC) and Lt. Gen. Robert C. Richardson in the Central Pacific (CG, USAFISPA, later COMGEN, USAFPOA), did not exercise operational control over troops except as Halsey or Nimitz dictated; they were primarily administrative commanders responsible for training and for logistical support of Army forces in their areas. In SWPA Admiral Kinkaid exercised operational command by virtue of his position as the Allied Naval Commander rather than as Commander, Seventh Fleet, a position that, again, was primarily administrative in character. Leaving the North Pacific out of consideration, since it rapidly became an inactive theater, there were still three almost completely separate theaters during 1943 and the early part of 1944, which meant three competitors for shipping, supplies, and personnel from the mainland. All attempts to unify command in the Pacific, and there were many, collapsed on the simple barrier of the reluctance of either service to accept an overall commander from the other. The only substantial change in 1944 was the liquidation of the South Pacific Area and the distribution of its resources between the two remaining giantsSWPA and POA. Given these conditionsscattered bases and battlefronts, primitive base facilities, vast water distances, and divided and complicated command channelsthe Pacific war fronts were peculiarly susceptible to the combination of scarcity and waste that inevitably characterizes modern war. The calculation of supply requirements for any particular operation,
421
ess that had to achieve balance among theaters, bases, and servicesin short, provide the right men and right supplies at the right time and place. To cope with this peculiar set of circumstances, what may be loosely described as the Pacific logistical system was shaped. That it was imperfect and could not completely fulfill the goal of eliminating imbalancethe combination of scarcity and wastegoes without saying, but the system as it evolved did work toward this end and did produce an adequate measure of efficiency to make possible the rapid advances of 1944. In
describing the system we shall turn first to the arrangements for logistical cooperation between the Army and Navy, then to the problem of ocean-going shipping, and finally to those logistical problems that were of particular concern to the Army alone
liar needs could only further confuse a situation that was already confused enough by primitive facilities and lack of planning by the services individually for handling the load. The monumental shipping congestion at Noumea during the Guadalcanal Campaign brought this lesson home with singular force. Similarly, independent construction by the Army and Navy of airfields, depots, hospitals, and other facilities side by side on the same islands pyramided requirements for construction materials and labor. Also, by any standard distribution
of common commodities and performance of common services by each service separately on each island base was uneconomic. Though the supply and
servicing of the fleet afloat was a sufficiently distinct problem to warrant a separate system, the logistical problems of Army and Navy forces ashore were like enough to dictate a large measure of unity in the supply line serving both. The Problem of Joint Logistics And even in the case of the fleet, logic The first year of the war in the Pacific would seem to dictate that commodibrought an effective challenge to the ties like food and oil should come from traditional separation of Army and Navy a common storehouse. Elementary jussupply and administrative systems. Dur- tice was involved as well as economy of ing that year it became evident that two effort, for in the interests of good morale separate and parallel supply lines to the it was desirable that both services have 3 same area produced waste and duplica- a common standard of living. By the end of 1942 such prominent tion in nearly every aspect of logistical operations, most of all in the utilization Army logisticians as Generals Somervell of ocean shipping. Outloading to the and Lutes had come to the conclusion same areas and bases by two separate or- that the logic of a unified supply and ganizations in separate ships without transportation system to serve both Army either over-all control of priorities be- and Navy was irrefutable. Indeed, between them or co-ordination in the use of fore the end of the war Somervell was personnel or cargo space was obviously supporting the creation of one massive inconsistent with the need for conserving (1) See Leighton and Coakley, Global Logistics, shipping space. Unloading at the receiv1940-43, ch. XV. (2) Memo, Dir Opns, ASF, for Gen ing end by separate organizations in ac- Wood, Dir Reqmts Div, 5 Jul 43, folder Unified cordance with their individual and pecu- Supply: Army-Navy 1942-43, Lutes File.
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service organization for all military forces, ground, air, and naval.4 That the ASF chiefs were never able to put their ideas over is testimony to the strength of the tradition of separation and to the counterlogic arising from the fundamentally different philosophy and purpose of Army and Navy logistical systems. The Army system was developed primarily for the support of ground forces ashore, the Navy system primarily for support of the fleet afloat. The Army turned much earlier in World War II to a fundamental reorganization of its supply services and developed a more cenSee Millett, The Organization and Role of the ASF, pp. 27-80.
4
tralized system of planning and controlling the flow of supplies to theaters scattered over the globe. The Navy clung to its older concepts longer because its expansion was not so rapid and violent and because less centralized control seemed to provide more adequately for the support of the fleet. For fleet support, the best system was a decentralized one, which involved the stocking of a series of major bases within reasonable distance of the areas of operations to which fleet units could return for refueling, replenishment of stocks, and servicing and repairs. Beginning in 1942 the Navy carried this concept of mobility a step further with the development of fleet service
423
squadrons. One of the really great logistical innovations of World War II, these squadrons were mobile logistics bases composed of all sorts of fleet auxiliaries that carried fuel, provisions, ammunition, and other types of supplies to the fighting ships at sea, and performed essential repair and other services for them, enabling the fleet to move almost at will without fear of failure for want of logistic support. The Navy's advance bases thus became mobile and the Navy in the Pacific far less dependent than the Army upon the progressive development of land installations close behind the line of advance. The Navy's concept of flexibility and mobility conditioned the development of its logistical system. Requirements for the fleet, or at least so the Navy contended, could not be fixed in time and place to the extent that requirements for land troops could. The Navy therefore preferred to place its depot system in the United States in the ports, and to stock both depots and forward bases generously so that no fleet unit or service squadron should want for anything when it put into port. Moreover, the Navy tried to adapt this system to the supply of Marine Corps forces ashore, and to its shore installations in forward areas, maintaining
to the maximum extent possible the concept of mobility, of floating rather than
never developed any over-all supply program such as the Army Supply Program, but relied mainly on consolidation of individual calculations by its bureaus. To the Navy Somervell's proposals for unified logistics seemed to carry an implied threat of absorption of a system developed to meet naval needs within a large monolithic Army organization hardly adaptable to supporting the fleet. To Army observers, on the other hand, the Navy's system seemed unbelievably haphazard and chaotic. Any operational flexibility gained by concentrating depots in
the ports, they thought, produced a lack
of flexibility in the zone of interior either in regulating the flow of supplies into port or in transferring shipments from one seaboard port to another. Overseas shipments seemed to be governed less by proven theater requirements than by the amount of cargo available in seaboard depots. That the system was uneconomic even the Navy's leaders themselves were ready to admit before the end of the war. But it did provide support for naval forces that, even if at times wasteful, was also superior in some respects to support furnished by ASF to the Army. And in the Pacific where the Navy was very much at home decentralization and mobility led to development of procedures within the
theater that often were better adapted to the situation than the more precise but
fixed depots, and of keeping the impetus of supply from the rear. Continental and forward base establishments enjoyed a measure of autonomy unknown in the Army; the Navy's bureaus, counterparts of the Army's technical services, went
their own ways without that measure of
centralized control exercised by General Somervell's ASF headquarters. Despite some moves in that direction, the Navy
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Another factor influencing the situa- feasibility as indicated by civilian agention was the wide variance in the em- cies, and of co-ordinating the logistical phasis the two services placed on the plans of the two services and relating Pacific war. Whatever the theory, for the them to strategy. The joint committees Navy the Pacific war was the most im- were the essential link between the JCS portant one, for it was in the Pacific that and the operating administrative agenthe largest part of the Navy and its best cies of the War and Navy Departments, units were concentrated, and it therefore bringing together the plans and requiretried to support its units in the Pacific ments developed by these agencies (and as well or better than those in the At- often the people who drew them up), lantic and the Mediterranean. The Army weighing them in the balance of strategic for whom the war in Europe was para- priorities, and determining the guidemount in fact as well as in theoryper- lines for adjustments. It was their task to force placed the Pacific theaters in lower preserve the connection between joint priority. The Navy was never ready to strategic plans and independent service apply the Army's rigid standards of econ- logistical plans and policies. The work of omy to its Pacific establishment. Conse- the committees was, nevertheless, largely quently, the development of common of a co-ordinating and advisory nature. standards of support, particularly in the In certain cases they allocated scarce rearea of troop comforts, was difficult if sources, acting under the authority of the not practically impossible. All these con- JCS, but they did not initially determine siderations serve to explain why the the requirements on which these allocaLutes-Somervell proposals for genuine tions were usually based nor did they unity in the service supply line to the exercise any supervision over the process7 Pacific theaters, however logical they may es of production and distribution. have seemed, were never put into effect Of greatest importance in the field of during World War IIwere, in fact, Pacific logistics were the Joint Military never even seriously considered after early Transportation Committee and the Joint 19436and why the joint logistical sys- Logistics Committee. The JMTC, acting tem that took shape and hardened em- for the JCS, progressively asserted its phasized, instead, co-ordination in the control over the allocation of shipping interest of eliminating duplication of to the various Pacific areas.8 The Joint Logistics Committee conducted a coneffort. tinuing study of Pacific logistics, attempting to anticipate requirements in Joint Planning and Procurement the light of strategic plans, to place the At the top military level, the JCS and spotlight on critical problems, and to its various committees performed the prevent duplication between the services very broad functions of balancing the in procurement and in development of Army and Navy's manpower and pro- base facilities. Nevertheless, there was curement programs within the limits of never any agreed formula for the use
6 On the Lutes-Somervell proposals and their fate see Leighton and Coakley, Global Logistics, 1940-43, Chapter XXIV. 7 For a complete discussion of joint committee functions, see above, Chapter IV. 8 See below, ch. XVIII.
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10
Other committees
(1) See JLPC 3 and JLC 31 Series, titles: Logistical Aspects of Bases and Phases, Pacific Campaigns 1943-44; Logistic Support, Pacific Campaigns, 1944 and Beyond; Availability of Resources for Pacific Opns. (2) Diary, Theater Br, entries for 27 Nov and 26 Dec 43, ASF Plng Div. (3) Memo, Magruder for Wood, 29 Jun 44, sub: Logistic Support, Pacific Cam-
paigns, 1944 and Beyond (JLPC 3/8), with related papers, folder Pac Theater, ASF Plng Div. (4) Memos, G-3 and G-4 for OPD, 7 Jul 44, sub as in (3). (5) DF, G-4 for OPD, 4 Aug 44, sub as in (3). (4) and (5) in OPD 400 TS, Cases 189/3 and 5. (6) Memo, Tansey for Handy, 7 Sep 44, sub: Joint Over-all Logistics Plan. OPD 400 TS, Case 224. 10 (1) JCS 351/5, 21 Jun 43, title: Proposed Revision of Navy and Marine Corps Aircraft Program. (2) Memo, Col Ray T. Maddocks, OPD, for Gen Wood, ASF, 30 Jun 43, sub: Duplication or Overlapping of Activities in the A and N. (3) Memo, Dir Opns for Wood, 5 Jul 43. (2) and (3) in folder Unified Supply: Army-Navy 1942-43, Lutes File.
achieved a greater measure of success but the answer in every case was co-ordination, not unification. Co-operative arrangements for the procurement of common articles were numerous, many of them antedating the war. The Army, for example, by arrangements of long standing, procured Marine Corps requirements for small arms, tanks, machine guns, ammunition, and other common items of ground ordnance. During the war arrangements were made for the Army Chemical Warfare Service to procure chemical warfare equipment for both the Navy and the Marine Corps. By the same sort of arrangement the Navy procured large quantities of heavy ammunition and rockets for the Army, and took care of the landing craft requirements of the Engineer special brigades. The Army Quartermaster placed about 90 percent of the Navy's contracts for subsistence through its Quartermaster market centers and field buying offices, though the Navy usually had representatives at these agencies to compile requirements and handle payments. Lumber procurement was eventually fully integrated by a central procuring agency in the Corps of Engineers, staffed jointly by Army and Navy personnel. Petroleum requirements of the two services were consolidated by the Army-Navy Petroleum Board and presented to the Petroleum Administrator for War, but actual purchasing was separate. Bulldozers were procured by the Army Engineers and then allocated among the two services and lend-lease claimants by a War Department conference group working under the auspices of the Munitions Assignments Committee (Ground) ; DUKW's were procured by the Army and amphibious tractors by the Navy, and were al-
426
located by MAC (G) under generally similar arrangements. Efforts were made, with varying degrees of success, to extend joint arrangements into such fields as construction materials and machinery, motor vehicles, diesel engines, electronics, post exchange stores, and boats and other floating equipment. The Joint Army-Navy Standardization Committee for Vehicles and Construction Materials was formed in mid-1943 and continued to sit throughout the rest of the war. It reached agreements on standardization of much of the Army's automotive equipment for both services, and by mid-1944 the Army was procuring only slightly less than 50 percent of the Navy's vehicles; but the Navy procured the rest independently. Procurement of many individual types of construction machinery was also consolidated, but the committee was able to make little progress toward establishing 11 common construction standards. The development of joint procurement practices in some fields was balked by difficulties over establishing specifica(1) Memo, Capt Lewis L. Strauss, USN, and Col William H. Draper for Secy Navy and Under Secy War, 8 Feb 45, sub: Final Report on Coordination of Procurement Between War and Navy Departments (hereafter cited as Draper-Strauss Rpt) (February, 1945), 3 vols., ICAF Library. This voluminous study of the problem of co-ordination in procurement was undertaken at the direction of the secretaries. (2) Millett, Organization and Role of the ASF, pp. 26877, contains a summary of the Draper-Strauss Report. (3) On the work of the Joint Army-Navy Standardization Committee see Memo, Gen Lutes for Brig Gen Minton and Col R. M. Osborne, OCOrd, 8 Oct 43, CofS ASF, file Navy Dept; Ltr, Somerville to VCNO, 24 Mar 44, Hq ASF, file Navy 1942-44; Memo, Robert P. Patterson, Under Secy War, and H. Struve Hensel, Assistant Secy Navy, for CG ASF, 15 Feb 45, sub: Joint Procurement StudyConstruction Machinery and Mechanical Equip, folder 1-a-1, Jt Sup Prog, ASF Plng Div.
11
standards of construction in the Pacific to conform to those of the Army, and the Army felt unable to raise its own. On the other hand, it seemed logical that the
Navy should procure all small boats and floating equipment, but General Gross, apparently with MacArthur's interests in mind, objected strenuously, fearing, as he put it, that it would reduce Army com12 manders to the role of "petitioners." Gross's logic convinced his superiors and it stuck despite sporadic pressure from civilian authority for a unified requirements and procurement program. In August 1944 the JLC and JMTC in a joint report to the JCS noted that although there was informal collaboration and central procurement of certain particular types, no joint procedure had been established for calculating requirements or for placing contracts for small craft and floating equipment generally, and concluded that "a more complete and formalized method ... would ... result in substantial economies in requirements, in standardization of design and in more intensive use of facilities already in each theater."13 But apparently action had gone too far along independent lines to permit many changes. A joint small craft subcommittee was formed, but found about all it could do was to check re(1) Memo, Gen Gross for Gen Somervell, 22 May 43, sub: Gen Lutes' Memo of May 21 re Army-Navy Coordination, file 5a C1 IV Supplies SOPAC, ASF Plng Div. (2) Memo, Lutes for Somervell, 21 May 43, Lutes Diary. 13 (1) JLC 119/1, 9 Aug 44, title: Army, Navy, Maritime Comm Shipblg Program. (2) Diary, entries for 18 and 21 Aug 43, Strat Log Br, Plng Div, ASF.
12
427
ments outward from the ports, in the establishment of priorities, the distribution of materials, and the performance of services within theaters of joint operations.
of the state of readiness and adequacy of available services, facilities and personnel. b. Making recommendations to the Commanding General, Services of Supply . . . and the Vice Chief of Naval Operations . . . relative to levels of supplies, including reserve stocks, to be maintained in the area.
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c. Wherever possible, supply items or services common to both Army and Navy by a single agency. d. Establishing liaison with the adjacent Area Commanders to provide for interchange of emergency logistical support. e. Furnishing timely information to responsible supply and shipping agencies relative to: (1) Current status and prospective needs of services and supplies for all naval and military forces within the area. (2) Priority of Army and Navy shipments arranged in a single list for each area, sub-divided into three categories, i.e., specially requisitioned items of immediate urgency, "must" or automatic supply items, and other items arranged in the order of relative urgency. (3) Availability of existing storage by types and localities and status of projected storage with probable dates of completion. (4) Port of discharge facilities and capabilities at shipping destinations. (5) Items obtainable locally which can be screened out of requisitions submitted to mainland agencies.16
On the basis of this information and "acting upon identical copies of shipment priorities" seaboard shipping agencies were to effect the necessary co-ordination to meet fully the combined requirements of both services with respect to allocation, loading, and routing of ships. The charter was a compromise, the result of three months of negotiations that had begun with the far more radical proposals of Somervell and Lutes for a genuine union of the overseas supply lines of the two services. The compromise, which prescribed co-ordination as the remedy for the ills of duplication and put the
TAG Ltr to Major Army Comds, 7 Mar 43, with Incl, sub: Basic Logistical Plan for Command Areas
Involving Joint Army and Navy Operations, AG 381 (3-5-43) OB-S-E-M.
16
429
Subordinate Command, Pacific (the The establishments within each servmain headquarters of the Service Force ice at San Francisco exercised a certain Pacific was at Pearl Harbor). The Naval measure of control over facilities at all Transportation Service also maintained the other ports serving the far Pacific, its major Pacific coast port command and the main instruments for Armyat San Francisco; nearly all supply ship- Navy co-ordination took shape there. Bements for the Navy and Marine Corps cause shipping was the most critical in the Pacific went from this port. At factor in Pacific logistics, west coast coLos Angeles the Army first maintained ordination involved primarily means of a subport, which was elevated to the assuring an economic utilization of that status of a full POE in mid-1943. Earlier, resource. The shipping congestion that in May 1943, responsibility for supply developed at Noumea in the fall of 1942, of the CBI had been transferred from which started the chain of events that Charleston, South Carolina, to Los An- produced the Basic Logistical Plan, also geles; Los Angeles also handled some of led to the formation of the Joint Armythe overflow from San Francisco for the Navy-WSA Ship Operations Committee South, Central, and Southwest Pacific. at San Francisco in early 1943. The comThe main naval facilities in the south- mittee was composed of the commanwest were at San Diego, where most Ma- dant of the Twelfth Naval District, Vice rine Corps units were outloaded; others Adm. J. W. Greenslade (later Pacific were at San Pedro, and at Port Huen- Coast Coordinator of Logistics), the eme, newly activated for staging naval commanding general of the Army's San construction battalions (Seabees), their Francisco Port of Embarkation, Maj. impedimenta, and supplies. In the north- Gen. Frederick Gilbreath, and the senior west a second area centered around Seat- WSA representative in San Francisco, tle and Tacoma, Washington, and Port- John A. Cushing. Its duties, as informalland, Oregon. Seattle was the site of an- ly agreed in February 1943, were "to other major Army port of embarkation, consider all matters pertaining to the with subports at other points in Wash- handling of shipping of cargo and perington, Oregon, and at Prince Rupert in sonnel ... to the end that the maximum British Columbia. The Seattle port was use will be made of ships and facilities charged primarily with support of the available."18 North Pacific, but, under the general aegis of the responsible port at San Fran- H. Nichols to Maj Gen Edmond H. Leavey, 5 Feb cisco, was also used extensively for car- 47, inclosing Precis of Joint Overseas Transportation goes moving to Hawaii. Headquarters Problems, OCT HB, folder POA. (3) Memo, Capt Milton S. Davis, Regional Shpg Dir NTS, San Franfor the Thirteenth Naval District were cisco, for Dir NTS, Washington, 26 Apr 44, sub: at Seattle and a major naval advance Estimate of West Coast Shpg Sit, WSA Douglas File, base for the support of the North Paci- Navy Allocations. (4) Bureau of Yards and Docks, 17 Navy Department, Building the Navy's Bases in fic at Tacoma. World War II, 2 vols. (Washington, 1947), I, 194-207.
(1) Chester Wardlow, The Transportation Corps: Responsibilities, Organization, and Operations, UNITED STATES ARMY IN WORLD WAR II (Washington, 1951), pp. 97-100. (2) Ltr, Col Frederic
17
(1) Memo, A. R. Lintner, WSA, for Adm Greenslade, Gen Gilbreath, Mr. Frazier A. Bailey, 4 Feb 43, folder Pac Coast Opns Com, WSA Douglas File. (2) Leighton and Coakley, Global Logistics, 1940-43, pp. 398-404.
18
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Until early 1944 the committee functioned unofficially, without formal charter. Though it had no powers of compulsion over the services, it made itself an indispensable instrument for co-ordination of loading and scheduling. It served as a collecting point for information on shipping requirements for the Pacific theaters, on the potential availability of ships from returners and new construction, and on port capacities at overseas destinations. Once over-all allocations had been determined in Washington, it became the effective executive agency for carrying them out on the west coast, designating the individual ships to be employed on each run and arranging for interchange of cargoes and personnel between services where practicable. It also kept its finger on the stevedore situation on the west coast, the greatest limiting factor in outloading capacity, and worked with west coast labor authorities in shifting stevedores or loadings from one port to another. However, unanimous agreement of Army, Navy, and WSA representatives was required on all issues affecting the conflicting interests of the three agencies, and this limited the committee's sphere of action. That it was not and could not be the type of joint supply and transportation agency Lutes and others had advocated is apparent; its functions were limited to co-ordination and in this field the committee served its purpose well. As with most such organizations it generated a plethora of subcommittees to take care of detailsamong them the Vessel Allocation and Cargo Subcommittee, the Joint Personnel Priorities Committee, and a joint subcommittee handling priorities on towing operations to the Pacific theaters. A number of other
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Basic Logistical Plan.22 Under the pressure of an acute shortage of personnel shipping space, considerably greater success was achieved in regulating the flow of personnel. By March 1943, when the Basic Logistical Plan was promulgated, there was already a critical shortage of troop shipping in the Pacific. By using its combat loaders for troop movements, the Navy had enough to meet its own deployment needs, but the Army foresaw a deficit of some 40,000 troop spaces for April. The Transportation Corps began to press for some more equitable distribution of troop shipping under a system of joint priorities such as the Basic Logistical Plan provided. In April Admiral Halsey precipitated action in that direction by forwarding a single consolidated priority list to Washington for both services for May shipments to the South Pacific, instead of following his former practice of sending separate priority lists for each service. The War and Navy Departments instructed their port agencies on the west coast to honor Halsey's preferences, and on 26 May followed up with a directive extending the principle to cover all Pacific theaters except the North and Southeast Pacific. A long shake-down period ensued before any definite formal procedures could be agreed to for the operation of the joint personnel priority system, but during that time at least rudimentary lists for each month's shipments were compiled. By early June a Joint ArmyNavy Surface Personnel Transportation Committee had taken shape in San Francisco. It functioned as part of the Joint
22 Memo, Gen Gross for Adm Smith, 30 Apr 43, and voluminous related papers in OCT HB File A-N Jt Logistics.
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Ship Operations Committee, and was charged with operating a single pool of personnel shipping as well as insuring that all available accommodations were used to the fullest advantage. Nimitz, MacArthur, and Halsey were instructed to forward joint priority lists to Washington for their respective theaters each month, which Army-Navy authorities would use to work out a single list for the entire Pacific. This list became the basis for action in San Francisco.23 The system was not yet strong enough to weather the crisis arising out of the vast increase in movements to the Central Pacific beginning in August 1943. By early September shipments against the Joint Priority Lists were 45 days in arrears and in emergencies both the Army and Navy were prone to move new units at the expense of those listed. The Navy moved personnel on its combat ships quite independently of the priority system, and all the theater commanders, desperately trying to meet their most urgent requirements, sent ships from their own pools to the west coast to move personnel to their theaters without regard to assigned priorities.
23 (1) Memo, Brig Gen Robert H. Wylie for ACofS, OPD, 13 Mar 43, sub: Shpg for South and Southwest Pacific. (2) Memo, ACofS OPD for ACofT, ASF, 29 Mar 43, same sub. Both in OPD 370.5 PTO, Sec II, Case 120. (3) Memo, Gen Handy for Gen Harmon, 1 Nov 43, sub: Troop Availability List . . . , OPD
370.5 PTO Sec IV, Case 278, (4) Rough draft of Navy Plan OP-39-T-O-CC, circa 1-7 May 43, sub: Joint Priority ListsPacific Joint Directive, Gen McNarney
and Adm King, 26 May 43, sub: Joint Priority List for Pacific Shipments. (5) Ltr, Dir NTS and CofT to Comdt, 12th Naval Dist and CG SFPOE, 7 Jun 43, sub: Transportation of Army and Navy Personnel . . . to Pacific Areas. OCT HB folder Jt A-N Logistics. (6) Min, Joint A-N-WSA Ship Opns Com, San Francisco, 2 Jun 43, Item VI. (7) Rpts of Joint Surface Personnel Transportation Com, San Francisco, 1 Jun-1 Nov 43, in OCT 334, Jt A-N-WSA Ship Opns
Francisco Committee and of the Joint Surface Personnel Transportation Committee, Aug-Dec 43, in OCT 334, Jt A-N-WSA Ship Opns Com, San Francisco.
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(1) Msg 101609, CNO to CINCPAC, 2 Dec 43. (2) Msg 132235, CINCPAC to CNO, 2 Dec 43. (3) Ltr, CINCPAC/CINCPOA to CNO, 21 Nov 43, sub: Joint Distr List, 13 Oct 44, sub: Joint Priority List... Personnel Priority List, POA, serial 001553. (4) OPD Nov 44, Incl A, OCT 370.5 POA, Jt Priority List, MFR attached to above documents. All in OPD 370.5 13 Oct 44. 27 PTO, Sec VI, Case 266. (5) Joint Priority List of FebSee minutes of Jt A-N-WSA Ship Opns Com and ruary 1944, OCT 370.5, Jt Priority List, 12 Jan 44. Joint Surface Personnel Trans Com during 1944; 26 (1) Joint Priority List of February 1944, OCT also series of OPD 370.5 POA Joint Priority List files 370.5 Jt Priority List, 12 Jan 44. (2) Ltr, CNO to covering that year.
In general, by mid-1944 the joint personnel priority system was working smoothly, although there remained some discontent in the Army over continued use of fleet vessels primarily to transport Navy personnel. The system had other imperfections, without doubt, but it did provide a pool of troop shipping in the Pacific that effectively prevented one service or one theater from asserting its priority independently over the others. Occasional shortfalls occurred in any given month, but as long as the backlogs did not mount too high (and they were kept to manageable proportions during 1944) they could be handled by carrying them over to the next month. The greatest difficulty in the operation of the system lay in the lack of any established priority between Nimitz' and MacArthur's theaters. Fortunately, during 1944 the availability of personnel shipping outran that of cargo, and consequently decisions on this question 27 were seldom necessary. Troop unit priorities carried with them corresponding priorities for unit equipment and other impedimenta. Beyond this the two services were never able to arrive at any procedure for drawing up a single joint cargo priority list comparable to the one in effect for personnel. The extent to which Army and Navy requirements for cargo tonnage were screened or consolidated by joint commanders varied from area to area. The question of priorities between theaters or areas was left hanging in mid-
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air to be decided largely in terms of bulk cargo shipping allocations by the JMTC, and even then these allocations had normally to be made by service within each area. One factor militating against joint cargo priority control was the fact, previously noted, that much of the Navy's demand for cargo space originated with the bureaus in the United States rather than with the theater commanders. Also,
CHAPTER XVIII
436
tions zone (though one was not formally organized) in support of advancing Army forces. Service Force, Seventh Fleet, occupied a similar position in the Navy. Neither of these American administrative headquarters owed more than a shadowy allegiance to the intermediate Allied headquarters of the three services. Channels of communication for administrative matters and of requisitioning on the United States went from USASOS or USAFFE to the San Francisco port and the War Department on the Army side, and from Seventh Fleet to Hawaii, the west coast, and the Navy Department on the Navy side. GHQ determined the nature, scope, and goal of operations, assigned responsibilities to each of the major commands under it, determined priorities on supplies and shipping, and exercised general supervision and control over both the planning and execution of each operation. ALAMO Force Headquarters, a U.S. organization under Lt. Gen. Walter Krueger (virtually the same as the headquarters of U.S. Sixth Army), rather than Allied Land Forces, normally handled detailed planning for major operations, setting up task forces as the situation demanded. In co-operation with naval and air commanders, ALAMO Force determined supply and transportation requirements for the assault force, which, after GHQ approval, then became the responsibility of the various administrative echelons to meet. Operational control of the amphibious phase of an assault usually rested with Allied Naval Forces, as did control of shipping for the movement of the assault and supporting forces and for resupply during the first phases. Once forces were safely ashore command passed to ALAMO Force
JOINT LOGISTICS IN THE PACIFIC THEATERS were procured by the Navy through the JMTC, loaded, and sailed by the Navy, while the Army handled USASOS requirements in the same manner. Co-ordination in loading and dispatch had to be achieved almost entirely through the San Francisco Ship Operations Committee.1 In view of an extensive intratheater sea line of communications, responsibility for manning and operation of seagoing craft in the local fleet was an issue of particular importance in SWPA. It had long been accepted in traditional joint service doctrine that the Navy should operate all seagoing vessels in actual theaters of war, but this principle was never fully applied in SWPA. MacArthur's local fleet was originally a makeshift affair. Some Dutch merchantmen and a few others of miscellaneous national origins that had escaped the Japanese dragnet in early 1942 were pressed into service during the early stages of the New Guinea Campaign. Most of the small boats and harbor craft came mainly from Australian sources. Larger ships and small boats were manned by their own native crews. WSA ships retained in the theater to supplement this fleet kept their American civilian crews. The small boats and Lake steamers sent later on from the United
437
1 (1) For a brief sketch of SWPA organization and a chart showing the main lines of command see Smith, The Approach to the Philippines, pp. 14-16. (2) Bykofsky and Larson, The Transportation Corps: Operations Overseas, pp. 425-43. (3) Carter, Beans, Bullets and Black Oil, pp. 63-67. (4) Memo, Col Hugh C. Johnson, Chief, Pac Sec, theater Gp, OPD, for Maj Gen Howard A. Craig, 29 Dec 44, sub: Command, 2 James R. Masterson, U.S. Army Transportation Pacific. (5) Memo, Brig Gen George A. Lincoln for Gen Hull, 18 Mar 45. (4) and (5) in OPD 384 TS, in the Southwest Pacific Area, 1941-47 (hereafter Cases 1 and 1/26 (2945 file). (6) Answers by USASOS cited as Transportation in SWPA), OCT HB MonoHq to Somervell Questionnaire, Sep 43, in Control graph, MS, OCMH, ch. XI. 3 Div, ASF, folder SWP Questionnaire, Somervell Trip JCS 240/2/D, 23 Apr 43, title: Auxiliary Ships file. Operated Regularly in Combined Areas.
States were normally operated by Army Transportation Corps personnel or civilians hired for the purpose in the United States or Australia. The Navy was in no position, during this formative period, to man any of these vessels nor to replace them with Navy-manned craft.2 In April 1943 the JCS reaffirmed the general principle that "merchant ships habitually under theater commander control in direct support of naval and military operations should be commissioned in the naval service and manned by naval crews."3 Almost immediately, however, the directive was rendered inoperative by exceptions made for SWPA, and to a degree for other theaters, because the Navy obviously was still not prepared to assume its complete responsibility. The issue remained dormant until August 1943 when MacArthur presented requests for 71 Liberty ships and for 14,000 men to operate small boats and harbor craft in the impending campaign in New Guinea. He specifically requested that 30 of the Liberty ships be manned by Navy crews and that Army Transportation Corps composite companies and boat companies be furnished to man the small boats and harbor craft. Shortly thereafter, on 16 October 1943, the JCS issued a new directive stipulating that all merchant ships under control of a military commander and operating within 400 miles of the combat zone should be manned by Navy crews; and, somewhat alarmed at the vast differential in pay for civilians and servicemen operating small boats,
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the JCS also ruled that these vessels and harbor craft should be manned by military personnel from one service or the other.4 MacArthur's request and the new directive brought the issue of responsibility for vessel operation in SWPA to a head. OPD, seeing the disparity between the apparent intent of the JCS directive and conditions prevailing in SWPA, took an aggressive attitude. The staff planners insisted that the Navy should man all the merchant vessels in the theater fleet. Furthermore, they argued, the Army troop basis would not permit furnishing service troops to man small boats and harbor craft and that the Navy should furnish these personnel. The Navy was willing to go no further than to meet MacArthur's specific request to man 30 Libertys, insisting, on its own part, that it could not furnish men for the small boats without putting some of its own vessels out of commission. At this point, WSA, ever sensitive to Navy manning of merchant ships, muddied the water further by insisting that transpacific Liberty ships retained in SWPA could not be taken over by the Navy. The JCS finally reached a compromise arrangement in March 1944. Navy manning was to be confined to the "larger seagoing types" to include 5 Libertys already delivered and 25 C1M-AV1's to be delivered to SWPA later in the year; the Navy would also provide Coast Guard crews for craft from 99 to 182 feet in length; the Army Transportation Corps would continue to man and operate craft up to 47 feet. For all other ships and craft, including the
4
tariat, JCS, 27 Dec 43, sub: Manning of Cargo Vessels with Navy Crews (JCS 641); Manning of Sea Transportation and Harbor Facilities in SWPA (JCS 644). (5) Memo, Wylie for Somervell, 28 Dec 43, sub: JCS 644. . . . (4) and (5) in folder CsofS, Jt and Comb. Hq ASF. (6) Ltr, Adm Land to CNO, 6 Jan 44; Ltr. VCNO to CG ASF, 11 Jan 44, sub: Assignment of Navy Manned Auxiliary Vessels in Service of Army in Combat Areas, folder Navy 1942-44, Hq ASF. (7) Memo, Col Magruder for Gen Wood, 8 Mar 44, sub: Manning of Sea Transportation and Harbor Facilities in SWP, folder Pac Theater, ASF Plng Div. (8) Masterson, Transportation in SWPA, pp. 640-47.
JOINT LOGISTICS IN THE PACIFIC THEATERS the proven utility of the Army's Engineer special brigades in the type of shoreto-shore operations conducted in that area. The Southwest Pacific was the only U.S. theater in World War II in which operation of landing craft was not exclusively a Navy function. Instead, the special brigades manned and operated the landing craft assigned to them as table of organization equipment and the Navy handled craft attached to the Seventh Fleet. In amphibious assaults the services pooled amphibious resources, while GHQ exercised the usual co-ordination over determination of requirements. Until mid-1943 these requirements were actually calculated separately and forwarded to Washington through separate Army and Navy channels. In August 1943 MacArthur agreed that Seventh Fleet and amphibian brigade requirements should be consolidated and forwarded through Navy channels to the Navy Department in Washington, but this still did not produce any fundamental change in the SWPA system. There was no organizational consolidation of the amphibious forces in the theater, and MacArthur continued to rely on the War Department to see that his landing craft requirements for the amphibious brigades were met. Shipment of craft for the brigades went on through Army channels. Mainly involved were small craft, such as LCM's
and LCVP's; LCT types and larger craft were normally assigned to the Seventh Fleet. While this in general resulted in the Navy operating most of the large landing craft in SWPA and the Army most of the smaller craft, the lines of demarcation were never quite so dis-
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Army had at least a few of the larger 6 craft. Thus the whole SWPA system embraced only a minimum of unified requirements determination or functional division of responsibility between services. In justice to the SWPA command, it must be noted that the system was as much a product of circumstances as of design. The existence of an extremely complicated Allied structure made common channels of supply for all forces practically impossible. American naval forces in SWPA were never stable; major fleet units were shuttled back and forth between SWPA and POA and had to receive much of their support from mobile service squadrons based on POA. Shore-based naval personnel represented only a small proportion of the SWPA command. The theater had been a going concern for more than a year before the Basic Logistical Plan was promulgated, and its established policies and procedures were not susceptible to much change. Local circumstances dictated the division of function in the operation and control of water transportation far more effectively than could abstract directives from the JCS. Yet, circumstances were not the only explanation. MacArthur himself was not convinced that unification of Army and Navy supply lines was advisable. British observers, who visited the theater in 1944 put it quite succinctly: "General MacArthur believes that each separate
(1) Memo, Adm King for CofS, USA, 25 Apr 43, sub: Small Landing Craft in SWPA. (2) MFR OPD, accompanying draft msg to CINCSWPA, 17 Aug 44. Both in OPD 560 SWPA, Case 6. (3) Msg CM-OUT 5133, AGWAR to CINCSWPA, 12 Jun 43. (4) Msg C-4468, Brisbane to WAR, CM-IN 2395, 4 Aug 43. (5) For a more detailed account of landing craft supply for SWPA see below, Chapter XX.
6
tinct, for the Seventh Fleet also had its share of LCM's and LCVP's and the
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GLOBAL LOGISTICS AND STRATEGY: 1943-1945 sonnel were soon competing for the limited port facilities, and the inevitable confusion and congestion resulted. The obvious answer seemed to be over-all control of movement priorities. At one time or another this was entrusted to various USAFFE and USASOS agencies, but the logic of the situation called for control at the GHQ level, and in November 1943 a chief regulating officer (CREGO) was established in that headquarters. CREGO was given responsibility for assigning priorities on all personnel and cargo movements within the theater by water, air, or rail, except those of naval combatant vessels and auxiliaries supporting them. While the chief regulating officer was a U.S. Army officer, his staff was drawn from all the Allied services, as were the staffs of the subordinate regulating officers set up in all the important ports in SWPA. CREGO was intended to be the impartial referee, to determine what supplies and personnel should be moved and unloaded over limited facilities, basing his decisions on policies and plans established by G-3 and G-4, GHQ. CREGO responsibilities were eventually extended to include surveillance of the priorities system on movements into the theater from points in the Central and South Pacific. Liaison officers from CREGO were established in Hawaii, in Noumea, and in the Overseas Supply Division of the San Francisco POE. However valid the theory, in practice CREGO's system of regulation left much to be desired, as frequent instances of ship congestion along the New Guinea coast and in the Philippines attest. The task was a difficult one at best, in view of the primitive port facilities in the operations area and the numerous agen-
service should retain its own line of communication in order to retain mobility."7 Under a system in which each national service did retain control of its own line of communications, priorities control necessarily became the essential element of GHQ co-ordination. A priorities system for the shipment of cargo into the theater, including Army, Navy, and lend-lease shipments from the United States and Australian service material from the United Kingdom, was instituted by MacArthur in August 1942 and continued thereafter. It was evidently considered good enough to meet the standards of the Basic Logistical Plan. Still, because vessels for all these different purposes were assigned and loaded separately, there was in reality no single unified priority list. Moreover, priorities seldom were geared to available shipping, with the result that each seaboard shipping agency tended to ship in response to the theater agency it served. Given limitations on port capacity even greater than those on transpacific cargo shipping, priorities control became even more a matter of regulating movements into theater ports. In Australian ports, control was first exercised by the Australian Government in close co-operation with MacArthur's headquarters; in the forward ports in New Guinea,
however, there was at first no clearly established system and much of the control over movements was left to be independently adjusted by the several transportation agencies at each port. Incoming and outgoing supplies and per(1) Memo, Wood for Somervell, 11 May 44, sub: British Rpt on Problems of War versus Japan, folder Gen and Misc Pac Theater, vol. I, ASF Plng Div. (2) See also MacArthur's views as expressed to the War Department late in 1944, below, Chapter XXIII.
7
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ply largely in terms of need and without much regard for limitations on transportation. As large backlogs of requisitions mounted in San Francisco, the priority system for shipment tended to break down, and the Army as well as the Navy began to ship the material most readily available. The dispatch of the CREGO liaison group to the San Francisco port does not seem to have appreciably improved that situation. As late as December 1944 Brig. Gen. Robert H. Wylie of the Transportation Corps was complaining that the theater supply echelon seemed to have little understanding of the theater's shipping problems, and pointing out the "absolute necessity of tieing together transportation and supply in the Southwest Pa8 cific Area."
Informal Co-operation in the South Pacific In the South and Central Pacific, areas of naval responsibility, arrangements for joint logistics were considerably more detailed and far-reaching than in SWPA. The problem was also more acute, for
in these areas Army and Navy forces were deployed ashore in almost equal numbers. In the South Pacific the first steps toward a joint logistical system were taken very early. In May 1942 a Joint Purchasing Board was established to exploit New Zealand resources and those of the smaller Pacific islands, with
8 (1) Memo, Wylie for Wood, 19 Dec 44, sub: SWPA Shpg Situation, OCT HB, Folder Shpg in Pacific, Wylie File. (2) On CREGO generally see Larson and Bykofsky, The Transportation Corps: Operations Overseas, pp. 437-46; Masterson, Transportation in SWPA, pp. 744-808; History of the General Headquarters Regulating System, prepared by Office, CREGO, GHQ. (3) Ltr, Schage to Capt Granville Conway, 25 Dec 44, folder Pac Area (1944), Box
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the Navy responsible for delivering the supplies procured from these sources to both services; later the Army was entrusted with procuring necessary supplies from the United States mainland for all shore-based forces except those in the Samoan Islands, the Navy similarly for furnishing all POL. As a result of the confusion during the Guadalcanal Campaign and particularly the congestion at Noumea, Admiral Halsey put into effect further joint arrangements for handling incoming shipments and movements to forward areas. The Army service commander on New Caledonia, Col. Raymond E. S. Williamson, was given responsibility for port and unloading operations at Noumea; the Army area commander, Maj. Gen. Robert G. Breene, was put in charge of co-ordination of logistical support for Guadalcanal. Breene was to be advised in determining priority of shipment by a priorities board composed of Army, Navy, and Marine Corps representatives.9 Halsey's philosophy, apparently, was to entrust each service with certain responsibilities at each base and to develop coordination through meetings of major commanders. Harmonious relations were established early between Admiral Halsey and General Harmon and this informal method of co-operation proved highly effective in combat operations. "Our relations with the Navy," wrote General Breene in May 1943, "have been so cordial that it has been possible to get many things done by pure co-operation without even a scratch of the 10 pen."
Leighton and Coakley, Global Logistics, 1940-43, chs. VII and XV. 10 Ltr, Breene to Lutes, 20 May 43, folder So Pac 1942-43-mid-44, Lutes File.
9
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South Pacific were almost entirely those of cross-servicing and exchange of supplies rather than genuine unification. Army and Navy housing facilities, depots, hospitals, and recreational facilities remained separate; even though in some cases they were jointly used, the opposite was more frequently true. In the vital field of construction, almost no progress was made either in developing common standards or in pooling supplies. Not only did the two services use different types of material and different terminology but the Navy's standards were far higher than those of the Army. Navy men lived in roofed barracks with wooden floors in New Caledonia while Army troops had to be satisfied with thatched huts with dirt floors. Similarly, the Navy was far better supplied with such luxury items as beer and had far better recreational facilities. It also seemed to have more machinery and power facilities; no sight, one observer remarked, was better calculated to set a doughboy cursing then to see a machine digging slit trenches for Navy personnel. If combat conditions tended to reduce everyone nearer to a common standard, the generally higher Navy standard of living in rear areas was a continuing testimonial to the failure of the system of informal co-operation to produce even an equitable division of resources, much less a unified logistical system.13
13 (1) USAFISPA History, pp. 346-47. (2) Wesley F. Craven and James L. Cate, eds., "The Army Air Forces in World War II," vol. IV, Pacific: Guadalcanal to Saipan (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1950) (hereafter cited as Craven and Cate, AAF IV), pp. 270-73. (3) Memo, CG ASF, for Adm Horne, 25 Aug 43, folder 2d Pac Trip, Lutes File. (4) Answers made by SoPac Army Hq to Somervell Questionnaire, Sep 43, in folder SoPac Questionnaire, Control Div, ASF, Somervell Trip file.
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GLOBAL LOGISTICS AND STRATEGY: 1943-1945 pressing need for them had almost passed. In this atmosphere perhaps informal co-operation was the best and most effective instrumentat least all observers had nothing but praise for the effectiveness of co-operation in the island campaigns. The close control maintained over shipping to and within the theater by Halsey's headquarters, although exercised through many different organizations, produced over-all economy in the use of that controlling element in theater logisticswater transportation.
The Central Pacific System
The most serious defects in the South Pacific system, however, lay in the lack of any satisfactory mechanism for determining joint supply requirements on the United States, for planning base development, or for exercising inventory control. While the Joint Logistical Board pioneered and managed to perfect a mechanism for working out the joint personnel priority list each month, it met with little success in developing a similar cargo priority list. The area Joint Screening Board, established to exercise close supervision over requisitions for supplies for both services, never had sufficient personnel to function adequately and soon found itself merely passing on requisitions received from each service with little examination. Nor was the Joint Traveling Inventory Board able to do much more than arrange for readjusting local surpluses. And the
Joint Base Planning Board, charged with developing integrated plans for base development, never managed to establish anything more than a loose co-ordination in this field.14 Some of the difficulties arose because
it never proved possible in the South Pacific to anticipate operations far enough in advance to lay out development plans carefully. An atmosphere of emergency characterized the South Pacific theater during most of its existence.
The development of planning procedures and of a stable supply system, even by each service separately, had to go ahead in the hectic atmosphere created by the rapid forward advance in the Solomons. The theater had concluded its mission before it really had time to settle down and develop routine procedures and systems; by that time the
14
In the Central Pacific joint logistics reached their highest point of development during World War II, despite the existence of a strong tradition of separatism in Hawaii. Since operations there did not get under way until November 1943, eight months after the promulgation of the Basic Logistical Plan, there was a considerably longer time for necessary preparations. After a slow start, Admiral Nimitz gradually extended the province of joint action in his theater, taking a very liberal view of the "full responsibility"15 assigned him for devel16 opment of logistical plans and policies. Nevertheless, the basic decision, taken early and maintained ever after, was for co-ordination and not unification of logistical systems"in general, each service would continue to procure its own materials; either this or change the entire system from Washington on down."17
Basic Logistical Plan, 7 Mar 43. AFMIDPAC History, pp. 1138-54. 17 Notes on Meeting of Joint Working Com of Joint Logistics Supply Board for CPA held 19 March 1943 . . . Pearl Harbor, quoted in AFMIDPAC History, p. 1034.
16 15
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island bases Canton, Christmas, and Fanningsupply responsibility was to be divided between Army and Navy; at the othersthe French Frigate Shoal, Midway, Johnston, and Palmyrathe Navy would assume complete responsibility. Shipping for outlying bases would continue for the present to be operated by the owning service and loading co-ordinated to insure best use of space, but as soon as arrangements could be perfected, the Navy would take over, man, and operate all vessels in this service. Each service would continue to requisition separately on mainland sources, with only a collation of data to prevent duplication. The plan clearly did not prescribe any radical change in the method of doing business in Hawaii. Insofar as future operations forward of Hawaii were concerned it lacked detail, but such outlines of a joint logistical plan as it did contain were highly disturbing to ASF officials. Exponents though they had become of unified logistics, they looked on the proposed Navy control of shipping to forward bases with some alarm, fearing that it presaged Navy control of the Army's line of supply. Without adequate Army representation on Nimitz' staff, ASF did not believe any system of joint logistics for the Central Pacific campaigns would be workable. General Lutes, on his Pacific trip in the fall of 1942, had urged on Nimitz the creation of a genuine joint staff organization, but there seemed no indication in the plan that Nimitz intended to carry out this suggestion. Somervell took the ASF case to Admiral Horne and to Adm. William L. Calhoun, Commander, Service Force Pacific Fleet, when Calhoun visited Washington in April
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1943. Fearing that merely drawing personnel from General Richardson's staff in Hawaii, accustomed as they were to independent Army and Navy action, would foredoom any joint staff to failure, Somervell insisted on fresh blood from the ASF. He was finally able to persuade Calhoun to accept two ASF officers for joint logistical planning in POA, Brig. Gen. Edmond H. Leavey for the CINCPOA staff and Col. David H. Blakelock for Calhoun's staff for advance base planning. Somervell's insistence on fresh blood had important consequences, for Leavey was to prove his ability to take an independent position as a member of Nimitz' staff and his support of joint action provided an effective balance to General Richardson, who was far more prone to uphold traditional service prerogatives of the Army.19 For the moment just what Nimitz' staff organization was to be and what role Leavey would play in it remained undetermined. Leavey was first dispatched on a tour of Pacific supply establishments beginning in San Francisco and extending into Halsey's command in the South Pacific. He returned to Hawaii with a bad impression of both the Navy's command system and its logistical system,
19 (1) Memo, Gen Wylie for Gen Gross, 16 Apr 43, OCT HB folder A-N Joint Logistics. (2) Memos, Somervell for Horne, 25 Mar and 2 Apr 43, sub: Detail of Officers with Staffs of Adm Nimitz and Halsey. (3) Memo, Horne for Somervell, 1 Apr 43. (2) and (3) in folder SoPac 1942-43-mid-44, Lutes File. (4) Memo, Horne for Somervell, 22 Apr 43. (5) Memo, Somervell for Horne, 22 Apr 43. (4) and (5) in folder Navy 1942-44, Hq ASF. (6) Memo, Dir Opns ASF for Gen Leavey, 11 Jun 43, sub: Detail to PTO, folder POA 1942 thru Nov 45, Lutes File. (7) And compare Leavey's views expressed in an interview with Joseph Bykofsky, OCMH, on 30 October 1950, with those of Richardson in his letter to CofS, USA, 15 Mar 46, sub: Final Rpt of CG AFMIDPAC. Both in folder Pac Gen, OCT HB Overseas Comd file.
JOINT LOGISTICS IN THE PACIFIC THEATERS staff plan and "gradually increase the number of Army officers on the staff to accomplish the work," General Somervell decided to try at a higher level.22 He forwarded Leavey's and Lutes's reports to General Marshall who in turn sent them to Admiral King with a suggestion that the conditions reported were "a clear indication ... of the urgent necessity of creating a Combined Theater Staff as quickly as possible."23 King's blistering reply castigated Leavey for not making a "forthright report through his responsible superior" (Admiral Nimitz) and concluded that it would not be "either appropriate or wise to force on Admiral Nimitz any staff organization on the basis of reports by officers who have had very limited opportunity to observe, or know of, the overall situation in his command, and who have none of the responsibility therefor."24 General Marshall decided it was best to let the matter drop and Admiral Nimitz was left to work out his own arrangements without further directives from Washington. Apparently, Nimitz was himself convinced of the necessity for a stronger instrument than the Joint Logistical Board in the forthcoming campaigns in the Gilberts and Marshalls. In September, whether influenced by General Leavey's recommendations or not, he decided to create a joint staff and designated Leavey as J-4. He announced that CINCPOA would exercise his authority to co-ordinate and control logistical services
Quote from Ltr, Lutes to Somervell, 11 Aug 43. (1) Memo, Marshall for King, 10 Aug 43, folder Theater of Opns Pacific (A and N) (11) 1944, Hq ASF. (2) Memo, Marshall for King, 26 Aug 43, OPD 384 PTO Sec 2. 24 Memo, King for Marshall, 30 Aug 43, Ser 001801, OPD 384 PTO, Sec 2.
23 22
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through this joint staff, with the subcommittees of the Joint Working Board to continue to function under its aegis.25 With the formation of the joint staff with its J-4 section headed by an Army officer, the logistical system in the Central Pacific began to take final form for the campaigns to follow. Although considered a step in the right direction, it was not entirely satisfactory to the Army staff in Washington. Nimitz retained his position as Commander in Chief, Pacific Fleet, and continued to exercise direct command over the Central Pacific Area instead of designating a subordinate as area commander; he did not take many steps to exercise closer control over the South and North Pacific Areas nor to integrate requirements for these subareas into joint plans for the whole POA. No attempt was made to provide a joint special staff such as Leavey favored, containing representatives from the Army's technical services. The whole command setup in both the Central and South Pacific continued to have a predominantly Navy flavor that Army leaders felt never gave them a voice proportionate to Army strength in these areas. But after some abortive efforts to convince the Navy that Nimitz should divorce himself from immediate command of any of the subordinate elements in POA, the Army at last decided to give up and await a more propitious time to raise the issue again. They had at least gained one major point the Central Pacific would have a joint logistical staff with an Army officer at its head. A general desire not to rock the
25 (1) AFMIDPAC History, pp. 1050-53. (2) Ltr, CINCPAC/CINCPOA to Distr List, 17 Sep 43, sub: Control of Logistical Services, CPA, folder 133 Diary CenPac, 4 Oct 43, ASF Plng Div. (3) Msg, Richardson to Marshall, 7 Sep 43, OPD 384 PTO Sec 2.
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boat at a critical moment left further development of this joint logistical system in theater hands.26 For all its supposed defects, the POA joint staff proved a satisfactory instrument for the purposes for which it was designedin Leavey's words it "succeeded in achieving an unprecedented correlation of logistical effort."27 By the time it was formed the emphasis had shifted in the Central Pacific from static defense of Hawaii to preparations for the advance into the Gilberts and Marshalls. These island groups, composed of small atolls, had limited space for base development, a factor that undoubtedly influenced development of plans for joint
The central feature of the system was unified control of both operations and logistics forward of Hawaii by Admiral Nimitz as joint theater commander; he exercised this control through the joint staff and through assignment of missions to Navy, Army, and Marine Corps task and garrison force commanders. In Hawaii and on the adjacent islands held by the United States before the Central Pacific offensive began, the separation of Army and Navy logistics stayed much as it had beena testimonial to the strength of tradition. The heart of the joint logistical system was in the arrangements for furnishing support to shore-based forces in the areas wrested from Japanese control, from Makin and utilization. The basic charter for joint logistics Tarawa to Iwo Jima and Okinawa. As officially defined in CINCPOA diin the coming campaigns was announced by Admiral Nimitz on 20 September rectives there were normally three phases 1943 in the form of a basic logistic sup- in each operationthe first, an assault 28 ply policy for advanced bases. The phase, under an amphibious task force joint logistical system for the Central commander; the second, a land operaPacific advances established by this di- tions phase, under a ground force comrective and its numerous supplements mander; the third, a garrison phase, unand revisions was a very complicated der a base or garrison commander from affair; the most that can be done here the service furnishing the major part is to describe the main lines of responsi- of the garrison. The garrison force combility and control in the simplest pos- manders on Makin in the Gilberts, Kwasible terms, keeping in mind that it was jalein in the Marshalls, Saipan in the Marianas, and Angaur in the Palaus, for never a completely static affair. instance, were from the Army, and the Army had major responsibility for de(1) Memo, Somervell for Marshall, 12 Sep 43, folder CofS 1943, Hq ASF. (2) Personal Memo, Gen velopment of these bases; most of the Handy for Adm Cooke, 20 Sep 43, OPD 384 PTO, other atolls or islands were a Navy or Sec 2. (3) Memo, Somervell for Marshall, 22 Sep 43, Marine Corps responsibility. The comABC 322.01 Pacific (Aug 43). (4) Memo, Col Godwin Ordway, Jr., for Gen Hull, 16 Nov 43, sub: Com- mander in each phase exercised over-all ments of South and Central Pacific Officers Made to control of logistics subject to plans and Undersigned During Period 20 Sept to 23 Oct 43, policies laid down by the POA joint OPD Exec 9, Item 13. Interview, Bykofsky with Gen Leavey, 30 Oct 50. staff. There was no genuine unified supLtr, CINCPOA to Distr List, 20 Sep 43, sub: ply line. Each service continued to reqAdvance Base Logistic Supply PolicyPromulgation of, CINCPOA Ser 02248, folder 1-a-1 Jt Supply Pro- uisition separately through its own channels on rear bases and on the mainland, gram, ASF Plng Div.
26
27
28
JOINT LOGISTICS IN THE PACIFIC THEATERS but each service was assigned certain
specific responsibilities for supply and services and for development of facilities at each base. As far as possible joint requirements were anticipated in the joint staff planning that preceded each operation. CINCPOA also controlled movement of all shipping through all three phases of each campaign. Army, Navy, and Marine Corps forces involved in assault operations were accompanied by their normal table of basic allowance equipment subject to the peculiar needs of any particular operation or the limitations on shipping; as soon as the tactical situation would permit, specific levels of supply were established; these were common to all forces ashore,
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given area; the Army was first made responsible for spare parts and motor maintenance for common type vehicles but the arrangement proved unsatisfactory and was abandoned. Each service furnished and maintained all equipment and supplies of its own special type, notably clothing, unit equipment, and construction supplies. Service Force, Pacific Fleet, handled all shipping to advance bases and arranged convoys and routing. Under it a Joint Overseas Shipping Control Office (JOSCO), composed of Army, Navy, Marine Corps, and WSA representatives, co-ordinated terminal operations in Hawaii and arranged booking, loading, and forward movements of cargo. This office and increased to a maximum of sixty was considered to be something of a days for all classes as the operation pro- counterpart to the Joint Ship Operagressed. TBA equipment for the initial tions Committee in San Francisco. Port landing forces was made available at the operations and cargo handling were asloading port by the service concerned in signed to one service at each base, usuaccordance with the plans of the amphib- ally according to the predominance of ious force commander, who also ar- force. ranged for joint loading. These theater The J-4 section of the POA joint staff loading plans were normally followed exercised general supervision over the regardless of where various parts of the entire logistical effort, reviewing service task force were outloaded, whether from requirements in the light of tactical Hawaii, the west coast of the United plans, assigning priorities on both supStates, or other ports in the Pacific. The plies and shipping, developing the plans Navy (Service Force, Pacific Fleet) was and policies for joint base development, charged with delivery of all supplies to and scheduling forward movement of the beaches; from that point they were shipping in accordance with the capacity handled by the receiving service. The of the receiving ports or beaches. The two services were assigned certain defi- J-4 Transportation Section's control of nite responsibilities for each class of sup- shipping provided the essential link that ply: the Army, as usual, for all subsist- bound two separate systems of requisience; the Navy for fuel and lubricants; tioning supplies together and provided ammunition, bombs, and pyrotechnics a means of reconciling conflicting defor aircraft were supplied by the Army mands of services and bases. The J-4 except for special Navy items; medical section, acting for CINCPOA, consolisupplies were the responsibility of which- dated tonnage requirements for the adever service operated the hospital in a vance bases and determined the over-all
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requirements that should be placed against the United States for cargo shipping, either for direct shipment from the United States or for the theater pool to be used in the movement of supplies from the rear to forward bases.29 The system used in the Central Pacific to control the flow of shipping into forward areas minimized the importance of requisitioning during the early and intermediate stages of any campaign, and placed the emphasis on advance joint planning of requirements for both supplies and shipping. Support shipping was divided into three categoriesassault, garrison, and maintenancefollowing the planned phases of operations and base development. For the assault phase, ships were combat loaded under direction of the task force commander, and carried the troop units participating in the assault and their TBA equipment. Once the assault forces and their initial supplies were safely ashore, the garrison shipping procedure was placed in effect. This procedure provided for echeloning of shipping, each separate echelon to move into the advance base in step with the progress of operations and the development of beach and port capacity to discharge supplies. Succeeding echelons carried both troops and supplies to build up prescribed levels and to provide for
29
Distr List, 26 Jun 44, sub: Advance Base Logistic PolicyRevision of, CINCPOA Ser 02775, and other CINCPAC/CINCPOA directives amending this advance base plan in folder 1-a-1 Jt Sup Prog, ASF Plng Div. (3) AFMIDPAC History, pp. 1054-1132. (4) Memo, Col Morrill W. Marston, G-4, USAFICPA, for Gen Richardson, 11 Sep 43, sub: Notes on CINCPAC Conf . . . , OPD 384 PTO, Case 57. (5) Larson and Bykofsky, The Transportation Corps: Operations Overseas, pp.513-16. (6) Interview, Bykofsky with Gen Leavey, 30 Oct 50. (7) Ltr, Nichols to Leavey, 5 Feb 47.
mately 2,831,000 tons of material came in under the garrison shipping procedure in 32 echelons in the year begin30 (1) Ballantine, U.S. Naval Logistics in the Second World War, pp. 233-37. (2) Larson and Bykofsky, The Transportation Corps: Operations Overseas, ch. X. (3) Notes prepared by Col. David H. Blakelock for Lecture, Joint Overseas Transportation Problems Which Confronted CINCPOA, 27 Jan 44, OCT HB files. (4) AFMIDPAC History, pp. 1083-89.
JOINT LOGISTICS IN THE PACIFIC THEATERS ning June 1944, about 57 percent of the total supplies shipped to that area.31 At first the system applied only to outward movements from Hawaii, but when direct shipments from the west coast to forward bases began in early 1944 it was extended to include them, and still later to those originating in the South and Southwest Pacific. The echeloning system regulated the flow of shipping better than it did the flow of supplies because, as the Army had learned by bitter experience in North Africa, any automatic supply system involved the dangers of waste and unbalanced stocks. One Army Transportation Corps officer, commenting after the war, thought J-4's loading plans "far too elaborate, far too detailed, and far too generous."32 The system was, without doubt, better geared to the Navy's method of doing business than to the Army's, for, as pointed out earlier, the Navy preferred to rely on anticipation of need by the various supply bureaus at west coast and Hawaiian ports rather than on theater requisitions. The POA procedure for advance bases was typical of the whole Navy supply system, and if POA procedures involved waste of materials it was certainly in part because the Navy never, during World War II, applied the same critical standards of economy to Pacific requirements that the Army felt compelled to do because of the competition of Atlantic theaters and the limitation on over-all national resources.
31 Ballantine, U.S. Naval Logistics in the Second World War, p. 235. 32 (1) Ltr, Col Richard D. Meyer to C. C. Wardlow, 21 Jul 49, OCT HB folder A-N Jt Logistics. (2) Colonel Blakelock commented also that the system "required use of the crystal ball by J-4 and usually resulted in scheduling more supplies than were actually required," in Notes for Lecture, 27 Jan 44.
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The POA echeloning procedure involved waste in some respects, but it promoted economy in others. If efficient use of shipping may be judged by the relative absence of congestion and of long turnarounds, then that use in the Central Pacific was among the most efficient of all American theaters of World War II. There was also a clear economy in the use of material when loading plans for both services had to be determined in advance, for in advance determination a great deal of the customary duplication in Army and Navy requirements could be eliminated and joint loading arranged. The garrison shipping procedure was therefore of fundamental import in producing something resembling a unified supply line in the absence of any genuine unification of Army and Navy logistical organizations. It also provided, as the Okinawa operation in 1945 was to demonstrate, perhaps the most feasible means of mounting and supporting an assault from many scattered points. Even before that time SWPA had adopted one of the principal features of the systemblock loading of ships for a particular destination in accordance with a prearranged plan.33 The garrison shipping procedure applied only to operational requirements of forces forward of Hawaii, and not to routine maintenance shipments either to Hawaii or to other rear bases as the tide of battle moved forward. Maintenance shipments often began to arrive at any particular base before garrison shipments
(1) For the complicated arrangements for mounting the Okinawa operation, see Roy E. Appleman, James M. Burns, Russell A. Gugeler, and John Stevens, Okinawa: The Last Battle, UNITED STATES ARMY IN WORLD WAR II (Washington, 1948), pp. 36-43. (2) On block loading see below, Chapter XX.
33
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ended, just as garrison shipments began before the assault phase had ended. CINCPOA control extended to maintenance shipments to forward areas such as the Marshalls and Gilberts but not to shipments from the mainland into Hawaii and the Line Islands for the Army or for the civilian economy; requirements for these purposes were calculated separately by General Richardson and shipping allocations made to the Army by the JMTC to meet them. Similarly, after the South Pacific reverted to rear area status in mid-1944, shipping for support of troops in bases there was allocated directly to the Army and controlled by it. Also, whereas the Navy operated all shipping to forward areas, the Army procured and operated coastal and interisland shipping that served its garrisons in the Hawaiian group and the outlying islands such as Christmas, Fanning, and Canton; this shipping was also procured through Army, not CINCPOA, channels.34 This system was not satisfactory to either Nimitz or Richardson, though for different reasons. Nimitz thought control over shipping too divided to permit the "degree of flexibility necessary in the coordination and utilization of dry cargo shipping required for the heavily increased scope of operations in POA."35 Richardson, on the other hand, felt his lack of control over shipping to support the sizable units of Army troops at forward bases left him without the necessary
34 (1) Larson and Bykofsky, The Transportation Corps: Operations Overseas, p. 514. (2) Ballantine, U.S. Naval Logistics in the Second World War, p. 236. (3) Blakelock, Notes for Lecture, 27 Jan 44. 35 Ltr, CinC U.S. Pacific Fleet and CINCPOA, to COMINCH and CNO, 20 Oct 44, sub: Centralization of Control of Dry Cargo Shpg in POA, folder 10a Shpg Cen Pac, ASF Plng Div.
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ties on operational requirements, it did not itself requisition supplies from the United States. These requisitions continued to flow through the separate channels of the two services, the Army including those supplies it was to furnish the Navy in its calculations and the Navy those it was to provide the Army.38
The joint logistical system in the Pacific, then, was far from simple, or even uniform for all theaters. It might best be described as a congeries of local arrangements, varying in nature and effectiveness, for furnishing supplies and personnel and for transporting them to the points where needed scattered throughout the Pacific theaters, for reconciling the conflicting demands of theaters, areas, and bases, and for providing at least an element of cohesiveness to the widely differing supply systems of the Army and Navy. If the committees of the JCS and the supply authorities of the War and Navy Departments presided over the whole process, they did not, and could not, dictate the exact form the Pacific logistical system would take.
38 This required the establishment of a principle of nonreimbursement between services for supplies so furnished. See: (1) WD Memo W-35-14-43, 10 Jun 43, title: Nonreimbursement Policy in Respect to Authorized Transfer of Material, Equipment Supplies and Services between Army and Navy Components Outside Continental U.S. (2) TAG Ltr to Distr List, 7 Jan 44, sub: Transfer of Army Supplies and Equipment to Navy in Overseas Theaters; Ltr, CNO to Distr List, 31 Jan 44, sub: Transfer of Navy Supplies . . . . (3) Ltr, CINCPOA to CG, USAFICPA et al., 12 May 44, sub: Interchange Without Reimbursement of Material . . . in CPA. Last two in OPD 400 Hawaii, Sec 2, Case 36. For accounts of transfers in POA rendered each month see monthly letters, CINCPOA to CofS and CNO, sub: Exchange of Materials, Services and Supplies Without Reimbursement between A and N, in folder 12a Genl CPA, and OPD 400 Hawaii, ASF Plng Div Theater files.
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GLOBAL LOGISTICS AND STRATEGY: 1943-1945 was the control exercised over shipping at the several echelons of command. Through control of shipping the JCS committees exercised priority control over supply shipments to the Pacific theaters, and theater commanders in their turn controlled the movement of those supplies in support of operations and provided for the co-ordination between Army and Navy that could not be achieved in the actual operation of supply lines.
The most they could do was to lay down general plans for guidance, such as the Basic Logistical Plan of March 1943, and determine priorities when critical resources were involved. Perhaps the system's greatest strengths were in its flexibility and its adaptability to peculiar conditions, to personalities, and to changes in operational plans. Any examination of the system shows, as might well be expected from the nature of the Pacific theaters, that its central feature
CHAPTER XIX
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Fortunately, surpluses turned up in the Atlantic shipping pool at certain critical junctures, and diversions from that pool helped to solve a shipping crisis in the Pacific in late 1943 and another one in early summer 1944. By fall 1944, in the face of a new and more formidable crisis, it appeared once more as though the Atlantic pool would have to be tapped to meet a deficit that had become, in the language of the shipping authorities, "unmanageable." In each recurrent crisis, the JCS and JMTC sought to tighten the reins of control over the use of transpacific shipping by theater commanders for local purposes. Their efforts were never completely successful, nor could the JMTC determine any effective strategic priorities between theaters as long as the advance was authorized along two axes on what amounted to equal priority. The allocation of merchant shipping was carried out, much like the determination of strategy, largely on an ad hoc basis. Each crisis was met as it occurred, and long-term calculations of shipping requirements proved ephemeral. No system for definitely controlling theater retentions was established until June 1944, and no really effective pressure was exerted to prevent theater commanders from using ships as floating warehouses until the very end of that year. The prosecution of the advance along two lines in the Pacific was expensive in terms of cargo and personnel shipping, for these resources could not be used, as were parts of the Pacific Fleet and its amphibious adjuncts, alternately in one theater and then in the other. The Pacific pool was constantly augmented during 1943 and 1944 by new construction and transfers from the Atlantic, and ships
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lished reserve. This we do not have; indeed, we have a deficit against the presently calculated requirements.5
Douglas proved to be a good prophet. Both the Army and the Navy had to increase their requirements for cargo sailings to the Central Pacificthe Army, for instance, from 14 to 27 for the month of November. In the meantime, prospects that even the Quebec schedule could be met had been considerably diminished by an increase in operational requirements in MacArthur's theater and by the failure of ships to return from voyages to SWPA on schedule.6 Since mid-1942 MacArthur had been sporadically holding WSA ships in his theater for use in transporting troops and supplies between Australian ports and from Australia to New Guinea. Though WSA protested continually, he really had little alternative if he was to continue his offensivethe few combat loaders he had and the permanent local fleet at his disposal were totally inadequate for his needs. The permanent local fleet was made up mostly of small vessels ranging from 2,000 to 5,000 tons, Dutch vessels and Lake steamers sent from the United States, though it also included a few Libertys on permanent assignment to the Army. It was growing and would continue to do so, but never fast enough to keep pace with the theater's needs. At the time of the Quebec Conference SWPA was retaining 21 transpacific Libertys. If the practice were to continue, it clearly had to be
5 (1) Ltr, Douglas to Land, 22 Aug 43, WSA Conway File Quebec (1943). (2) Min, Joint A-N-WSA Ship Opns Com, San Francisco, 6 Aug 43. (3) On the JCS decision, see above, Chapter XVI. 6 Ltr, Ralph Keating, WSA to Adm Smith, Chief, NTS, and Gen Wylie, ACofT, 8 Oct 43, folder Shpg 1943SWPA, OCT HB Overseas Comd File.
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GLOBAL LOGISTICS AND STRATEGY: 1943-1945 if certain impending additions to the permanent local fleet were counted, other cargo ships arriving in SWPA returned expeditiously, and the prospect
regularized, and MacArthur took the first step in that direction in mid-August. Pointing to the need for moving 75,000 additional troops with their supplies
from Australia to New Guinea to com- of further cutbacks in sailings from the plete the CARTWHEEL operation, he United States accepted. In the more critasked the War Department that he be ical field of passenger ships, they could permitted to retain the 21 Libertys he promise MacArthur only four of a relaalready had and to increase this number tively undesirable type and of considto 71 by 15 October. He also asked for erably less than the required capacity. 10 freighter transports of an average MacArthur accepted the solution, except
1,500-2,500 capacity, and reiterated that he would need all the accretions to his
for the part pertaining to further reductions in sailings to his theater, which he
permanent fleet that had been promised. insisted would result in "operational "It is coming to be evident," said Mac- failure."8 Arthur, The promised quick turnaround of ships in SWPA failed to materialize, and that sustained effort may be impossible in for some time afterward accounting of this theater because of lack of mobility
which effectively prevents taking advantage of hostile weaknesses developed or successes gained. Each successive operation will be delayed for purposes of concentration, thus allowing the Japanese to reconsolidate ahead of our offensive effort. This results from lack of shipping. If any form of limited offensive is to be continued, heavier concentrations must be on hand closer to the combat zone and ships must be on hand to carry these concentrations to forward staging areas and maintain them there. Because of the inadequacies of port facilities in the forward areas and the considerable period of time required to build them, reserves of supplies, equipment and personnel must be held afloat, immediately available to follow our offensive efforts.7
the number of retentions remained in a muddle. There seems to have been some confusion in Washington circles as to the distinction between vessels permanently allocated to the SWPA local
fleet and temporary retentions, and the War Department lacked information on departures from SWPA ports. By midOctober, the ASF was contending that MacArthur had his quota of 71 Libertys, while MacArthur insisted he was
8 (1) Msg C-4907, MacArthur to WAR, 19 Aug 43, CM-IN 14061. (2) Msg 74-WAR-75-W-36, Somervel to MacArthur, 18 Aug 43, folder Australia Mar 1942Aug 1944, OCT HB Wylie File. (3) Msg 57, Hull to Handy and Somervell, QUADRANT-KKAD, 15 Aug 43, OPD Exec 5, Item 11. 7 9 (1) Msg, MacArthur to CG ASF, CM-IN 10721, (1) Exchange of msgs between Somervell and 14 Aug 43. (2) Masterson, Transportation in SWPA, MacArthur, 19 Oct-31 Nov 43, folder Australia pages 319-76, contains a full discussion of Mac- March 1942-August 1944, OCT HB Wylie File. Arthur's local fleet. (2) Masterson, Transportation in SWPA, pp. 319-76.
SHIPPING IN THE PACIFIC WAR further accentuated by increased Army requirements for shipments to the CBI as a result of the QUADRANT plan for acceleration of the development of the line of communications there.10 The result was an extremely muddled situation. By mid-September troop movements to the Central Pacific were running 45 days behind schedule and, though cargo shipping was sufficiently plentiful to synchronize movements to that area with troop movements, there was, in the aggregate, a shortage of both types. At the same time, cargo for the South and Southwest Pacific piled up in ports and at holding and reconsignment points, and long-standing requisitions went unhonored. The cutback in shipping schedules for SWPA in particular had not been synchronized with the requisitioning of supplies, causing confusion that was not cleared up for some months.11 The supplies and equipment projected for the CBI, the lowest priority theater, also began to pile up. The need for the "unpublished reserve" that Douglas had stipulated was more than evident. Fortunately, an unpublished reserve did develop in the Atlantic. "We are short of tonnage on the Pacific Coast and long on the Atlantic Coast," a WSA 12 official noted on 8 October. But utilizing the Atlantic surplus was not so simple a matter as it at first might seem. WSA first proposed to move CBI shipments back to the east coast but the Army Transportation Corps protested that this would necessitate reversing an
See below, ch. XXI. For the effects of this situation on the Pacific supply situation see below, Chapter XX. 12 (1) Ltr, Keating to Smith and Wylie, 8 Oct 43. (2) See also above, ch. IX.
11
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already established flow of troops and equipment through staging areas and depots. The ultimate decision was to use east coast facilities for shipping bulk loads of subsistence, construction supplies, and other special project materials that did not have to accompany troops, not only to the CBI but also to the Pacific theaters. Besides a number of troop transports, 63 cargo ships sailed from east and Gulf coast ports to Pacific and Far East destinations in October, November and December 1943, and in early January 1944. Some of the freighters were adapted to carry small numbers of troops. Nearly all the ships returned to the Pacific coast at the end of their voyages to join the Pacific pool.13 The crisis was thus resolved. The needs for the build-up for the Gilberts and Marshalls were met, the shipments for the CBI line of communications went forward as planned, and even the deficits for the Southwest Pacific did not prove as serious as anticipated. By 22 December the San Francisco Committee could report that there were more cargo vessels on the Pacific coast than were needed to meet military demands. The converted freighters becoming available after 1 January 1944 were expected to overcome quickly the deficit in troop movements to the South and Southwest Pacific. Meanwhile, at the SEXTANT Conference the planners boosted Pacific allocations for 1944 well over
13 (1) Min, Joint A-N-WSA Ship Opns Com, San Francisco, and Vessel Allocation and Cargo Subcom, Sep-Dec 43. (2) Memo, Chief Ocean Traffic Br, for Control Div, OCT, 4 Dec 43. (3) Memo, Col Magruder, Dir Opns ASF, for Gen Lutes, 3 Nov 43, sub: Cargo Movement to Pacific Areas, folder 10a Shpg Cen Pac, ASF Plng Div. (4) Memo for Diary, Col Vissering, OCT, 9 Oct 43, sub: Policy Covering Shipments from the East Coast, folder Pac Areas, OCT HB.
10
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the quantities assigned at QUADRANT, taking advantage of a much improved shipping situation to provide for the needs of an accelerated advance.14
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Australia to New Guinea as the receiving point for supplies from the United States. By the time Marshall's cable was received they were able to point to a much improved situation as ports further forward, particularly Finschhafen, opened up to receive the shipping held at Milne Bay, and port operations at Milne Bay itself were vastly improved by development of facilities and arrival of more service troops. By the end of March Marshall was congratulating MacArthur on his success in clearing up the situation, citing it as an "outstanding example of vigorous and effective action in the solution of a difficult problem."17 The problem was, nevertheless, not entirely solved, as sporadic congestion continued both at Milne Bay and in forward areas such as Finschhafen, and later at Hollandia.18 The Leyte operation was to prove that SWPA had not yet learned the lesson of close scheduling of shipments to forward areas but evidently preferred to take the risk of tying up shipping in order to insure adequate supply. And from mid-1943 onward the long delays in the return of ships from the Southwest Pacific, either because of failure to unload rapidly or because of retention in the theater for operational purposes, seriously affected the entire Pacific shipping situation. To a lesser degree the same held true of the
(1) Msg WAR 15402, Marshall to MacArthur, 28 Mar 44. (2) Messages exchanged between AGWAR and SWPA in period 21 Jan-28 Mar 44, and other correspondence in OCT 565.2 SWPA 1944. (3) Min, Joint A-N-WSA Ship Opns Com, San Francisco, 4, 11, 18, 25 Feb, 17 Mar 44. (4) Msg 313, Douglas to Brown, WSA, Sydney, 18 Feb 44, folder Australia, WSA Douglas File. (5) Douglas Diary, 4 Mar 44, Record of Telephone Conversation with Brig Gen John M. Franklin, folder SWPac, WSA Douglas File. (6) Masterson, Transportation in SWPA, p. 781. 18 Masterson, Transportation in SWPA, p. 782.
17
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Pacific theaters, the shortage soon took on crisis proportions. A request from Nimitz for shipping to supplement the combat loaders and auxiliaries of the Pacific Fleet in the Marianas operation arrived in early March, just about the time that operational shipping requirements for OVERLORD and ANVIL were mounting. CINCPOA asked for 18 AK's and for 2 AP's of the Liberty type capable of carrying 1,100 troops each for April; 18 AK's and 17 AP's capable of carrying 1,600 troops each for May; and an additional 17 AK's for June. On 14 The Cargo Shipping Shortage March Admiral King recommended to of Mid-1944 the JCS that these ships be provided Slow turnaround, combined with in- substantially as requested.20 creased demand for operational shipping It was soon obvious that meeting attendant on the speed-up in Pacific King's and Nimitz' request would necesoperations in early 1944, made the favor- sarily involve some curtailment of other able shipping situation on the west coast Pacific services. On 25 March WSA inat the turn of the year short lived. On formed the JCS that Pacific require16 February the San Francisco Commit- ments from April onward could not be tee foresaw a shortage of vessels for met and presented a tabulation showing March loading possibly as high as 25 deficits of 23 cargo sailings in April, to 30 ships "due in part to a decrease in 28 in May, 47 in June, and 48 in July. the number of new deliveries, but for With the large military commitments in the most part . . . the result of ever- the Atlantic incident to mounting OVERincreasing . . . retentions and greater LORD any considerable aid from that length of retentions of vessels in the quarter seemed out of the question. The 19 South and Southwest Pacific areas." west coast program for construction of The committee also noted that the in- combat loaders, WSA pointed out, would creasing number of troop ships becom- cut heavily into new deliveries of mering available from conversions would re- chant ships in coming months. "Should quire a proportional increase in the the heavy tonnage of ships held awaitnumber of freighters to operate with ing discharge in forward areas (approxthem, and it foresaw an even more seri- imately 1,360,000 dead-weight tons as ous shortage of cargo ships in April and of March 1, 1944) be promptly rethe ensuing months unless remedial leased," Land and Douglas pointedly steps were taken. reminded the military leaders, "the cumWith the decisions in early 1944 to ulative deficiency might be substantially accelerate the advance in both main reduced but not, we believe, eliminat19
South Pacific up through the spring of 1944, but cancellation of the Kavieng operation and passage of that area to an inactive status brought an end to the acute phase. In the Central Pacific the problem of retentions, congestion, and slow turnaround never reached such alarming proportions, but delays did occur at Eniwetok, Saipan, Guam, and other points. And almost every month naval requirements for shipping to and within this theater expanded.
20
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A LIBERTY SHIP UNLOADING AT A DOCK IN ORO BAY, NEW GUINEA, while other vessels wait their turn.
ed."21 The JMTC, studying the problem, came up with somewhat different figures but approximately the same conclusions. They found there would be little problem in furnishing the necessary troopships for Nimitz, but that cargo shipping could only be supplied by drastic curtailment in programs not directly related to military operations. They would limit conversions for the present to minor alterations that required minimum time out of service, impress on Pacific commanders the necessity of returning vessels as rapidly as possible, and nudge the Maritime Commission on the delays in ship construction. Nevertheless, they
21
estimated deficits of 37 sailings in May, 54 in June, and 26 in July, and recommended that the War and Navy Departments review their prospective shipments to see what items could be postponed. The JMTC did not recommend any positive theater priorities as a basis for apportioning the deficit; it simply adopted the principle that needs for major operations should, when reduced to minimum essentials, be given an inviolate priority, while any reduction should be applied against routine maintenance requirements for all Pacific theaters.22 While the JMTC proposals were
22
Memo, Land and Douglas for JCS, 25 Mar 44, JCS 762/1, 29 Mar 44, rpt by JMTC, title: Amended folder JCS 1944, Box 122894, WSA Conway File. Shpg Reqmts for Pacific Opns.
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GLOBAL LOGISTICS AND STRATEGY: 1943-1945 gested a conference of representatives of all three Pacific areas on ways and means of absorbing the deficits. The Pacific Shipping Conference, held 18-25 April 1944, subjected the whole situation to a searching review by Army, Navy, WSA, and theater representatives. All approaches were discussed reduction of requirements, improved turnaround, reduction of retentions and diversions, and increased direct loading on the west coast for forward areas but none of the suggestions elicited any really positive response from theater representatives or pointed the way to any
pending before the JCS, the ASF turned to an evaluation of Army requirements with a view to making desired reductions. General Gross queried MacArthur on the possibility of reducing retentions, by this time well above the approved
limit of 71 Libertys. MacArthur came back with a request for an increase. He pointed out that in the advance along the New Guinea coast a large proportion of his supplies must be transshipped from Australiathe bulk of the rations, POL and some construction supplies for American forces, and virtually all the supplies for Australian troopsacross approximately 2,200 miles of water to for- real solution. Spokesmen for Nimitz and ward bases. He said he would need to MacArthur insisted that their requireretain, besides his permanent fleet, 99 ments, both for retentions and outward Libertys in April, 145 in May, 153 in sailings, had already been reduced to a
June, 148 in July, 146 in August, 161 in September, 149 in October and November, and 195 in December. Faced with these estimates, General Marshall asked that the JMTC reconsider the Pacific shipping situation in order to bring the increased requirements of both Nimitz and MacArthur into their proper relation. The JMTC could no more question MacArthur's operational requirements than it could Nimitz'; they therefore decided that any deficits must
be absorbed by outward sailings from the United States. None would result in April, it now appeared, but in May the deficit was assessed at 56 sailings, at 85 in June, and 35 in Julyabout one-third of scheduled Pacific sailings during those months. "Only by a sterner approach to
minimum. The first suggestions from WSA that some shipping might be available from the Atlantic were therefore doubly welcome. The solution to the Pacific shipping problem at last was found when the final decision to cancel a July invasion of southern France freed something over 200 vessels for diversion from the Atlantic to the Pacific during the rest of 1944. With this prospective windfall, the conferees were able to
draw up a shipping schedule that conGen Wood, Dep Dir Plans and Opns, ASF, for Dirs Supply and Plng Divs, ASF, 30 and 31 Mar 44, sub: Amended Shpg Reqmts for Pacific Opns (JCS 762/1), folder Shpg Conf, ASF Plng Div files. (3) Msg, WAR 14990, AGWAR to CINCSWPA, 28 Mar 45. (4) Msg, C-10245, CG Rear Echelon, GHQ SWPA, to AGWAR, 31 Mar 44, Incl B, JMT 50/2/D, 31 Mar 44, title: Amended Shpg Reqmts for Pacific Opns. (5) OPD notes on JCS 762, 30 Mar 44. (6) Memo, Lt Col Florence T. Newsome, Asst Secy WDGS for Secy JCS, 1 Apr 44, sub: Amended Shpg Reqmts for Pacific Opns. Last two in ABC 561 Pacific (6 Sep 43) Sec 1A. (7) Min, 156th mtg JCS, 2 Apr 44, Item 1. (8) Ltr, Gen Marshall to Adm Land, 8 Apr 44, folder JMTC Papers Jan-Mar, Box 122894, WSA Conway File.
the doctrine of bare necessities," reported the JMTC, "can cargo shipping support the contemplated operations in both theaters."23 The committee sug23 (1) JCS 762/2, 4 Apr 44, rpt by JMTC, title: Amended Shpg Reqmts for Pacific Opns. (2) Memos,
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CBI for an air commando project. On 5 May they directed the JMTC to make adjustments for these factors and then to proceed with allocations to the Pacific theaters for May, June, and July in accordance with the recommendations of the shipping conference, with the proviso that the Marianas assault, the subsequent development of B-29 bases in those islands, and MacArthur's reduced retention requirements should have an absolute first priority, with deficits to be apportioned among all Pacific theaters, including the CBI, against maintenance tonnages. Theater commanders were instructed to set up priorities immediately on cargo for their areas, dividing them into (1) indispensable, (2) necessary, and (3) desirable, as a guide for mainland shipping agencies. Commanders were warned that retentions should be kept under "continual examination" and reduced when possible. MacArthur was asked to forward detailed plans for operations between Hollandia and Mindanao on the assumption that forces in his area would not be increased beyond temporary diversion of naval combat ships and assault transport from POA when feasible.25 Following these decisions, the JMTC was able to reduce the deficit in May
(1) JCS 762/4, 5 May 44, rpt by JPS, title: Shpg Reqmts and Availabilities for Pacific Opns. (2) Memos, Gen Roberts, OPD, for Rear Adm Donald B. Duncan, 28 Apr 44; Memo, Gen Tansey for Chief S&P Gp, OPD, 1 May 44, sub: Shpg for CBI. Both in ABC 561 Pac (6 Sep 43) Sec 1A. (3) JPS 445/1, 2 May 43, title: Shpg Reqmts and Availabilities for Pacific Opns. (4) Memo, Wood for Somervell, 1 May 44, sub: JCS 762/3 . . . . and related papers in ASF Plng Div File Shpg Conf. (5) JMT 50/6, 4 May 44, title: Shpg Reqmts and Availabilities for Pacific Opns. (6) Ltr, Capt Conway, WSA, to Adm Smith, Dir NTS, 3 May 44, Reading FileApr-May 44, Box 122893, WSA Conway File.
25
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Source: JCS 762/3, 25 Apr 44, title: Shipping Requirements and Availabilities for Pacific Operations.
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from 9 to 7, in June from 26 to 24, in manders would be responsible for holdJuly from 38 to 25. These deficits were ing retentions within the quotas set for then allocated proportionately to the them, though in case of "emergency milPacific theaters, and the JCS sent the itary need" they might make arrangeresulting figures to the San Francisco ments for temporary additional retenCommittee as the ship allocations for tions directly with WSA representatives the months of May, June, and July. in their theater. When vessels were reThe net effect of the shipping crisis, tained to haul supplies between areas therefore, was to produce neither any (as from the South Pacific to SWPA or curtailment of scheduled operations nor Central Pacific), they would be charged any clear priorities on shipping among to the theater of destination. Retention the Pacific areas. At the same time it pools were to be maintained by interdid result in impressing on Pacific com- changing vessels arriving from the Unitmanders the "critical shortage of ships" ed States from time to time in such a and brought the JMTC, acting for the way as to permit all vessels to return JCS, much more actively into control periodically to the United States. Trans26 of Pacific allocations. port diversions (covering vessels with A by-product of the conference was troop capacity over 500) would be conthe development of a system for classi- trolled by the JMTC under a similar fication and control of shipping in the- system.27 ater pools. Vessels available to theater The JMTC exercised its tighter concommanders were to be divided into trol by periodic review and revision of three groups: permanent local fleets, ro- schedules arranged after the shipping tational retentions, and transport diver- conference. In early June a final review sions. Vessels in the first category would of June-July figures produced a further be assigned permanently to the theater reduction in deficits because of the shift and were to be completely under theater of 15 additional vessels from the Atlantic control. Rotational retentions, that is, to the Pacific. At the same time tentacargo ships held for temporary periods, tive allocations were set up for the periwould be subject to control by the od August-December and, to give the JMTC, acting for the JCS. Requests San Francisco Committee more lead time for rotational retentions in each area in designating individual ships, the sysfor both Army and Navy would be con- tem of making final allocations for two solidated by the theater commander and months in advance rather than one was presented to the JMTC for review. The adopted. The June figures still showed JMTC, with approval of the JCS, would deficits of 21 sailings for that month, 17 establish quotas for each theater for for July, 32 for August, 23 for Septemdefinite periods of time. Theater com- ber, and 7 for October to be apportioned among the theaters, but there is little evidence that these deficits actually ma26 (1) JCS 762/5, 13 May 44, rpt by JMTC, title: Shpg Reqmts and Availabilities for Pacific Opns. (2) JMT 50/7/D, 8 May 44, same title. (3) The contingent requirement for the CBI air commando
27
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GLOBAL LOGISTICS AND STRATEGY: 1943-1945 began to swing again as retentions and congestion delayed turnarounds and a new acceleration of Pacific operations produced larger and larger requirements. By August a greater and more serious deficit, rather than a surplus, seemed in store for the fall. The first disturbing element was an increased operational requirement from the Central Pacific received on 28 July for some 17 additional sailings in August and 20 in September for the Palaus operation. The JMTC, following the principle that operational requirements must get first priority, had little choice but to meet Nimitz' request and apportion the resulting deficit on maintenance shipments to all theaters. The deficit tended to grow as ships going out to both SWPA and POA took increasingly long periods to return. For the time, the congestion problem seemed equally serious in the two theaters, centering at Hawaii and Eniwetok in the Central Pacific and at Milne Bay and Finschhafen in the southwest. A WSA analysis of Pacific shipping at the end of August 1944 showed some 229 vessels en route and 301 in port in far Pacific areas. When weighed against a total requirement of 182 outward sailings, a requirement barely met, the heavy cost of long turnarounds is evident.30 But the trouble was only beginning in August. The midSeptember decision to again accelerate
(1) Min, 81st mtg JMTC, 27 Jul 44, Item 3; 82d mtg, 31 Jul, Item 1; 83d mtg, 17 Aug 44, Item 4; 84th mtg, 21 Sep 44, Item 1. (2) Memo, Adm Smith for JMTC, 27 Jul 44, sub: Increased Shpg Reqmts for Pacific, folder JMTC Papers Jul-Aug 44, Box 122894, WSA Conway File. (3) Monthly Rpt #2 for Aug 44, T. J. White, WSA Rep, POA, to F. M. Darr, Dir of Traffic, WSA, folder Traffic Dept Monthly Rpts, Box 122876, WSA Conway File. (4) Min, Joint A-N-WSA Ship Opns Com, San Francisco, 4 Aug
30
terialized during the summer months.28 By persuading the Navy to permit fast ships to proceed unescorted on the Caribbean run, WSA was able to produce still more ships from the Atlantic; then too, both Army and Navy requirements proved somewhat inflated. At least on 16 July Capt. Granville Conway of WSA could write that the Pacific crisis had "evaporated" after the "heroic measures" taken to meet it (partly, he thought, because the Navy had overestimated its July requirements) and during that month the Army found itself searching for cargo to fill all ships 29 presenting on the Pacific coast.
The Deficits Become Unmanageable
The favorable situation was again short lived. Very soon the pendulum
(1) JCS 762/7, 7 Jun 44, rpt by JMTC, title: Shpg Reqmts and Availabilities for Pacific Opns. (2) JCS 762/8, 21 Aug 44, rpt by JMTC, title: Notice of Approved Allocation of Sailings to Pacific Areas. (3) Decision Amending JCS 762/8, 4 Sep 44. (4) Memo, Brig Gen Carl A. Russell for Gen Handy, 25 Aug 44, sub: JCS 762/8. . . . (5) Memo, Gen Roberts for Asst Secy, WDGS, 26 Aug 44, sub: Notice of Approved Allocations of Sailings to Pacific Areas. (4) and (5) in ABC 561 Pac (6 Sep 43) Sec 1A. (6) The JMTC first proposed to make these allocations and notify theater commanders on its own authority, but the JCS decided that it must be done through regular Army and Navy channels. See (3), (4), and (5), and JMT 50/16, 7 Sep 44, same title, with related papers in ABC 561 Pacific (6 Sep 43) Sec 1A. 29 (1) Ltr, Conway to Reed, Mission for Economic Affairs, London, 16 Jun 44, Reading File June-July 44, Box 122893, WSA Conway File. (2) Memo, Lutes for Somervell, 2 Jul 44, sub: Backlog of Cargo, Pacific Coast, folder POA 1942 thru Mar 1945, Lutes File. (3) Memo, Adm Smith for Rear Adm F. S. Low, CofS, 10th Fleet, 9 Jun 44, sub: Alterations to the Convoy System, folder Navy 1944, Box 122894, WSA Conway File. (4) Min of Joint A-N-WSA Ship Opns Com, San Francisco, May-Jul 44. (5) On the improvement of the situation in the Atlantic during this
28
44, Item 1.
SHIPPING IN THE PACIFIC WAR operations and invade Leyte two months ahead of schedule soon threw off all previous calculations and expanded the Pacific shipping deficit to unmanageable proportions. The JMTC issued stern warnings in August that meeting the schedule of Pacific shipping would depend upon prompt return of vessels to the U.S. west coast, but its warnings had no real teeth in them and in the logistical confusion that followed the sudden switch to the Leyte plan, SWPA found it necessary to disregard them. The decision to invade Leyte in force in October posed an almost impossible burden on SWPA's logistical planners who had previously had their sights set on smaller operations in October and November against Talaud and Mindanao. The introduction of XXIV Corps from the Central Pacific further complicated the problem and there was little time to plan the flow of shipping. What plans they had were thrown out of kilter by the difficulties encountered after the landing in developing exit roads from the beaches, so that ships were held as floating storehouses for want of facilities ashore. The result was shipping congestion that dwarfed previous tie-ups at Noumea, Guadalcanal, and Milne Bay. It first reached considerable propor-
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prime mover in the situation. Some months afterward MacArthur, defending his theater before ASF officers, "accepted full blame for any congestion of shipping by stating that it was on his orders to move ahead in spite of the fact it would cause logistic confusion, that his own staff officers had advised him he would have congestion, but that he felt that the goal of getting into Manila ten months ahead of schedule was worth some supply difficulties." General Wylie of the Transportation Corps felt constrained to add that "what he did not mention was that his own staff was very slow in adjusting themselves to the change," and in canceling shipping from the zone of interior that could not be unloaded in the theater anyway.31 Whatever the cause, the situation rapidly took on crisis proportions. On 18 October, with the Leyte task force en route, 86 vessels were in Hollandia harbor12 discharging, 33 awaiting discharge, 24 awaiting call to Leyte, 3 load-
ing, 5 waiting to load, and 10 simply classified "miscellaneous." Of the 45 vessels awaiting discharge or actually discharging, 38 were cargo ships of which only 9 had actually been scheduled by the Chief Regulating Officer, according to his statement. He thought the supplies tions at the principal regulating and on the other 29 ships "could just as well transshipment point at Hollandia, and have remained in the United States, besoon spread out. The system operated cause they are no closer to being in the by the Chief Regulating Officer, GHQ, hands of troops while idly awaiting disworked badly by all accounts, and the (1) Quoted in Rpt, ACofT for Opns (Gen movement of shipping into both HolWylie), undated, sub: Notes on Trip from Washlandia and Leyte Gulf was poorly co- ington to POA and SWPA, 19 March to 22 April ordinated, with subordinate elements 1945, folder Pacific-Rpts of Visits, OCT HB, Wylie ignoring CREGO's priority orders. File. (2) Masterson, Transportation in SWPA, pp. (3) Min, 83d mtg JMTC, 17 Aug 44, Item 4. CREGO was, nevertheless, perhaps more 782-84. (4) Cannon, Leyte: The Return to the Philippines, the victim of circumstances than a pp. 184-87.
31
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GLOBAL LOGISTICS AND STRATEGY: 1943-1945 since 1942 thus appeared to be taking shape. In the immediate context of the Pacific shipping situation, an actual deficiency of 10 notional sailings occurred in October 1944 against stated requirements, and by early November Somervell was estimating the prospective military deficit in that area for November at 79 sailings, at 83 in December, 64 in January 1945, 64 in February, and 57 in March. These figures, representing 30 to 40 percent of total requirements for outward sailings in the Pacific during these months, obviously represented what the shipping authorities usually called "unmanageable" deficits. They were a central consideration, along with the shortage of service troops, in leading to the choice of Luzon over Formosa. They threatened to make even the former impossible unless additional shipping was transferred from the Atlantic or the idle theater pools of shipping were broken up. The JCS, WSA, and the President were soon to have to face up to this problem in the context of a full-scale war on two fronts that placed ever-increasing strains on American military resources.35
35
charge in the Hollandia harbor than if they had been held in San Francisco."32 As the Leyte operation developed the congestion worsened. On 5 December 1944 the Transportation Corps found the situation as follows: 72 vessels in Leyte harbor of which only 5 had completed discharge, 12 more en route from New Guinea, 39 awaiting call at other ports in SWPA, 70 en route from the United States, 28 loaded and awaiting call in the South and Central Pacifica total of 221 ships tied up in the Leyte operation. Also, rotational retentions in SWPA had mounted to 195, some of which undoubtedly were tied up in the Leyte congestion.33 This shipping congestion in SWPA began to develop at precisely the same time as, on the other side of the world, similar congestion was mounting in European waters as a result of the failure to take and develop adequate ports to support the rapid advance across France.34 To add to these pressures, there were competing demands for merchant shipping for civilian relief in Europe and for the new program to provide Siberian reserves for the USSR against the day of its entry into the war with Japan. A global cargo shipping crisis of larger proportions than any
32
Box 122876, WSA Conway File. (2) Msg, Somervell Memo, Dep CREGO GHQ, for DCofS GHQ, 18
to MacArthur, 5 Nov 44, copy in folder SWPac 1942
OCT HB Wylie File. 33 Memo, Col Ronald A. Hicks for Gen Wylie, 5 Dec 44, sub: Shpg Sit at Leyte, folder Shpg in Pacific 1944, Correspondence ASF-WSA, OCT HB Wylie File. 34 See above, ch. XV.
thru Apr 1945, Lutes File. (3) Ltr, Conway, WSA, to Gross, 2 Oct 44, folder Reading File Aug-Nov 44, Box 122893, WSA Conway File. (4) JCS 1173, 17 Nov 44, memo by CofS, USA, title: Remedies for Existing and Prospective Shortages in Cargo Shpg. (5) For the steps taken to resolve the crisis, see below. Chapter XXII.
CHAPTER XX
By the end of 1944 the Army was making shipments direct from the United States to over 70 different Pacific destinations. This required a degree of coordination between theaters and ports thousands of miles distant extremely difficult of attainment, as well as innovations in ordering and loading practices that forced the ports to assume some of the burden of retail distribution. Procedural Problems
Difficulties began in the very first stage of overseas supplythe shipment of troop units from the United States with their initial equipment and maintenance allowances. Seldom was either unit or convoy loading possible; to make full use of shipping space, equipment all too frequently followed troops in bits and pieces, shipped on many different vessels destined for different ports in the South and Southwest Pacific. In SWPA the practice of assigning all incoming units the code designation of Brisbane and actually designating other ports when the transports arrived at Wellington, New Zealand, further complicated the situation. Marrying up troops and equipment in the theaters was seriously delayed, and sometimes was never accomplished. The Army commander on Guadalcanal, when asked by General Somervell in September 1943
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what would be the greatest help from the United States replied simply: "Ship equipment with units when they are sent from the States. One air service unit arrived June 23rd and is just now receiving its equipment."3 In a similar vein, the chief Engineer officer in SWPA complained that many vital Engineer units could not go to work for as much as five months after arrival because equipment had been loaded on a multiplicity of ships and sent to scattered destinations in Australia and New 4 Guinea. General Somervell, alarmed about the situation, suggested a three-point solutionunit loading to the maximum extent practicable, advance naming of ports for which units were destined, and preshipment to those ports of equipment and maintenance supplies that could not be unit loaded. Only the second point really proved practicable. Unit loading as a regular practice simply was not conducive to efficient utilization of troop transports in the Pacific and had to be reserved for urgent cases. Nor was equipment available to permit a BOLEROtype preshipment program without deleterious effects on training. The only known instances of preshipment to a Pacific theater involved cases when a division moving from Hawaii to the South3 (1) Somervell Questionnaire, Guadalcanal, Question 12, Control Div, ASF, Somervell Trip file. (2) Masterson, Transportation in SWPA, pp. 270-77. (3) Alvin P. Stauffer, The Quartermaster Corps: Operations in the War Against Japan, UNITED STATES ARMY IN WORLD WAR II (Washington, 1956), pp. 147-50. 4 (1) Memo, Brig Gen Hugh J. Casey, Chief Engr SWPA, 18 Sep 43, sub: Shpg of Equipment with Units, Control Div ASF, Genl Engr Problem, Somervell Trip file. (2) Somervell Questionnaire, SWPA, Question 191, Control Div, ASF, Somervell Trip file.
ever completely solved. As late as the Philippine campaign, service troops at times could not do their jobs properly because their equipment had been shipped to the wrong base.6 The same factors of distance and excessive dispersion created even greater
5 (1) Masterson, Transportation in SWPA, pp. 27782. (2) The procedure was in consonance with that developed for the Joint Priority List; see above, Chapter XIII. (3) On the triple division move of the 33d, 24th, and 40th Infantry Divisions see ASF History of Mobilization Division, ASF, MS, OCMH, vol. VI, Sec 1, and papers in OPD 370.5 PTO Sec 3, Case 99. 6 Stauffer, The Quartermaster Corps: Operations in the War Against Japan, pp. 148-50.
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was supposed to correct tended to become a chronic condition.7 Minimum levels of supply for most classes, prescribed by the War Department in July 1943, were 90 days in SOPAC and SWPA and on the outlying islands in the Central Pacific, 75 days in Hawaii. Operating levels were set at 90 days in SWPA, 60 days in the South and Central Pacific. Maximum levels thus varied from 135 to 180 days. By mid-1943 the minimum levels had been generally achieved in the Pacific theaters for most classes of supply. At the same time the operating level, except in a few cases, was not very high. Moreover, so many critical shortages existed of individual items and of types and quantities specifically needed that the generally satisfactory over-all levels were deceptive. Then standard T/E and TBA allowances of equipment for many units were insufficient, quantitatively as well as qualitatively, and requisitions for additional quantities, or types better suited to the terrain, had to undergo extremely critical scrutiny by OPD and ASF.8 Lack of balance in types was aggravated by imbalance in geographical distribution. Satisfactory over-all supply levels for each theater did not neces7 (1) See above, Chapter VI, on the development of these procedures. (2) History Planning Div ASF, Text, II, 190-91. (3) Stauffer, The Quartermaster Corps: Operations in the War Against Japan, pp. 134-47 (4) Somervell Questionnaire. (5) Office of the Chief Engineer, General Headquarters, Army Forces Pacific, "Engineers of the Southwest Pacific, 19411945," vol. VII, Engineer Supply (hereafter cited as Engineers of SWPA, VII) (Washington, 1947), p. 104. 8 (1) Leighton and Coakley, Global Logistics, 194043, app. F-1. (2) See above, ch. VI. (3) Stauffer, The Quartermaster Corps: Operations in the War Against Japan, pp. 134-40. (4) Somervell Questionnaire, particularly answers to Question 13, Control Div, ASF, Somervell Trip file. (5) Engineers of SWPA, VII, 75-76, 108-12.
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GLOBAL LOGISTICS AND STRATEGY: 1943-1945 no one port ever assumed the full burden, and Pacific operations always were mounted and supported from a number of different bases that, in the aggregate, furnished the combined capacity that one of them alone did not possess. Until SWPA forces became firmly established in the Philippines, Australia continued to be the site of the major reserve bases in the theater, and in early 1945 theater stocks were scattered all the way from Sydney to Lingayen Gulf. Similarly, Hawaii served the Central Pacific as a distribution center for some supplies forwarded to advance bases, but never completely fulfilled the role of a central receiving and distributing point for all Army forces in the theater. General Richardson at first proposed to build up reserves on Hawaii in preparation for the Gilberts-Marshalls offensive and, with the support of Admiral Nimitz, secured a 2-division stockpile of replacement equipment over and above his normally allotted levels.10 But even in the Gilberts and Marshalls, it proved necessary to make direct shipments from the U.S. west coast, and very soon the whole idea of using Hawaii as the principal supporting base was abandoned in favor of shipping all supplies possible directly to advance bases from the port of embarkation. Nevertheless, the role of Hawaii continued to be an important one. The joint staff there prepared its logistical support plans based on co-ordinated shipments from both the United States and Hawaii to the Gilberts, Marshalls, Marianas, and Palaus; ships going out from the United States stopped
Charles H. Owens, Jr., Logistical Support of the Army in the Central Pacific, 1941-44, unpublished dissertation, Georgetown University, Washington, D.C., June 1954, pp. 77-78, copy in OCMH.
10
sarily mean satisfactory levels at each individual base. Transportation was never certain enough to make the reserve in Australia or New Caledonia available to meet shortages at such places as Oro Bay or Vella Lavella. Neither in the South nor in the Southwest Pacific was there any good central distributing point where supplies could be stocked in sufficient volume and variety and distributed through a theater supply system to both forward and rear bases. The two theaters struggled to establish orthodox theater distribution systems but not with outstanding success. In the South Pacific a general depot was established at Noumea in mid-1943 that stocked 30 days of reserve supply for all classes and complete replacement equipment for one regimental combat team, but it served mainly as a source of emergency supply rather than as the normal source on which outlying bases requisitioned.9 Large ports in Australia, such as Sydney and Brisbane, could serve as receiving points for most supplies from the United States and collecting points for those procured in Australia, but their utility as distributing centers was limited by inadequate overland transportation to points northward and by their distance from the eventual scene of operations in New Guinea and the Philippines. A new succession of base establishments along the New Guinea coastPort Moresby, Milne Bay, Finschhafen, and Hollandia, to mention the most importantbecame new entrepots for direct shipments from the United States. With the advance into the Philippines, first Leyte Gulf and finally Manila became the principal ports of entry. Still,
9
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and Kwajalein lost their importance, large backlogs of excess supplies built up. Because of the difficulties of selecting items needed at forward bases and the on the west coast. As the advance moved poor condition of much of the equipfarther across the Pacific, bases in the ment left behind, commanders were inMarianas, the Palaus, and in the South clined to reorder from the United States. Pacific took over some functions former- The forward areas had neither the perly performed in Hawaii.11 sonnel nor the facilities for handling The operation of such a diffuse dis- these supplies in bulk. The roll-up of tribution system inevitably involved a bases during 1943 and 1944 was theretremendous amount of waste, and made fore usually impracticable, and to some over-all theater control difficult. Multi- degree uneconomical. The port at San ple handling and transshipment at sev- Francisco was far better equipped to eral points took their toll in breakage, provide loads tailored to the needs of deterioration, and pilferage. Storage each base and each operation. north of Australia or New Caledonia Another complicating factor was the was usually inadequate, and deteriora- general lack of effective supply control. tion in open storage in a tropical climate Accurate accounting or inventory conappallingly swift. Rations spoiled, canvas trol by theater headquarters over the rotted, ammunition became unusable, many widely scattered bases in each area and machinery rusted. "There has been proved to be all but impossible during considerable wastage in all types of sup- periods of intense combat; and even at plies . . . ," wrote Somervell from the rear bases neither was perfect. As long as South Pacific in September 1943. "This most American forces remained in Ausloss has been particularly high in ammu- tralia, inventory control in SWPA seems nition and rations. No one really knows to have been relatively good, but once how much food has been spoiled. It is the movement to the more primitive certain, however, that as much as 50 bases on New Guinea began the situation percent of some types of ammunition got out of hand. "It was practically imhas gone to waste and hundreds of thou- possible for me," observed General sands if not millions of rations have Lutes on his visit to SWPA in August been lost."12 In June 1943 an observer 1943, "to determine what items are critithought at least 40 percent of the ra- cally short in this theater . . . a shortage tions in SWPA spoiled or unconsum- of some item at Port Moresby does not able.13 mean that the item is short in SWPA. Moreover, as once vital bases like Port Specific information at the front is not Moresby, Milne Bay, the Fiji Islands, helpful due to the fact that no one there can tell me whether a shortage is due (1) AFMIDPAC History, Part IV, ch. III, app. 2. to failure in the States or to inability to (2) ASF Hq Staff School, Lesson on Special Proceget the item forward from some Ausdures, Overseas Supply, 12 Apr 44, Log File, OCMH. Ltr, Somervell to Marshall, 27 Sep 43, Hq ASF tralian base. . . ."14
11 12
Stauffer, The Quartermaster Corps: Operations in the War Against Japan, p. 189.
14
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GLOBAL LOGISTICS AND STRATEGY: 1943-1945 Pacific SOS responded to a question from Somervell, "that from the standpoint of the War Department the main purpose of stock control is to prevent excessive accumulations of critical items in any given theater, at the expense of other theaters. In this connection, it can be stated that an excessive or unusable quantity of major critical items does not now exist in this Theater nor has it at any time in the past. In general, the reverse situation prevails."16 The same was true of the Southwest and to a lesser degree of the Central Pacific. Requisitions based on what the Pacific theaters conceived to be their needs piled up at San Francisco. ASF agencies were slow to adapt the supply machinery in the United States to filling them, particularly when they involved any unusual items or quantities. The shipping shortage in the summer and fall of 1943 made matters worse. Pacific theaters complained bitterly of overcritical editing and overlong delays in processing requisitions. In mid-August General Richardson, immersed in preparations for the forthcoming Gilberts and Marshalls offensive, told Lutes that the San Francisco port was editing his requisitions to the bone, to the point where he could not properly outfit task forces then being formed or meet other demands being placed on him from areas outside Hawaii. Port personnel, he said, had no knowledge of forthcoming operations that would permit them to edit intelligently; he asked that they therefore refrain from editing at all and fill his requisitions to the best of their ability. The request for cessation of editing was familiar, having been heard from
16 Somervell Questionnaire, South Pacific Area, Question 37, Control Div, ASF, Somervell Trip file.
In the South Pacific matters from the very beginning were even worse. General Lutes continually urged General Breene, the South Pacific SOS commander, to establish effective inventory control, and Breene made herculean efforts to comply, but simply did not have the personnel to accomplish the task for the eleven different bases and 400 separate organizations under his administrative control. Not until October 1944, when the South Pacific had become a rear base, did supply accounting become relatively accurate. At the advance bases in the Central Pacific the story was much the same as in New Guinea, with the added complication that Navy officers, in command at some bases, did not understand the intricacies of the Army's system of 15 calculating days and levels of supply. Given this inaccuracy in theater inventories, the supply status reports on which semiautomatic shipments were based obviously did not contain the sort of exact computations the ASF desired. Similarly, theater requisitions were more apt to reflect a general estimate of future need than a close reckoning of materials required to build up, balance, and maintain stock levels. Requisitions for totally unreasonable quantities though infrequent were not unknown, and their presentation strengthened the ASF conviction that all orders had to be carefully edited on the basis of projected troop strengths, allowances, and prescribed maintenance factors. To the theaters, on the other hand, the need to create reserves outweighed the need for careful accounting. "It is assumed," the South
(1) USAFISPA History, III, 513. (2) Lutes-Breene Corresp in folder SPA 1942-43-mid-44, Lutes File. (3) Ltr, Leavey to Lutes, 31 Mar 44, file 10a Shipment File 1 Feb to _______, ASF Plng Div.
15
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Atlantic as well as Pacific theaters on There has been too much disposition to of telegrams and not of numerous occasions, but the War De- get into exchanges 19 partment could hardly relinquish this supplies. . . . established control over the flow of supThe situation Somervell found in plies. Richardson's immediate complaint SWPA was, if anything, worse. There was met by instructions to forward a had been unconscionable delays in meetlist of materials for secret operations ing requisitions and a huge backlog of directly to the War Department; ap- SWPA orders had built up at San Franproved materials on the list were assigned cisco, many of them dating back to the a secret code designator, and the port early months of 1943. Despite the fact authorized to honor requisitions identi- that over-all levels were satisfactory (befied by the code against the approved tween 90 and 180 days) for most classes, SWPA officials could present a typelist. 17 Richardson's complaints, in any case, written list of critical shortages several had less justification in the fall of 1943 pages long. Engineer and transportation than those from the South and Southwest materials, the two most critical categories Pacific, for during this period prepara- in theater operations, were farthest in 20 tions for the Gilberts and Marshalls of- arrears. fensive got a higher priority on both supplies and shipping.18 From the South Improving the System Pacific, General Somervell wrote in September 1943: The growth of such a heavy backlog of requisitions at San Francisco had alThe level of supply fixed for the theater ready been noted by General Somervell has been placed at ninety days and it rewhen passing through that port on his quired one hundred and twenty days to process a requisition. In addition to this, way to the Pacific, and he ordered immethe Theater has never built up a reserve diate action to determine the causes and of T.B.A. equipment. Much of the equip- prescribe remedies. Control Division, ment now in the theater was subjected to grueling use; some motor equipment, for ASF, accordingly undertook a thorough example, has been in use for over three study, which was completed on 24
years and will need replacement. Owing to the wide-spread activities (some 3,000 miles across the area), it is necessary for the Theater Commander to have enough material in stock to effect prompt replacements for these items without having to await their arrival from the United States. All requisitions should be edited on the basis of providing for this stock. An examination of the time required to fill some of the requisitions placed on us does not reflect any credit on the Army Service Forces. Engineer materials are particularly bad.
17
November 1943. The report, called "Survey of Supply of Pacific Areas," revealed that of the total requisitions received at San Francisco from March 1942 through September 1943 some 40 percent were still outstanding at the end of the period. Fifteen percent of all outstanding requisitions were 90 days old or more. Figures for the technical services furnishing the
19 20
Questions 64-70, and comments thereon in indorsement by Col Harry A. Montgomery, Actg Chief,
Supply Div, OCE, 28 Oct 43, Control Div ASF, Somervell Trip file.
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most critical items were more startling 53 percent for Signal equipment, 55 percent for Ordnance, 58 percent for Engineers, and 85 percent for Transportation. The survey concluded that though shortages of supplies and of shipping were the primary factors behind the delays, numerous other causes contributedmislocation of stocks, inadequate planning, inept operations, cumbersome organization, faulty procedures, and improper record keeping, less specifically in the port than in the whole complicated supply network controlled by the technical services. When requisitioned materials were in port stocks they were normally shipped quickly; only occasional delays occurred when they were available at installations directly supporting the San Francisco port. The real troubles came when the materials had to come from other sources. The whole process tended to degenerate into
tive, and that its liaison with supply sources on the one hand and theaters on the other was entirely inadequate. Because it lost track of extracted requisitions it could not keep the theater posted on their fate. Cargo planning had to be confined to routine and automatic shipments and to expediting critical supplies singled out by the theaters. Priorities originally assigned by the theaters became outdated and meaningless. "Shipments . . . are largely based," wrote General Goodman of the New York port in a follow-up of the survey, "on whatever items the depots send in first, regardless of whether or not such items are most urgently needed by the theater."22 The Control Division report stimulated an intensive effort at improvement. Port stocks at San Francisco were enlarged and stocks at west coast filler and backup depots brought up to authorized levels; chiefs of technical services were instructed to make every effort to reduce the hundreds of transactions, each involving practice of dispersing extractions to nunumerous extracts, re-extracts, teletypes, requisitions, back orders, and other corre- merous regional depots and to speed up spondence and record-keeping . . . until the the operation of their distribution machtransaction is finally so complex that it inery. Procedures modeled on those at challenges comprehension. Instances were the New York port were installed at San noted where supply on requisition was made Francisco. The port's Overseas Supply in driblets for more than a year after the original receipt of the requisition. The pos- Division was strengthened and its followsibility of these supplies being received, up system revamped; the dateline system related to the proper requisition, and util- was instituted with its specific cutoff ized for the purpose requisitioned is con- dates for completion of the various steps sidered remote. The more complex the in processing a requisition; back orders transaction becomes the more difficult it were reviewed and requisitions canceled is to control: the greater is the possibility where they were no longer applicable; of failure.21 the port was instructed to set up a simIf the San Francisco port was not pler and more comprehensive system of initially responsible, the survey found keeping the theaters informed of the that the port's follow-up of extracted status of their requisitions. Lastly, and requisitions was perfunctory and ineffec21
22 Ltr, Gen Goodman to CG SFPOE, 16 Nov 43, sub: Action Necessary to Attain Objectives Directed by General Gross, OCT 401 POA 1943-44.
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Other improvements in procedures and greater mutual understanding of need among the theaters, the port, and ASF headquarters also played their part in producing smoother supply operations in the Pacific. With the inclusion of order and shipping time in the requisitioning objective, the problem of time lag in making semiautomatic shipments and filling requisitions became less acute, and the effect of the reductions in supply levels brought about by the McNarney Directive of 1 January 1944 was cushioned. Specific deficiencies in Pacific supply were pinpointed by General Somervell during his tour in the fall of 1943 and the ASF took corrective action in hundreds of specific instances to fill shortages, to supply types better suited to theater conditions, and to provide quantities in excess of TBA and T/E allowances when justified. In the theaters themselves, a better understanding developed of the proper methods of filing requisitions and preparing the Monthly Materiel Status Report. Even inventory control, though it had by no means reached perfection, was at least improved. Then, too, by the end of 1943 production of war materials in the United States had reached its peak, eliminating many of the over-all shortages that always played a more important role than procedural difficulties in preventing timely shipment of types and quantities 25 of supplies needed in the Pacific. Naturally, all the delays and frustrations in handling Pacific supply, many of them growing out of fundamental
25 (1) History Planning Div ASF, Text, II, 204-05. (2) Somervell Questionnaire, Control Div ASF, Somervell Trip file. (3) On war production see above, Chapter V; on order and shipping time and the effects of the McNarney Directive, see above, Chapter VI.
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The trend toward direct, specially loaded shipments from the United States to forward bases placed a far greater burden on the San Francisco port and the technical service installations serving it. The Control Division's 1945 survey cited the port's success in handling these kinds of shipment in 1944 as its outstanding achievement. Both of the main Pacific theaters moved in the same direction in this respect; the transition in POA, however, was more rapid than in SWPA and its procedures were more precise and systematic. POA stipulated the specific supplies to be shipped in each scheduled convoy for advance bases and forwarded its requisitions to the port on or shortly before the cutoff date. The supplies were then assembled from port and depot New Methods of Shipment stocks insofar as they were available, and If the over-all availability of supplies forwarded in accordance with the loadwas vastly improved, the old problem re- ing plan furnished by POA; if certain mained of providing, within theaters items were not available or were not having limited internal distribution fa- forwarded by the depots in time, the cilities, adequate quantities at the right requisitions normally were canceled. If time and place. By early 1944 the trend the supplies were still deemed essential was clearly toward direct, tailor-made by the theater, it could requisition them shipments from the United States rather again for the next convoy. than the accumulation of theater reserves SWPA's orders were not at first so and development of elaborate intrathe- closely related to either a specific loading ater ocean supply lines. By that time, plan or the prospective availability of any real danger of Japanese interruption shipping. Requisitions were presented in of Pacific shipping lanes had passed, mak- the first instance simply with a priority ing the maintenance of large reserve designation indicating relative urgency stocks for emergencies unnecessary. Au- at the time of ordering. The volume of thorized levels of supply in Pacific the- supplies ordered constantly exceeded the aters were therefore progressively re- shipping space available, and a chronic duced during 1944 until at the end of backlog of unfilled requisitions resulted, the year the maximum authorization for most classes stood at 90 days, including Planning Div ASF, Text, I, 142, and II, 203-05. both minimum and operating levels.26 (3) Stauffer, The Quartermaster Corps: Operations facts of geography, could not be eliminated. West coast ports were more distant from centers of American industrial production than ports in the east. Rail connections to western ports were far less adequate. Communications between port and theater over the long distances in the Pacific remained imperfect. The effects of a priority lower than that of the European theaters were felt in many ways. Limited cargo shipping, or, perhaps more accurately, limitations on reception capacity for this shipping at the far end of the line, combined with all the other factors to keep the Pacific supply situation, particularly in SWPA, from ever approaching what might, by American standards, be considered ideal.
(1) TAG Ltr, 29 Dec 44, sub: Overseas Sup Levels, AG 400 (12 Dec 44), OB-S-E-I. (2) History
26
in the War Against Japan, pp. 150-51. (4) History AFMIDPAC, Part IV, ch. III, app. 2. (5) Survey of Pacific Supply, 15 Jun 45, Control Div, ASF.
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any designated advance base. The port then had to initiate the necessary requisitions on its supporting depots and assemble and load the shipments. Block loading lent itself to any number of variations. The standard block load was most useful for staging supplies in the early phases of an assault. For replacement supplies solid block ships were instituted, each block containing the initial requirements for 1,000 men for a particular class of supply for 30 days. All types of supply could be spread out over a number of ships sailing in a given convoy or a specified shipping period. The numbers and kinds of blocks and the combinations of them tended to increase as the system came into more general use. In the Central Pacific requirements for the several types of blocks were established as part of CINCPOA's loading plan; ships carrying them moved to a regulating point from where they could be called forward into the area of operations for unloading at a pace determined by the development of reception capacity. Knowledge of the contents of each block enabled commanders in the forward area to know exactly what was on each ship and to call forward the ships in combinations best suited to their needs. In SWPA block loading was first used on a small scale in the Hollandia campaign and in increasing volume thereafter. It was employed extensively in the Philippines though the ships were actually designated resupply ships. Because Army operations in the Philippines were of larger proportions than any of its previous campaigns in the Pacific, the standard loads on the resupply ships consisted of all items required to support 10,000 men for 30 days. In addition
482
to the standard loads, SWPA's resupply ships also carried, as deck loads, DUKW's and landing craft to facilitate discharge over beaches or in ports wrecked by a fleeing enemy. Block loading was a partial solution to the problem of lack of facilities to establish an orthodox theater supply line. It was not a panacea for all ills, but a form of automatic supply that could be as wasteful as other forms if not carefully regulated. The determination of the composition of blocks was as difficult as that of any other type of requirements, a difficulty reflected in the constant change orders with which the San Francisco port had to cope. For the Army supply agencies in the United States also, it was a special supply procedure that had to be fitted into the existing system of reporting and requisitioning. Moreover, block shipments were adapted only to supplying routine needs that could be precalculated; other arrangements had to be made for special operational requirements. Nonetheless, Planning Division, ASF, concluded at the end of the war that block-loaded and resupply ships were the best method of providing supplies in the early stages of operations:
The Engineer effort in all three Pacific theaters was the most important single feature of logistics once troops were ashore. Since island battlegrounds had to begin with almost none of the installations required for the support of either air or ground forces, construction of a whole nexus of facilities was necessary at each new baseairfields, harbor and dock facilities, roads, hospitals, depots, water supply systems, maintenance facilities, troop housing, and so forth. The pace at which this construction proceeded affected every other aspect of the logistical process. For example, waste was always greatest where supplies had to stay in the open for any length of time; where roads were nonexistent supply had to depend upon the expensive process of airdrop. In the beginning, in both the South and Southwest Pacific, the shortage of both Engineer troops and equipment and of construction supplies was acute. In 1942 greatest reliance was on local procurement in Australia and New Zealand and on distress cargoes originally intended for the Dutch East Indies that were landed in Australia. By mid-1943 The usage made of these methods showed the source of supply was shifting rapidly they had the advantages of automatic supply and relieved theaters of the adminis- to the United States. The shift coincided trative load of preparation of requisitions. with the development, in Washington, They provided adequate quantities of sup- of the keyed projects system as the priplies immediately behind the assault forces mary method for ordering special operabut still permitted theaters to control quan- tional supplies over and above authortities and the rate of flow by ordering base construction blocks forward as needed, thus reducing ized allowances for and development.29 excesses.28
28 (1) History Planning Div ASF, Text, II, pp. 197200. (2) Stauffer, The Quartermaster Corps: Operations in the War Against Japan, pp. 150-59. (3) AFMIDPAC History, Part IV, ch. III, app. 2. (4)
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Requisitions for heavier equipment, for unit equipment in excess of TBA, and for larger and better balanced quantities of spare parts were presented as early as the fall of 1942 but there were long delays in filling them. Even the principle that extra quantities and heavier equipment were required was inadequately recognized until after Somervell's trip to the Pacific in the fall of 1943. At that time he noted that the Army engineers in the South Pacific had made a "particularly bad showing," attributable at least in part to failures in Engineer supply, and that the situation had been saved only by the presence of a large number of naval construction bat31 talions in the area. In SWPA, where the Army engineers carried the main construction burden, Somervell received a long bill of complaints from Brig. Gen. Hugh J. Casey, theater chief of engineers. Not only was TBA equipment too small and too light, Casey said, but also spare parts supply was poor, authorized supply levels too low, and supplies on hand in all too many cases below those levels. Requisitions on the United States were too critically edited or were filled too slowly to permit building a supply reserve. Along with improvements in supply procedures, Casey urged immediate shipment of heavy equipment in excess of TBA for all Engineer units in SWPA, more construction equipment for the Engineer special brigades so they could perform a dual role, increased stocks of spare parts, and establishment of a theater reaters During Period 5 Apr 43 to 14 Jul 43, file SWP, ASF Plng Div. (5) Karl C. Dod, The Corps of Engineers: The War Against Japan, UNITED STATES
ARMY IN WORLD WAR II (Washington, 1966). 31 Ltr, Somervell to Marshall, 27 Sep 43.
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serve stockpile of Engineer equipment 32 and construction supplies. The ASF had to recognize the justice of Casey's complaints but to remedy the deficiencies he cited was no easy task. Much of course was accomplished in the general improvement of the Pacific supply system in 1944. But heavy engineering equipment was in short supply and its allocation was handled on a strict priority basis by the Munitions Assignments Committee (Ground). Demands for it from every corner of the globe had been largely unanticipated. Quantity production was slow to get under
Memo, Casey, 18 Sep 43, sub: General Engineering Problems, with separate memos on individual problems, Control Div, ASF, Somervell Trip file.
32
way. Production lead time was long, and raw materials requirements were heavy. Thus improvement was once again a gradual process. It did prove possible to speed the flow of heavy equipment beginning in late 1943. TBA allowances were revised upward, and much equipment shipped in excess of TBA. The Engineer special brigades got their additional allotment. But General Casey was never able to create the reserve stockpile he wanted, and the supply of spare parts continued to be a major problem. Engineer supply levels generally remained low in SWPA until April 1944; from April to October they were built up considerably though there continued to be critical shortages, and problems of internal theater distribution were acute.
SUPPLYING THE ARMY IN PACIFIC THEATERS Then, beginning in October, the shipping situation led to a large backlog of unfilled requisitions for Engineer supplies. This contributed to a fairly critical shortage in certain specific categories 33 in the invasion of the Philippines. Meanwhile, the keyed projects system established by the War Department in mid-1943 was causing its own complications. Under that system, theaters were supposed to calculate their special project needs for base development and present bills of material well in advance as a guide to both long-range procurement and shipping plans. To do so required that they foresee the course of operations a year or more ahead, and determine the bases to be developed and the specific special supply requirements at each base. Pacific commanders were not gifted with such clairvoyance. Objectives of each operation were seldom determined far enough in advance. The operations themselves were all too frequently planned on such short notice that projects with their accompanying bills of material had to be presented almost simultaneously with the requisitions against them and indeed sometimes the requisitions preceded the bills. Major projects in the South and Central Pacific were almost invariably presented too late to affect procurement plans, and usually allowed only a short time to assemble the shipments themselves. The project for one of the most extensive, for instance, the development of a B-29
33
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base on Saipan, was sent in on 3 June 1944 with a deadline date for the first shipment of materials on 1 July. Operational project requirements for the Palaus invasion, scheduled for September 1944, arrived in ASF on 23 May, and most of the project requisitions on 4 June with a deadline for arrival of the first materials at port on 1 July.34 SWPA did provide estimates further in advance, but on a "typical," not a "specific," basis. Twelve projects were presented in 1943, each representing not the needs of any given area or operation but of those for particular types of construction such as airdromes, hospitals, port and harbor facilities, water supply systems, camps, storage and warehousing facilities, and so forth, that might be required in any typical objective of the SWPA advance. The twelve SWPA projects were really little more than bulk advance estimates of requirements, calculated on a very generous basis. They were accepted in Washington as a basis of procurement planning but not for
supply action. Each requisition against them had to be reviewed by ASF headquarters before the San Francisco port was authorized to ship materials to meet ita system of double ordering extremely irksome to SWPA engineers.35
(1) Engineers of SWPA, VII, 102-12, 124-40, 143-84. (2) Somervell Questionnaire, SWPA, Questions 64-70, Control Div, ASF, Somervell Trip file. 34 (1) History Planning Div ASF, Text I, 139-40, (3) Memo, Actg Dir Plng Div, for Dep Dir Pls and 147-50; text, II, 195-96, 213-22. (2) Engineers of Opns, ASF, 13 Dec 43, sub: Engineer Personnel and SWPA, VII, 103, 146-47. Sup in SOPAC Theater, file 5b C1 IV Sup Engr 35 (1) Engineers of SWPA, VII, 103, 147. (2) HisSPA, ASF Plng Div. (4) History Planning Div ASF, Text, I, 158-59. tory Planning Div ASF, Text, I, 143.
In mid-1944, the twelve SWPA projects were finally approved for supply as well as procurement, but SWPA was informed that for the forthcoming invasion of the Philippines, it must present its projects by area and not by type. Meanwhile in an effort to refine the
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GLOBAL LOGISTICS AND STRATEGY: 1943-1945 part the ASF was able to meet special demands on short notice and without any previous detailed blueprint of the base establishments. Special construction supplies were usually bulky, and shipping problems caused more delays than did inability to meet bills of materials presented late in the game. In the Philippines, for instance, after inevitable early delays because of the two months' acceleration of the invasion, project supplies ordered by SWPA were always available in much greater quantity than was shipping to move them or reception capacity in the Philippines to unload them. The real difficulties on Leyte and Luzon were the confused shipping situation, already described, which prevented movement of the supplies available, and the failure of SWPA authorities themselves to adjust their requests for supplies to available shipping space. And the major impact, in any case, was not to delay operations in the Philippines but to disrupt the timetable for 39 further advances against Japan. Clearly, the keyed projects system did require a level of detailed calculation that was practically impossible either in Washington or in the Pacific theaters, given the general lack of advance knowledge of geographic features of Pacific islands and the ever-accelerating pace of advance that produced shifting objectives and rendered time schedules quickly obsolete. Some method of anticipating special project requirements was essential, however, and the Pacific theaters had to bear their share of the burden. The projects system did force them to anticipate their requirements more than they might otherwise have done, and
39
project system, the ASF had transferred part of the "crystal ball" function to Washington, and itself was engaged in considerable planning for Philippine base development as a basis for procurement action.36 In the event, the invasion of Leyte was launched two months ahead of schedule, and operational supplies in the first stages had to come from materials ordered by SWPA for earlier campaigns in New Guinea or by the Central Pacific for the assault on Yap. Hurriedly prepared SWPA projects specifically designed for base development on Leyte were received in the War Department on 6 October 1944, only two weeks before the invasion, with a requested time schedule for shipment beginning in December and running through May 1945. Preparation of projects for the invasion of Luzon was only slightly less hurried.37 SWPA engineers were inclined to attribute much of the blame for the shortages of Engineer supplies and special project material that did develop in the Philippines to the cumbersome project system. Their historian has characterized it generally as "one of the major reasons for the tremendous difficulties experienced in engineer supply."38 This kind of criticism should not be allowed to obscure the considerable success achieved by the ASF in meeting operational requirements of Pacific theaters in 1943-44, though it was achieved very largely by not following the project system in any literal sense. For the most
(1) See above, ch. V, and below, chs. XXIII and XXIV. (2) History Planning Div ASF, Text, I, 156; text, II, 219-20. (3) Engineers of SWPA, VII, 148. 37 (1) Engineers of SWPA, VII, 146-49. (2) History Planning Div ASF, Text, I, 155-59; text, II, 232-39. 38 Engineers of SWPA, VII, 103.
36
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Army requirements in the Pacific largely by generous provision in the Army Supply Program for as many contingencies as possible.
equipment for local use. The supply of this equipment in both the Central and South Pacific was mostly a naval affair, though the Army did have specific requirements in these areas for various types of small boats, barges, and port equipment. The major requirements for water transportation equipment for Army use, however, arose from SWPA. SWPA's requirements ran the whole gamut of types; as two observers noted in early 1944, the theater's needs were so great it could use "anything that 41 floats." In general, though there was
some overlapping, these needs may be
ic, found establishment of requirements by type rather than area far more convenient. If the Navy system was wasteful in certain respectsthe over-all requirement for Lions, Cubs, Acorns, and their components were established on a generous basis and parts of the type base
were useless in specific locationsthe
BuDocks, Building the Navy's Bases in World War II, I, 120-28. See especially p. 120: "It soon became apparent . . . that . . . detailed planning for
40
specific locations was impractical, because it was not possible to draft the complete plans in sufficient time to permit procurement and shipment. . . . With
the establishment of . . . typical bases, accumulation of stocks at the advance base depots was simplified;
divided into two categories. The first was ocean-going vessels used for transport over long distances, and the second, smaller or less seaworthy craft for lighterage and other harbor work, amphibious landings, personnel and supply transport over shorter distances, towing, and floating storage. Of the local fleet of ocean-going vessels in SWPA, something has already been said. It started as a miscellaneous collection of Dutch, Chinese, and Siamese merchant ships in 1942 and was gradually expanded over the next two years by the addition of Liberty ships, Lake
Memo, Col Frank A. Bogart for Dir, Plng Div, ASF, 12 Feb 44, sub: Floating Equip and Small Cft Being Sent Overseas, folder Floating Equip, ASF Plng Div.
41
requirements could be determined in terms of the number and kind of unit needed."
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steamers, and vessels procured from other private sources in the United States and Australia. In late 1944 and early 1945 it was further augmented by the arrival of Baltic coasters from the West Indian trade, concrete steamers, and new C1-M-AV1's constructed in the United States. The total number of vessels in service in SWPA increased from 52 on 1December 1943 to 94 on 9 May 1945. The Baltic coasters and the C1-M-AV1's were by far the most satisfactory types, and their failure to arrive until very late in the war left MacArthur with only the old Dutch and Chinese vessels and the unsatisfactory Lakers during most of 1943 and 1944. These vessels were constantly in need of repair and neither the parts nor the facilities for this work were available anywhere north of Australia. The lack of either adequate quantity or quality in the local fleet was
tralian production program, launched early in 1942, provided by the end of 1944 2,712 small craft ranging from 25 to 80 feet in length. It was delayed by slow delivery of suitable marine engines from the United States, and the final product represented a considerable cutback from an original goal of over 5,000. There were even greater delays in the procurement of marine equipment by the Transportation Corps in the United States. The Survey of Pacific Supply in September 1943 snowed the Transportation Corps had met only 15 percent of SWPA's requisitions. The explanation lay not in any faulty procedures but in the difficulties of procurement. The Transportation procurement program was a new one, hardly well under way until early 1943; the corps had no depot stocks, and each SWPA order for marine equipment normally required initiation the principal factor forcing SWPA to of procurement action after the requisirely so extensively on the retention of tion was received. In procuring marine 42 Liberty ships. equipment the Transportation Corps Ocean-going vessels were not an item had to compete with the Maritime Comof Army procurement, but were built mission and the Navy who had already by the Maritime Commission or the placed capacity orders with most of the Navy or if, like the Lakers, they were established shipbuilding firms. Furtherold ships of long service, their assign- more, Army requirements had to underment was controlled by WSA. Extensive go the critical scrutiny of WPB when it demands for smaller steamers for domes- came to the allocation of necessary steel tic service and the runs to the Carib- and other raw materials. For some time bean, South and Central America, and after September 1943 SWPA's requisiAlaska left few available for diversion tions for floating equipment barges, to SWPA. tugs, floating cranes, freight supply vesMost of the host of types of smaller sels, launches, marine tractors, Y tankvessels in use, with the exception of ers, rescue boats, lifeboats, cargo boats. landing craft, were procured either in and so forthcontinued to pile up with Australia or by the Transportation little to show in the way of end-products Corps in the United States. The Aus- shipped to the theater. Not until 1944 were the orders themselves consolidated and placed in the Army Supply Program in a systematic manner. This done, GenMasterson, Transportation in SWPA, pp. 338-52.
42
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however, under the priorities distribution system operated by Munitions Assignments Committee (Ground), all Pacific areas did much better, the South Pacific receiving 480, SWPA 885, and the Central Pacific 250, of a total production of 3,924. Because of the success of the DUKW, production was greatly accelerated during 1944, when a total of 11,316 were turned out. By midyear production was sufficient to meet most needs; nevertheless, distribution continued under the strict control of 44 MAC (G). The supply of amphibian tractors, an article procured by the Navy, followed a generally similar course. A few went to the Army in SWPA in early 1943 and were used principally as cargo carriers in close support of landing operations. Then in the Gilberts offensive in November the LVT came into its own as the only amphibious craft that could successfully negotiate the reef barrier at Tarawa, and the Navy greatly expanded its production program. While by the fall of 1944 LVT's were, like DUKW's, generally becoming available in sufficient numbers to fill all essential needs, distribution was closely controlled. The lion's share of LVT's was assigned to either the Army or the Marine Corps for operations in the Central Pacific because of their peculiar utility in that area; SWPA and ETO received more limited numbers for use primarily as cargo carriers.45
(1) Min, WD Conf Gp on Amphibious Vehicles, 11Oct 43, 9 Feb 44, 13 Mar and 17 Apr 44, file Amphibious Vehicles Confs, ASF Plng Div. (2) Crawford and Cook, Statistics: Procurement. 45 (1) See above, ch. XI. (2) JCS 754, 10 Mar 44, title: Monthly Rpt of LVT, with series of reports in ABC 561 (30 Aug 43), Sec 2.
44
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or landing craft assembly plants in SWPA, and few landing craft of any sort Of all types of floating equipment, under either Army or Navy control. The landing craft were the most vital in the first of three special brigades arrived in Southwest Pacific, useful not only for March 1943, followed by a second in their primary function as personnel and January 1944, and a third a few months cargo carriers in assaults on hostile shores later. Troops and material for assembut for dozens of other functions. They bling landing craft were rushed to the were produced under the auspices of the theater early in 1943, and by late May Navy, but a large proportion of the small a plant was operating at Cairns, Auslanding craft in SWPA were operated tralia, capable of handling sectionalized by the Army's Engineer special brigades, LCVP's. The plant at Cairns was exand these craft the Navy turned over panded rapidly to handle LCM's and to the Army for shipment. To conserve other types, and a second one was estabshipping space, the Army shipped them lished at Milne Bay, New Guinea, closer in sections for assembly in the theater. to the scene of operations. In May 1943 the Army's initial reAt the beginning of 1943, however, there were no Engineer special brigades quirements for landing craft for operaLanding Craft in SWPA
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tion by the brigades had been set at promising 100 for SWPA in October 1,620 LCVP's (540 per brigade), 1,509 1943 and 150 per month thereafter un48 LCM's (503 per brigade), and 135 til the requirement was met. LCS (S)'s (45 per brigade). Five hunMeanwhile, in the theater the 2d Engidred of the LCVP's were already en neer Special Brigade was struggling route or set up for shipment at the end along with only the initial shipments of April 1943. The Army asked the Navy of LCVP's and a few LCM (3)'s. SWPA to make available 100 more LCVP's each officials themselves soon confirmed the month beginning in May, 75 LCM's in Navy's warning about the LCVP's. "ExMay with an increase to 100 per month perience . . . has shown," SWPA reportas soon as possible, and 45 LCS (S)'s per ed on 13 September 1943, "that LCVP's quarter beginning with the third quar- are not suitable for transporting troops, equipment, and supplies over the open ter of 1943.46 The Navy accepted the requirements sea, and that a larger craft, namely the and the delivery schedule for LCVP's, LCM (3)'s and the LCT (5)'s are better 49 though with a caveat from Admiral King suited for this form of transportation." that the number seemed excessive. "Na- Accordingly, the theater recommended val experience indicates," he wrote, "that that the 4th Engineer Special Brigade, they are unsuitable for ocean trips for the last scheduled for shipment to ferrying troops of more than a few SWPA, be initially equipped with 63 47 miles." The warning went unheeded, LCT's in lieu of 270 of the LCVP's, and perhaps because MacArthur felt that for that the equipment of the other two the time being he must accept any craft brigades be gradually replaced on the that could be made available in quan- same basis. SWPA also asked that an tity. For the Navy, in July 1943, said additional 6-foot section be added to the it could furnish only 50 of the more LCM (3)'s to increase capacity and satisfactory LCM (3)'s per month up to speed. On 6 October MacArthur fura total of 450 in 1943, and possibly 450 ther informed the War Department that more in 1944 if steel and engine require- a total of 620 LCVP's should be elimiments could be met. In response to nated from his requirements program MacArthur's protests, however, the Bur- and, if the LCT's could not be fureau of Ships was persuaded to step up nished, LCM's should be used as subproduction. On 19 August the Navy stitutes in ratio of four for one or a agreed to the total of 1,509 LCM (3)'s and to an accelerated delivery schedule
46 (1) Masterson, Transportation in SWPA, pp. 416-18. (2) Memo, Brig Gen John E. Hull, OPD, for VCNO, 24 May 43, sub: Ldg Cft Reqmts for SWPA, OPD 560 SWPA, Case 6. (3) Ltr, Hq, Engr Amphib Comd to Chief of Engrs, 2 Jun 43, sub: Progress Rpt on Assembly of 26-Foot Ldg Cft in SWPA. . . , file 5d C1 IV Amphib SWPA, ASF Plng Div. 47 Memo, Adm King for CofS, USA, 25 Apr 43, sub: Small Ldg Cft in SWPA, OPD 560, Case 6. 48 (1) OPD Diary, 11 Jul 43. (2) Msg C-4404, Brisbane to WAR, 19 Jul 43, CM-IN 13234. (3) MFR, 2 Aug 43, sub: Conf on Ldg Cft Reqmts for SWPA. (4) Ltr, VCNO to Chief, BuShips, 19 Aug 43, sub: LCM(3)'sDelivery to Army Sectionalized. (3) and (4) in File 5d C1 IV Amphib SWPA, ASF Plng Div. 49 (1) Ltr, AG GHQ, SWPA, to TAG, 13 Sep 43, sub: Supplemental Equipment for 4th Engineer Special Brigade, file 5d C1 IV Amphib SWPA, ASF Plng Div. (2) Msg CA 44, Port Moresby to WAR, 13 Sep 43, CM-IN 20611, 14 Sep 43.
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total of 252 additional LCM's per brigade.50 The request for LCT's brought the amphibian brigades into competition with requirements for OVERLORD and the Mediterranean. OPD merely passed MacArthur's requests on to the Navy, anticipating the refusal of LCT's that came in due time. The Navy did agree, however, to apply engines made available by reduction of the LCVP program to production of LCM's and said it would be able to deliver 165 additional craft of this type by 1 June 1944. After some experimentation the LCM (6) was developed with the added 6-foot section as the desired improvement on the
Msg C 6423, Brisbane to WAR, CM-IN 3493, 6 Oct 43.
50
LCM (3). Also, MacArthur having found the LCS (S) unsuitable as a command and navigation craft, the Navy agreed to substitute 45-foot boats and 63-foot pilot boats in equivalent numbers for most of the initial requirement for 135 of these craft.51 This proved to be far from the final word. MacArthur insisted on the full quota of LCM's for the amphibian brigades and added a requirement of 212
51 (1) See above, ch. VIII. (2) Memo, OPD for VCNO, 9 Oct 43, sub: Ldg Cft for SWPA; Ltr,
560 SWPA, Case 6. (3) Memo, Col Bunker, OCT, for CNO, 2 Nov 43, sub: Addition of 6-Foot Section of Tank Lighters (LCM-3). (4) Ltr, OCT to CNO, 18 Nov 43, sub: Crash, Picket and LCS(S) Boats. Last two in folder 5d C1 IV Amphib SWPA, ASF Plng Div.
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placement parts accepted by the Navy and channels of procurement and distribution clearly defined.53 In any case, the main complaint from SWPA after mid-1944 was not of a lack of adequate smaller craft for the amphibian brigades to carry out scheduled amphibious assaults, but of insufficient craft of any size to speed up other troop and supply movements and to facilitate unloading. MacArthur succeeded in obtaining some LCM's for USASOS for these purposes but he was again turned down on a bid made in spring 1944 for LCT's as a substitute for ordinary freight and
passenger vessels destined for his theater. Nor was he ever able to obtain the LCT's he desired for use by the amphibian brigades.54 The Navy's refusal to furnish LCT's for Army use in SWPA did not, nevertheless, mean that the theater was being
53 (1) Engineers of SWPA, VII, 136-39. (2) OPD draft msg for CINCSWPA, 17 Aug 44, with accom52 (1) Msg C 2219, Brisbane to WAR, CM-IN 20110, panying MFR, OPD 560 SWPA, Case 6. 54 29 Feb 44. (2) Msg U28218, Brisbane to WAR, (1) Msg C-2901, Brisbane to WAR, CM-IN CM-IN 16174, 20 Jul 44. (3) OPD Summary Sheet, 10673, 15 Mar 44. (2) Memo, Gen Clay, Dir Materiel 4 Sep 44, sub: A and N 1945 Reqmts for LCM. ASF, for CNO, 29 Mar 44, sub: Availability of (4) Memo, DCofS, for Adm King, 6 Sep 44, sub: LCT(6) and LST for the Army. (3) Memo, Adm LCM(6); Reqmts for SWPA. Last two in OPD 560 Cooke, DCofS, COMINCH, for CofS, USA, 8 Apr 44, SWPA, Case 32. Navy Ser 001109. Last two in OPD Exec 10, Item 68.
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division of South Pacific amphibious resources in March 1944 set the major landing craft strength for the Seventh Fleet at a minimum of 40 LST's and 60 LCI (L)'s, plus any scheduled later additions from U.S. production. Almost immediately thereafter the Navy started to accelerate the shipment of large landing craft to the Seventh Fleet, as production soared in the United States. In April the schedule was set at 26 LST's, 31 LCI (L)'s, 35 LCT's from May production, almost equal quantities from that in June and July, and after July regular increments of approximately 14 LST's, 8 LCI(L)'s, 13 LCT's, and 18 LSM's per month. May production, however, was not expected to reach the theater until September.55 The rapid augmentation of both Army and Seventh Fleet amphibious resources after mid-1944 did provide an adequate supply of landing craft in SWPA during the Philippine campaign. After the landing on Luzon, the main reliance for many weeks was on supply by these craft over the beaches. Yet the theater's full demands for landing craft for logistical use were by no means satisfied. The tremendous problem of rolling up rear bases and bringing men and material forward to the Philippines led to greater and greater demands for the LST's and LSM's that could be used for those purposes.
55 (1) Msg 768, AGWAR to CINCSWPA, CM-OUT 10852, 31 Jan 43. (2) Memo, VCNO for CG SOS, 15 Mar 43, sub: LST's for SWPA, folder SWPA 1942 thru Apr 45, Lutes File. (3) Msg, CG SFPOE to WAR and Brisbane, CM-IN 5405, 8 Apr 44. (4) Memo, Gross for Somervell, Mar 44, sub: Combat Loaders and Ldg Cft, OCT HB, folder Shpg Capabilities and Reqmts, Gross File. (5) Memo, Lt Col Gallant for Cols Tasker and Pennypacker, 6 Jul 44, sub: Assault Shpg, Availability of, SWPA, ABC 320.2 (10 Feb 44). (6) JCS 713/5, 17 Mar 44.
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soldier sent to the Pacific theaters, be he in an infantry division or a Quartermaster salvage company, represented a charge against allocated personnel shipping to transport him and against cargo shipping to support him. Theater commanders were seldom willing to sacrifice combat units and replacements to make room for service troops, preferring to rely on the chance of getting additional shipping allocations to move the latter. "As General Harmon says," wrote the SOS commander in the South Pacific, "combat personnel can be used for performing service functions in a second class fashion, but service personnel cannot perform combat functions."57 The shipping factor, nevertheless, was more a cause of delay in movement of service personnel than an effective cause of the ultimate serious shortage in the Pacific in 1944. The real problem lay in the composition of the troop basis itself. By the end of 1942 the initial error of the General Staff in not providing for an adequate number of service units had been at least partially corrected, but the struggle over a proper balance between combat and service troops continued throughout 1943 and 1944. "Four times have I had to ask for augmentation of the service unit list," wrote General Lutes in August 1943, "and four times the General Staff has had to admit that the units were needed, but had they only approved such lists in the beginning units would be 58 all trained and ready to go." All too frequently the activation, training, and shipment of service units was not a care57 Ltr, Breene to Lutes, 12 Nov 43, folder SP 1942-43-mid-44, Lutes File. 58 Ltr, Lutes to Breene, 4 Aug 43, folder SP 1942-43-mid-44, Lutes File.
fully planned routine but resulted from an emergency demand from the theaters, so that half-trained units were dispatched and hasty revisions made in the troop basis. By early 1944 such emergency action was becoming less and less feasible. The Army troop basis for the year was tightly drawn, with the balances closely calculated among air, ground combat, and service units, and almost every unit activated or scheduled for activation earmarked for one theater or another or for essential ZI service. The provision of a single construction battalion, or even a depot company, became increasingly a matter of reviewing and re-reviewing service troop requirements around the globe. Simply to say that the various troop bases did not provide enough service units for Pacific operations does not do justice to OPD and G-3, the staff agencies primarily responsible for their determination. They recognized the pressing needs for service units in the Pacific, but had to weigh them against over-all troop requirements in a developing manpower crisis, and strive to maintain a judicious measure of balance. To counter the continued pressure of the ASF for an increase in service units the advocates of austerity, such as General McNair, continually fought against proliferation of the service establishment. There was, in fact, after the end of 1942, very little net increase in the size of the ground combat forces, while service forces increased twofold. The 1944 Troop Basis as finally developed included a higher proportion of service units than any previous version.59
Greenfield, Palmer, and Wiley, Organization of Ground Combat Troops, pp. 161, 219, 252-59.
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Within the limits of available manpower, then, there seemed no better solution than to furnish the minimum essential units necessary to support operations and to accept the necessity for continued use of combat troops to perform service functions when occasion demanded, for imperfect performance of many of these functions, and for a certain amount of waste. Any other solution seemed likely to involve sacrifice of combat units essential for operations in both Europe and the Pacific. Though there was general agreement that Pacific operations required a higher proportion of service troops than did those in Europe, actually the ratio in effect in the two areas in mid-1944 was roughly the same, testimony to the general practice of furnishing service units, like supplies, in standard proportions to the number of com60 bat troops.
60
The result was the chronic shortage of service troops in the Pacific already noted. No theater suffered quite so severely as did the South Pacific during its year and a half of intense combat activity. The ratio of combat to service troops in the theater at the beginning of 1943 was about 6 to 1, a result of the emphasis task force commanders had initially placed on building up combat strength. Since the first tasks turned out to be almost entirely construction and development of island bases, combat troops had to be diverted to these functions, and island commanders were soon crying for service troops of all kinds. But the basic error proved difficult to correct. The first major step in that direction was taken by General Lutes who, after his visit to the South Pacific in fall 1942, persuaded OPD to agree to send additional service units to each South Pacific base. Actual shipments, delayed because the units simply were not ready, Any exact computation of the proportion of never quite caught up with the demand. combat and service troops in any theater is one of the more difficult statistical problems of World Before they arrived General Breene was War II because of the dual nature of many units asking for still more units for Guadalsuch as combat Engineers, and because of the use canal, where a new base was being deof U.S. Army ground service units to support the AAF, the Marines, and Allied combat forces. Some veloped for the advance further up the selected ASF calculations of the proportion of both Solomons. OPD at first insisted he must air and ground service troops in the entire troop move troops forward from rear bases bases of three theaters in 1944 showed the followbut Breene pointed out that this would ing: MTO, 30 Sep 4444.81 percent; SWPA, 31 Dec 4439.81 percent; Central Pacific, 30 Jun 4433.71 not be possible without completely dispercent. History Planning Division ASF, app. 12-E, rupting logistical operations. OPD made Tabs F, J, K. piecemeal concessions totaling in the end Another compulation made by the ASF after the war, based on projected troop bases for all major something over 10,000 men, but delays
theaters for 30 June 1945 showed the following percentages of service troops: ETO43.65 percent; MTO44.65 percent; SWPA42.29 percent; Central Deployment of U.S. Forces Following Defeat of Pacific42.29 percent. Using another measure, the Germany. proportion of ASF troops to the total ground force The division slice in each area (excluding air in both Europe and the Pacific was approximately forces) appears to have been roughly similar, if all the same (around 30 percent) both at the end of extraneous factors such as the partial support of June 1944 and at the end of December. ASF Manual French and Brazilian divisions in Europe and of M-409, Logistic Data for Staff Planners, 1 Mar 46; Marine divisions in the Pacific by U.S. Army service JCS 521/6, 11 Jun 44, title: Deployment of U.S. units are excluded. ASF Manual M-409, and OPD Weekly Status Map, 19 Oct 44. Forces to 30 Sep 45; JCS 521/9, 23 Dec 44, title:
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gineer aviation battalion and four Engineer general service regiments, a construction force "woefully deficient to execute the extensive amount of work 62 which had to be performed." Casey thought that Engineers should constitute at least 20 percent of the command. This optimum figure was never reached, although the flow did increase rapidly during the fall of 1943. By April 1944 there were 62,061 Army Engineers in the theater as opposed to only 7,600 a year earlier, and by the end of the year the number had reached 97,000, or about 13.4 percent of the command an impressive number but something less than General Casey's initial request. Moreover, as in the South Pacific, the supply was always a step behind the demand. The gap was filled by various expedients. Australian engineers and Navy construction battalions played important roles in SWPA. Heavy machinery did the work of many men; Engineer combat battalions and the Engineer special brigades were employed in heavy construction work.63 The story of the other services in SWPA is much the same as that of the Engineersenough service forces to perform minimum essential services but never sufficient to prevent delays and waste. The redistribution of South Pacific resources in 1944 further intensified SWPA's service troop problem. The
Memo, Gen Casey, 18 Sep 43, sub: General Engineering Problems. 63 (1) Office of the Chief Engineer, General Headquarters, Army Forces Pacific, "Engineers of the Southwest Pacific, 1941-1945," vol. II, Organization, Troops, and Training (hereafter cited as Engineers of SWPA, II) (Washington, 1953), pp. 88-90, 120-22, 144-46, 184-87. (2) Memo, Chief Plans Br, Plng Div, ASF, for Dir Plng Div, 17 Jan 46, sub: Recapitulation of Troop Bases, History Planning Div ASF, app. 12-E, Tab J.
62
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GLOBAL LOGISTICS AND STRATEGY: 1943-1945 include them in the 1944 Troop Basis. When the specific requirement for service troops for the Formosa operation began to take shape in July, there were consequently few uncommitted service 64 units available to fulfill them. There was serious question that even the smaller scale requirements for operations on Iwo Jima and Okinawa could be met. Any hopes that service forces could be withdrawn from either SWPA or the South Pacific to relieve the situation were ended with the decision to invade Luzon, for MacArthur would also be short of what he needed for this operation. By the last of 1944 the shortage of service troops was weighing as heavily on the minds of the planners as that of cargo shipping. On 3 November, General Marshall informed the JCS:
In both the Southwest Pacific and Pacific Ocean Areas there has been a continual shortage of Army service units to support the large base establishments and the combat task forces required for the progressive operations undertaken. This shortage will continue to exist into the foreseeable future until such time as the cessation of hostilities in Europe permits redeployment of Army forces to the Pacific. 65
six combat divisions were transferred from the South Pacific with little service support, for most of the service troops had to stay behind to man the installations remaining in the South Pacific, pack and ship supplies, and service the POA divisions that were staged or rehabilitated in the area. The South Pacific became a large service command with a heavy preponderance of service troops, an asset promised MacArthur by the JCS directive redistributing resources of the theater but also coveted by Nimitz because of a growing service troop shortage in his own area. The shortage in the Central Pacific developed later and in somewhat different fashion. The Hawaiian base was initially well manned. The late start of offensive operations allowed more time for careful requirements planning and the needs of each new island base were normally met. The large naval establishment, including the major proportion of naval construction battalions, was on hand to make up Army deficiencies, particularly of Army Engineers. Up through the invasion of the Palaus, service troops were available in adequate numbers though by that time they were stretched quite thin as each new island garrison exacted its drain on units available in Hawaii or earmarked in the United States. And in the end it was in the Central Pacific that the most serious deficit developed, one that played an important part in the cancellation of the Formosa operation. The deficit came about in large part because, though the ASF warned that there would be a shortage of over 100,000service troops for the latter stages of Pacific operations, General Marshall ruled against sacrificing combat units to
The service troop shortage notwithstanding, the Pacific supply situation by the end of the year 1944 was, for all the difficulties inherent in the geography of the theaters, generally good. Sufficient of the outpourings of the American industrial machine had reached Pacific destinations to overcome most of the acute shortages that had existed earlier. Procedures for gearing shipments to the
See above, chs. XIV and XVI. JCS 1149, 3 Nov 44, memo by CofS, USA, title: Economy in Use of Svc Units in SWP and POA.
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64
SUPPLYING THE ARMY IN PACIFIC THEATERS specific demands of Pacific commanders had been developed, and in block loading at least a partial solution to the problem of excessive dispersion had been found. Fleets of vessels for intratheater transport, if still inadequate, had been vastly augmented. Maj. Gen. Walter A. Wood, Jr., Deputy Director of the ASF Plans and Operations Division, in a tour of the Pacific in the fall of 1944 reminiscent of Somervell's trip a year earlier found the "overall equipment situation . . . operationally adequate and the quality and character of items generally ex66 cellent." Wood noted old problems touched on by every other visitor to the Pacific since 1942maldistribution within theaters and unbalanced stocks at different bases, delays in developing bases because of climatic conditions, excess supplies at rear bases, lack of the newest types of equipment because of the priority of European theatersbut gave every indication that even these problems were less acute than formerly. The very fact that Wood cited as the major shortage that of reefer ships and
Memo, Wood for Dir Pls and Opns, ASF, 15 Nov 44, sub: Rpt of Inspection of Pac and SWPac Ocean Areas, File Actions Resulting from Pacific Trip, ASF Plng Div.
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shore refrigeration facilities to make fresh foods available to the soldiery, indicates the extent to which Pacific supply had been improved. In 1942 and 1943 these luxuries could seldom be considered. A civilian observer had somewhat earlier grasped the enormity of the American logistical achievement in the Pacific. Mr. Warren H. Atherton, National Commander of the American Legion, wrote General Marshall, on returning from a Pacific tour, on 5 July 1944:
I was impressed by the fact that we excel the Japs mostly in our ability to meet the logistic demands of all-out war. In two years of occupation the Jap had established puny little bases and inferior air strips; 60 days after capture of these bases, caterpillars and bulldozers had moved the jungle; warehouses, roads and wharves had been built and a modern soldier city of 100,000 or more established; 12 or 14 air strips had been completed and everything was in motion to support the next advance; marvellous planning and execution and adaptation of the mechanical ingenuity have been used in making our supply system the model of 67 modern warfare. . . .
Memo, Gen Styer for Dir Pls and Opns, ASF, 6 Jul 44, inclosing quotation from Atherton Ltr, CofS ASF File Pls and Opns 1943-45.
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CHAPTER XXI
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icanknow-how and American logistical support. The Japanese conquest of Burma early in 1942, which cut the last overland supply route to China, frustrated the initial American design for equipping and training an effective Chinese Army. It left a long, difficult airlift from Assam to Kunming over the high peaks of the Himalayas as the only remaining avenue for the flow of supplies. The Americans assumed responsibility for the airlift, but its development was slow, hampered by a scarcity of air fields, transport planes, and trained pilots. Its capacity at the end of May 1943 was only 3,000 tons monthly, most of which was required to support the small American air force in China. With few supplies coming in from the outside, the economy of Free China continually tottered on GENERAL STILWELL the brink of collapse. The Chinese Army, though a massive force on paper was nevertheless ill-organized, ill- of the Chinese Army. The X-RAY Force, equipped, poorly led, and generally in- initially two divisions, was made up of capable of offensive action. Chinese troops assembled in India, The U.S. Joint Chiefs early took the trained in American methods, fed and stand that the only solution was to re- clothed by the British, and re-equipped take Burma and reopen the land supply with American material. The YOKE line. Their ambitious plan for this pur- Force was planned as a much larger one, pose (ANAKIM) , largely the work of which, with X-RAY forces in India, General Stilwell, American commander would make a total of thirty Chinese in the theater, called for a British am- divisions. Stilwell hoped to persuade phibious attack on Rangoon, a British Chiang to concentrate scattered and unland offensive in central Burma, and a derstrength divisions in Yunnan, there converging attack on northern Burma to create effective divisions and to train by Chinese forces operating from Yun- them in American methods. Although nan Province in China (YOKE, or Y- they were to be supplied at first priForce) and from Assam Province in In- marily from Chinese sources, certain sedia (X-RAY Force). lected items of American ordnance, vital The plans for the two Chinese forces to their operations, would have to be formed an integral part of Stilwell's over- brought in over the Hump air line. Once all plan for carrying out the mission as- the land supply line was open, the YOKE signed him of increasing the efficiency divisions would be given their full com-
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GLOBAL LOGISTICS AND STRATEGY: 1943-1945 ish, with obvious reluctance, agreed at Casablanca to schedule a full-scale ANAKIM in November 1943, they soon showed signs that they still considered it both logistically infeasible and strategically unprofitable. Meanwhile, a serious division had arisen in American councils, when General Chennault, commanding the U.S. Fourteenth Air Force in China, came up with a plan to mount an air offensive from Chinese bases without opening the overland supply line. Chennault would concentrate on enlarging the capacity of the Hump air line and use its entire capacity to support air operations against Japanese-held coastal cities and Japanese supply lines to the exclusion of any attempt to re-form and re-equip the Chinese Army. He contended, in contrast to Stilwell, that with assured air supremacy the Chinese Army in its existing state could protect his airfields against Japanese attack. The two commanders were soon at odds. The British, the Chinese, and the American President were all mightily attracted by Chennault's promises of great results at small cost. Only the American Joint Chiefs stood behind Stilwell in support of ANAKIM. 3
The Trident Decisions and Their Aftermath
At the TRIDENT Conference all these issues were debated at great length.4 The upshot was a compromise both between British and American positions and be(1) For a summary of these events see Leighton and Coakley, Global Logistics, 1940-43, pp. 525-50. (2) For a more detailed account see Charles F. Romanus and Riley Sunderland, Stilwell's Mission to China, UNITED STATES ARMY IN WORLD WAR II (Washington, 1953). (3) See also above, ch. I. 4 See above, ch. III.
3
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tween the conflicting viewpoints on the American side. It was largely dictated by the President's avowed belief that Stilwell's and Chennault's projects were not mutually exclusive, but that the airlift could be developed to supply enough tonnage for both the air effort and the Chinese divisions in Yunnan. First priority on resources within the theater was accordingly given to increasing the capacity of the air route to 10,000 tons monthly, with a view to (a) intensifying air operations against the Japanese in Burma; (b) maintaining increased air forces in China; and (c) maintaining the flow of airborne supplies to China. While the British point of view was accepted and a full-scale November ANAKIM ruled out as beyond Allied re-
sources, the CCS approved a limited offensive to free central and north Burma. They also directed that administrative preparations for an operation of the general size of ANAKIM should continue, and that the British should undertake the amphibious operations against the port of Akyab and Ramree Island already scheduled and originally designed as a prelude to the amphibious attack 5 on Rangoon. The limited offensive in Burma, including the converging attack of X-RAY and YOKE forces, was designed to open a new supply route from Ledo in Assam via Myitkyina in Burma to a junction
5 CCS 242/6, 25 May 43, title: Final Rpt to President and Prime Minister.
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GLOBAL LOGISTICS AND STRATEGY: 1943-1945 This indeed proved to be the case. In the weeks following TRIDENT an intensive effort was devoted to providing transport planes and preparing airfields for Hump operations. Transports were rushed to India in sufficient quantities to meet the tonnage targets, but the preparation of airfields soon fell behind, although given the highest priority on theater resources. In support of the British effort on the airfields, native labor, construction equipment, and service troops earmarked for the Ledo Road were shifted to airfield projects. Additional construction supplies and Engineer troops were rushed from the United States. But the movement of supplies into Assam for construction, for the airlift, and for routine support of British, American, and Chinese troops there and on the British front at Imphal, proved more than the line of communication north from Calcutta could handle. Moreover, heavy rainfall, difficulties with native labor, and a thousand other obstacles inherent in the climate and geography of the region, all contributed to the failure to build the airfields at the rate necessary to meet tonnage goals over the Hump. The airlift actually carried 3,100 tons in June, 4,338 in July, 5,764 in August, 6,719 in September, and 8,632 in October, thus meeting neither the 7,000-ton target in July nor the 10,000-ton target in September. Chennault's priority prevented delivery of anything more than the most minute quantities of supplies for YOKE Force. Similarly, the priority given to movement of air materials over the Assam line of communication (Assam LOC) cut into the build-up at Ledo and Imphal for Chinese and British land offensives from these points. It soon be-
with the old Burma Road at Bhamo. The Americans had assumed responsibility for building the Ledo Road in the rear of advancing Chinese troops in December 1942 and starting shipping necessary materials and Engineer troops in response to Stilwell's requests early in 1943. Though first designed as a supplement to the old supply line running north from Rangoon, after TRIDENT the Ledo Road rapidly assumed the position of a substitute. Although the Americans continued to insist that all of Burma must eventually be recaptured and, indeed, that scarce assault shipping must be diverted from the Mediterranean to India for that purpose, their logistical planning from TRIDENT onward concentrated entirely on development of the airlift and the Ledo Road as the avenues for supply to China. The airlift had to be the immediate reliance. Tonnage targets were set at 7,000 for July 1943 and 10,000 for September, the latter in keeping with an earlier Presidential promise to Chiang. Immediately after TRIDENT the President, in an agreement with Dr. T. V. Soong, Chiang's brother-in-law and influential adviser, granted Chennault an absolute priority on 4,700 tons of this prospective capacity in July and August 6 and 7,000 in September. Viewed in this light the TRIDENT decisions were not a compromise between Stilwell and Chennault, but a clear victory for the latter. For if the airlift did not, in fact, meet its tonnage goals then obviously preparations for the ground attack must suffer.
6 (1) Memo, Maj William H. Martin for Maj Gen James H. Burns, 28 Jul 43, sub: China Air Priorities, ID 400.318, Chinese Stockpile in India, I. (2) Romanus and Sunderland, Stilwell's Mission to China, pp. 341-45.
505
FERRY PUSHING TRUCK-LOADED BARGES ACROSS THE BRAHMAPUTRA RIVER, Assam, India.
came clear that the TRIDENT decisions had been based on an incomplete appraisal of the logistical problems involvedthat a necessary preliminary to development of a supply line into China from India would have to be improvement of the line within India itself, a problem to which not enough attention had previously been given.7 The Assam LOC that had thus come to occupy center stage ran northeast from Calcutta, India's largest port and commercial center, to Manipore State
(1) Ibid. (2) Craven and Cate, ed., AAF IV, 44345. (3) Msg 2701, AGWAR to AMMISCA, 21 May 43, OPD 400 CTO, I, Case 47. (4) History of the Services of Supply in China-Burma-India Theater, Feb 194224 Oct 1944 (hereafter cited as History, SOS in CBI), chart facing p. 300, MS, OCMH.
7
and Assam, the respective centers of British and American military activity. Calcutta, itself a port of tremendous capacity, was nevertheless overcrowded and inefficiently organized, and had neither adequate storage facilities for military supplies, nor enough personnel to handle a large volume of cargo. Calcutta, however, was not the real problem in mid-1943 more critical was the line of communication to the north which was made up of a network of rail and barge lines, of which the Bengal and Assam Railway was the most important. The railway consisted of broad-gauge lines running northward from Calcutta to Santahar and Parbatipur, whence meter-gauge lines, almost entirely single
506
track, ran eastward to Ledo, with connecting spurs to barge lines on the Brahmaputra River and to a second metergauge line running northward from Chittagong through Manipore State to Ledo. The facilities for transshipment of freight at Santahar and Parbatipur were limited, and there was no rail bridge, only a ferry at the Brahmaputra River crossing. Operation of the whole line had been traditionally leisurely, designed to serve the tea gardens in Assam. The British had withdrawn much rolling stock from India for use in the Middle East in 1941, and by mid-1943 the line had, even with lend-lease assistance, only been rebuilt to its regular prewar capacity. That this capacity was inadequate was amply demonstrated in June and July 1943 when the pressure was on 8 to complete the Assam airfields.
Quadrant: A Logistical Charter for the CBI
The whole situation was reflected in the pessimistic appraisal of the possibilities of meeting TRIDENT objectives forwarded to the British Chiefs by General Sir Claude J. E. Auchinleck, British Commander in Chief, India, just before the QUADRANT Conference in August 1943. The very minimum requirement in Assam and Manipore to build the airfields and the Ledo Road, to furnish supplies for the airlift, and to support the British and Chinese drives from Imphal and Ledo respectively, Auchinleck reported, had been calculated at 3,400 tons daily. Actual movements over the Assam LOC during June and July had averaged only 1,700 to 1,800 tons daily,
8
507
lift would be doubled on an earlier time schedule. Thus, of the eventual capacity of 220,000 tons on the Assam LOC, 65,000 tons were to be delivered in China over the Ledo Road and 20,000 by the airlift.12 To supplement the capacity of the Assam LOC, the airlift, and the Ledo Road, a network of POL pipelines was also proposed. These, like the Ledo Road and the airlift, were also to be an American responsibility. The main elements in the pipeline system were to be a 6-inch line running from Calcutta to the Dibrugarh terminal west of Ledo, and a 4-inch line paralleling the Ledo Road from Dibrugarh into Kunming. Plans for the 4-inch line were already well advanced. To these essentials, in highest priority, the ASF now added projects for a second 6-inch line eventually to run all the way from Calcutta to Kunming and for a second 4-inch line from Assam to Kunming via Fort Hertz over wild, mountainous territory unoccupied by the Japanese, to be used exclusively for delivery of aviation gasoline. The last, rather visionary, scheme had been suggested by General Stilwell in July. The net requirement for delivery in Assam once all lines were completed was set at 96,000 tons of POL monthly 72,000 via the two 6-inch lines, 15,000 on the barge line, and 9,000 to be procured locally from the Digboi refineries
12 (1) Ibid. (2) Memos, Somervell for Riddell-Webster, 17 and 20 Aug 43. (3) Memo, Somervell for CofS, 23 Aug 43. (2) and (3) in folder QUADRANT Conf, Hq ASF File. (4) CCS 305/1, 18 Aug 43, title: Interim Rpt of Ad Hoc Com Appointed to Examine CCS 305. (5) CCS 325, 21 Aug 43, title: Supply Routes in NE India. (6) Ltr, Somervell to Maj Gen Raymond A. Wheeler, 24 Aug 43, Stilwell Personal File, Book 4, Item 240.
508
GLOBAL LOGISTICS AND STRATEGY: 1943-1945 in the interest of concentrating on improving the line of communications in 1943-44.14 The Americans would not admit of the necessity for such a hard choice. In their own councils they were divided on the issue, and the President was determined that the priority for the ground campaign should not be allowed to obscure the air effort entirely. General Somervell, reflecting the views of the American SOS in the CBI, insisted that the proposed improvements in the Assam LOC could be accomplished speedily enough to permit land operations to go forward on a delayed schedule without crippling the airlift. The final CCS decision was not unequivocal. Although highest priority was accorded "offensive operations with the object of establishing land communications with China and improving and securing the air route," the decision stipulated that priorities between the ground and air effort could not be rigidly fixed.15 There could be little doubt, nevertheless, that even this equivocal decision shifted the emphasis back from Chennault's immediate air effort to the limited ground offensive in Burma. The logistical plan prepared by the subcommittee was approved, and the target date for the land offensive in Burma reset at 15 February 1944. A brand new combined command, long under discussion, was formed to carry it outthe Southeast Asia Command (SEAC) with Vice Adm. Lord Louis Mountbatten as Supreme Commander and Stilwell as his
CCS 327, 23 Aug 43, memo by Br COS, title: Opns from India. 15 (1) CCS 319/5, 24 Aug 43, title: Final Rpt to President and Prime Minister (QUADRANT). (2) Memo, Gen Somervell for CofS, 23 Aug 43, folder QUADRANT Conf, Hq ASF File. (3) Min, 115th mtg CCS, 23 Aug 43.
14
in Assam. Some 54,000 tons would eventually be sent into China by the lines running into Kunming. Meanwhile, the 4-inch line paralleling the Ledo Road would be used to support both road construction and the advancing Chinese 13 troops. In sum, then, the logistical plan evolved at QUADRANT envisaged development of a supply line through India that by 1 January 1946 would provide 220,000 tons of dry cargo and 96,000 tons of POL monthly in Assam; 85,000 tons of the dry cargo and 54,000 tons of the POL would move on into China via the Ledo Road, by airlift, and by the pipelines. This was still a small tonnage, sufficient only to support limited air operations and provide a minimum quantity of modern equipment and transport for the Chinese Army. It would not be enough to support any considerable numbers of American or British troops in China. Further development of operations in China would depend on the opening of a port on the China coast either by an overland advance by the Chinese Army or by attack from the sea. The British Chiefs still took the position that the proposed improvements in the Assam LOC could not be effected in time to permit timely launching of the limited offensives in Burma without some reduction in the airlift. They proposed that the main effort must be placed on opening land communications at the expense of the airlift, or on expanding the airlift at the expense of the ground effort, or that both be curtailed
13 (1) CCS 312, 18 Aug 43, Rpt by JAdC, title: Pipeline from India to China. (2) CCS 312/1, 21 Aug 43, same title. (3) Min, 115th mtg CCS, 23 Aug 43, Item 4.
509 In sum, then, the result of QUADRANT for the CBI was a clarification of TRIDENT decisions accompanied by a shift in emphasis from the airlift to the overland route. The conference decisions finally centered logistical planning on the concrete problem of the line of communications within India and from India to China, establishing a charter for the development of this LOC in step with the proposed course of military operations in Burma. The concrete logistical plan was late. The whole scheme for the CBI rested on the tacit premise of a long-drawn-out war against Japan, such as was in fact envisaged in the original over-all plan submitted by the Combined Staff Planners at Quebec providing for converging attacks on the China coast from the Pacific, China, and southeast Asia. But the JCS did not accept this plan and asked for a new one looking toward the defeat of Japan within a year after the defeat of Germany.18 The Pacific advance was to offer opportunities for short cuts in generous measure, while the only opportunity in China seemed to lie in another "premature" air effort, this time with the very long range B-29 bombers. There was a legitimate question then whether the continued postponements of the first year and a half had not already rendered the Burma campaign excess baggage.
deputyentirely separate from the British Command in India under General Auchinleck, which was now to become principally an administrative headquarters. Directives issued to Mountbatten and Auchinleck immediately after QUADRANT ordered them to take the necessary action to bring the Assam LOC to the target figures on which Somervell and Riddell-Webster had agreed.16 There remained the question of an amphibious operation, originally the very center of ANAKIM and something Chiang had always insisted on as a condition for committing his own armies in Burma. The Americans still contended Rangoon must eventually be captured and that Akyab and Ramree Island must consequently be the first objectives. The British believed the retaking of south Burma no longer to be in step with the strategy of the war against Japan and wished to move toward Sumatra and Malaya; they suggested as a first step a landing on the Andaman Islands. In the end the choice was deferred, and Mountbatten was merely instructed to continue preparations for an operation similar to that planned at TRIDENT. But meanwhile, in response to American insistence, the transfer of assault shipping from the Mediterranean to India was directed, with all its implications for the campaign in Italy.17
(1) Directives to SEAC and CinC, India, are appendixes to CCS 325, 21 Aug 43, (2) On the formation of SEAC see Romanus and Sunderland, Stilwell's Mission to China, pp. 355-57, and Ehrman, Grand Strategy V, pp. 135-46. (3) Min, 114th mtg CCS, 21 Aug 43. 17 (1) On the amphibious issue and its relation to the war in Europe, see above, Chapters VII, VIII, and IX. (2) Min, 107th mtg CCS, 14 Aug 43; 113th mtg, 20 Aug 43; 115th mtg, 23 Aug 43. (3) Min, 1st Citadel Mtg, 19 Aug 43.
16
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GLOBAL LOGISTICS AND STRATEGY: 1943-1945 Rangoon contemplated in the planning for ANAKIM or as British lend-lease for use in India or Burma. Other material could be diverted from BOLERO and replaced later. By the end of September, all American pledges of locomotives and freight cars for the Assam Railway had been fulfilled. And it appeared that most of the needed service units and other matriel could be shipped by early 1944.20 While the ASF plans were still maturing, competition for the still limited capacity of the Assam LOC flared anew in the theater, raising old unresolved questions of priority. General Auchinleck, charged with administrative preparations for the forthcoming Burma campaign pending Mountbatten's arrival, interpreted the QUADRANT decisions to mean top priority for ground operations, particularly for support of the British force at Imphal. Still insistent that the Assam LOC could not support both the land offensives and the continued buildup of the airlift, he proposed in September 1943 to move British engineers from the Assam airfields to Imphal and to reduce shipments into Assam for airfield construction and air transport over the Hump. Generals Stilwell and Marshall also wished to place the highest emphasis on ground operations, but they had to regard supply to the YOKE Forcepossible only by air transportas of equal
(1) Memo, Gen Heileman, Dep Dir Opns, ASF for Gen Somervell, 30 Aug 43, sub: LOC Project Commitments for USAF, CBI, folder LOC Projs CBI, ASF Plng Div. (2) Memo, Heileman for Dir Personnel, ASF, 1 Sep 43, sub: Personnel for Pipeline Cos and Hqs, CBI, folder Future Opns, ASF Plng Div. (3) Msg GW 781-T-1, Wheeler to Styer, 20 Sep 43, folder CM-IN CBI Sep 1 to Nov 1, 1943, ASF Plng Div. (4) Min, 2d mtg India Com, ASF, 7 Oct 43, folder India Com Mtgs, ASF Plng Div.
20
an ASF India Committee with General Lutes as its head, characterizing the development of the line of communications in the CBI as likely to be "the greatest engineering undertaking of the war and perhaps the major effort insofar as supply is concerned."19 Somervell adopted the approach that because of the urgency of the projects, much of the basic planning must be done in the ASF rather than in the theater, where no really adequate logistical planning staff existed. The task did not require an entirely fresh start. Matriel requirements for the Ledo Road and its accompanying pipeline were already in the Army Supply Program and service troop requirements in the troop basis. Shipments of men and materials had begun in January 1943 in response to Stilwell's requests for support for a March offensive, and were continuing. For instance, 500 of the 1,100 miles of pipe required for the Ledo Road pipeline had been shipped by 1 September 1943 and the rest was either at port or en route. Some 8,000 truck-tractors with 5-ton semitrailers, especially designed for the Ledo Road, were included in the Army Supply Program with production to begin in May 1944. Requirements for the other pipelines, the barge line, and the railroad, and those for additional service troops, of more recent origin, promised to create more difficulties. But much material of the sort required was also in the Army Supply Program, initially earmarked for use on the old supply line north from
Memo, Somervell for Lutes, 1 Sep 43, sub: Establishment of India Com for ASF, ASF Plng Div, file Pol Pgms, Obj, Pls & Gen Scope of Work, Col I. G. Horowitz.
19
511
importance with support of ground op- Marshall informing him of the Presierations from the India side. The Amer- dent's concern about the airlift and inican staff thought the QUADRANT deci- structing him to "give special considerasions hardly established so positive a pri- tion and attention to this whole busiority. Moreover, the President's interest ness" and to put "real punch behind 22 in the airlift had to be reckoned with. it." Chennault and Soong, faced with posThere was more than a suspicion in sible reduction in the airlift and with Somervell's mind that neither Auchincancellation of the previous absolute leck nor the Government of India was priority on 4,700 tons for air operations pursuing the goal of increasing the cain China (Stilwell proposed to reduce pacity of the Assam LOC with anything it to 40 percent, giving 60 percent to like enthusiasm, a fact of which he inYOKE) , complained to Roosevelt. The formed both Chiang and Mountbatten President in turn asked Marshall to in- in the course of a conference on 20 Octovestigate, intimating in terms that could ber. Turning to the concrete problems inhardly be mistaken that his earlier volved, he found that lack of hardstands promise to Chiang (given after TRI- on the airfields was having a less serious DENT) that the Hump lift would be effect on Hump operations than lack of raised to 10,000 tons must be met. The proper organization, adequately trained JCS consequently took the position that pilots, radios, and motor transport. any decisions by SEAC or the India Com- Throughout the U.S. sector in Assam mand affecting the airlift must be pre- on the airfields, pipelines, and the Ledo sented to the CCS for approval in the Road, he found the shortage of service light of "political implications" of troops the most important delaying facRoosevelt's promises to Chiang.21 tor and urged speed-up in shipments, General Somervell remained con- particularly of engineers, and addition vinced that the capacity of the Assam of new units to the CBI troop list. SelectLOC could be increased to accommodate ing certain key items of construction both the airlift and ground operations. equipment and spare parts, he requested In mid-October, following his trip to a special cargo vessel be dispatched to the Pacific, he went on to India and the theater to bring them. Moving on China under instructions from the Chief to Delhi, he found the British "do-nothof Staff and the President to look into ing" spirit the chief reason for the the state of affairs there. On arrival in slow movements over the Assam LOC. the theater he received a message from The head of the Indian Railway Commission had, Somervell reported to Mar(1) Msg 3208, AGWAR to AMMISCA, 27 Sep shall, "made the very naive remark that 43, Stilwell Personal File, Book 4. (2) Msg 72666/COS, Auchinleck to Stilwell, 22 Sep 43. (3) Memo, unthey could secure more tonnage but that signed, for Gens Handy and Hull, 24 Sep 43, sub: . . . they had never been asked to move Gen Auchinleck's Msg Regarding Removal of Engimore than the figure previously furneer Units from Assam Airdrome Construction.
21
(4) Msg AMMDEL AG 1929, New Delhi to AGWAR, 23 Sep 43. Last three in OPD Exec 1, Item 22. (5) Msg 765, Stilwell to Marshall, 24 Sep 43, OPD Exec 1. Item 22. (6) Romanus and Sunderland, Stilwell's Mission to China, pp. 375-76.
(1) Msg 3619, Marshall to Stilwell for Somervell, 16 Oct 43, OPD Exec 1, Item 23. (2) On Somervell's instructions see Romanus and Sunderland, Stilwell's Mission to China, p. 381.
22
512
nished by the India Command." This remark, Somervell went on, "put the discussions for the first time on a hopeful and common sense basis."23 Mountbatten soon took a hand, reversing Auchinleck's previous decision and accepting the American offer to operate a section of the Bengal and Assam Railway 804 miles of meter-gauge lines from 24 Katihar to Ledo. Somervell's trip resulted in a speed-up in the pace of the CBI build-up and a general refinement in the project planning the India Committee was conducting. Concrete plans for all the projects involved in the land line of communications had taken relatively final shape by early November 1943. Of the pipelines, the 6-inch line from Calcutta to Dibrugarh was accorded first priority with a target date for completion set at 1 July 1944. Second priority went to the 4-inch line along the Ledo Road, while third was accorded the Fort Hertz Line, or, as this seemed likely to be impractical, to a second 4-inch line from Ledo to Kunming. The last line, the heavy 6-inch one to run all the way from Calcutta to Kunming, was placed in last priority with a target date for completion of 1 July 1945. Meanwhile, a barge line to run from Sirajganj Ghat to Dibrugarh (also to carry mainly POL) was to be completed 1 April 1944. Shipments of both matriel and troops for both the high priority pipelines and the barge line were well advanced by mid-November.
Msg 2810 KM 2863, Tehran to AGWAR, Somervell to Marshall, 25 Oct 43, OPD Exec 1, Item 23. Somervell's other messages on the airlift, pipelines, need of service troops, etc., are also in this file. 24 (1) Ibid. (2) Memo, Lutes for OPD, 4 Oct 43, sub: Bengal-Assam RR, AG 617 (9-28-43) (1). (3) History, SOS in CBI, pp. 53-59.
23
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from the Changsha region of east China. The first ten groups of B-29's would be moved into that area and begin operations in October 1944; ten more would follow by May 1945. The plan presupposed that the land route to China would be secured by mid-1944 and that, with the supplies carried over it and over the airlift, Chinese ground forces and Chennault's air force would be capable of protecting the exposed bases in east China. Supply of the B-29 bases themselves would be entirely by airlift New Air Projects from Calcutta, utilizing 4,000 B-24 Meanwhile, a new air project had tak- bombers converted to transports (Cen shape which, though it was conceived 87's). Some 596,000 tons of supplies as self-supporting, could not help but would have to be laid down at Calcutta impose new burdens on the already over- monthly for the strategic air force alone; strained logistical facilities of the CBI. about 40 new airfields would have to By August 1943 it appeared that ten be constructed around the Indian port groups (28 planes each) of the AAF's and a similar number in east China.27 new very long range (VLR) bombers, ASF staff planners took one look at the B-29's, would be ready for opera- the plan and declared it logistically imtions by October 1944. These and the possible. The massive shipments of persquadrons to follow would be too late sonnel and equipment would have to to play any important role in the strate- be at the expense of other planned opergic bombing of Germany, but might ations; the port capacity of Calcutta was have decisive effects in the war against too small, the construction of the airJapan. Since no Pacific bases were then fields impossible without early commitin prospect by October 1944 within ef- ment of additional large numbers of fective bombing radius of Japan, the service troops to the CBI; it was doubtAir Staff turned its attention to China. ful if the Chinese Army could be preThe use of B-29's from Chinese bases pared to protect the bases in time for offered one hope for speeding up the operations to begin on the dates schedtimetable for defeat of Japan, and at uled.28 QUADRANT Brig. Gen. Laurence S. 27 CCS 323, 20 Aug 43, memo by U.S. CsofS, Kuter, Chief of the Air Staff, presented title:(1) Air Plan for the Defeat of Japan. (2) Wesley a plan for a massive air assault on Japan Frank Craven and James Lea Cate, eds., "The Army
(1) See above, chs. IX and XIV. (2) Diary, Theater Br, Plng Div, ASF Asiatic Sec, 17 Nov 43. (3)
26
Air Forces in World War II," vol. V, The Pacific: MATTERHORN to Nagasaki: June 1944-August 1945 (Chicago: The University of Chicago Press,
ASF. (4) Memo, Gen Heileman for Gen Styer, 13 Nov 43, sub: Status of Railway Units for CBI, folder
CBIT, ASF Plng Div.
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General Stilwell's air commander, General Stratemeyer, echoed the ASF objections, but on Washington's insistence submitted an alternate plan called TWILIGHT conceived to be within the logistic capabilities of the theater. Under TWILIGHT, the main bases for the B-29's would be near Calcutta, with advance bases only in east China. The B-29's would be partly self-supporting, hauling their own fuel and bombs into China; other supplies would be brought in by converted B-24's and transports also directly from Calcutta. The theater proposed that ten B-29 groups might be supported in this manner by April 1945 if in the meantime the overland supply route had been secured, fifty U.S.-trained and -equipped Chinese divisions put into the field, and more fighter forces assigned to protect the B-29's and their bases. The timetable in the TWILIGHT plan was too slow for the AAF. By October 1943 it appeared that four B-29 groups might be readied by March 1944 and General Arnold was anxious to put them into action as soon as possible. Out of these circumstances grew the MATTERHORN plan, largely the work of Brig. Gen. Kenneth B. Wolfe, AAF, a pioneer in the B-29 program. Wolfe proposed that three or four groups of B-29's begin operations from advance bases in the Cheng-tu area west of Chungking, a much less exposed position than the fields in east China, by April or May 1944. The main bases would be, as in TWILIGHT, at Calcutta, but the operations were to be completely self-sustaining and independent of the theater line of communications. Two giant planes would be used to transport supplies from Calcutta to the Cheng-tu fields for every
MISCA, President to Chiang Kai-shek, 11 Nov 43. (3) Msg 876, AMMISCA to AGWAR, 14 Nov 43. (2) and (3) in Stilwell Personal File, Book 4, Items 1235,
CHINA, BURMA, AND INDIA mediately to plan the movement of the necessary men and materials for construction of fields and facilities at Calcutta. Four Engineer aviation battalions, four Engineer dump truck companies, and two pipeline companies were added to the CBI troop basis. A May target date was established for completion of five B-29 fields near Calcutta.31 The addition of the MATTERHORN fields completed the complex pattern of American projects in the CBI.
Sextant: The Plans Disrupted
515
before. The airlift was finally approaching its target of 10,000 tons monthly. If the Assam LOC still lagged, new spirit and energy infused into its operation by the work of Somervell and his staff promised to produce better results in the not-too-distant future. New techniques of air supply promised to make possible more effective operations against the Japanese in Burma. In November Stilwell launched the drive of the Chinese Army in India toward Myitkyina. Mountbatten was putting new drive and spirit into the British and proposed to present at SEXTANT a plan of operations for the following year that by combined Chinese-American-British action would finally break the land blockade of China. Even Chiang, in November 1943, seemed ready to give in to Stilwell's persistent prodding and launch the attack of the YOKE Force across the Salween River.33 The Allied conferences at Cairo and Tehran completely changed these prospects. Old conflicts among American, British, and Chinese interests reemerged, were given a new turn by Stalin's promise to enter the war against Japan, and the conferences ended in failure to agree on any strategy for the coming year that would achieve the purposes enunciated at QUADRANT of opening an overland supply route to China. The story of SEXTANT and EUREKA has already been told34 and needs little elaboration here. At Cairo, for the first and last time, Chiang Kai-shek met with Churchill and Roosevelt and their staffs. As a plan for operations in the CBI, Mountbatten presented CHAMPION, in33 See Romanus and Sunderland, Stilwell's Command Problems, chs. I and II. 34 See above, ch. XI.
Some 59,000 troops and 950,000 tons of cargo were shipped from the United States to the CBI from August through December 1943. U.S. troop strength in the theater rose from 46,000 to 94,500. The build-up was expected to continue at about this rate during the first six months of 1944.32 In terms of numbers, the CBI command was still small and would remain so for some time to come. But its strategic importance was still conceived to be out of proportion to the numerical strength of the American soldiery present. Its fundamental mission was to make possible the use of highly strategic territory in China for an air assault against Japan and to call forth and make effective the tremendous manpower of a hitherto ineffective ally in the Pacific war. On the eve of the SEXTANT Conference late in 1943 the prospects for success in this endeavor were brighter than ever
(1) Diary, Strat LOC Br, Plng Div, ASF, 16 Nov 43. (2) Memo, Col G. H. Williams, Actg Chief, Strat LOC Br, for Dir Plng Div, ASF, 24 Nov 43, sub: Implementation of TWILIGHT Plan, file Future Opns, ASF Plng Div. 32 (1) ASF Control Div, Statistical Review, World War II. (2) STM-30, Strength of the Army, 1 Jan 48.
31
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eluding two separate operations respectively designated TARZAN and BUCCANEER. TARZAN was to include the completion of the Chinese drive already underway from Ledo toward Myitkyina, the advance of the YOKE Force from Yunnan to meet it, a British land drive toward the Chindwin, and an airborne offensive in the Indaw-Katha region of central Burma. BUCCANEER was to be a British amphibious landing on the Andaman Islands in the Bay of Bengal. Chiang made the British amphibious operation a prerequisite to the participation of YOKE Force and the course of events that led to the cancellation of BUCCANEER to provide landing craft for the Mediterranean consequently led also to the cancellation of the other parts of CHAMPION. Mountbatten's belated second entry, PIGSTICK, combining a smaller amphibious operation against the Arakan coast and a TARZAN that included an attack on Mandalay as a substitute for the airborne offensive in the Indaw-Katha area, also went by the board when Chiang vacillated and the British withdrew practically all the amphibious shipping remaining in SEAC. Any prospect of a campaign that would open an overland supply route to China before the 1944 monsoon season disappeared and with it any chance that either a full-scale air attack against Japan could be mounted from China in 1944 or that the Chinese could move to the coast and seize a port before American forces advancing across the Pacific arrived.35
35 For a full account see, in addition to Chapter XI above, Romanus and Sunderland, Stilwell's Command Problems, pp. 49-82; Matloff, Strategic Planning, 1943-1944, pp. 347-52, 369-73; and Ehrman, Grand Strategy V, 155-95, 211-23.
517
"out of step with global strategy" and should be halted at Myitkyina.39 The end run around Malaya would, he and the British Chiefs contended, bring SEAC forces to a port on the China coast earlier than an overland drive through China. In the American view, the proposed end run was equally out of step with global strategy and an even less profitable investment than the Burma campaign. Amphibious resources for an attack on Sumatra could not possibly be made available until the end of the war against Germany; thus SEAC forces could not possibly arrive on the China coast as early as those advancing across the Pacific. Moreover, the Americans argued, unless the British advanced against the Japanese in central Burma and seized the area south of Myitkyina the airfields to be built there could not be held. In the end the U.S. Chiefs brought the British over, and by late March there was general agreement that "nourishing the air forces in China" would be the primary mission of SEAC, with the land offensive to be conducted 40 with this purpose in mind. If this proposed line of action constituted a clear and logical strategy, there remained too many strands of past plans still hanging in the air to permit its execution with single-minded purpose. No directive was issued to Mount39 Msg AM 38, New Delhi to AMMISCA and AGWAR, 6 Jan 44, Stilwell Personal File, Book V, Item 1602. 40 (1) Memo, SAC, SEAC for CCS, 4 Feb 44, and related materials in OPD Exec 1, Item 23a. (2) JCS 774, 16 Mar 44, rpt by JPS, title: Strategy in SEAC. (3) This controversy may be followed in detail in Hayes, The War Against Japan, II, 198-214, History JCS.
The British meanwhile had drawn their own inferences from the SEXTANT decisions. In early January they proposed that the effort in Burma be cut
to the bare minimum necessary to seize Myitkyina and build and hold airfields there, and that the major line of attack be diverted toward Sumatra and Malaya as soon as amphibious resources were available for the purpose. Mountbatten argued that the Ledo Road was now
Memo, Gen Roberts for ACofS, OPD, 8 Jan 44, sub: Future Military Value of China Theater, Somervell Black Book, Strat Agenda for Asiatic Conf, Tab 4, Hq ASF File. 38 (1) JCS 713/1, 10 Mar 44, rpt by JPS, title: Future Opns in Pacific. (2) Matloff, Strategic Planning, 1943-1944, pp. 436-38.
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batten until June while American leaders debated among themselves and with the British on just what should be done in the CBI to carry out their agreed purpose. Even the air plan required as a minimum the capture of Myitkyina in order to shorten the airlift; to many it
seemed folly not to continue once threefourths of the battle to open a land
route had been won; the American investment required to get the road into Myitkyina would be largely lost unless the road were continued over the much easier trail to Kunming; even if the road were not completed, the pipelines at least could play their role in transport-
should be pressed to the utmost, so that a strong tactical air force and some
519
season, and in pressing such advantages to be prepared to exploit the development of 46 overland communications to China.
The last paragraph, vague as it was, had the net effect of keeping the Ledo Road alive as part of the CBI logistical plan. It was added largely at the insistence of General Somervell in the face of British opposition and the apparent indifference of OPD.47 On 5 April Stilwell had written to General Arnold: "We can't do everything so why not get down to cases and Yet Marshall reaffirmed that Stilwell's make out a priority list. . . . Right now, mission vis-a-vis the Chinese was to con- everybody is frantically scrambling to do tinue to be that of increasing the com- everything, and another load will nec48 bat efficiency of the Chinese Army in essarily cause trimming everywhere." accordance with current plans for equip- If the first priority for PAC-AID seemed ping 33 divisions and that, while primary to be a step in that direction, it did not emphasis "for the present" should go in practice provide any solution, for the to the Hump airlift and its security and demands of existing projects in the CBI to development of maximum effective- soon totally negated the effects of the ness of the Fourteenth Air Force, he priority and rendered PAC-AID simply should be prepared to "exploit the de- "another load" on the already overburvelopment of overland communications dened facilities in the theater. Everybody to China." continued to scramble to do everything The directive issued by the CCS to with the result that almost nothing was Mountbatten on 3 June 1944 was of the really done well. same equivocal character. Though he was given as his primary mission Matterhorn
to develop, maintain, broaden and protect the air link to China, in order to provide the maximum and timely stock of petrol and stores to China in support of Pacific operations. . . .
Of the existing CBI projects that had a part in preventing any real concentration on a single objective in the theater, none played a more significant role than MATTERHORN, approved finally by the CCS at SEXTANT. If MATTERHORN was fundamentally in keeping with the new
So far as is consistent with the above, to 46 Mountbatten Report, p. 64. On the framing of press advantages against the enemy, by exerting maximum effort, ground and air, the directive, see Hayes, The War Against Japan, particularly during the current monsoon II,47210-14, History JCS.
45 WARX 42202, Marshall to Stilwell, 27 May 44, Stilwell Personal file, Book VII, Item 2562.
See Memo, Somervell for CofS, 31 May 44, sub: Strategy in SEAC, ABC 384 (8-25-42), Sec 6. 48 Memo, Stilwell for Arnold, 5 Apr 44, OPD 381 (TS), Case 375.
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concept that placed the primary emphasis on the air effort, its logistical demands furnished one of the stumbling blocks that made the stockpiling of supplies for PAC-AID missions impossible. MATTERHORN, in its final conception, was definitely experimental in character, a product of the desire to put the four available B-29 groups into action as soon as possible. With the speed-up in the Central Pacific timetable, it was agreed that the main strategic bombing offensive by the B-29's would be undertaken from the Marianas. Even with an accelerated advance, however, these islands were not expected to be in American hands before October 1944. The use of bases in China for the first four groups thus promised an earlier start. MATTERHORN got the highest priority of all CBI projects in the early months of 1944. Yet even MATTERHORN had to go ahead on the basis of a CCS decision that it should be carried out "without materially affecting other approved operations."49 The planes themselves, and their crews and air service personnel were especially earmarked for the project, but furnishing the required shipping, ground service personnel, and construction equipment for the airfields introduced complications. The restrictive clause in the CCS decision had to be given a liberal interpretation. Shipping requirements20,000 troop spaces, 200,000tons of dry cargo space in the first six months of 1944, and after April at least 20,000 tons of tanker capacity monthlywere met by juggling schedules at some expense to the movements of men and material for other CBI proj49 (1) CCS 397 (Rev), 2 Dec 43, title: Specific Opns for the Defeat of Japan. (2) Craven and Cate, ed., AAF V, 22-32.
Div. (4) Materials in file Spec Proj CBI, ASF Plng Div.
(5) Ltr, Maj Gen William E. R. Covell to Gen Somervell, 21 Jan 44, file Gen Covell's Ltrs from CBI, ASF Plng Div. 51 (1) Craven and Cate, ed., AAF V, 59-73, 92-98. (2) History, SOS in CBI.
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The situation was complicated by the command set-up. The MATTERHORN force (XX Bomber Command) was directly under control of the Twentieth Air Force headquarters in Washington, not under the theater commander. The latter had no right to use MATTERHORN supplies for any purpose other than the B-29 operations without permission from Washington, nor to direct the operations of the bombers. Even though Stilwell did control the priorities on the Hump air line, he was under constant pressure to be as generous as possible with the XX Bomber Command. In short, logistical support could not be provided to enable the long-range bombers to fulfill the role for which they were designed, while their demands cut into support for other theater projects. Also, the presence of the B-29's in China stirred the Japanese, in mid-1944, to launch a campaign to overrun the airfields in east China to which they feared the bombers would ultimately be deployed. It was the logistical considerations, together with the increasing Japanese threat to the Cheng-tu bases themselves, that finally decided the Twentieth Air Force in January 1945 to abandon MATTERHORN and move the B-29's back to India, leaving the Hump line to support Chennault and the Chinese army and the airfields to B-24's that could be used to support tactical operations. Two months later they were removed from the theater altogether and sent to Saipan where the major strategic bombing offensive against Japan was by that time being mounted.53 If in China they had
(1) Ibid., 33-57, 81-91. (2) Romanus and Sunderland, Stilwell's Command Problems, pp. 109-15, 297-302.
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been able to contribute little to the win- ican contingent known as Merrill's Maning of the war, the B-29 pilots and rauders. The major implications of the crews had gained valuable experience. diversions to ETO lay in the future when the opportunity finally was to unfold for opening the land supply route The End of the Assam Bottleneck to China.55 Meanwhile, the LOC projects in the In any case, the most pressing probCBI included in the QUADRANT charter lem in early 1944 was still the Assam went ahead on a much reduced priority. LOC rather than the Ledo Road. The Immediately following SEXTANT five En- plans of fall 1943 in this regard were gineer combat battalions earmarked for largely unaffected by the SEXTANT deciLedo Road construction and five pipe- sions. Yet the effects of an intensive efline companies designated for various fort were nowhere visible in early 1944 projects in the CBI were diverted to as the Assam line continued in a mudthe ETO along with considerable ma- dle. The bottleneck shifted back from triel, including 1,750 of the truck- the meter-gauge line to the broad-gauge tractors and 3,500 semitrailers originally line running out of Calcutta to Pardesigned for Ledo Road operations. batipur and to the port of Calcutta itOther diversions followed. General Som- self. To the American command, the ervell asked OPD to replace them but problem of facilities seemed less immet with little success, and in the exist- portant than that of control. There was ing confusion about strategic aims in no military director for either the port the theater there seemed to be no fixed or the rail and barge lines and no priority, it seemed, for military material. policy on the matter.54 Despite the resultant shortage of ser- On 29 January, Marshall wrote the Presivice troops in CBI, the build-up did con- dent urging him to ask Churchill's intinue at a sufficient rate to enable the tervention to secure adoption of "forcesolution, one by one, of the major logis- ful measures" to clear up the situation. tical problems in India. And if Ledo The situation on the Calcutta-Assam Road and pipeline construction were feeding our bases in Northeast India slowed, they were still pushed ahead LOC is precarious. Civil administration directs about as fast as the tactical situation and controls all transportation in India. would permit. Airfields were built along- The Indian authorities have failed to operside the road that permitted progressive ate the means at their disposal efficiently, support by airdrop of the advancing the port of Calcutta is tied up, the broad Chinese forces and of the small Amer- gauge railroad connecting Bengal with
(1) Memo, Gen Wood for CG ASF, 4 Jan 44, sub: SEXTANT Decisions, Folder of same name, ASF
54
Plng Div. (2) Draft Memo, Somervell for CofS, 4 Jan 44, sub: Opns in CBI, Folder CBI Theater, ASF Plng Div. (3) Memo, Gen Handy for Gen Somervell, 55 On the general progress of theater projects in 16 Apr 44. (4) Memo, Somervell for Handy, 19 Apr CBI during this period see History, SOS in CBI, 44. (3) and (4) in OPD 320.2 (TS), Case 264. (5) Ltr, and Romanus and Sunderland, Stilwell's Command Covell to Somervell, 27 Jan 44, Folder Gen Covell's Problems, pp. 275-93. Ltrs from CBI1944, ASF Plng Div.
Assam has been interrupted, the barge lines most inexpertly handled. At this time three of our ATC fields in India are without gas; . . . Levels of supply are at dangerously
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Less than a month later, Covell could also report to Somervell the final conquest of the Assam LOC:
Within the last four weeks the results of all the hard work in the previous five months on the Assam LOC have finally begun to show up and to show up in almost a flood. The bottleneck on the meter gauge railway has been completely broken by the operation of our railroad battalions. The Control Panel in Calcutta over which we fought and bled is now functioning with the complete and enthusiastic cooperation of the British. As a result the tonnage capacity for June for the first time in history was equal to the sum of the bids of American and British forces. During the first ten days of May the LOC not only met its high targets but exceeded it by 700 long tons per day. In fact both the British and my people are beginning to complain that supplies are arriving too fast. 1 believe it is safe to say that, at the present writing at least, the problem of the Assam LOC is licked and should remain so except for acts of God and of the public enemy.59
Whether by the intervention of the Prime Minister or not, in mid-February steps were taken along the lines the Americans urged. While the port of Calcutta was not placed under military control, a single civilian controller was appointed with full powers and the Americans were allotted the King George V docks for their own military operation. In March a similar system of semimilitary control was worked out for the Assam LOC, with a panel in Calcutta to allocate monthly tonnage among using forces. In the same month the Americans took over the operation of the meter-gauge railroad. Maj. Gen. Daniel I. Sultan's appraisal on 21 March that the "Assam LOC is and always will be a frightful headache," proved pessimistic.57 Improvements under the new system soon became evident, and on 20 April Maj. Gen. William E. R. Covell, the CBI SOS commander, reported the Calcutta problem solved with the King George docks cleared completely for the first time in March and a total of 211,415 measurement tons of cargo unloaded during that month. "No special concern need be given to the capacity of the port of Calcutta," wrote Covell, "nor has any indication been given at this time that it has reached its saturation point."58
Memo, Marshall for President, 29 Jan 44, sub: Failure of Assam LOC, file CBI 1944, Hq ASF. 57 (1) Memo, Sultan for Stilwell, 21 Mar 44, Stilwell Personal File, Book 3. (2) On these procedural improvements see Larson and Bykofsky, The Transportation Corps: Operations Overseas, pp. 563-77. 58 (1) Ltr, Covell to Somervell, 20 Apr 44, OCT HB, Gross Day File 1944. (2) For the story of the Calcutta port see Larson and Bykofsky, The Transportation Corps: Operations Overseas, pp. 563-67.
56
Only one postscript need be added. The tonnage allocations for military purposes for the month of July were set at 229,000 short tons, slightly more than the QUADRANT planners had agreed as the goal for January 1946. With additional improvements planned, there was every prospect of a further increase. The 6-inch pipeline from Calcutta to Dibrugarh was also completed in August, one month behind schedule, further increas60 ing the capacity of the line. Had these achievements been made one year earlier the whole history of the CBI might have
Ltr, Covell to Somervell, 14 May 44, sub: Assam LOC, file Gen Somervell, ASF Plng Div. 60 (1) Memo, Brig Gen Thomas B. Wilson, Chief Trans Service, CBI, for Gen Somervell, 15 Jul 44, sub: Assam LOC, file CBI 1944, Hq ASF. (2) Ltr, Covell to Somervell, 19 Aug 44, file Gen Covell's Ltrs . . . 1944, ASF Plng Div.
59
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CCS. That body finally came up with a schedule of diversions that would result in a serious diminution of the airlift only in March and April, though the scale of air transport promised for TARZAN was hardly that the SEAC comin the CBI. (Map 6) mander had originally asked.61 Cancellation of TARZAN ended conThe Problem of Air Transport sideration of diversions from the Hump Forward of the Indian railheads oper- momentarily. Then in February 1944 ational supply was heavily dependent the Japanese struck in the Arakan, isoupon air transport. By early 1944 sup- lating a complete Indian division and ply by airdrop had become almost the leaving them dependent on air supply. accepted method of supplying troops ac- To meet the need for air transport, tively engaged in Burma. The roads new- Mountbatten had again to apply to the ly hewn out of the jungle could neither CCS for permission to divert planes from keep pace with the advancing troops the airlift to China, though he continued nor provide supplies to the scattered to insist that it was within his prerogapoints at which Chinese, British, and tives to do so anyway. The JCS were American soldiers were operating, many sympathetic but firm in their insistence of them behind Japanese lines. Trans- that transports on the Hump must report planes in the CBI became the prin- main under CCS control. They agreed cipal limiting factor on ground opera- to divert 30 C-47's as an emergency tions, while at the same time they measure but, when Mountbatten proremained the only method of moving posed to remove 70 more, told the Britsupplies into China. Competition for ish Chiefs to make a more determined transports between the Hump line and effort to provide the aircraft from their operations in Burma was therefore in- own resources in other theaters. The British already had 12 transport planes evitable. The CCS were first made aware of this earmarked for delivery to SEAC in April, issue when Mountbatten at SEXTANT said and they managed to scrape up 45 more he would need 535 additional transport from the United Kingdom and the Mediplanes for TARZAN if he were to execute terranean. However, they still asked for that operation while continuing the an additional temporary diversion from Hump airlift at its planned levels. Not the Hump to fill the gap until these hopeful of securing so manyArnold planes could arrive in India. The JCS was able to promise only 35he pro- instead decided to send one American posed to divert planes from the Hump troop carrier squadron (64 planes) from as required on the theory that these were part of the total resources allocated (1) Msg 10059, SEXTANT to AGWAR, Arnold to his theater. The JCS demurred, as they Gen Barney M. Giles, 26 Nov 43, OPD Exec 5, Item had earlier, at allowing any British com- 13. (2) CCS 411/2, 2 Dec 43, title: Opns in SEAC. CCS 411/5, 7 Dec 43, memo by Br COS, same mander to make decisions affecting the (3) title. (4) Chiang, it will be recalled, had made an Hump airlift without reference to the issue of the 535 transports. See above, ch. XI.
been different. As it was they came too late. The elimination of the Assam bottleneck, nevertheless, was perhaps the principal factor making possible the achievements of the last year of the war
61
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the Mediterranean on 30-day loan, with filled up in the theater with key Amerthe understanding that all Hump trans- ican personnel and about 20,000 selectports should be returned and any fur- ed Chinese soldiers. This proposal Genther requirements be met by the Air eral Stilwell rejected as impractical. The Transport Command in India.62 upshot was that one combat cargo group When the 30 days expired, the loan with 100 transports was dispatched in had to be extended for 30 more despite May, earlier than planned, to meet the the anguished outcries of the Supreme immediate SEAC emergency and the JCS Allied Commander, Mediterranean. The decided to withhold decision on the rest. continuing need for tactical air transport In early July, they reached the tentative in India and Burma clearly indicated conclusion that only one additional comthere must be a more permanent solu- bat cargo group would be sent to SEAC, tion. The AAF was, in fact, already con- this in August, while the other two and sidering one. General Arnold indicated the air commandos would go to the in March that in view of increased trans- Southwest Pacific.63 port production and a lessening requirement for transport planes for training Airlift, PAC-AID, and the East airborne divisions, he would be willing China Crisis to send to SEAC four combat cargo groups (100 C-47 transports each) and By the expedients adopted the crisis four air commando groups, one group on the Indian front was met without too of each type to arrive in the theater great interference to movement of supmonthly beginning on 1 July 1944. plies over the Hump, and the troop carThe project had to be sharply cur- rier squadron returned to the Meditertailed almost immediately. There were ranean to take part in the battle in Italy not enough personnel available at the and the invasion of southern France. time to organize more than two air com- The Hump lift did fall below 10,000 mando groups, and insufficient support- tons in March, but rose again to 11,000 ing service troops to enable either these in April and to nearly 16,000 in June.64 or the four combat cargo groups to operThese Hump tonnages were far from ate in the theater. And it appeared un- enough to meet the demand in China, likely, because of the critical shipping situation in the Pacific, that cargo space (1) Memo, Maj Gen Howard A. Craig, Acting could be found to carry the necessary Chief Air Staff for OPD, 11 Apr 44, sub: Air Comsupplies to India. Finally, the Navy in- mando Project, with related material in OPD 320.2 dicated it could not provide tankers to (TS), Case 267. (2) Memo, Col W. H. Wood for Gen Handy, 12 Apr 44, sub: Air Commando Opn, carry gasoline. In desperation, Arnold OPD 381 (TS), Case 342. (3) OPD MFR, 6 May 44, suggested that four combat cargo groups OPD 381 (TS), Case 365. (4) Memo, Gen Arnold for and two air commando groups be Gen Handy, 17 May 44, sub: Opn of U.S. Air Units from China Bases, OPD 381 (TS), Case 375. (5) Draft shipped as skeletonized units with the msgs, AGWAR to CG USAFCBI and CINCSWPA, necessary planes, and that the units be 4 Jul 44, OPD 381 (TS), Case 418. (6) On the Pacific
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62
shipping situation at the time, see above, Chapter XIX. 64 (1) Craven and Cate, ed., AAF V, 220. (2) Hayes, War Against Japan, II, 220-21, History JCS.
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particularly after the XX Bomber Command was added to the list of claimants and the competition for Hump tonnage among using forces became especially severe in mid-1944. With the air line hard pressed to meet Chennault's increasing operational needs, while at the same time providing a necessary minimum for the U.S. overhead in China and token quantities for the YOKE Forces, the supposed first priority buildup of a PAC-AID stockpile fell hopelessly behind. In early April Stilwell had been ready to cut off YOKE Force supplies entirely; on the 10th of that month Chiang, under continuing pressure from Roosevelt to strike while the Japanese were extended in India, finally agreed to launch the offensive from Yunnan into Burma. Under the circumstances, Stilwell not only could not cut off lendlease to China but also had to provide transport planes to support the Chinese advance. At almost the same time the Japanese began their advance into eastern and southern China with the evident purpose of seizing Chennault's air bases and possibly overrunning the Hump terminal at Kunming. Chennault was compelled to devote his forces almost entirely to the defense of the airfields, and found his supplies totally inadequate for that purpose. In fact, finding air action insufficient, he also began to demand American supplies for the Chinese ground forces in east China and air transports to serve on the line of communication running from Kunming to his bases. Remembering Chennault's earlier claims that he could prevent a Japanese advance with air power alone, Stilwell was something less than sympathetic. He did, however, allot to Chennault the lion's share of Hump tonnage. Under
V and VI, particularly the messages exchanged between Roosevelt and Chiang: Book V, Items 1613,
1629, 1697; Book VI, Items 2031, 2109, 2145, 2151, 2164, 2186, 2194, 2202, 2214. (2) For detailed treatment see Romanus and Sunderland, Stilwell's Command Problems, Chapters VIII, X, XI. (3) Msg, CM-OUT 53610, AGWAR to AMMISCA, AMMDEL, and SEAC, 20 Jun 44. (4) Memo, Gen Handy for CG AAF, 19 May 44, sub: Opns of Air Units from China Bases, OPD 381 (TS), Case 375.
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ming by transport planes still had to be moved forward to the Fourteenth Air Force bases over the so-called Eastern Line of Communications (ELOC) by a combination of rail, road, and river transport. On this route coolies, animals, and Chinese junks played as important a part as motor vehicles and rail cars. The roads were rough and the few motor vehicles in China mostly old and in poor operating condition. For want of gasoline they had to use alcohol for fuel. The scarcity of trucks in China put a high premium on their value and led to the same sort of graft and inefficiency in operation that characterized Chiang's government generally. This, the final bottleneck in the whole effort to aid China, the Americans belatedly started to grapple with in 1944. In May they placed their own supervisory staff over the Chinese transportation agency. At the same time, a project was developed (TIGAR 26-A) to fly 700 trucks. 2,000 tons of spare parts, and American drivers and maintenance personnel into China, but the priority for ammunition and POL for the air force delayed its completion until September and by then it was too late. The Japanese had already captured the eastern airfields and were moving threateningly in the direction of those in central and south China. Existing motor transport had to be absorbed in evacuation and the ELOC was so thoroughly disrupted that it was impossible to move any sizable tonnages over it until March 1945 when the Japanese, under pressure from all sides, began to withdraw. A final desperation effort to move trucks from the Persian Gulf to Kunming over a long and difficult route through Soviet Turkestan and Sinkiang Province (TIGAR 26-B),
ority to that of "supply of the Fourteenth Air Force (including the ChineseAmerican Wing) to develop the maximum effectiveness consistent with minimum requirement for support of other activities in China and Burma."66 Below these two, in order, came the operational requirements of MATTERHORN and requirements of Chinese air and ground forces other than the minimum placed in first priority. The effects of augmentation were not to be felt until November. But meanwhile, as a result of improvements in operational efficiency and of the capture of the airfield at Myitkyina, hump tonnage rose to 23,000 tons in August. Soon afterward new airfields were built at Myitkyina for refueling operations, making it possible for transports to carry more cargo and less fuel on their flights. With a less difficult run and the addition of transports in November, Hump tonnage shot up to 35,000 in that month. Neither of these increases added significantly to the amounts that could go into PAC-AID stockpiles. Chennault's share was maintained at a steady 12,000-14,000 tons from June onward; the increases largely went to the XX Bomber Command and to the growing numbers of U.S. troops in China engaged in operating a theater headquarters and a supply line to the eastern air fields, in training Chinese troops, and in supervising the use of American materials in China. (Table 33) The principal explanation for failure to give Chennault more supplies lay in the poor transportation facilities within China itself. Supplies set down at Kun66 (1) JCS 959/1, 25 Aug 44, title: Strategy in CBI. (2) JCS 959, 15 Jul 44, memo by CG AAF, same title.
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to which the Soviets finally agreed in fall 1944, also was abortive.67 The phenomenal development of the air transport line in late 1944 thus came too late to save the air bases in east China. And the necessity for moving service troops, trucks, and supplies for the troops over the line led to an evermounting overhead in China that also had to be supported over the Hump. The air line it seemed could never be developed as fast as the demands for supplies in China increased. And the difficulties on the ELOC very definitely proved that merely laying down supplies in Kunming could not, in itself, solve the logistical problem of supporting either air or ground forces in China. Meanwhile, the steady and inexorable Japanese advance against the airfields in east China, though it did not put an end to Chennault's operations, forced him to withdraw to fields further in the
67 On these projects see Larson and Bykofsky, The Transportation Corps: Operations Overseas, pp. 591-603.
interior and to use his limited supplies primarily for tactical missions. This crisis was the main influence shaping American strategy on the Asiatic mainland in the last year of the war. It prevented realization of the plan to use Chinese bases to any considerable extent for support of Pacific operations, and left the staff in Washington in something of a quandary as to just what use their investment in Burma and China could be put. There was no inclination to liquidate this investment, nor was there any desire to increase it significantly. The east China crisis provoked Roosevelt to urge Chiang Kai-shek to place his armies under the command of General Stilwell; Chiang eventually refused and asked for Stilwell's recall, a request the President honored.68 Maj. Gen. Albert C. Wedemeyer was appointed commander of the American theater in China, and the India-Burma Theater
68 On the relief of Stilwell, see the detailed account in Romanus and Sunderland, Stilwell's Command Problems, pp. 399-471.
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COOLIES PULL SAMPANS LOADED WITH U.S. ARMY SUPPLIES upstream through the swift rapids of the Wu River.
separated from it and placed under General Sultan (now a lieutenant general). Wedemeyer's mission was defined as that of carrying out air operations from China and assisting Chinese air and ground forces in operations, training, and logistics, somewhat different from that given Stilwell of "improving the efficiency of the Chinese Army." Wedemeyer was also, by agreement with Chiang, to be his chief of staff, but the whole matter of command of the Chinese
Army was dropped.69 If Wedemeyer's appointment and mission indicated that the Americans were not ready to abandon China, they also carried in them a note of resignation, of final abandonment of high hopes once entertained that China's role in the war would be an important one.
Charles F. Romanus and Riley Sunderland, Time Runs Out in CBI, UNITED STATES ARMY IN WORLD WAR II (Washington, 1959), pp. 15-24.
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CHAPTER XXII
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perhaps also because of the prevailing high optimism, no effort was made to cast the usual balance sheet of resources and requirements nor, in particular, to project the allocation of merchant shipping, a resource upon which the pressures of a two-front war were to be most severe in the months following. The questions involving European strategy were settled with an ease and harmony that contrasted markedly with the long, sometimes acrimonious, controversy over OVERLORD and ANVIL. The British came to Quebec fearing that the Americans would insist on withdrawing Second Quebec part of the U.S. Fifth Army from Italy, During the period when optimism was or on directing Alexander's offensive to at its height, the sixth great Anglo- the northwest into France, or at least American conference of the war (OCTA- on sending all the assault shipping in GON) took place at the Chateau Fron- the Mediterranean to the Pacific or Intenac in Quebec, 12-16 September 1944. dia. At this point British hopes were In terms of vital decisions, OCTAGON was still high that Alexander would be able perhaps the least consequential of the to breach the Gothic Line quickly. wartime conferences. All the major stra- Churchill and the British Chiefs were tegic decisions on the war in Europe determined that he should press onward had already been made. The Russians through northeastern Italy via Trieste to did not attend and the postwar political Vienna should the opportunity offer, and questions that were to hold the center they wanted to retain enough assault of the stage at Yalta a few months later lift in the Mediterranean to carry out did not come up for extended discus- landings in Istria. sion. Major strategic questions remainActually, by the end of August the ing involved the war with Japan, and Americans were no longer hostile to a these had largely become matters for northeastward advance in Italy nor, for unilateral American decision. The main that matter, to British re-entry into the issue was, in fact, the extent and nature Balkans with any forces they could scrape of the British role in the final campaign together in the Mediterranean area. Eiin the Pacific, an area over which the senhower's needs by this time were less Americans had no intention of surren- for additional divisions than for ports dering their strategic responsibility. On and adequate lines of communications nearly all the issues considered, position to support the forces already in northpapers had already been exchanged be- west Europe. The great boost in Amertween the British and American staffs ican production had made the supply and decisions were already in the mak- of landing craft considerably less critical. ing. Perhaps for all these reasons, and And it was now obviously too late for
full-scale commitment on two major and excessively broad fronts, and they were stretched to the practical limits of the American economy in its existing state of mobilization. This period of full-scale war on two fronts was not, however, like the early phase of the war in which the shortage of military resources threatened to have, and sometimes did have, disastrous consequences. Victory was clearly in sight on both fronts and such shortages of resources as did develop principally affected its timing.
STRESSES AND STRAINS OF A TWO-FRONT WAR any major campaign to be mounted in the Balkans. By the time the Quebec Conference convened, therefore, the Americans were already disposed to go along with the British on the essential points of their Mediterranean program. Admiral King promptly indicated that the assault lift in the Mediterranean, though earmarked for the Far East, could be used in the Istrian venture, and it was agreed that General Wilson should report his decision by 10 October. The JCS also assured the British that no major U.S. forces would be withdrawn from Italy until the outcome of the current offensive could be evaluated. No objection was raised to a drive toward Vienna, and British proposals for action in southeastern Europe in the event of a German collapse, including the immediate dispatch of a small expeditionary force to Greece, were approved without discussion. General Wilson was also ordered, in event of a German withdrawal, to occupy Venezia Giulia. To all appearances, controversy over Mediterranean strategy had at long last disappeared in a golden haze of Allied harmony.1 Discussions on the British role in the final offensive against Japan were hardly so harmonious. Anxious to secure as
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jected to searching examination during the first eight months of 1944. Churchill doggedly insisted on an Indian Ocean strategy with Sumatra, Singapore, and Hong Kong as objectives, but the British Chiefs were convinced that any advance through the South China Sea to Hong Kong would be too late, and that the American drive across the Pacific would effectively cut communications to southeast Asia and render a campaign against the Indies and Malaya no more than a mopping-up operation. In the end their opinion prevailed. Some three and a half weeks before OCTAGON the British presented their final views to the Americans. They proposed to concentrate in southeast Asia on eliminating the Japanese from Burma in expeditious fashion so as to secure the land and air routes to China, while making their major contribution to the final campaign against Japan by transferring fleet units and possibly air and ground forces to the main drive in the Pacific.2 The British position on operations in southeast Asia represented a capitulation to American views, but in reality the JCS no longer considered the freeing of all Burma as a matter of great strategic consequence. The opportunity for important a place as possible, the Brit- a timely reopening of the old supply line ish were in a difficult position, for the north from Rangoon had long since theater in which they had originally ex- passed, and all American resources availpected to make their major effortsouth- able for this theater were committed east Asiahad, since SEXTANT, been rele- to the Hump air line and the Ledo Road gated to a subsidiary status. Within Brit- in the north. The British presented two ish councils, the whole question was sub- plansCAPITAL and DRACULA. CAPITAL involved simply a British offensive in
(1) Ehrman, Grand Strategy V, 384-91, 510-11. (2) Matloff, Strategic Planning, 1943-44, p. 505. (3) Churchill, Triumph and Tragedy, pp. 122-26. (4)Min, 1st Plenary Mtg, OCTAGON, 13 Sep 44; 2d Plenary Mtg, 16 Sep 44. (5) Min, 1 7 2 d mtg CCS, 12 Sep 44. (6) CCS 680/2, 16 Sep 44, title: Rpt to President and Prime Minister.
1
(1) Ehrman, Grand Strategy V, 421-504, contains a lengthy account of the internal British debate on this issue. (2) See also Bryant, Triumph in the West, pp. 111-24, 198-205, and Churchill, The Hinge of Fate, pp. 571-81.
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north Burma, in close co-operation with the U.S.-sponsored Chinese forces, aimed
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but they were unable to stipulate just what that role should be outside Southeast Asia where the campaign was now regarded by both sides as decidedly 4 peripheral. American plans for the final blow against Japan had matured considerably since SEXTANT. In June and July 1944 the Joint Planners had drawn up, and the JCS had approved, a plan for operations subsequent to Formosa (then still envisaged as the main operation in early 1945) that incorporated the idea of invasion of the Japanese homeland, rather than blockade and bombardment, as the means for eventually forcing unconditional surrender. Specifically the concept was as follows:
a. Concurrent advances through the Ryukyus, Bonins and Southeast China coast for the purpose of intensifying the blockade and air bombardment of Japan and creating a situation favorable for: b. An amphibious assault on Kyushu for the purpose of further reducing Japanese capabilities by engaging and fixing major enemy forces and establishing a tactical condition favorable to: c. A decisive stroke against the industrial heart of Japan by means of an amphibious attack through the Tokyo plain assisted by continued pressure from Kyushu. 5
In this concept the British part was still presumed to be an advance through the Malay barrier to the southeast China coast to begin shortly after the invasion of Formosa, roughly concurrent with a
4 (1) See Matloff, Strategic Planning, 1943-44,pp. 513-16. (2) Hayes, War Against Japan, II, 279-90, History JCS. 5 JCS 924, 30 Jun 44, rpt by JPS, title: Opns versus Japan Subsequent to Formosa.
mounting air offensive on Japan from the Marianas and China, and invasion of the Ryukyus and Bonins. The timetable provided for mounting the assault on Kyushu by 1 October 1945, to be followed two months later by landings on the main Japanese island of Honshu. The British were, at the time, only informed of the revised objectiveinvasion of the industrial heart of Japan and to this they agreed after seeking assurances that it would not upset existing priorities for European operations. They were well aware, however, of the implications of the current American strategic thinking, if not informed of its details, and their decision to abandon plans for the advance through the Malay barrier and seek a place for the British fleet in the main drive against the Japanese homeland was shaped as a result. In their proposals made before OCTAGON, they suggested two alternatives. The first, for which they expressed preference, was that a detachment of the British fleet operate as a part of the main U.S. fleet under Admiral Nimitz, the second that a British Empire task force be formed to operate from Australian bases under the supreme command of General MacArthur. The U.S. Chiefs on 8 September accepted the second preference as the least complicating, though some private fears were expressed lest this give the British the naval command in SWPA.6 At OCTAGON, the principal American paper on the war against Japan discreetly omitted any significant reference to
British participation. It set forth quite simply the new objective of invasion
538
based on a Formosa invasion on 1 March 1945, while indicating that no decision had actually been reached on whether Luzon should be invaded instead of Formosa. The Americans said a different schedule was under study in case the 7 choice fell on Luzon. The British accepted the American schedule without argument though they were skeptical of its timing, and they secured a concession that the planning date for the defeat of Japan should be eighteen rather than twelve months after the defeat of Germany. Meanwhile, also, they had decided to insist on their first alternative, that the British Fleet be employed in the main drive against Japan. Behind this lay their own misgivings about the complications of the command question in the Southwest Pacific and their own doubts that they could provide a balanced task force in time to exert much effect, or support it adequately from Australian bases. The Prime Minister adroitly secured Roosevelt's agreement in the first plenary session and the JCS, over Admiral King's vehement protests, were forced to acquiesce. Yet, by stressing the requirement that the British fleet units must be balanced and self-supporting, they were able to defer more than a general decision. In their final report to the President and the Prime Minister, the CCS stipulated that the "method of employment of the British Fleet in these main operations in the Pacific will be decided from time to time in accordance with prevailing circumstances." Similarly, in response to a British offer of air units, the British
(1) CCS 417/8, 9 Sep 44, memo by U.S. CsofS, title: Opns for the Defeat of Japan, 1944-45. (2) On the Formosa versus Luzon debate, see above, Chapter XVI.
7
STRESSES AND STRAINS OF A TWO-FRONT WAR tee, and the Combined Military Transportation Committee for detailed study and report. The Americans had, in fact, already begun to prepare their own plans for redeployment, the scope and intent of which were such as to leave little place for the British in the war in the Pacific.10
539
for the final stage of the war against Japan, depended on the timing of the defeat of Germany. As long as the war in Europe continued, the Army was obligated to exhaust the reserve pool of troops in the United States in that direction. The earlier this flow could be stopped, the more troops would remain in the United States available for Pacific Early Plans for Redeployment service, and the less imposing the probSome sort of planning for redeploy- lem of redeployment. Conversely, the ment went back almost to the time the longer the war in Europe continued, the first large numbers of U.S. troops moved more difficult and complicated the probto the European theater, though it first lem would become. began to assume a prominent place in In either case, the load on west coast joint staff circles early in 1944. Rede- installations resulting from a shift to ployment promised to present logistical concentration on the war against Japan problems of challenging magnitude. It would be heavy. This was a matter of would involve troop and supply move- some concern. The rail net serving the ments of unprecedented size over longer west coast ports was decidedly inferior distances and in a shorter period of time to that serving those on the east and than in any previous operation. More- Gulf coasts. The capacity of the prinover, it would require reversing the cipal portsSan Francisco, Los Angeles, logistical processes of the European the- Seattle, and Portlandwas hardly comaters and a shift in the center of gravity parable to that of New York, Bosin the United States from the east to the ton, Philadelphia, Baltimore, Norfolk, west coast. The most precise advance Charleston, and New Orleans. As a replanning for efficient use of shipping, sult of hurried wartime industrial expanof inland transport, and of staging areas sion, labor was a continuous and plaguand ports stretched around the entire ing shortage. Storage facilities for Army globe was clearly prerequisite to its suc- supplies and staging areas for Army cessful execution. personnel would obviously require conThe scope of redeployment from Eu- siderable expansion at the same time rope, as opposed to shipment of troops that the Navy, as it also shifted almost to the Pacific from the United States its entire effort to the Pacific, would need to enlarge its west coast establish(1) Min, 174th mtg CCS, 14 Sep 44. (2) CCS 679, 14 Sep 44, memo by U.S. CsofS, title: Redeployment ment. The earliest specific preparations for of Forces after the End of the War in Europe. (3) CCS 675, 12 Sep 44, memo by Br COS, title: redeployment, begun by the ASF in Priorities for Personnel Shpg Subsequent to Termination of Hostilities in Europe. (4) CCS 675/1, 13 1943, were concentrated for the most Sep 44, title: Combined Memo on Troop Movements part on planning the use of the limited Covering Period Oct 44 to Mar 45. (5) CCS 675/2, transcontinental rail net and the expan15 Sep 44, Note by Secys, title: Combined Personnel sion of west coast facilities. Until the Movement Problem Arising During First Year after JCS agreed on the deployments that Defeat of Germany.
10
540
would be necessary for the final phase of the war against Japan, these preparations had to be based on general estimates. Shipping requirements, which promised to be gargantuan, could hardly be estimated at all. In early April 1944, the JCS approved the first general plan for redeployment, worked out by the Joint Planners in the preceding two months. It was admittedly something of a shot in the dark, since no firm strategic concept for the final stage of the war existed as yet. Based on the alternate assumptions of German defeat by 1 July and 1 October 1944, and on the expectation that the USSR would subsequently enter the war against Japan, the concept projected deployment forward in quarterly estimates for the 9-month period following each of the two theoretical dates of Germany's defeat. In both cases the Joint Planners
surmised that only air and naval forces
munication to the USSR. As soon as possible after 30 June 1945 the European force was to be reduced to the total agreed to as necessary for occupation, 8 divisions and 20 air groups, or approximately 400,000 men. Virtually all naval forces were to be redeployed to the Pacific except for a few vessels necessary in the Atlantic for local defense and mine sweeping. The main movements contemplated for the nine months following the defeat of Germany, apart from naval vessels, were: 102 air groups from Europe direct to the Pacific and CBI; 27 air groups and 30 ground force divisions from Europe to the United States; and
20 divisions and 20 air groups from the United States to the Pacific. All divisions and air groups would be accom-
in the United States to meet the requirements of Pacific operations in late 1944 and early 1945."11 Under the more reasonable assumptiondefeat of Germany by 1 October the planners provided for a progressive
reduction of European forces from 42 divisions and 149 air groups to 12 divi-
panied by normal complements of supporting troops. A basic premise of the plan was that these movements would receive priority over all others, military
or civilian, during the 9-month period. On that premise, and assuming the British Queens would continue available to
the United States, the planners anticipatsions and 20 groups by 30 June 1945, ed that transport shipping would be sufwith a corresponding build-up in the ficient to carry out the movements. Pacific from 22 divisions and 56 air The ASF was also ready, by early groups to 42 divisions and 178 groups. April 1944, with its own administrative On the same date 36 divisions and 34 and logistical plan for redeployment, air groups would be in the United States, based largely on the concurrent deliber15 of the divisions to constitute a strate- ations in the joint committees but difgic reserve for possible employment in fering in some respects from the final the war against Japan, the rest to be joint plan. The ASF was disturbed by
JCS 521/5, 2 Apr 44, rpt by JPS, title: Strategic Deployment of U.S. Forces to 31 Dec 44.
11
541
on a supposition that civilian relief demands would take second place to military needs. The JMTC did undertake a study of the problems involved in moving fighter planes and light bombers from Europe to the Pacific (heavy and medium bombers would go by air) and concluded it could be accomplished by extensive use of tankers to carry deck 13 loads of aircraft. The whole question of shipping, cargo and personnel, required combined consideration with the British. The premise that the British Queens would be available for redeployment of American troops could hardly be taken for granted since the British would themselves want to carry out extensive personnel movements after V-E Day. Attempts by the Combined Staff Planners to draw up a combined redeployment plan, however, came to nought, and protracted negotiations during the summer of 1944 failed to produce more than the vaguest of assurances from the British on the subject of the Queens. The British planners insisted that an over-all evaluation in the light of agreed strategy and other Allied objectives in the post-V-E Day period must precede firm shipping plans or commitments, and no such agreed strategy existed as yet. Moreover, time was to prove that the British had entirely different ideas on the scope and priority of civilian relief in Europe than did the Americans.14
13 JMT 53/1, 6 May 44, title: Transport of Aircraft by Water, Redeployment Plng. 14 (1)CPS 120/2, 21 Feb 44, title: Redeployment of Forces Against Japan after the Defeat of Germany. (2) JWPC 189/4, 5 May 44, same title. (3) JCS 930, 4 Jul 44, title: Combined Use of Troopships after Defeat of Germany. (4) Min, 167th mtg CCS, 14 Jul 44. (5) CCS 615 series, title: Combined Use of Troopships after Defeat of Germany.
542
Going ahead therefore without Brit- need or requirements for construction ish agreement, the JPS produced anoth- of bases from which they could operate. er redeployment forecast in mid-June Policies and procedures were still unde1944. It was little more than an up-dat- fined; principles on which any partial ing of the earlier plan, based this time demobilization would proceed after the on Germany's defeat on the alternate defeat of Germany unstated. In essence, dates 1 October 1944 and 1 January planning was still divorced from any 1945, with deployments projected for-agreed joint or combined strategy for ward to 30 September 1945 in each case. the final phase of the war on which firm The figures in the 1 October plan dif- force calculations and firm logistical plans fered from the earlier ones only in that could be based. The ASF, attempting they reduced the deployment of air to lay the detailed groundwork for regroups to the Pacific from 178 to 170 deployment, found itself operating on and deferred movement of 13 of them too many premises that would later by three months. The 1 January plan, prove false. though it recognized that at least 14 By August 1944 the prevailing atmosmore divisions would be deployed from phere of optimism about the early end the United States to Europe by the of the war with Germany had given reend of the year, still contemplated deployment planning a new air of urno substantial redeployment of ground gency. On 12 August OPD established a troops from Europe to the Pacific. The special redeployment committee to recplan did stipulate that six divisions for ommend, after consultation with other the North Pacific operation, should it interested agencies, basic policies for reprove necessary, would have to come deployment of the Army. Meanwhile, from the strategic reserve reconstituted the War Department Personnel Readin the United States by troops return- justment Plan had, after long discussion, ing from Europe. Although the detailed been developed to govern the selection breakdown indicated some redeployment of men for discharge from the Army of service troops, the joint planners did after V-E Day. It established an elabnot attempt to analyze that problem orate point system based on length of either. Nor did they indicate, for air or service, overseas service, dependency, for service troops, whether redeployment combat experience, and decorations as would be directly from Europe to the criteria for determining each individual Pacific, or indirectly by way of the Unit- soldier's eligibility for separation. It 15 promised to complicate the whole proced States. Up to this point, then, joint redeploy- ess of redeployment considerably by ment planning had largely been order- requiring extensive adjustment of perof-magnitude planning. The question of sonnel in units before their movement service troops was unresolved; redeploy- from Europe to the Pacific. On 6 September the OPD committee ment of aircraft, despite the reduction, was calculated at near maximum with- submitted its recommendations. Followout sufficient consideration of actual ing cessation of hostilities against Germany, no further forces or means were JCS 521/6, 11 Jun 44, rpt by JPS, title: Strategic to be moved to the European-African Deployment of U.S. Forces to 30 Sep 45.
15
STRESSES AND STRAINS OF A TWO-FRONT WAR area other than the minimum essential for support and maintenance of occupation forces. Bases were to be closed out or reduced as rapidly as possible; service requirements of occupation forces were to be met to the maximum extent possible by civilian labor. Insofar as possible, units and individuals remaining in the United States when the war in Europe ended were to be employed in the Pacific before any similar types were redeployed from Europe, but "certain critical units and individuals, not immediately available in the United States" were to be "moved promptly from the European-African and other relatively inactive areas." Only the most critical, however, would move directly: "When time and other considerations permit, units which have been overseas an appreciable length of time, and which are scheduled for redeployment, will be returned to the United States for rehabilitation and conditioning before being moved to the Pacific." Conversion of units from one type to another, when necessary, was to be accomplished in the United States. Except when military necessity dictated otherwise, selection of both units and individuals for redeployment from Europe to the Pacific was to be governed by the point system; personnel were to be returned from the Pacific to the United States for discharge on the same basis. In order to keep requirements for new production at a minimum, surplus supplies in Europe and other inactive theaters were to be transferred directly to the Pacific. Units directly redeployed were to be accompanied by full T/E; units indirectly redeployed via the United States were to bring only minimum essential equipment but the rest of their T/E was to
543
be shipped directly from Europe to their Pacific destination to the extent that the theater could accomplish it.16 Detailed redeployment planning within ASF had previously been going ahead on the premise that veteran units would proceed intact directly from Europe to the Pacific theaters. Adoption of the committee's recommendations would, the ASF insisted, result in loss of logistical efficiency. The reshuffling of units required by application of the point system would cause a delay of as much as a month in starting movements; indirect redeployment via the United States would add to the time lag in placing these units in action and increase the shipping load and the burden on U.S. ports and railroads. But these protests were to no avail. The preponderance of opinion among the General Staff was that public support was more important than logistical efficiency. Unless troops were redeployed via the United States, the redeployment committee noted, there was a "strong likelihood" of "restrictive legislation . . . upon the War Department, forcing the issue and possibly hampering the redeployment."17
16 (1) Memo, Col Maxwell W. Tracy, Lt Col Harvey H. Fischer and Lt Col Edward M. Harris for Gen Handy, 6 Sep 44, sub: Redeployment of U.S. Forces Upon the Defeat of Germany, ABC 320.2 (3-13-43) Sec 5. (2) On the War Department Personnel Readjustment Plan see Maj. John C. Sparrow, History of Personnel Demobilization in the United States Army, DA Pamphlet 20-210 (1952), pp. 64-84. 17 (1) Ibid. (1). (2) Memo, Gen Wood for Gen Roberts, 29 May 44, sub: JPS 193/8Strategic Deployment of U.S. Forces. (3) Memo, Gen Somervell for ACofS, OPD, 2 Sep 44, sub: JCS 521/7 Redeployment of Forces Re-Oriented from Europe Against Japan. Both in ABC 320.2 (3-13-43) Secs 3 and 5. (4) Memo, Wood for Roberts, 15 Aug 44, sub: WD Plan for Readjustment of Personnel after Defeat of Germany, ABC 381 Strategy Sec Papers (7 Jan 43) 297-313. Tab 308.
544
These new procedures were not the only factors dictating revision of the existing joint redeployment plan. The ASF continued to harp on the service troop theme, and the appearance of a shortage for the Formosa operation gave their warnings a force that could not be ignored. The Joint Logistics Committee, moreover, in an exhaustive analysis of the joint plan found that the airfield capacity in the forward areas in the Pacific would be inadequate until the large land masses of Luzon or Formosa were taken and developed, and it pointed to the need for early dispatch of construction troops for this purpose. By late August the Joint Planners themselves were ready to admit that the high priority given the redeployment of the AAF must be reappraised and consideration given to moving service and supporting troops first to prepare the way. "The shortage of service units . . . ," the JWPC noted on 7 September, "is tending to dictate our strategy in the war 18 against Japan."
Formulation of a combined deployment plan for the final phase of the war on which a combined shipping plan could be based depended on development of a combined strategy in which the British role in the war against Japan would be carefully spelled out. The plans that emerged from OCTAGON were much too general to provide that basis; seeming agreement cloaked a basic divergence in national views and aims. In reality the American redeployment plan provided all the forces likely to be necessary for the final blow against Japan, and more, it appeared, than Pacific bases would be able to accommodate. If U.S. redeployment plans were carried out, British naval and air participation in the Pacific would be really unnecessary, and to some extent embarrassing. The British also had reservations about singleminded concentration on the war with Japan once the war with Germany was over, feeling that the need for reconstruction of their own war-shatttered economy and the economies of the libThe Joint Military Transportation erated nations of Europe would preclude Committee, meanwhile, studying the giving unlimited first priority on shipshipping implications, expressed doubts ping to movement of troops and supthat shipping would be available to sup- plies to the Pacific. What the Americans port the deployments envisaged. No really wanted was a simple promise that real assessment could be made, the com- the British Queens would be available mittee pointed out, until a combined for American redeployment after V-E redeployment plan had been agreed to Day. The British were unwilling to conwith the British within the CCS, for sider this problem outside the whole redeployment would depend on the framework of a combined strategy for "utilization of combined shipping re- the defeat of Japan and over-all considsources."19 eration of civilian as well as military
(1) JWPC 259/17, 7 Sep 44, title: Reorientation of U.S. Resources to the War Against Japan. (2) Memo, Somervell for OPD, 2 Sep 44. (3) JCS Memo 283, 17 Aug 44, title: JLC Study. (4) JCS 521/7, 30 Aug 44, rpt by JPS, title: Redeployment of Forces Re-Oriented from Europe Against Japan. 19 (1) JCS 521/8, 8 Sep 44, rpt by JLC in collabo18
ration with JMTC, title: Deployment of Forces Reoriented from Europe Against Japan. (2) JLC 183, 2 Sep 44, title: Logistical Study of Strategic Deployment of U.S. Forces.
545
demands to be placed on troop and cargo shipping after victory in Europe.20 In the preliminary studies of availability of personnel shipping at OCTAGON, the British Chiefs therefore rejected every American effort to formulate a specific schedule of combined movements, objecting with particular vehemence to one prepared by Somervell and Lord Leathers based on the premise that the principal British movement after V-E Day would be of the six divisions to India for DRACULA. The combined committees, to whom the problem was referred, wrestled unsuccessfully with it in the ensuing two months. The U.S. planners were not ready to proceed without a clear determination of what the British part in the war against Japan would be, and the British were apparently not ready to present a specific plan and to fight for it within the committee structure. Finally, in November the British proposed to postpone the study "until the defeat of Germany is clearly imminent and a realistic date can be firmly accepted as the basic assumption of the paper," and the Americans readily accepted, fearing that insistence on completing it "might result in the acceptance of British operations for planning purposes that will add little to the early defeat of Japan but will provide a basis for new demands on U.S. resources in direct conflict with U.S. requirements."21
On the civilian relief issue, see below, Chapter XXXI. 21 (1) Memo, Maj J. A. Davison, British Secy, CPS and CAdC, for U.S. Secy, 15 Nov 44, sub: (a) Redeployment of Forces after War in Europe, (b) Relation of Available Resources to Agreed Opns. (2) Memo, C. H. Donnelly, U.S. Secy CPS and CAdC, for U.S. Members, 22 Nov 44, same sub. Both in ABC 320.2 (3-13-43) Sec 7. (3) CCS 675, 12 Sep 44; CCS 675/1, 13 Sep 44; CCS 675/2, 15 Sep 44; and CCS 679, 14 Sep 44.
20
The deadlock in the combined committee seems to have delayed any revision of the American joint plan. At least, no new plan appeared until late December, and in the meantime 1 October came and went without the hoped-for German surrender. Preparations on the operating level were quickened during September. Pacific coast stocks were boosted to the extent European operations would permit, and old inactive stocks cleared out; ASF teams were prepared for dispatch to Europe to help in the outshipping program; operating procedures and plans were elaborated and codified. But it was clear by mid-October that the war in Europe still had a long time to run. As the combined committees postponed their studies, the joint committees had to recast their own plans in the light of recent developments in both wars. For some months redeployment planning no longer seemed to have the same urgency as it had had in August and September. The movement of both combat and service troops to Europe was accelerated as the fighting on the Siegfried Line took its inevitable toll of American manpower and the lengthened continental supply lines made their demands felt. The prospect that redeployment from Europe would permit meeting the service troop crisis in the Pacific rapidly faded as did the prospect that the major portion of Pacific ground force needs could be met from troops remaining in the United States at the end of the war with Germany. At the height of the discussions of the Formosa versus Luzon issue in September 1944, the JCS dispatched a message to U.S. commanders in Europe and North Africa asking whether any air and service units urgently needed in the Pa-
546
cific could be spared before the end of the war with Germany. At the same time the CCS asked combined commanders to release landing craft at the earliest possible date. The replies were for the most part disappointing. Neither General Eisenhower nor General Devers felt he could spare any air or service troops. A few antiaircraft artillery units were reassigned but nothing else of significance. Of amphibious resources, SHAEF reported 18 LST's on their way from Europe to the Pacific and 20 British LCI (L) 's outbound for SEAC, but even the movement of amphibious craft was on a far smaller scale than the planners had supposed it would be after completion of DRAGOON. Either the craft were unserviceable, or they were needed for port operations, or they were assigned for the British eastern Mediterranean program. And in the last analysis, amphibious craft were no longer the most critical items in the Pacific. On 3 October the Joint Logistics Committee reported that instead
The critical shortages the Joint Logistics Committee noted in the Pacific in October 1944 were a measure of the strains full-scale war on two fronts was imposing on U.S. military resources, particularly on military manpower, cargo shipping, and Army supplies. These strains can be fairly assessed, however, only in terms of the basic programs that had been agreed on during the preceding three years, not in terms of the full capabilities of the American economy. Practically no significant adjustments could be made in these programs to meet the immediate situation, regardless of the theoretical capacity for further expansion of war production. Moreover, the whole question of adequacy of existing production programs was continually obscured by difficulties in the distribution process growing out of the most critical shortages required to shortages of shipping for transoceanic support further operations in the Pacific movements and inadequate internal the. . . are in medium and heavy artillery, ater supply lines in both Europe and truck units, motor maintenance units and the Pacific. In cases of some specific engineer units, particularly portable bridge units. These shortages in the Pacific have types of supplies, production programs been caused primarily by the high priority were probably inadequate; more fregiven to the provision of resources to the quently the distribution machinery ETO as compared to other theaters. Units failed to insure the arrival of supplies, of the type required to reduce critical produced in adequate quantity, at the shortages in the Pacific are also essential to the continuation of operations in Europe. time and place required. Only in the
No possibility of redeploying medium and heavy artillery battalions or portable bridge units will exist until major German opposition is reduced. The greatly extended lines of communications and rapidity of movement have caused the theater to request expedition of the flow of truck companies and railway units and the shipping of
22 (1) JCS 1051/1, 6 Oct 44, rpt by JLC, title: Reorientation of U.S. Resources to the War Against Japan. (2) JWPC 259/17, 7 Sep 44, same title. (3) JCS 1051, 12 Sep 44, title: Early Reorientation of U.S. Air and Service Units from the ETO to Pacific. (4) Memo, Gen Roberts for Assistant Secy, WDGS, 8 Oct 44, sub: Reorientation of U.S. Resources to War Against Japan, ABC 320.2 (3-13-43) Sec 6.
547
al MacNair once called "the invisible horde of people going here and there 24 but seemingly never arriving." The overstrength was insufficient to cover this "invisible horde," and the Army was hard put to maintain its schedule of activations. With mounting demands for special types of units for service functions, 90 divisions and supporting troops remained the fixed limit on ground combat forces. The inactivation of the 2d Cavalry Division to provide service troops for DRAGOON actually reduced the eventual total to 89. Drastic action was required to keep the divisions filled at all and to meet mushrooming demands for overseas infantry replacements. The drain on divisions in the United States for overseas infantry replacements in 1944 seriously handicapped the AGF divisional training program and led to the dispatch overseas of the last few of the 89 divisions filled with soldiers who had gone through only a short training cycle. The Army Specialized Training Program was very nearly liquidated, and 150,000 men in the program were funneled into the AGF; an additional 73,000 surplus aviation cadets were summarily sent back to ground units; ZI establishments were combed for men fit for combat duty, and troops engaged in housekeeping functions cut to a bare minimum; antiaircraft artillery and tank destroyer units were disbanded, and the men retrained mainly as infantry; forces at nearby base commands were progressively reduced.25 Insofar as manpower was available, the European theater got first call. At the end of October 1944 nearly 3 mil24 Greenfield, Palmer, and Wiley, Organization of Ground Combat Troops, p. 236. 25 Ibid., pp. 237-51.
548
lion Army troops were deployed in the European, Mediterranean, Middle East, and African theaters and about 1,335,000in the Pacific, CBI, and Alaska. Another 215,000 were in nearby Atlantic base commands, making a total of roughly 4.5 million troops outside the continental United States with some 132,000more en route. About 800,000 remained to be deployed before May 1945 when Army overseas strength was to reach its peak of 5.4 million men. Of these 800,000, about three-fourths went to the European theater and the rest to 26 the Pacific and CBI. Despite this priority the European theater, as well as the Pacific and CBI, suffered from manpower shortages. As the divisional build-up on the Continent progressed the proportion of service troops fell until, in terms of its eventual troop basis of 61 divisions, the European theater calculated that it would be short something over 150,000 service troops. The War Department was unable to make up this deficit, despite ETOUSA pressure. The theater finally agreed to sacrifice ten heavy artillery battalions in order to get the equivalent in service troops, but a substantial shortage remained and made necessary more extensive use of civilian and prisoner-ofwar labor. An even more serious shortage of infantry replacements developed late in 1944, reaching its most critical stage at the time of the Battle of the Bulge. Unable to meet the demand for replacements, the War Department put pressure on the theater to squeeze men out of its own rear establishment. Efforts along this line were generally successful
26
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mittee had rendered their reports early in 1943. The warning the latter group had issued against the "specious wave of optimism . . . sweeping the country," in the face of the fact that reserves had not yet been "subjected . . . to the prodigious demands of large successful offensives on several fronts," proved amply justified. 29 But since the optimism prevailed, even in military circles, up through the end of September 1944, the reversal could not take full effect until after the real crisis was over. The cutbacks in Army production reflected in the 1 February 1944 Army Supply Program had already been reversed to some degree in the intervening months because of increased demands for heavy artillery and ammunition and for various types of operational supplies attendant on the European invasion and the accelerated pace of the advance in the Pacific. The dollar value of required ASF production had risen in interim revisions from $21.6 billion in the 1 February ASP to $24.8 billion by 30 June 1944.30 The tendency in August and September, however, was once again toward economy, particularly in calculating reserves, for hopes were high that the war with Germany would soon be over. In calculating production requirements for 1944 and 1945 in the 1 October edition of the ASP, the 15 divisions over and above the 90-division ceiling for which equipment was being procured were dropped, and the strategic reserve thus reduced to only 10 divisions and supporting troops. At the same time stock levels for ZI depots were calculated on the basis of 60 days of expected issue
(1) Levels of Supply. app. F, p. 89. (2) See above, ch. V. 30 See above, ch. V.
29
550
for items vital to combat and 45 days for all other items in lieu of the previous provision for go days of all items. The total ASF procurement program for 1944, predicated on continuation of the war with Germany, in October 1944 stood at $23.5 billion in dollar value and that for 1945 at $23.6 billion.31 A special ASP to cover the first year of a onefront war provided for significant reductions in these goals should the war with Germany come to an end in the interim. The increasingly critical supply situation of many items during October, November, and December 1944 forced progressive upward revision of these goals. The program for 1945 received the main impact because there was not enough lead time to reaccelerate production in 1944. Nevertheless, by the end of 1944 required ASF production for that year had been boosted upward to $24.5 billion and, in response to urgings from the European theater, pressure was being exerted to increase current production of artillery ammunition, tanks, field wire, engineer construction and bridging equipment, radios, and numerous other items. By February 1945 programed procurement for that year (based on continuation of the war with 32 Germany) rose to nearly $28 billion. Meanwhile, actual production rates rose only slowly, reflecting, first, the difficulties of restoring or expanding production lines on short notice, and second, the scarcity or lack of mobility of necessary skilled labor. Few of the
Frank, Army Supply Requirements, pp. 145-54. (1) ASF Monthly Progress Reports, Sep-Dec 1944, Jan-Feb 1945, sec. 1-C, Procurement, and sec 6, Analysis. (2) ASF, Annual Report for the Fiscal Year 1945, pp. 173-74.
32 31
of the
STRESSES AND STRAINS OF A TWO-FRONT WAR posed no heavy additional strain on American productive facilities, which, after the cutbacks early in the year, were operating at something less than their maximum capacity. In this light, it seems likely that the limitation on the American war effort, had further expansion been necessary, would have been in the supply of military manpower rather than the production of military material. The Fall Shipping Crisis The principal contributing factor to supply shortages in both the major areas of the war in the fall and winter of 1944 was not the shortage of supplies in the United States, but rather the difficulties of transporting the supplies to the using troops at the end of the line. In Europe and the Pacific, supply lines had been stretched to their elastic limits as a result of rapid advances. The lack of port facilities in both areas had produced shipping tie-ups that inevitably had their repercussions on the availability of cargo shipping for outward movement from the United States at a time when requirements for outward movements were mounting to their zenith. The large pools of shipping being employed for transport of supplies within the theaters themselves added to the drain. In Europe the effects of limited port capacity were compounded by the inadequacy of inland clearance facilities. While this latter factor was not so important in the island warfare in the Pacific, it had a part in producing shipping congestion in the Philippines. By early October more than 200 ships, mostly commodity loaders, awaited discharge in European waters. The theater was still insisting, in the face of a dis-
551
charge rate of only 95 ships in September, that new arrivals should continue at an average rate of 265 per month through the end of the year. If these requests were completely unrealistic in terms of ability to discharge, they still represented the theater's calculations of supply requirements for the operations it had to support. At the same time Pacific requirements were also expanding for operational shipping to be used in the invasion of the Palaus and of Leyte as well as for outward sailings from the United States. Concomitant with the decision to invade Leyte two months ahead of schedule, shipping congestion was already appearing in Hollandia harbor, and the actual invasion on 20 October was to produce a tie-up of monumental proportions.35 Merchant shipbuilding, meanwhile, though it had recovered from the doldrums of the early months of the year, was still running considerably behind the schedule that called for construction of 18.4 million dead-weight tons of cargo shipping in 1944, largely because of labor shortages, which were particularly prevalent in the yards on the west coast. Indications were, by the fall of 1944, that the slippage would amount to between one and two million dead-weight tons. Although the JCS on numerous occasions during the spring and summer had expressed concern to the Maritime Commission about this slippage, at the behest of Admiral King, they reserved their heaviest pressure for the combat loader program, which in midsummer was about one month behind schedule. The manpower priority granted the combat loader program, and the even higher
35 (1) See above, chs. XV and XX. (2) Ruppenthal, Logistical Support of the Armies II, 126-30.
552
GLOBAL LOGISTICS AND STRATEGY: 1943-1945 pear in the form of a concrete Soviet requirement for shipments of supplies to Siberia to stockpile against the day the USSR would enter the war against Japan. This new, and seemingly imperative, demand presented at the October Foreign Ministers Conference in Moscow, was initially calculated at 130 ship sailings in the Pacific over the next six months. Demands for civil relief needs and the Soviet program not only added to the dimensions of the resulting shipping crisis, but gave it strong political overtones.38 Even before the Russians made their demand, the situation looked serious enough. In terms of already reduced theater requirements, deficits were being predicted in both the Atlantic and Pacific, 20 sailings in October and 80 in November, for instance, just to northwest Europe. But in the light of the proven inability of the European theater to unload ships, these deficits on the Atlantic side simply could not be taken at face value. The ASF had already instituted cuts to take effect in October and November in spite of protests from the theater, but new requirements in the Mediterranean, the Western Hemisphere, and the Pacific, together with a lag in returners from the Mediterranean, combined to absorb most of the assets made available in this way. Early in October, therefore, Captain Conway of WSA proposed that substantial further cuts be made in sailings to the ETO and the ships be ballasted to the west coast to provide for Pacific deficits. Reviewing the dismal record of ETOUSA in forecasting its own discharge capacity
38 (1) On the Soviet aid program, see below, Chapter XXVII. (2) On the civil relief issue, see below, Chapter XXXI.
priority assigned companies producing B-29 aircraft, had some effect in slowing cargo vessel production on the west coast. More significant factors, however, appear to have been the tendency of skilled laborers in the yards to seek employment elsewhere, which they believed offered better postwar opportunities, and the growing shortage of manpower for both the military services and war production.36 In producing the shipping crisis of fall 1944 the slippage in the construction program was, in any case, of less importance than the growing retention of shipping in overseas theaters. The slippage had been more than balanced by a low loss rate and savings effected through reduced convoy requirements. As General Somervell noted in sounding a warning on 24 October, new tonnage was being added to the Allied merchant fleet at a rate of 500,000 tons per month, but there had still been an actual reduction of two million tons since the first of the year in shipping available for outward movements from the United States.37 Somervell's specific purpose was to call attention to the impending requirements for shipping civil relief supplies to Europefor grain to Italy to raise the bread ration and for a large national import program for France. Only a few days later a further complication was to ap36 (1) JCS 896/3, 8 Jul 44, memo by Adm King, title: APA-AKA Program. (2) Ltr, Gen Marshall to Adm Land, 16 Jul 44. (3) Ltr, Adm Land to JCS, 9 Aug 44. (2) and (3) in ABC 561 (7 Aug 43), Sec 2A. (4) JCS 896/5, 12 Aug 44, rpt by JLC, title: Effect of Recruitment by WMC on APA-AKA Program. (5) JLC 163/5, 13 Oct 44. rpt by JLC, title: APA-AKA Program. 37 Memo, Gen Somervell for Gen Hull, OPD, 24 Oct 44, sub: Increased Requests for Shpg, ABC 560 (4 Jul 44) Sec 2.
553
ber, and December. The theater's protest that it needed 139 more sailings than offered, based on the frank admission that if forecasted discharge capacity did not develop they would be used for floating warehouses, was disregarded because of the need for ships on the other side of the world. During October the process of ballasting ships to the Pacific began and the deficit for that month was held to about 10 sailings. When on 20 October the discharge situation in Europe had not improved and there remained some 240 ships in European waters, Somervell informed the theater that it would get no more commodity loaders until the bank of such ships had been reduced to reasonable levels. He was willing to let the theater keep a bank of around 70 to 80 ships for selective discharge, but he was not willing to accept assurances of an improved discharge rate in the future as a basis for increasing the flow of shipping to ETO until the bank had actually been brought down to this figure.40 Meanwhile, the bank of ships off Leyte awaiting selective discharge was also mounting, and the situation in SWPA soon paralleled that in Europe. Into the deepening crisis was injected the Soviet demand for shipments to Siberia, eventually calculated on a reduced scale as requiring 85 sailings from the west coast from December 1944 through March 1945. Taking into account the sailings for Soviet aid, Somervell in mid-November estimated the prospective military deficit in the Pacific in succeeding months as 79 sailings in November, 83
(1) Ruppenthal, Logistical Support of the Armies II, 128-30. (2) Monthly Rpt #4 for Oct 44, White to Darr, WSA, 4 Nov 44, folder Traffic Dept Monthly Rpts, Box 122876, WSA Conway File.
40
554
in December, 64 in January, and 57 in March. These figures, representing 30 to 40 percent of total requirements for outward sailings in the Pacific during these months, were, in the terms of the shipping authorities, "unmanageable." Somervell pressed on MacArthur the need to release ships for return to the Pacific coast, and warned him of drastic reductions in November sailings for lack of returners. Admiral King took similar steps to warn Nimitz. At the same time an obvious need to increase shipping to Europe once Antwerp was opened made it apparent that deficits on the Atlantic side would become even more "unmanageable" since so much cargo shipping was in process of being diverted to the Pacific. Somervell's mid-November estimates showed deficits of 25 sailings against an already reduced schedule in the Atlantic in November, 113 in December, 162 in January 1945, 142 in February, and thereafter at only a slightly reduced rate during the next four 41 months. To reduce the deficits on both fronts to "manageable" proportions, Somervell on 11 November proposed to the Chief of Staff that drastic reductions be made in the nonmilitary programs in the Atlantic, beginning in December 1944. He would eliminate entirely American assistance to the U.K. Import Program, currently running at 40 sailings per month, and reduce assistance to other
41 (1) JCS 1173, 17 Nov 44, Memo by CofS USA, title: Remedies for Existing and Prospective Shortages in Cargo Shpg, forwarding Memo by CG ASF. (2) Msg, Somervell to MacArthur, 5 Nov 44, folder SWPac 1942 thru Apr 1945, Lutes File. (3) Min, 87th mtg JMTC, 3 Nov 44, Item 2. (4) Msg, CNO to CINC POA, 9 Nov 44, copy in Navy (Year 1944), Box 122894, WSA Conway File.
Ibid. (1).
555
getting his own views before Roosevelt. In a letter to Hopkins he proposed that the President should tell the JCS:
Until we can show that our own shipping
is being efficiently used, I can not request the British Government to make a major
sacrifice for the purpose of giving us assistance. There is every evidence that their shipping is being well used and used only for essential purposes. While our assistance to them should be held to the lowest level which will meet their urgent needs, we can not be in the position of asking them to bear the brunt of our failure to utilize our
ships properly. For the same reason we must grant the Russian request to ship additional supplies from here beginning in December.46
"the present critical shortage of ships is On 22 November, Admiral Land, wholly due to the retention of large chairman of the Maritime Commission, numbers of vessels in the four major took up the cudgels, presenting to the theaters of war," and told the assembled JCS chapter and verse on the military military shipping experts that they must misuse of shipping: take immediate steps to control more As of 15 November there were nearly effectively the use of shipping by theater 400 WSA controlled vessels retained for commanders. A system should be placed local operational use and . . . approximately in effect, he said, that "would bring 350 Army and Navy allocated ships idle about promptly and automatically a re- awaiting discharge. . . . The extent of misduction in sailings from the United calculations by theater commanders is indiStates to any theater that is failing to turn vessels around promptly, unless the
theater has a specified and authorized 45 reason for failing to do so." Since there was no mention of any such action in the final JCS memorandum to the President, Conway enlisted the aid of the ailing Harry Hopkins in
JCS 1171/1, 18 Nov 44, title: Remedies for Existing and Prospective Shortages of Cargo Shpg. 44 Memo, GAL (Col George A. Lincoln) for Gen Hull, 16 Nov 44, sub: Shpg Situation, ABC 560 (4 Jul 44) Sec 2. 45 (1) Min, 88th mtg JMTC, 14 Nov 44, Item 1. (2) For Conway's full statement see unsigned memo dated 13 Nov 44, sub: Recommended Action to Reduce Shpg Congestion in Major Theaters, folder Harry L. Hopkins, Box 122891, WSA Conway File.
43
cated by the fact that if the WSA had been able to meet in full the stated requirements of the Army and Navy, the number of ves-
sels put on berth for dispatch to the four principal theaters in October, November and December would be 520 greater than it actually was. . . . The rate of discharge rather than the availability of shipping has been the ultimate limitation on supply in every major theater. . . . It is essential that theater commanders be held accountable for making realistic appraisals of reception
capacity and reducing 47 their requirements if congestion develops.
46 Ltr, Conway to Hopkins, 20 Nov 44, folder Harry L. Hopkins, Box 122891, WSA Conway File. 47 Memo, Land for JCS, 22 Nov 44, Incl to JCS 1173/3, 22 Nov 44, title: Remedies for Shortages in Shpg.
556
Roosevelt accepted neither the JCS nor the WSA position in its entirety. Acting quickly on 20 November, the
557
Even before the JCS decision the ASF ing the Luzon Campaign, never again 52 had already been putting pressure on did it reach such crisis proportions. MacArthur, informing him on 23 NoThe results in Europe were generally vember 1944 that he must cut his reten- similar. In November the theater distions by 20 ships and that many of the charged only 115 ships on the Continent shipments scheduled for December must and in December only 130 despite the be postponed. MacArthur protested at opening of Antwerp. The German counfirst and pleaded for deferment of the teroffensive in mid-December forced the cuts until the critical phase in operations theater to embargo shipments into the in the Philippines was over; he said cuts forward areas, thus producing a glut of could be accomplished only at serious supplies in the ports that inevitably recost to the Leyte operation and the acted on the rate of unloading. The pool scheduled Luzon operations. But in light of idle ships remained unliquidated unof the JCS directive, the known backlog til March, while scheduled sailings for awaiting discharge and the extremely December, January, and February were black picture of SWPA shipping prac- cut back severely. Moreover, at General tices as painted by the WSA representa- Somervell's insistence, in December 25 tive there (". . . all barrels and buckets of the 35 Libertys retained for crossfull and the taps still running . . . ," he Channel movements were returned to wrote),51 the ASF could hardly accept the United States along with 21 other his representations at face value. Mac- partially unloaded Libertys. Not until Arthur was forced to cut his retentions March did port discharge capacity in the and accept deferment of 10 sailings from ETO finally reach a point where it the mainland in December; in January ceased to be a limitation on the rate retentions were cut back more, reducing of flow of supplies.53 them all together from 195 in mid-No(1) Msg 54876, MacArthur to Somervell, CM-IN vember to 145; and shipping require- 14952, 15 Dec 44; Msg C-54712, MacArthur to Somments on the United States continued ervell, CM-IN 12436, 13 Dec 44; Msg WARX 76544, to be rigorously pared for some months Somervell to MacArthur, 13 Dec 44; Msg, WARX afterward. These measures, combined 77844, Somervell to MacArthur, 15 Dec 44 and 80467, 21 Dec 44. Copies of all in OCT HB, with a normal improvement attendant WARX folder Ships for Pac Theaters Nov 44-Feb 45, Wylie on the stabilization of the situation on File. (2) Memo, Gen Wylie for Gen Wood, 19 Dec 44, Leyte brought the worst of the SWPA sub: SWPA Shpg Situation, OCT HB, folder Shpg SWPA 1944-45 Corresp with ASF, WSA, Wylie shipping tie-up to an end. While it con- in File. (3) Ltrs of Herbert Schage to Capt Granville tinued to be a bone of contention be- Conway, Dec-Jan 1945 in folders Pac 1945 Box tween the theater and Washington dur- 122891 and Pac Area (1944) Box 122893, WSA Con52
44, rpt by JMTC, title: Remedies for Shortages in Shpg. (4) JCS 1173/8, 8 Dec 44, memo by COMINCH and CNO, same title. (5) JCS 1173/9, 9 Dec 44, rpt by JMTC, same title. (6) App. C, JMT 82/7, 6 Jan 45, title: Dry Cargo and Refrigerator Ships as Retentions. 51 Ltr, H. L. Schage to F. W. Isherwood, WSA, San Francisco, 27 Nov 44, sub: Shpg in SWPA, OCT HB, folder Shpg in Pacific 1944-45, Corresp ASFWSA, Wylie File.
way File. (4) Msg CX-56311, MacArthur to OPD and OCT, CM-IN 15325, 16 Jan 45, OCT HB, folder Ships for Pac Theater, Nov 44-Feb 45, Wylie File. (5) Memo, Wylie for Gross, 22 Jan 45, sub: Summary of Actions and Msgs, SWPA-OCT, ASF, OCT HB Overseas Comd file, folder Shpg, 1945 SWPA. (6) Msg, Gross to MacArthur, CM-OUT 22708, 17 Jan 44. (7) Masterson, Transportation in SWPA, pp. 782808. 53 Ruppenthal, Logistical Support of the Armies II, 131-133.
558
The results then, were both a curtailment of military requirements for cargo shipping and, beginning in December 1944, an increase in the number of ships returning to the United States for outward voyages. The shipping crisis gradually dissipated without resort to anything like so drastic a curtailment of civilian shipping services as General Somervell had initially proposed. The Soviet program was begun with 16 sailings from the west coast in December as the President had requested, and the demands placed on the British were held to much smaller proportions. Following the President's instructions, WSA immediately began negotiations with the British for the release of 40 sailings per month in December, January, and February. The British protested that they had already released some 80 sailings in the previous three months; they agreed to accept some further reductions in December, but said they could not accept those proposed in January and February 1945. On 9 December Admiral Land proposed to President Roosevelt a more flexible approach. Citing the gains already made in breaking up idle military pools and diverting ships from the coastal and South American trade, Land proposed to tell the British that the United States would "provide as many sailings as possible for their program but will have to reduce our assistance rather than allow military operations to be interfered with."54 By adopting this flexible approach it proved pos-
The British Import Program did suffer some curtailment in the last four months of 1944. The level of U.S. aid fell from 4 million dead-weight tons in continuous employment in the third quarter of the year to 3.5 million tons in the fourth quarter. But the total British Import Program in 1944 exceeded by a few hundred thousand tons the 25million-ton goal established at the beginning of the year, and this in the face of much criticism of the high stock levels of food in the British Isles. Moreover, American shipping assistance actually rose to the equivalent of 4.3 million dead-weight tons of shipping continuously employed in the first quarter of 1945 and to 5 million in the second quar-
54 (1) Memo, Adm Land for Roosevelt, 9 Dec 44, sub: Merchant Shpg, Reading File Nov-Dec 44, Box 55 122893, WSA Conway File. (2) Ltr, William O. Hart, Ltr, Conway to W. Averell Harriman, Moscow, BMSM, to Conway, 8 Dec 44, BMSM 1944, Box 29 Dec 44, Reading File Nov-Dec 44, Box 122893, 122869, WSA Conway File. WSA Conway File.
559
Somervell admitted that he had presented "a factual story . . . in agreement with our statistics," but pointed to the slippage in the Maritime Commission's 1944 shipbuilding program as an additional causative factor of which the admiral should be pointedly reminded.58 Pointed reminders had little effect, however. The basic issue was the President's proposal to extend shipbuilding contracts through the end of 1945 at approximately the same rate as planned for the first six months of the year, which, in turn, was approximately the same rate as originally scheduled during 1944. The purpose was clearly to assure a continuing supply of labor in the shipyards rather than to meet any needs then specifically calculated for the second half of 1945. Justice Byrnes, in replying to the President's memorandum proposing this step, questioned whether it had any real pertinence to the existing shortage, which, following the WSA line, he described as "an artificial appearance" caused by military waste. Noting that no deficits were predicted for the latter half of 1945 even if Germany continued undefeated, Byrnes concluded that extension of the existing rate of ship construction would merely result in overbuilding. He suggested that the JCS and WSA undertake a study of the shipbuilding program for the last half of 1945 based on requirements anticipated for that period and the prospective availability of shipping to meet them, not in terms of the existing crisis, which construction in late 1945 could do nothing
For the British viewpoint on the crisis, see Behrens, Merchant Shipping, pages 409-19. Figures on American aid are from the table on page 419. 57 For treatment of these negotiations, see below, Chapters XXIII and XXXI.
56
Memo, Somervell for CofS, 1 Dec 44, sub: Memo from Adm Land on Merchant Shpg, ABC 560 (26 Feb 43) Sec 1A.
58
560
GLOBAL LOGISTICS AND STRATEGY: 1943-1945 ly inflated, and their reduction had none of the disastrous consequences so often predicted. While all theaters had to absorb some cuts, the heaviest impact was on the European and the Southwest Pacific theaters, where congestion reached its most serious proportions. In assessing the effect on the European theater, it must be kept in mind that the curtailment of sailings to the Continent had been begun by the War Department long before the civilian authorities intervened, and that the effect of this curtailment was felt from late September 1944 onward. That the ETO suffered from supply shortages of various kinds throughout the fall and winter is undeniable, and failures in the distribution process, not lack of volume of production, were the principal factors in producing them. The shortage of shipping for outward movements to the ETO, however, was not the cause of these failures in the distribution process. It was, rather, the reverse, for the shortage of port facilities and an adequate supply line forward to the armies in ETO was the prime factor in producing the shortage of shipping. Out of these circumstances grew an idle pool of cargo shipping larger than any that occurred in any other theater during World War II. Granted that the idle pool, with individual ships used as floating warehouses for selective discharge, provided critical supplies necessary for operations, it still does not follow that meeting the theater's full requirements for cargo shipping would have had any appreciable effect in solving the logistical crisis in ETO. The root of the crisis was failure to take and develop ports in pace with the rapid advance across France. It was the lack of discharge capacity and
to alleviate. Meanwhile, he agreed, efforts should be pushed to accelerate ship construction under existing contracts.59 This reasonable proposition was accepted by all concerned, and the studies were soon closely tied in with the overall review of the cargo shipping situation on the combined level. Pending completion of the studies, Byrnes went ahead on 27 December to authorize a much-reduced construction program for the second half of 1945, including 102 Victorys but no Libertys at all. Meanwhile, actual production of cargo shipping in 1944 amounted to 16.3 million dead-weight tons, more than 2 million less than projected in December 1943. Efforts to accelerate production in the fall crisis apparently had little effect. 60
Effects
of the Crisis
The effects on military operations of the 1944 cargo shipping crisis are difficult to assess; it is impossible to say whether there was ever any genuine shortage of shipping. Certainly all theater commanders in the fall of 1944 and the winter of 1944-45 had to make do with considerably less shipping than they thought they needed. Obviously, however, their stated requirements were vast-
59 Memo, James F. Byrnes for President, 25 Nov 44, Incl in JLC 249/D, 20 Dec 44, title: Review of Shpg Situation for 1945. 60 (1) JCS 1173/9, 9 Dec 44, title: Remedies for Shortages in Shpg. (2) Decision Amending JCS 1173/9, 11 Dec 44, ABC 560 (26 Feb 43), Sec 1A. (3) JLC 239/D, 11 Dec 44, title: Remedies for Shortages in Shpg. (4) JLC 249/D, 20 Dec 44, title: Review of Shpg Situation for 1945. (5) JLC 249/1/D, 27 Dec 44, same title as (4), with Incl, Ltr, Byrnes to Adm Leahy, 23 Dec 44.
561
of an adequate depot system, and not the shortage of transoceanic shipping, that produced the logistical difficulties in ETO that undoubtedly in turn played their part in prolonging the war in Europe until May 1945. And it was this prolongation of the war in Europe that produced the excessive strains on cargo shipping for use in supporting the war in the Pacific and for civilian relief and economic rehabilitation programs. The situation in the Southwest Pacific admits of less positive conclusions. The reaction to worsening ship congestion in connection with the Leyte operation was quicker than in Europe, and the use of ships for floating warehouses in SWPA was consequently of shorter duration. Yet, supply on Leyte, like that in Europe, was marked more by shortages of suitable types of equipment, for instance Bailey bridges, than by an over-all shortage of all types that could be laid at the door of the shipping shortage. The subsequent assault on Luzon was postponed for three weeks, from 20 December 1944 to 9 January 1945, but because of delay in building airfields on Leyte and generally slow progress of the advance there (in turn a result of bad weather and terrain difficulties)
rather than because of lack of shipping. More than one of SWPA's logistical planners welcomed the respite the three weeks delay offered for preparation of adequate plans and schedules for Luzon and for requisitioning the specific types of supplies that would be needed to develop facilities on the island. In the Central Pacific there was also a delay in launching the operation against Iwo Jimafrom 20 January to 19 February 1945but this in turn was mostly a byproduct of the delay in the Philippines,
whence the necessary air support was to 61 come. The major impact of shipping cutbacks in the Pacific fell on plans for operations after Luzon and Iwo Jima. By late 1944 plans were taking shape for the development of a great base in the Philippines from which the invasion of Japan would be mounted. Concomitantly, the rear areas in the South and Southwest Pacific were to be rolled up, troops and materiel moved forward to the new base. The Philippine base development plan required enormous tonnages both from those rear areas and from the United States. The cutback in outward sailings from the United States forced long delays in the shipment of material from the west coast and the cutback in SWPA retentions caused similar delays in the roll-up of rear areas. Another casualty of the shipping shortage was MacArthur's plan to move rapidly into the Netherlands Indies once he had gained a foothold on Luzon; subsequently this operation was so reduced in scale that it bore little resemblance to MacArthur's original plan. Yet these costs cannot be ascribed to the shortage of shipping alone. They leave unanswered the legitimate question whether, had the shipping been available, it could have been used effectively in view of the lack of ports, unloading facilities, and assembly areas. In the last analysis, then, the "shipping crisis" was really more a product of a shortage in discharge facilities than one of merchant shipping itself. Still, the verdict of Justice Byrnes that the
(1) Hayes, War Against Japan, II, 315, History JCS. (2) Engineers of SWPA, I, 229. (3) Cannon, Leyte: The Return to the Philippines, pp. 18492.
61
562
GLOBAL LOGISTICS AND STRATEGY: 1943-1945 to have become, at the end of 1944 as it had been shortly after Pearl Harbor, the most critical of Allied resources. The JCS directive of 9 December, inspired by WSA, forbidding the use of cargo ships for floating warehouses in either the Pacific or Europe went far to ameliorate a rapidly mounting crisis and to provide for more equitable distribution of these resources, not only for strategic military needs but for political ends (such as civilian relief and the British Import Program) that with the approach of the end of the war were taking on increasing importance. Despite the amelioration, the cargo shipping question weighed heavily on the minds of the military staffs as they turned to the problems of the final phase of the war in the Pacific, where the increasing scale of operations threatened to impose demands that, simply because of geography, would assume astronomic proportions.
shortage was "an artificial appearance" caused by "waste of merchant shipping" on the part of the military services seems 62 unduly harsh. Shipping congestion in both the Pacific and Atlantic in the fall of 1944 was a product of rapid advances as theater commanders tried to end the war as quickly as possible. To them, a certain amount of waste of shipping seemed justified if required to speed the tactical advance. In their view, time was of greater importance than efficient logistical management. The basic psychology that led commanders to seize tactical advantage and worry about good logistical management later, the psychology that produced the shipping congestion, also undoubtedly played its part in hastening the end of the war on both fronts. In any case, merchant shipping seemed
62 (1) Memo, Byrnes for President, 25 Nov 44. (2) See also the severe strictures on the waste of merchant shipping by the U.S. military services in Behrens, Merchant Shipping, pp. 40930.
CHAPTER XXIII
tions about subsidiary operations continued to be very much alive in their discussions. In Nimitz' ICEBERG plan, the invasion of Okinawa was to be followed by further expansion in the Ryukyus requiring progressively larger forces. He hoped then to go on to seize a base on the China coast, most probably in the Chusan-Ningpo area (Operation LONGTOM). MacArthur had designs to move rapidly into the Netherlands Indies once his foothold on Luzon was secure. The planners in Washington also had to consider the possibility that if the USSR entered the war against Japan, it would be necessary to advance in the north Pacific through the Kuriles to Hokkaido to maintain a supply line to Siberia. Invasion of Hokkaido was also considered as a prelude, or even as a substitute, for the assault on Kyushu. Some thought was given to the possibility of moving from the Philippines against the island of Hainan and thence to the Liaotung Peninsula on the mainland of China. Ostensibly these questions were debated in terms of the necessity of securing further bases for invasion of Japan and for maintaining unremitting pressure on the Japanese. Actually they involved a basic conflict of viewpoint between the Army and Navy about the necessity of the invasion itself. The Navy placed a much greater emphasis on subsidiary operations along the China coast
564
and in the north Pacific as a means of obtaining bases from which Japan could be strangled by naval blockade and air bombardment. The Army insisted on subordinating all subsidiary operations to preparations for mounting the final assault against Japan at the earliest possible moment. That final victory over Japan was assured, there was no longer any doubt in U.S. councils. Timing was the vital question. American staffs, reflecting the temper of American public opinion, were impatient. Their impatience, nevertheless, did not permit them to underestimate Japanese ability to resist. To the Army staff, at least, mass invasion seemed the quickest way, indeed the only way, in which Japanese capitulation could be assured. It was also undoubtedly the costliest way both in human lives and resources, and the way that would require the most extensive redeployment of the forces from Europe. The tentative plans of November 1944 established an almost unbelievably tight timetable. The invasion of Luzon was to begin in December, Iwo Jima to follow in mid-January, and the first phase of ICEBERG, the attack on Okinawa, on 1March. The second and third phases of ICEBERG, seizure of Ie Shima and Miyako Jima and adjacent islands, respectively, were to follow between March and mid-August. OLYMPIC, the invasion of Kyushu, would begin in September 1945; CORONET, the assault on Honshu, 1 in December. This tight schedule certainly left little leeway for any subsidiary operations.
(1) JCS 924/8, 23 Nov 44, rpt by JPS, title: Opns for the Defeat of Japan. (2) Hayes, War Against
Japan, II, 312-16, History JCS.
1
565
became rear bases in SWPA; four divisions and supporting troops and a considerable proportion of the Thirteenth Air Force were transferred to SWPA in The Problem of Bases place. The conferences also established and Roll-up a tentative schedule for movement of By the end of November 1944 both nearly 75,000 more troops from the rest SWPA and POA forces were thousands of the old SOPAC area to SWPA durof miles ahead of their rear bases in ing the ensuing months, leaving only Hawaii, the Gilberts and Marshalls, the about 55,000 troops in the command, South Pacific, Australia, and the eastern an indeterminate number of which were 3 end of New Guinea. For the impending also to be transferred at a later date. Troop movements began in June 1944 final blows against Japan, the most urgent problem was the establishment of but they proceeded slowly. MacArthur new bases closer to the inner ring of decided it would be more economical to Japanese defenses, primarily in the Phil- leave the troops in their original posiippines, Many of the facilities and sup- tions until they could be mounted out plies at the rear bases were now frozen directly for operations along the New assets in areas the war had left behind. Guinea coast and in the Philippines. To In this light, a certain amount of rede- do otherwise would place an intolerable ployment of forces and supplies within burden on shipping, base facilities, and Pacific areas was a necessary prelude to service support available further forward in SWPA, for when combat elements redeployment from Europe. moved forward they usually had to leave The South Pacific area had been eartheir supporting service elements behind marked by the JCS for roll-up as early as March 1944, with almost all the Army to close out facilities. MacArthur found resources in the theater to pass progres- that while the combat-service troop ratio sively to SWPA as South Pacific bases in the South Pacific had been 70 to 30, were reduced or phased out. Only a small the ratio in transfers to SWPA was about 4 force was scheduled to remain in the 90 to 10. The roll-up of supplies in SOPAC area to maintain bases for the staging and rehabilitation of POA divisions and proceeded at an even slower pace. The 2 for other minor functions. As the trans- War Department on 13 June authorized fer was worked out in conferences be- transfer of all surplus Army supplies in tween SWPA and SOPAC representa- the area to SWPA, but MacArthur could tives, part of it would be accomplished spare neither ships to bring in badly balby simply extending SWPA's boundaries anced loads of South Pacific surplus nor eastward to include the Upper Solomons docks and service personnel to unload in MacArthur's command. By this rear- them. In the South Pacific itself, there rangement, effected on 15 June 1944, were inadequate numbers of service perBougainville, New Georgia, Vella La- sonnel to inventory, sort, and load supvella, Choiseul, and the Treasury Islands
2
USAFISPA History, pp. 25663. Msg CX-1567, GHQ SWPA to WD, CM-IN 4316, 5 Aug 44.
4
566
plies. When General Wood of the ASF visited the area in October 1944 he found "dumps scattered all over the Noumea area . . . much of the stocks . . . surplus to ... theater needs and much of it in critical categories."5 The delays in movement, however justified, almost inevitably led to a reassertion of POA's claim on some of the Army resources left in SOPAC. The War Department decided not to let troop movements proceed automatically on MacArthur's call, but to retain power to divert units to meet urgent needs elsewhere. And by midsummer 1944, Nimitz felt that his needs for service troops were urgent. His policy, unlike MacArthur's in SWPA, was to move troops from combat areas into rear rehabilitation and staging areas after each campaign, and at this time he decided to expand the role of South Pacific bases as rehabilitation and staging areas for POA divisions. Late in June he proposed that 1September be set as a terminal date for movement of South Pacific troops to SWPA and that any not physically transferred by that time be permanently assigned to POA to operate the staging areas and provide a reserve for the prospective invasion of Formosa. MacArthur protested vigorously, citing the terms of the JCS directive promising all surplus troops in the South Pacific to SWPA and the serious imbalance in units already transferred. OPD at first sought to effect a compromise by stipulating a later terminal date but, swayed by MacArthur's arguments and the apparent reluctance of the Navy to accept a later
5 (1) Ltr, Gen Wood to Gen Lutes, 18 Oct 44, folder SWPac 1942 thru Apr 45, Lutes File. (2) WARX 50192 to CG's, USAFISPA and SWPA, 13 Jun 44.
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fantry Division in the Palaus and to con- mounting POA ground forces (Army and Marine), Nimitz planned to develstruct B-29 bases in the Marianas.7 This so-called FILBAS Agreement op smaller bases in the Marianas and temporarily ended the controversy over Ryukyus for this purpose. The main South Pacific service troops and estab- air bases for strategic bombardment of lished the principle that the Philippines Japan would be in the Marianas and would be the main base for the final Ryukyus, and the Navy had its own campaign against Japan. About the same plans for installations in these island time, policies were established on the groups and in the Palaus. In October disposition of surplus Army supplies in 1944, in a mammoth towing operation, the South Pacific. The new base com- the Navy transferred the main base for mander, General Gilbreath, ordered a its mobile Service Squadron Ten from 9 complete inventory and on his recom- Eniwetok to Ulithi. mendation the SOPAC supply level was A complete roll-up could mean longcut to 75 days. The base command was term economies in the use of service instructed to dispose of supplies above troops, shipping, and supplies, but the these levels. Some of them, it was de- short-term expense could be high. The cided, could be used to re-equip POA same service troops needed to sort and divisions withdrawn from combat in the ship supplies from rear bases were also Palaus and sent to the South Pacific for required to prepare the forward bases. rehabilitation; the rest became part of Loads of ill-assorted supplies from rear the scattered stocks to which SWPA lay areas made the same demand on limited claim, stocks stored in Australia and at port receiving capacity as did specially all the way stations in New Guinea as tailored loads coming from the United 8 States. The shipping used in the roll-up well as in the South Pacific. By November 1944 the problem of counted against theater retentions or abrolling up the South Pacific had merged sorbed part of the local fleet. When into the larger problem of rolling up all theater retentions were cut back, there the rear bases in SWPA and the estab- was an inevitable tendency to move servlishment of a new base in the Philip- ice troops forward, leave supplies bepines. Meanwhile, POA was also facing hind, and order new material from the its own roll-up problem in moving men United States. To a Pacific theater comand supplies forward from the Gilberts, mander at the beginning of the year Marshalls, and Hawaii. Although the 1945 sacrifice of time seemed too high FILBAS Agreement provided that the a price to pay for long-term economy. Philippines would be the main base for Quite apart from the shipping problem, the roll-up in SWPA could hardly GHQ, SWPA, Rpt of Conferees as to Logistic even begin until bases were prepared in Support in the Philippine Islands for POA Forces, the Philippines to receive men and ma4 Nov 44, Theater Files, Pac Sec, 11/1/44, ASF terial. This was the conclusion the Joint Plng Div. Logistics Committee reached when, at (1) Ltr, Hq, SPBC to CGPOA, 22 Sep 44, with Incls, sub: Surplus Supplies. (2) Memo, Gen Hull the behest of General Marshall, it un7 8
for TAG, 20 Nov 44, same sub. Both in OPD 400 TS, Case 271. (3) TWX Conf, Col Krueger and Col Bogart, 21 Oct 44, POA 1942 thru Mar 45, Lutes File.
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GLOBAL LOGISTICS AND STRATEGY: 1943-1945 of the FILBAS Agreement, and neither MacArthur nor Nimitz raised any appreciable objection to it. Both commanders warned, however, that the rapidity of Philippine base development would determine the pace at which the plan could be carried out.10 The speed of Philippine base development depended on a number of factors. First, the base sites must be taken by American troops. Leyte was almost entirely in American hands by the end of December, but the invasion of Luzon was not launched until 9 January 1945, twenty days behind schedule. This delay clearly portended further delays in taking other islands in the Philippine group necessary for the full development of the facilities required. Granted that the islands would eventually be retaken, much still depended on the speed with which ports (particularly the largest, Manila) could be put into operation, on the availability of cargo shipping to bring in materials either from rear bases or from the United States, and on the supply of labor to prepare the installations. As 1945 began the outlook for none of these things was bright; port reception capacity loomed ahead as the ultimate limiting factor on the speed of Philippine base development, but the shortage of troop labor and of shipping also promised to contribute to delays that would prevent meeting the May 1945 target date established in the FILBAS Agreement. Early in November 1944, pending formulation of a keyed project, SWPA forwarded to the War Department req10 (1) JCS 1149, 3 Nov 44, memo by CofS, USA, title: Economy in Use of Service Units in SWP and POA. (2) JCS 1149/1, 2 Dec 44, rpt by JLC, same title. (3) JLC 217/3/D, 16 Jan 45, same title. (4) JPS 595/1, 20 Jan 45, same title.
dertook a study of the consolidation of staging and rehabilitation areas in the Pacific as a means of economizing on the use of service troops. The committee, somewhat critical of Nimitz' policy of sending divisions to rear areas to rest and recuperate, suggested that a saving of some service troops might be achieved immediately by a consolidation of Army staging areas in the South Pacific at either New Caledonia or Espritu Santo, and by squeezing more men out of the Hawaiian establishment. But it could foresee no further savings until the Philippine base could be readied. As soon as possible, they thought, facilities in the South Pacific should be closed out. For the final assault on Japan, the committee foresaw a need for the construction of staging and rehabilitation facilities for 19 divisions and of mounting facilities for 15 divisions in the Philippine group, for the continuation of existing facilities for 3 divisions in the Marianas and 4 on Hawaii, and for the addition of a new area for 3 divisions in the Ryukyus. The facilities for 4 divisions in the Aleutians, established in 1943, should be maintained on a standby basis for the contingency of a north Pacific operation. These staging and mounting areas would accommodate the 21 Army and 6 Marine Corps divisions already in the Pacifica sufficient force, the planners estimated, to mount the initial assaults in both OLYMPIC and CORONET. Follow-up divisions and garrison divisions, the committee thought, could be mounted in the United States and staged through facilities vacated by the divisions involved in the initial assault. This JLC projection, the first comprehensive base plan for mounting the final assault on Japan, followed the lines
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uisitions for some 1,300,000 measurement tons of material for Philippine base development. These requisitions
were in addition to project requirements already submitted for the Leyte and Luzon operations against which large backlogs of material had long been piling up in ports and holding and reconsignment points in the United States. The ASF found the quantities of materials in the SWPA requisitions well within the limits of requirements anticipated for Philippine base development in its own separately prepared plan and agreed
be redeployed from Europe), and for receiving, staging, and garrisoning 19 ground divisions and simultaneously
mounting 15 divisions. To provide these facilities would require rehabilitation and expansion of port and transportation installations, particularly around Manila, building of new staging and mounting areas, airfields, and naval
already in existence and to the impending cutback in sailings to SWPA, nothing could be shipped for many months, ASF officers did not bother to make any detailed analysis of availability of 11 particular items. Approval for supply had little meaning, as the theater soon recognized. In
the light of the shipping situation, MacArthur adjusted his requirements downward. In early January SWPA, presenting its formal keyed project, requested that the earlier series of requisitions be canceled. The new plan, MacArthur said, provided for the "irreducible minimum facilities required for the logistic support of future operations," based on the assumption that "the bulk of U.S. forces in the Pacific will be concentrated in the Philippines." He would provide naval installations for support of the Seventh Fleet and one-third of the Pacific Fleet, facilities for 51 air groups (17 to
(1) Memo, Gen Wood for OPD, 6 Dec 44, sub: Requisitions for Manila and Central Luzon Rehabilitation and Construction Project, History Planning Div ASF, app. 8S. (2) Ste above, ch. XXII.
11
bases on Luzon, Leyte, and in the Visayan group. Materiel requirements were cut to the bone, and the need for "full utilization of service forces, materials and equipment which can be made available on time by the roll-up of rear bases, and of Australian and Philippine procurement" was fully recognized. Of a total dead-weight tonnage requirement of 825,816 tons for all services, 480,869 tons were to come from theater resources, only 344,947 tons from the United 12 States. Based on these minimum tonnage requirements, MacArthur hoped to complete the staging and rehabilitation areas by May 1945, as provided in the FILBAS Agreement, and the whole project by July. But these optimistic hopes soon went aglimmering. The ASF, working with a theater mission, found that SWPA had seriously underestimated its needs for the kind of base proposed, and when the final bills of material were completed, the total requirement for shipments from the United States had once again
risen to 1,100,000 tons, including about 690,000 tons of engineer materials. Assuming, as the theater proposed, that shipments of engineer materials started in March 1945 and continued at the rate
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could hardly be completed before the end of the year. And this rate of shipments, the ASF predicted, could not be achieved unless many of the Engineer requisitions outstanding were canceled or adjusted to the new plan. The supply planners also found, though they could not pinpoint units or numbers because of uncertainties as to what would come from the South Pacific, "a definite shortage of service troops . . . prior to V-E Day which will adversely affect the com13 pletion date." MacArthur himself was soon forced to admit that Philippine base development would be delayed. American troops entered the city of Manila on 3 February but it took more than a month to subdue Japanese resistance, and the port was so severely damaged by the Japanese that its rehabilitation was to take a much longer time. Meanwhile, supply for Luzon was carried on over the beaches, limiting reception capacity for ordinary cargo shipping and putting a premium on amphibious cargo carriers of all types. MacArthur could not move material forward from the rear bases as he had planned; failure to develop adequate port capacity acted as an effective counter to his arguments against the cutbacks in his shipping retentions and in outward sailings to SWPA from the United States; shortages of service troops and materials at the same time acted to increase the delay in developing port capacity. The theater was caught in a triple squeeze by shortages of receiving capacity, service troops, and cargo shipping, all in a continual process of interaction. On 26 February MacArthur informed
13 (1) History Planning Div ASF, p. 156 and apps. 8-S and 8-T. (2) Engineers of SWPA, VII, 151-53.
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of the shortage of Army resources in the Pacific, the service troop problem in POA was another measure, and one that seemingly posed even more serious limitations. When the JCS in October 1944 had decided on Luzon rather than Formosa, a primary consideration had been the lack of sufficient Army service and supporting troops for a land operation of any magnitude. The subsequent decision to direct the POA effort at Iwo Jima and Okinawa did not lay the issue to rest. While these operations would require a lesser scale of service support than Formosa, the basic shortages remained, and they weighed heavily on all POA plans from October 1944 onward. The newly seized bases in the Palaus
had to be manned, and in the Marianas the plans for the B-29 fields were in a continual process of expansion. More fields would be built in the Ryukyus when they were taken, adding further to the need for construction troops. The FILBAS Agreement ended any hope of using the service troops from the South Pacific other than a few units specifically excepted, and SWPA's increasing need for service forces made it unlikely that any could be drawn from that source. The War Department painfully dug up a unit here and a unit there, and Richardson stripped the Hawaiian establishment down to what he conceived to be the limits of safety. In this manner enough service troops were scraped up to provide the minimum essential re-
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quirements for the first phase of ICEBERG, and a start was made at finding units for the second phase. The JCS committees devoted a great deal of study to the problem in December 1944 and January 1945, but were forced to the ultimate conclusion that service troops would just not be available for anything beyond the second phase of ICEBERG and that further exploitation of successes in POA would depend upon rapid redeployment of troops at the end of the hostilities in 15 Europe. The Navy, anxious to follow Okinawa with an attack on the China coast, pressed the Army vigorously to take measures to furnish the necessary troops for POA. On 4 January 1945 Rear Adm. Donald B. Duncan of the Navy planners called OPD "to express his concern over the lack of service and supporting troops, which is apparently going to stop our advance in the Pacific and may thus result in having the Japs quickly kick back."16 There was more than a hint that the Navy wanted the Army to convert combat units to service units, but the Army response was almost entirely negative. Few Army staff officers any longer feared that the Japanese had a real capability of "kicking back," and on the
(1) JCS 1149/1, 2 Dec 44, title: Economy in Use of Service Units . . . (2) JLC 247, 20 Dec 44, title: Service Units to Support Major Amphibious Opns in the Pacific in the Spring of 1945. (3) JCS 1209, 23 Dec 44, title: Availability of Forces in Pacific after Directed Opns. (4) Memo, Col Lincoln for Asst Secy, WDGS, 10 Jan 45, sub: Availability of Forces in Pacific after Directed Opns, ABC 320.2 (10 Feb 44). (5) JLC 217/3/D, 16 Jan 45, title: Economy in Use of Service Units. . . . (6) JPS 595/1, 20 Jan 45, title: Economy in Use of Service Units. . . . (7) OPD MFR, 7 Feb 45, OPD 320.2 TS, Case 9/11. 16 Memo, Lincoln for Chief, Strategy Sec, OPD, 4 Jan 45, ABC 320.2 (3-13-43) Sec 8.
15
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Cargo and Assault Shipping
Ostensibly, the other critical problem of early 1945, cargo shipping, also exercised its influence to constrict Pacific operations. The studies undertaken by the JCS in October and November 1944 of the cargo shipping shortage, it will be recalled, in December merged into an over-all combined study with the British of the prospective cargo shipping situation for the next six months.19 The American military authorities brought into these negotiations figures showing deficits both in the Pacific and in the Atlantic of from 7 to 9 percent against estimated requirements. Corresponding British figures showed deficits of from 4 to 8 percent. The CCS quickly moved to issue on the combined level directives to theater commanders restricting retentions of cargo ships in their theaters and prohibiting their use for floating storage, along the lines of the directive that the JCS had already, at the behest of the President, issued to U.S. theater commanders. The problem of allocating the deficits nonetheless remained. On the method of doing this there was no agreement. Liberation of various nations of Europe had produced demands for civilian relief that would require cargo shipping commitments of as yet undetermined proportions. The British, with the support of the American civilian shipping authorities, argued that these civilian requirements could not be completely subordinated to military ones, that any curtailment in shipping made necessary by the deficits would have to be spread over all programs, military and civilian. The JCS, on the other
19 See above, ch. XXII.
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hand, with the tremendous and evergrowing cargo shipping requirements of the Pacific war in mind, held out for an overriding priority for military demands. The controversy delayed any agreement on an over-all combined cargo shipping budget until basic decisions had been reached at the Malta-Yalta Conference (ARGONAUT). At the conference the President and Prime Minister, the latter reluctantly, agreed on a formula giving first priority to basic undertakings, and included in that category supplies to liberated areas only to the extent that they would effectively contribute to the war-making capacity of the United Nations. It was a decision that generally conformed to the JCS view but one that was open to varying interpretations. Certain specific allocations for initiation of national import programs for the liberated nations preserved these programs in principle and made it certain that their demands would be reasserted in the future. Also, military priority or not, the projections for the next six months showed continuing though reduced deficits based on the assumption that the war with Germany would last through the end of June 1945. These deficits against stated requirements amounted to 161 sailings in the Pacific between March and June.20 The prospective deficits emphasized the need for continuing restrictions on both outward sailings to and retentions within SWPA. An almost immediate casualty was MacArthur's plan to invade
(1) On the civilian relief shipping issue see below, Chapter XXXI. (2) CMT 66/3, 12 Jan 45, rpt by CMTC and CSAB, title: Over-all Review of Cargo Shpg. (3) CCS 746/10, 2 Feb 45, same title. (4) CCS 746/11, 8 Feb 45, title: Over-all Review of Cargo and Troop Shpg Position for Remainder of 1945.
20
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plan promised to produce its share of waste. The scheduled shipments of Army supplies would raise theater levels far above those authorized, clear evidence that POA was making little attempt to use its own rear area surpluses. And although the plan promised to insure quick turnaround of ships in the target area, it involved the risk, should development of port capacity not proceed according to schedule, of shipping congestion at regulating stations and the emergency discharge of cargoes especially tailored to needs on Okinawa at some other point. Both types of waste did occursome cargoes were unloaded in the Philippines nearly a year later. But, once again, at the time no one was ready to stress economy if it involved loss of time. The Army, though it made some objections to the generous scale of supply for ICEBERG, in the end accepted and supported CINCPOA's stated re23 quirements for the operation. The large shipping requirements for Okinawa were a major factor in producing the forecast of deficits in the Pacific from March to June 1945. And shipping was available to meet these requirements in large part only because of the breakup of shipping congestion in SWPA and the subsequent cutbacks in sailings to that theater. In March, for instance, 20 scheduled sailings to the Philippines were canceled and most of the ships re-
23 (1) Memo, Gen Heileman, Dir Sup ASF, for OPD, 3 Jan 45, sub: Request for Advance Shipment of Maintenance to CPBC, OPD 400 TS (1945 file) Exec 9, Book 25. (2) Memo, Gen Tansey for Gen Case 4. (2) MFR's, 28 Jan and 20 Feb 45, sub: SupHull, 25 Feb 45, sub: Oil and Rubber Exploitation plies for ICEBERG, OPD 400 TS, Cases 16/2 and 16/4. in East Indies, with related papers in OPD 381 TS, (3) Msg WARX 29425, to COMGENPOA, 28 Feb 45. Cases 52/8, 10, 13. (3) Min, 189th mtg JCS, 7 Feb 45. (4) WSA Rpt No. 10 from Cen Pac to Capt Gran(4) Hayes, War Against Japan, II, 365-66, History ville Conway, folder Pac 1945, Box 122891, WSA JCS. Records, WSA Conway File. (5) Ltr, Col Meyer to 22 Appleman, Burns, Gugeler and Stevens, Oki- Mr. C. C. Wardlow, 21 Jul 49, OCT HB folder A-N nawa: The Last Battle, pp. 3641. Jt Logs.
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allocated to POA. The delays in the roll-up and in Philippine base development and the restriction on expansion into the Netherlands Indies were thus not without their compensating advantages for Nimitz' theater. Moreover, some ships were loaded for Pacific destinations on the Atlantic coast, 15 ships were diverted from the Soviet Pacific program, and sailing time was speeded by the removal of convoy restrictions as far west as the Palaus. Some minor reductions were effected in Nimitz' schedules, but for the most part he got what he asked for. Indeed, if measured against capacity to receive, the heralded deficits in the Pacific never materialized, a fact that gives much weight to WSA contentions that they were only the result of inflated requirements in the first place.24 The problems of the SWPA roll-up and Philippine base development, nonetheless, remained. Though the War Department insisted MacArthur could not use any more ordinary cargo shipping effectively if he had it, the SWPA commander continued to lay the blame for delays on the cutback in his retentions. The War Department stuck to its guns in holding back retentions, but was soon casting an eye on the huge fleet of assault shipping in the Pacific, mostly under naval control, as a possible resource for effecting the roll-up. After all, this shipping could unload over the beaches. At General Marshall's behest, the Joint Logistics Committee undertook a study
24 (1) Min, 91st mtg JMTC, 22 Feb 45, Item2; 92d mtg, 24 Mar 45. (2) Memo, Gen Hull for CofS, 19 Mar 45, sub: Reduction of 20 Ships in Sailings to Gen MacArthur for March. . . . (3) Memo, Lt A. M. Smith, USNR, for Adm Carter, 22 Mar 45, folder Navy 1945, Box 122891, WSA Conway File. (4) On the Soviet Pacific program see below, Chapter XXVIII.
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ing craft were the only vessels that would serve. Still, the failure of the JCS to assert its control left both commanders with no one to account to but themselves for the efficient use of these vessels. In any case, with these limited additional resources the SWPA roll-up continued haltingly, while the whole matter of assault and cargo shipping became merged in the larger considerations of redeployment and a new system of Pacific command.27
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OLYMPIC and CORONET to be executed in September and December 1945 respectively. Deployment was projected for eighteen months ahead on the alternate assumptions that redeployment would begin on 31 December 1944 or 31 March 1945, the one plan to apply if Germany was defeated before 15 January 1945, the other if it were defeated afterward. Total force goals in both plans remained much the same as they had been in earlier projections. Army combat forces in the Pacific would be built up from 21 divisions and 71 air groups to 40 divisions and 178 air groups within 12 months after the defeat of Germany, and the strategic reserve in the United States simultaneously rebuilt to 15 divisions and 31 air groups. The difference was that major reinforcements for the Pacific must now come from Europe, not directly from the United States. In the 31 March plan, about half of the Pacific increment was to move directly from Europe to the Pacific, the other half by way of the United States. The planners allowed thirty days for personnel adjustments in units in Europe before major redeployment of Army forces could begin. But the most essential service units would move immediately after V-E Day, while other units were readjusting personnel. Moreover, the new plan proposed a build-up of ASF troops in the Pacific and CBI from 325,000 to 750,000, an increase of 130 percent as opposed to only 78 percent of AGF troops. In adhering to the optimistic fall target dates for OLYMPIC and CORONET, the assumption was that OLYMPIC (the invasion of Kyushu) would be mounted with forces already in the Pacific, sup-
Strategic Deployment of U.S. Forces Following Defeat of Germany. (2) On earlier planning, see above, Chapter XXII. (3) For discussion of the point system,
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the Army staff that King was interfering in matters wholly within the province of the Army, the Admiral was adamant. The December redeployment plan was never formally approved by the JCS. It did serve for a time as the basis of Army planning while the Joint Planners diligently labored to produce a more realistic revision. Meanwhile, the command issue, having been raised, had to be settled; until it was, there could be little finality about any logistical plans for the last phase in the Pacific.32
The Pacific Command Question By January 1945 the Army staff had swung around to the position that all Army forces and resources in the final phase of the war in the Pacific should be placed under the control of General MacArthur. The Army's argument, stated in its simplest terms, was that under the existing area commands Army resources were too compartmentalized to permit their most efficient use. The tug of war between Nimitz and MacArthur over South Pacific service troops and the misunderstandings over Philippine base development seemed ample proof of the thesis. Continuation of compartmentalization, they thought, would not be conducive to success in the final assault on Japan. There was, also, no little dissatisfaction with the extent to which the Army was subordinated to the Navy in POA. General Richardson, the Army commander in that area, was particularly resentful. He regarded the POA joint
32 (1) JCS 521/11, 22 Jan 45, memo by CofS, USA, title: Strategic Deployment of U.S. Forces. . . . (2) Undated OPD Memo, same sub, ABC 320.2 (3-13-43) Sec 6.
30
6 Jan 45, sub: Strategic Deployment of U.S. Forces . . . . OPD 320.2 (3-13-43) Sec 6. 31 JCS 521/10, 17 Jan 45, memo by COMINCH and CNO, title: Strategic Deployment of U.S. Forces . . . , Incl B.
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staff as a completely Navy dominated staff, and thought CINCPOA looked on the Army in POA as just another Navy "type command." The decision in late 1944 to entrust Nimitz with almost complete control of military shipping in the area was for Richardson virtually the last straw. His views were shared in varying degrees by Army staff officers in Washington. Though they acquiesced in the POA system as long as the Army component of Nimitz' command remained small, they had no intention of allowing it to continue once redeployment had increased Army forces. Inevitably, also, the higher Navy standard of living in the Pacific produced Army suspicions that the Navy was using scarce service troops to build an elaborate postwar establishment for itself on Guam and other islands and that CINCPOA's practices in other ways were wasting Army resources. One OPD officer thought the service troop shortage primarily "the result of paving our way across the Pacific with Army garrisoned bases, and making a practice of withdrawing so-called assault troops to rear areas between active phases of operations." The POA system of logistics, which emphasized direct shipment of tailor-made loads from the United States without regard to authorized levels of supply or normal Army procedures of requisitioning, seemed unnecessarily wasteful of Army supplies and upset the normal routine procedures of the ASF. Frequent POA project orders for complete divisional sets of equipment for troops withdrawn from combat also seemed excessive.33
33 (1) Quoted from undated and unsigned OPD comments on JLC 247, ABC 320.2 (3-13-43) Sec 7. (2) Min, 192d mtg JPS, Six Sessions, 10-15 Mar 45.
THE PACIFIC IN TRANSITION who did not even give lip service to the principle of unified command. His view, presented to the Chief of Staff on 17 December 1944, was:
We have fairly strong Ground Forces and Air Forces in the Pacific supported by inadequate service forces for the type of warfare that is being waged. Only through the most careful planning by a single responsible commander can these troops be used in sufficiently efficient manner to justify the hazards of a major operation. They are now scattered, inequitably employed and not susceptible of efficient grouping . . . I do not recommend a single unified command for the Pacific. I am of the firm opinion that the Naval forces should serve under Naval Command and that the Army should serve under Army command. Neither service willingly fights on a major scale under the command of the other. . . . The Navy with almost complete Naval Command in the Pacific, has attained a degree of flexibility in the employment of resources with consequent efficiency that has far surpassed the Army. It is essential that the Navy be given complete command of all its units and that the Army be accorded similar treatment. Only in this way will there be attained that complete flexibility and efficient employment of forces that is essential to victory. . . .34
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operations already directed and to provide administrative and logistical support for the final assault. In the protracted and difficult negotiations the Navy placed its main emphasis on the greater efficiency of a unified area command and on the disruptions that any change in the existing system would undoubtedly produce in the execution of the Okinawa operation and of the assault on the China coast with which Nimitz hoped to follow it. The Army spokesman claimed that the creation of a Japan Area would simply lead to the addition of still another compartment, and would therefore complicate rather than solve the basic problem. There were strategic overtones to the controversy, the Navy clearly visualizing that the China coast operation would be carried out, the Army insisting on subordinating it to preparations for the assault on Kyushu. Though the final agreement of the JCS followed Army lines on both command and strategic issues, there were concessions to the Navy viewpoint that ren-
dered the Army victory something less than complete.35 The JCS directive, issued on 3 April On 26 February 1945 General Mar-1945, designated MacArthur Commandshall presented a plan embodying the er in Chief, U.S. Army Forces, Pacific
Army's views to the JCS. The Navy finally agreed to accept it but only after a long, hard fight. Admiral King insisted on unified command. He did not propose such a unified command for the entire Pacific but would set up a third area around the Japanese home islands and appoint a commander in chief, Japan Area (CINCJAPA), to both plan for and carry out the final invasion, leaving the old area commands to carry out
34 Msg C-55018, GHQ SWPA to WAR, CM-IN 16870, 17 Dec 44.
(CINCAFPAC), and placed all Army resources there under his command save those in Alaska and the southeast Pacific. Similarly, all naval resources were placed under Nimitz as Commander in Chief, Pacific Fleet (CINCPAC). The
35 (1) JCS 1259, 26 Feb 45, memo by CofS, USA, title: Comd in Pacific. (2) Min, 192d mtg JPS, Six Sessions, 10-15 Mar 45. (3) Memo, Gen Lincoln for Gen Hull, 12 Mar 45, sub: Rpt on Progress in Pac Comd Negotiations, OPD 384 TS, Case 1/7fl (4) JCS 1259/4, 3 Apr 45, title: Command and Opnl Directives for the Pacific.
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continue. The strategic directive that accompanied the directive on command similarly lacked finality. As immediate tasks, Nimitz was to complete his campaign in the Ryukyus, MacArthur his in the Philippines. Each was to make plans for certain subsidiary operations Nimitz for the Chusan-Ningpo assault; MacArthur for occupying north Borneo. Both commanders were to make plans and preparations for the final invasion of JapanNimitz for the naval and amphibious phase, MacArthur for the land campaignswith necessary co-ordination to be exercised between them. The diUntil passed to other command by mutual rective thus seemingly gave the preferagreement or by direction of the JCS, the localities under command of CINCSWPA ence to the Army view that after Luzon and the naval forces allotted to him will and Okinawa the next move should be remain under his command and similarly to the Japanese home islands, but it did the areas under command of CINCPOA not specifically direct either the Kyushu and the army forces allotted to him will or Honshu invasions. remain under his command. Changes in In promulgating its directives on comcommand of forces or localities and changes mand and strategy, the JCS paid singumade in existing joint logistical procedures larly little attention to the immense comwill be effected by progressive rearrangements made by mutual agreement, or as plications that must result in logistical may be directed by the JCS. arrangements from the change in Pacific CINCPAC and CINCAFPAC are each command. No new logistical directive authorized to establish joint forces or designate commanders to exercise unified com- replaced the Basic Logistical Plan of mand for the conduct of operations for March 1943. This plan had led to the which they have been made responsible, development of an elaborate system of and may also do so by mutual agreement. joint logistics in POA though it had not They will also determine by mutual agree- been applied to the same extent in ment when forces or localities revert or pass to the appropriate commander follow- SWPA. Yet even in SWPA the control of shipping and the assignment of moveing operations.36 ment priorities had been on a joint basis. The plan for a gradual transition "by The new command system would mean mutual agreement" meant that MacAr- that logistics in the Pacific could no longthur would not be able to assert his er be based on the concept of joint concontrol over the Army resources in POA trol over joint areas embodied in the for some time, and that in all probabil- Basic Logistical Plan, but that a new ity the controversies over service troops system must be evolved whereby each and Philippine base development would service should control the flow of supplies and personnel for its own forces throughout the Pacific. Ibid. (4).
36
JCS were themselves to act as the unified command for the theater, determining strategy, assigning missions to the two commanders, and "fixing command responsibilities for specific major operations and campaigns." Normally CINCAFPAC would be charged with primary responsibility for land operations and CINCPAC with responsibility for sea campaigns. In order to permit completion of existing operations the old area commands were to be retained and the changeover to the new system was to be gradual:
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to the need for "some centralized logistics staff closely associated with the Army and Navy commanders in the Pacific,"38 but he did not make clear just how such a staff could serve two different commanders. In an ASF plan drawn up toward the end of March, a joint logistics board was substituted for the joint staff, and there was a suggestion that the Joint Logistics Committee, acting for the JCS, should screen requirements presented either by the joint board in the Pacific or by the Pacific commanders. The whole proposal, a somewhat nebulous one in the first place, got nowhere. The Navy preferred to rely on a system of co-operation between ASF and Navy supply officers in Washington and between MacArthur's and Nimitz' staffs in the field. The obvious inference is that the Navy considered unified supply without unified command impossible.39 The thorniest issue of all involved control of shipping, always the center of the entire system of joint logistics in the Pacific. Previously it had been the area commander's prerogative to determine the shipping requirements of both services, to assign shipping priorities to meet them, and to schedule the movement of ships to and within his area. Nimitz had been able to assert his prerogative to the extent that all control of operational shipping for destinations west of Hawaii had been centered in him as theater commander; MacArthur
38 (1) Memo, Somervell for Handy, 27 Feb 45, sub: Comd in Pacific. (2) Memo, Somervell for CofS, 23 Feb 45, sub: Procurement Plng for Pacific Opns. Both in WDCSA 323.36 (27 Feb 45). 39 (i) Memo, Dir Pls and Opns, ASF, for Dir Reqmts and Stock Control Div, 16 Mar 45, sub: Jt A and N Reqmts for Pacific Opns. (2) Memo, Actg Dir Pls and Opns, ASF, for Gen Lutes, 24 Mar 45, same sub. (3) Memo, Lutes for Somervell, 25 Mar 45. (2) and (3) in Folder POA 1942 thru Mar 45, Lutes File.
584
had left the Navy in SWPA to determine its own requirements and shipping schedules subject only to the regulation of movement priorities by GHQ. One of the points the Army had hoped to gain by the new system was control over its own shipping in POA, but Nimitz was by no means ready to relinquish that control so long as he continued to be responsible for operations within the existing POA command. The provision for gradual transition gave him ample leeway to assert his rights, and the whole question of a new system of shipping control in the Pacific was not resolved for some time. The settlement of the command issue was therefore neither absolutely final nor an entirely unmixed 40 blessing.
ment plans could be based. All OPD could do was put him off with tentative answers to his questions.41
(1) Memo, Gen Lincoln for Gen Hull, 18 Mar 45, OPD 384 TS, Case 1/26. (2) Ballantine, U.S. Naval Logistics in the Second World War, pp. 270-71. 41 Somervell's numerous memos and OPD's replies are in OPD 320.2 TS, Case 67/1-4.
40
585
B-29's in the United States before dispatch to the Pacific. The major units to be moved to the Pacific totaled 15 divisions and 63 air groups, along with the additional service and supporting troops necessary to make up existing deficiencies and provide a proper ratio for the additional major units. Meanwhile, more than 2 million more men would have to be moved from the inactive theaters to the United States to reconstitute the strategic reserve and for discharge as the European theater force was cut to the agreed 400,000 occupational requirement and most other areas were closed out. As had been provided in the December plan, the troops to make up existing deficits in the Pacific and complete the troop basis for OLYMPIC were to move directly from Europe to the Pacific during the first quarter following V-E Day. Other movements, either through the United States or direct from Europe, were arranged in accordance with the required operational readiness dates in forward areas for CORONET. (Table 34) No troops would be repatriated for demobilization or to form the strategic reserve until the end of the first quarter save 75,000 hospital patients. Thereafter the pace of repatriation would be controlled by the shipping space available after higher priority movements to the Pacific were carried out. Troop movements to the Pacific would have to be completed within ten months after V-E Day (assumed as 1 July 1945); repatriation for the strategic reserve and for demobilization would take from 3 to 7 months longer.44
44
ployment of U.S. Forces Following Defeat of Germany. (2) JCS 521/13, 29 Mar 45, title: Factors Underlying the Strategic Deployment of U.S. Forces Following Defeat of Germany.
586
Source: JCS 521/13, 29 Mar 45, Factors Underlying the Strategic Deployment of U.S. Forces Following Defeat of Germany.
Meeting the schedule, the planners estimated, would require the concentration of all available troop-carrying vessels and planes in the redeployment move, including all U.S. troopships then in use in both the Atlantic and Pacific, 236 U.S. cargo ships presently fitted to carry 350 troops each, 100 U.S. cargo
vessels to be converted to carry 500 troops each, all hospital ships in the Atlantic on V-E Day, and the maximum number of naval assault personnel carriers that could be made available in the Pacific. In addition, combat aircraft would be used to move air crews when types of planes and routes of movement
587
deployed would have to come from Europe, including almost all general purpose vehicles; the other 20 percent, plus maintenance for vastly increased Pacific forces and project materials, would have to be shipped from the United States. At least 17 fast cargo ships would have to be loaded in Europe in August and 18 in September, besides routine slow cargo shipments, to provide the needs of the troops shipped in first priority. The strain on available cargo shipping then could be expected to continue despite the cutbacks in European requirements on V-E Day. The CCS, however, had directed at ARGONAUT that a combined cargo shipping study be made an integral part of the combined redeployment plan. The JPS subcommittees consequently made no extensive study of their own, but reserved that problem for combined consideration with the British.45 Just as important as the shipping question was that of base and staging facilitiesin Europe, in the United States, and in the Pacific. In Europe facilities for staging and outward movement of 400,000 men per quarter would have to be set up; in the United States the west coast installations must be made ready to handle 180,000 troops at a time. Neither requirement seemed to create excessive difficulty. The ports in Europe had the necessary capacity; the only problem would be the time needed to prepare assembly areas in back of them. To provide the necessary capacity on the west coast required only the addition of space for 15,000 men at Fort Lewis, Wash(1) JCS 521/13, 29 Mar 45. (2) CCS 746/11, 8 Feb 45, rpt by CMTC and CSAB, title: Over-all Review of Cargo and Troop Shpg Positions for Remainder of 1945.
45
588
GLOBAL LOGISTICS AND STRATEGY: 1943-1945 The joint redeployment plan took little note of any British contribution to the war in the Pacific. And the combined plan, for which the CCS had asked at ARGONAUT, was not based on any clearly defined combined strategy. This plan, presented by the Combined Staff Planners and the Combined Administrative Committee to the CCS on 2 April, one day after the deadline and only four days after the American plan had been presented to the JCS, consisted simply of the two national plans, British and American, placed end to end with the points of conflict noted.48 The British refused to project their deployments for a period longer than six months after V-E Day. During this six months they planned to move six divisions to southeast Asia, a VLR bomber force to the Pacific, provide 246,100 replacements for their armed forces at overseas stations, and repatriate 122,600 Commonwealth forces, including 42,700 Canadian and New Zealand troops for reorganization for the Pacific war. By sacrificing any further repatriation of Commonwealth forces and some other movements, the British said they could make available the two Queens and the Aquitania for transatlantic movements of U.S. troops for the sixmonth period, providing a total monthly lift of 50,000 instead of the 70,000 for which the Americans had hoped. They did not include any captured lift in their calculations and urged that the Americans should likewise exclude it, reasoning that all shipping recovered after
ington. The really difficult base problem was in the Pacific. "Economic use of shipping," the planners thought, "appears to result from movement of forces to forward mounting areas in the Pacific rather than moving them from the United States direct to the objective."46 Based on this premise, the Philippine Base Development Plan retained its preeminent place as the most important aspect of preparations in the Pacific itself for the final assault. Of the 36 Army and Marine divisions to be engaged in OLYMPIC and CORONET, 30 were to stage and mount in the Philippines, 3 in the Ryukyus, 2 in Hawaii, and 1 on Saipan. Also, 3 or 4 divisions would be employed as a garrison in the Philippines, 2 or 3 in the Ryukyus. The planners calculated that there would have to be facilities in the Philippines to handle a peak load of 22 divisions by November 1945 and for simultaneously mounting 11 divisions for CORONET in February 1946. All in all, the Joint Planners thought the schedule of redeployment and of Pacific operations could be met, but left little margin of error in terms of ground force deployment. They noted that target dates for OLYMPIC and CORONET could hardly be moved forward in the event Germany were defeated before1 July 1945, since there would not be enough time to make necessary preparations in Europe, return assault shipping from Okinawa, or to develop the Philippine and Okinawan bases. If the war against Germany were prolonged beyond 1July, the planners thought target dates for the two main operations would simply have to be postponed accordingly.47
46 JCS 521/13, 29 Mar 45. 47 Ibid.
589
to disposition by the four-power Euro- immediate post-V-E Day supply movepean Advisory Commission. ments from Europe to the Pacific. But Moreover, the British also refused to the JCS decided they must accept this proceed with a combined analysis of cost and persuaded WSA to undertake cargo shipping even for the first six the conversions. By this expedient and months. They insisted it must be post- by finding additional airlift across the poned until food conferences then un- Atlantic, the JPS estimated that the der way could determine the source of whole redeployment could be executed food supply for European civilian re- in ten months if the British ships conlief. Reflecting their long-standing con- tinued available beyond the six months 49 cern lest the cargo requirements for the for which they were promised. Within American circles critical eyes Pacific war preclude large-scale relief shipments to Europe and the limited were in the meantime being cast on the revival of their own export trade, the redeployment plan. To some the scale British would not agree to set a priority of effort contemplated for a one-front on the redeployment movement, thus war seemed entirely too great. If ground indicating they did not regard the AR- and service force deployment to the PaGONAUT decision as final. cific had been calculated at the bare Several weeks of negotiations failed minimum required for mass invasion, to persuade the British to abandon their even in terms of this strategy the size positions. The cargo shipping study, con- of the strategic reserve and the slow rate sideration of the use of captured ship- of Army demobilization were suspect. ping, and combined redeployment and Air Force and Navy deployment seemed repatriation after the first six months to be calculated more in terms of a were consequently all deferred. With strategy of bombardment and blockade captured shipping (39,000 spaces per than in terms of mass invasion. Air and month) excluded, and the British offer naval forces in the Pacific were to be of personnel lift, even for the first six increased right up through the end of months, less than expected (50,000 rath- 1946, long after the time it might reaer than 70,000 spaces per month), the sonably be expected the Japanese Navy American planners estimated that it 4 9 ( 1 ) I b i d . (2) CCS 746/14, 3 Apr 45, memo by would take fifteen months to complete USCOS, title: Over-all Review of Cargo and Transredeployment and repatriation of their port Shpg Position, Remainder of 1945. (3) CCS forces, and that the rate of formation of 746/16, 5 Apr 45, memo by Br COS, same title. the strategic reserve for operations in (4) CCS 679/2, 23 Apr 45, title: Redeployment of the Pacific would be dangerously slow. U.S. and British Forces after Defeat of Germany. (5) CMT 66/7, 4 Apr 45, title: Conversion of Dry Hastily a new expedient took shape- Cargo Shpg after V-E Day. (6) Memo, Col Stokes, conversion of 100 more fast American Chief, TC Plns Div, for Gen Somervell, 5 Apr 45, cargo ships to carry 1,500 troops each. sub: Effect of Additional Conversions on Repatriation Performance, ABC 320.2 (3-13-43) Sec 9. (7) JCS The conversions would reduce the cargo- 1306, 8 Apr 45, rpt by JMTC, title: Acceleration of carrying capacity of the U.S. merchant Repatriation from Europe After V-E Day. (8) JCS fleet by about 9 percent and leave only 1306/1, 22 Apr 45, same title. (9) Diary entries, 12, 14, and 18 Apr 45, Strat Log Br, Plng Div, ASF. the bare minimum of fast cargo ships in (10) JMT 72/3, 3 May 45, title: Revised Estimate of the Atlantic required to carry out the Personnel Shpg Including Air Transport.
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The deployment of air forces set forth . . . appears to be based on an effort to deploy ing as to the necessity for maintaining all aircraft which can be built, or will be almost as large an aircraft program for in existence at specified dates, rather than a one-front war as for a two-front one. on an evaluation of what will be required the time, and what can be supported in But the JPSC, torn by conflicting service at the areas at specified times . . . approxiinterests, failed to agree on any positive mately 30% more air [are deployed] in recommendations. Maj. Gen. Richard December 1946 than in December 1945. This C. Moore, Army representative on the in the light of current progress of events seems quite unrealistic and committee, privately informed General and planning 51 unnecessary. Marshall that he could see little reason
and Air Force would have been completely destroyed. Justice Byrnes first raised the issue of the size of the air forces with the Joint Production Survey Committee, inquir-
for "assisting in the overall problem by proposing a reduction in AAF deployment," when it was the Navy that was "pressing a far greater relative preponderance." Moore wrote:
The size of the Navy has apparently been based on not what was the minimum force necessary to bring the war to a successful conclusion, but what was the limit of productive capacity that could be assigned naval construction. This relative preponderance has increased to such an extent that the existing Japanese naval and air strength is only the equivalent of one of our task forces and this condition obtains eighteen months prior to the assumed conclusion of the war. In spite of past victories and present position, it is proposed . . . that naval air carrier strength be increased by 48% by 31 March 1946 and an additional 15% by 31 December 1946, plus British naval deployment in this area. 50
King accompanied this blast with criticism of the mounting plan for the Philippines and questions concerning the rein-
to Admiral King that it was not merely the size of the AAF that should be called into question:
There are elements in the paper which are highly questionable and which the JCS may be unable to support before the American people. ... I agree with Admiral King that. . . the deployment of air forces appears quite unrealistic and unnecessary. This statement applies not only to air forces, both Army and Navy, but also to deployment of Naval forces and perhaps also to ground forces . . . the total number ... in the armed forces shows an increase from VE-Day until six months after VE-Day and no decrease worthy of mention until 12 months after the assumed VE-Day, with
51
591
new concentration area; it made no provision for staging or mounting divisions to be redeployed from Europe. By 30
With these qualifications on both sides, the JCS approved the redeployment plan on 22 April 1945 as a basis for planning, directing at the same time that separate joint studies be made of the possibilities of reduction in the Army's strategic reserve, in the AAF, 54 and in the Navy.
March 1945, when the JLC rendered its report, any hopes that the May target date of the original plan could be met had long ago gone into discard. The 3 divisions of XXIV Corps were even then mounting out of bases on Leyte for the invasion of Okinawa, but MacArthur had decided a month before that he could not provide facilities for the 9 The Place of Philippine Base POA divisions for later operations. As a Development result, Nimitz had canceled his requireWhen presenting his opinions on the ments for staging 4 of the 6 Army diviredeployment paper, Admiral King had sions from POA in the Philippines and called into question its provisions for had decided to provide the necessary staging 30 divisions for OLYMPIC and facilities on Saipan and Okinawa. The CORONET in the Philippines. The Philip- joint planners assumed, nevertheless, pine Base Development Plan, as incor- that a requirement remained for staging porated in the redeployment study, had 2 Army and 3 Marine divisions from undergone some change since it had POA in the Philippines, though at a been originally presented by MacArthur later date than May 1945. They also in January. On 24 February General now foresaw a need for staging and Marshall had forwarded it to the JCS mounting 10 divisions to be moved from as a matter of joint concern. There the Europe to the Philippines for OLYMPIC Joint Logistics Committee and Joint and CORONET. The base development Staff Planners had revised it to bring it plan was consequently revised to proin line with the strategic concept under- vide for staging and rehabilitating facillying the redeployment plan. ities for 22 divisions in the Philippines, MacArthur's plan had been based on to be ready by November 1945, and facilfulfilling the FILBAS Agreement by pro- ities for simultaneously mounting11 viding facilities for 9 divisions from POA divisions to be ready by February 1946. (6 Army and 3 Marine) and gathering The plan for air facilities was also the scattered divisions in SWPA into a changed to provide for fields for only 28 regular groups rather than 34 and (1) JCS 521/16, 11 Apr 45, memo by CofS, for an eventual build-up to 12 very heavy USA, title: Strategic Deployment of U.S. Forces bomber (VHB) groups, both on a deFollowing Defeat of Germany. (2) Memo, CofS for Gen Moore, 10 Apr 45, sub: Military Aircraft layed time schedule. The plan for Reqmts after Defeat of Germany, ABC 320.2 (3-13-43) naval bases remained unchanged.55 The Sec 8.
53 54 (1) The decision on approval was reached without recorded discussion in the JCS. (2) For the continuing redeployment studies, see JWPC 49/26/M, 28 Apr 45, title: Continuing Redeployment Studies, ABC 320.2 (3-13-43) Sec 9.
(1) JCS 1258, 24 Feb 45, memo by CofS, USA, title: SWPA Base Development Plan, Philippine Islands. (2) JCS 1258/1, 30 Mar 45, rpt by JLC in collaboration with JPS, same title.
55
592
changes in the time schedule now coincided with ASF shipping forecasts while the material requirements stayed basically the same, so that detailed project planning went on without interruption. The JLC recommended that the JCS approve. Admiral King was not convinced. He questioned both the requirement for staging three Marine divisions in the Philippines and the advisability of also staging there the ten Army divisions from Europe. For the latter he suggested it might be "more economical of shipping to stage and mount these divisions from the United States direct to opera56 tions." Marshall agreed to send the plan back to the JLC for study and possible revision, but he said it would be necessary for the Army to use it for the time being as a planning basis "in connection with preparations, the initiation of which cannot be further postponed."57 The Army staff reasoned that shipments must be started, and that necessary adjustments in quantities could be made later as plans were developed in the Pacific theater under the new command system for the final invasion of Japan. The JPS and JLC, reporting to the JCS, noted that the method shown was only one solution to the problem of staging and mounting divisions and that final resolution would be subject to final plans from the theater. A JCS message
The whole master plan for redeployment thus could clearly be labeled "for planning purposes only." General Somervell's continued pleas for adequate data on which to base procurement, supply, and movement schedules for the Army undoubtedly influenced Marshall heavily in his final determination to get a planning decision accepted and to leave the details for further study. Also, Admiral King, in accepting the strategic premises on which the plan was based, quite certainly did so with the feeling that it would be better to make all the preparations for invasion of Japan and then cancel the operation later than to be caught short should invasion really prove necessary. By the end of April
King himself was urging that a directive be issued to the Pacific commanders for OLYMPIC, and only the continuing difficulty of resolving the question of how command of the amphibious phase of the assault should be arranged held it up until 25 May 1945. The directive was held up nevertheless, and in the meantime Nimitz continued under his earlier
58 (1) Memo, Secy JCS for CINCSWPA and CINCPOA, 23 Apr 45, sub: SWPA Base Development Plan . . . . (2) OPD MFR, Lt Col H. W. Ebel, 13 Apr 45, sub: SWPA Base Development Plan. . . . Both in ABC 384 Philippines (16 Jul 44) Sec 4.
56 Memo by COMINCH and CNO, 6 Apr 45, sub: SWPA Base Development Plan, Philippine Islands; Factors Underlying Strategic Deployment of U.S. Forces . . . , app. to JPS 193/12, ABC 320.2 (3-13-43) Sec 9. 57 Memo, Secy JCS for Leahy, King and Arnold, 11 Apr 45, sub: SWPA Base Development Plan, Philippine Islands, SM-1161, ABC 384 Philippines (16 Jul 44) Sec 5.
593
By the time the German surrender took place, the plan for redeployment at least had been approved and the necessary movements could begin within its framework. The many questions that remained about logistics in the Pacific in the final phasethe scope of Philippine base development, the disposition of assault shipping, and the new logistical system to conform to the new command set-upwould simply have to be arranged while redeployment and preparations for the final assault were under way. These unresolved issues and uncertainties were in large part a result of interservice disagreements that had their roots in different concepts of strategy and in ancient convictions of service prestige and prerogatives. Together, they made impossible a realistic approach to the question of the size of a balanced force necessary to defeat Japan, as each service inflated its requirements in the interest of exercising a vital role, and they forced the adoption of a system of separate Army and Navy commands in the Pacific at variance with the proven efficacy of unified command experienced in all other theaters of the war. Moreover, it seems curious in retrospect that, even apart from considerations of the atomic bomb, there was never any planning for the collapse and surrender of Japan as there had been, even in 1942, for the collapse of Germany.
CHAPTER XXIV
595
days of all classes for troops remaining; all supplies above that level were to be considered as surplus either for shipment to the Pacific or for return to the United States. As far as possible, units being redeployed to the Pacific were to be furnished by the theater of origin with initial issue of combat serviceable individual and organizational equipment plus 60 days of Class I and certain kinds of Class III maintenance. Of this, only minimum essential equipment (MEE) was to accompany troops redeployed, whether directly or by way of the United States; the rest would be shipped directly to the theater of destination. These bulk shipments for the high priority units redeployed directly after V-E Day for participation in OLYMPIC were to move by fast cargo ships and arrive at their destinations as nearly as possible at the same time as the units; shipments for units indirectly redeployed would proceed by slow cargo ships, permitting less hurried assembly and dispatch. Initial equipment would be shipped to the United States for units returning to reconstitute the strategic reserve, but no maintenance shipments were required for them. Category IV units returning for inactivation would carry only allotted quantities of individual equipment and organizational equipment needed for housekeeping. Redeployment was not to be delayed "because of shortages of any items of supply or equipment" in theaters of origins. On receipt of reports of such shortages, the ASF would see to it that they were made up in timely manner by direct shipment to the Pacific or supplied in the United States to troops remaining in the strategic reserve. Only combat serviceable equipment would be
596
GLOBAL LOGISTICS AND STRATEGY: 1943-1945 had ample time to become acquainted with them and to make some of the preparations for the execution of the redeployment moves. A constant interchange of ideas and personnel between the War Department and ETOUSA and MTOUSA, aimed at educating the theaters in the problems involved in reversing the flow of personnel and supplies, was kept up. In Europe a special redeployment planning group was established in the communications zone, and a special command was set up to begin preparation of assembly areas back of the ports for staging outgoing troops. A start was made in the categorization of units in both theaters, though the "critical score" above which men would be entitled to discharge was not determined until after V-E Day. Marseille was designated as the principal ETO port for direct shipments to the Pacific, and Le Havre, Antwerp, and Liverpool as the principal ports for shipments to the United States. In the MTO, Naples was to be the principal port for all outshipments. That these ports would be adequate, there was never any question. The major problems, the theaters early recognized, would be to carry out the timely readjustment of personnel, to get battle-worn equipment into combat-serviceable condition, and to pack and mark equipment so that it could be identified and used upon arrival in the Pacific.3
3 (1)Min of Conf on Distribution and Maintenance of Equipment for Units Deployed to Pacific Areas, with Reps of ETO, 20 Mar 45, file 319.1 Rpts and Confs, ASF Plng Div. (2) Addendum to Diary, 30 Apr 45, sub: Summary of Conf, ETO Comments on Redeployment, Strat Log Br, Plng Div, ASF. (3) European Comd, Historical Div, Redeployment, prepared by Mildred C. Hester for "Occupation Forces in Europe Series, 1945-1946," MS, OCMH, pp. 17-18.
shipped to the Pacific; items that did not meet that standard could be returned to the United States to be placed in a reserve pool. In the European and Mediterranean theaters, troops being redeployed would have first priority on all such combat serviceable equipment, the permanent occupation force second priority. Any supplies or equipment surplus to those two priority requirements were to be shipped in bulk either to the Pacific or the United States, or, if not needed in either place, disposed of locally as surplus. These procedures were to go into effect on a designated R Day, the day redeployment was to begin, that might or might not be the same as V-E Day. On V-E Day itself, the plan provided, units under orders to move to the European or Mediterranean theaters were to be held and rerouted to the Pacific; units en route were to continue to their destination. Normally, supplies en route to Europe were also to continue to their destination, though in isolated instances requirements of the war against Japan might necessitate rerouting. Supplies and equipment slated for Europe in ports, depots, and holding and reconsignment points were to be held, except for subsistence, medical, and recreational supplies, Army Exchange supplies, supplies for civilians in liberated areas, and a few miscellaneous categories. With the noted exceptions, requisitions and shipping orders were to be canceled and theater commanders instructed to submit new requisitions only for items essential in the new situation. Since the procedures were relatively
597
the war with Japan lasted longer than twelve months, production could be cut back considerably further once supply reserves in the Pacific had been built up to authorized levels.5 Meanwhile the ASF recognized that not supplies of themselves, but transportation, storage, housing, and port facilities in the United States and the Pacific were likely to be the critical factors in determining the speed and efficiency of redeployment, and lengthy studies were conducted in all these areas. By V-E Day the ASF had reached the conclusion that facilities in the United States could handle the load, if it were properly distributed. To alleviate the heavy burden on rail lines leading to west coast ports, on the ports themselves, and on the depots and holding and reconsignment points in that area, certain judicious adjustments were planned. On R Day shipments to the China and the India-Burma theaters were to be moved from Los Angeles back to New York, and those to the North Pacific shifted from Seattle to Prince Rupert in Canada, enabling both Seattle and Los Angeles and their subports to render full assistance to San Francisco in handling the load for the main Pacific theater. The distribution was calculated at approximately 37 percent for San Francisco, 26 percent for
Even before the end of the war in Europe, the ASF moved to curtail Army procurement in line with computations of the special program for a one-front war. By 30 June 1945 total ASF procurement scheduled for the year had dropped from the January figure of $28 billion in value to $21 billion, a reduction of about 24 percent. The reduction was even greater, about one-third, in scheduled production for the last eight months of the year. Expectations were that if
4 Remarks of Gen Somervell to Key Personnel of ASF, 15 May 45, file 319.1 Rpts and Confs, ASF
rail capacity and labor supply impended as the principal limiting factors. To avoid overloading, the Transportation
ASF, Annual Report for the Fiscal Year 1945, p. 174.
5
Plng Div.
598
Serve Theaters After V-E Day, OCT HB File Port Cap and Util. 7 (1) Ibid. (1). (2) Remarks of Gen Somervell, 15 May45.(3) Memo, Gen Lutes for Dir Pls and Opns, ASF, 31 Mar 45, sub: Review of Plans for Pacific War. (4) Memo, Gen Wood for Actg CofS, ASF, 5 Apr 45, same sub. (5) Memo, Wood for Dir Supply, ASF,
Corps estimated that approximately 16 plies to the Pacific could depend then percent of total Pacific shipments during largely on the uncertain factor of recepthe first six months of redeployment tion capacity, hardly at this point susand about 40 percent by the middle of ceptible of accurate prediction. And this 1946 would have to be shifted to east problem indicated the extent to which and Gulf coast ports to move to the redeployment planning on V-E Day still 6 Pacific via the Panama Canal. lacked the finality which could only Storage space was a more critical ques- come when the Pacific theaters' estimates tion. The ASF estimates showed that it were in and a firm troop basis and firm would be adequate only if the inflow to supply requirements had been estabdepots in the United States could be lished. OPD, faced by the stall in redebalanced by outflow to the Pacific within ployment planning at the joint level, three months after V-E Day. The pros- found it impossible to issue a firm Redepects for such a balance were not bright, ployment Forecast, despite the continual for at the main Pacific destination in pleas of General Somervell for a reliable the Philippines neither progress in re- guide for supply planning. The staff habilitating the port of Manila nor in agency in February did dispatch a tencarrying out the base development plan tative Atlantic Section of the Redewas encouraging. Searching for alterna- ployment Forecast to ETOUSA and tives, the ASF found considerable re- MTOUSA for comment, and in early serve capacity on Oahu but only the March followed with a Pacific Section most primitive facilities on Saipan and that went out to SWPA and POA; but other forward island bases. MacArthur both rested on the unsound foundation meanwhile had decided that once the of the joint committees' December estiinvasion of Kyushu was under way, sup- mates then undergoing drastic revision. ply shipments could be made directly to The only firm forecast in the hands of that area rather than to intermediate the European theater on V-E Day was depots in the Philippines. This prospect a special list of service units to be of a larger volume of direct shipments shipped to the Pacific during the first on a delayed time schedule, however, 30 days of redeployment. Once the maspromised to contribute to congestion in ter redeployment plan had been apcontinental depots during the period proved by the JCS, OPD hastily got out preceding the launching of OLYMPIC.7 a second edition of the Redeployment Ultimate success in achieving a smooth Forecast, but this did not arrive in the and orderly flow of personnel and sup- theaters until well after V-E Day. MacArthur in the meantime was working on (1) Diary entries, 3, 12, 18, 25 Apr 45, Strat Log comments and revisions on the earlier, Br, Plng Div, ASF. (2) Memo, Col Stokes, Chief Plans more or less obsolete, forecast. Since the Div, OCT, for CG AAF, 1 May 45, sub: POE to whole question of command and respon6
7 Apr 45, sub: Logistical Situation in Pac Theaters. Last three in folder 1a Policy CenPac, ASF Plng Div Theater Files. (6) OPD MFR, 9 Apr 45, sub: WD Policies and Procedures for Redeployment. . . , OPD 400 TS, Case 55.
599
the increased scope of Pacific operations and the cutback in shipping to all Pacific theaters in early 1945, congestion began to appear in the Navy's west coast depots, which were nearly all concentrated in the ports. Supplies flowed in more rapidly than shipping could be furnished to move them. The Navy sought additional shipping, and in March 20 ships were ballasted from the Atlantic to the Pacific to meet its requirements, despite the protests of the Army and WSA. The log jam of naval supplies at west coast shipping centers continued to mount notwithstanding; at Port Hueneme it reached a million tons. Without the benefit of holding and reconsignment points to store this tonnage until ships were available, the situation threatened to become worse as the demands of the constantly growing fleet mounted. The Army had for some time previously authorized naval use of space within its holding and reconsignment points, but took a dim view of any extensive exercise of this privilege because the Navy often left the material there for long periods. The Navy decided the situation called for a much more extensive use of east and Gulf coast ports for shipments to the Pacific and more careful planning for the division of the load among ports along all coasts (it was already using east coast ports for a limited number of sailings to the Pacific, mainly ships carrying routine maintenance). To plan the necessary adjustments the Navy Department established a Material Distribution Committee. The committee, conducting studies similar to those prepared on the Army side by the ASF, found that the average monthly requirement for supporting the Navy in the Pacific
With the Army and the Navy both engaged in planning for a major shift of forces to the Pacific theaters, and each ready to impose parallel demands on continental supply and service facilities, the need for co-ordination somewhere below the joint planning levels was obvious. The impetus for a conference on logistical problems involved in the last phase of the war came from the Navy, which by the end of February 1945 was facing a crisis in its own support operations on the west coast. Concomitant to
See materials in OPD 320.2 TS, Cases 58, 58/5, 58/9, 58/17, 58/24, 58/38, 58/39, 58/43, 58/51, 67, 67/2, 67/3, and 67/4, too numerous to cite individually.
8
600
during the first year after V-E Day would be 1,815,000 measurement tons. Of this tonnage it estimated an average of 1,167,000 tons monthly, or about 68 percent, could be handled on the west coast. The committee then produced a plan in some detail for the types and quantities of supplies in the other 32 percent that would have to be shipped from the east and Gulf coasts.9 Out of consideration that these plans might well cut across those of the Army grew the call for a conference, issued by the Chief of Naval Operations to the Commanding General, ASF, on 31 March. The Navy at first proposed a restricted agenda dealing only with the proposed distribution of continental stocks, methods of integrating shipments from the continental United States into CINCPOA shipping plans and schedules, and the establishment of a single clearing agency for requisitions from POA. In subsequent exchanges the agenda was broadened to include almost all the relevant topics pertaining to logistic support of forces in the Pacific in which both the Army and Navy were concerned. The initial Navy proposals, nevertheless, raised some apprehension within the Army that the purpose of the conference was simply to assure continued Navy control of shipping in POA, and both G-4 and AAF insisted that the Chief of Staff issue instructions to the Army representatives that no agreement or commitment be made at the conference without the approval of his 10 office.
9 Ballantine, U.S. Naval Logistics in the Second World War, pp. 255-63. 10 (1) Ltr, CNO to CG ASF, 31 Mar 45, sub: Study of Supply and Shpg Problems Relevant to Support of Pacific War, OCT 401 POA, 1944-45. (2) Ltr, Adm Home to CG AAF, 17 Apr 45, sub: Joint Supply and
LOGISTICS OF A ONE-FRONT WAR The development of the forecast proceeded harmoniously. It was largely a matter of placing Army and Navy estimates together and matching them against available resources. When this was done, total requirements on the United States for the Pacific war for one year were found to amount to 53,880,000 measurement tons of supplies, 32,100,000 for the Army and 21,780,000 for the Navy. Against this total, west coast capacity was estimated at 11,000,000tons per quarter or 44,000,000 tons over the course of the year. Army-Navy plans provided for shipments of 33,957,000tons out of west coast ports, with the balance, 19,923,000 tons, to be shifted to the east and Gulf coasts. The conference concluded that "the contemplated shift of military loadings to the East and Gulf Coast ports will permit the West Coast to handle the load," thus generally confirming the existing distribution plans of the two services. Existing storage plans were also generally confirmed, and the Army agreed to continue to provide space for Navy supplies in its west coast holding and reconsignment points, on assurances from the Navy that it would not use the space for dead storage. The only divergence of opinion developed on the matter of distributing the load on the west coast, the Army prodding the Navy to emulate its example and show more flexibility in shifting shipments out of the San FranciscoLos Angeles area to Seattle and Portland.13 Based on these supply requirements, the conference calculated that total shipping space needed for military cargo movements in the Atlantic and the Pa13
601
cific would average about 25,000,000 dead-weight tons per quarter against an average WSA quarterly inventory of approximately 32,000,000 dead-weight tons. This would leave an average of 7,000,000dead-weight tons per quarter (a little over 20 percent of U.S. cargo tonnage) for all other purposes, but considerably less than that amount during the period of peak shipments in the last six months of 1945. Relying on the overriding military priority for which they had long been contending, the conferees assumed that the requirements could be met by cutting back where necessary in civilian supply movements. In evaluating the final element in the forecast, reception capacity in forward areas in the Pacific, the conference was not able to arrive at quite so precise or positive conclusions. Though estimates indicated 15,000,000 measurement tons capacity in the third quarter of 1945 and 16,725,000 per quarter during the following three quarters counting ports in the Philippines, Marianas, and Palaus, and on Iwo Jima and Okinawa, the responsible committee readily admitted that its estimates might prove far from accurate since "demand requirements by destination" were unknown.14 In developing these estimates some cognizance had to be taken of the additional capacity required to accommodate the roll-up and other problems associated with it. The conference noted that 3.5 million measurement tons still had to be moved forward in SWPA and about 900,000 measurement tons in POA, and that there would be a continuing requirement for moving forward 65,000 measurement tons of provisions
14
602
monthly from Australia. The Army rep- had apparently given little thought to resentatives came to the conference de- the requirements of the command termined to drive home their demand change, and wanted to discuss mainly for assault shipping from POA to help the proper shipping and supply prowith the SWPA roll-up, and succeeded in cedures to support the CINCPACgetting the Navy to agree in principle CINCPOA command as then constithat an increase in LST's, AKA's, and tuted. The Navy was determined that Nimsmaller craft suitable for lightering was absolutely essential in the Philippine itz' system, which it regarded as the area if the forecasted reception capacity most efficient one in use in any theater was to be developed in time. The theater of war, should not be disturbed. The commanders, it was also agreed, must be Army was just as determined that autonfurnished in advance with firm figures on omous Army control must be asserted shipping that would be available for the over shipping for all its forces in the roll-up. The conference itself, however, Pacific and that normal Army supply channels be substituted for Nimitz' sysproduced no such firm figures. The estimates of reception capacity tem in the area then known as POA. in the Pacific, in any case, represented Very clearly the Army visualized the a hope, not a promise. If that hope were abolition of area commands and the realized, and assuming that maintenance Navy tenaciously clung to them. When Navy representatives asked how priorisupplies for troops on Kyushu and Honshu would be forwarded by direct ship- ties were to be determined and the flow ment as well as that much of the Navy's of shipping regulated in areas of joint support would come from its mobile operations, the Army answers were just service squadrons, it appeared that re- as fuzzy as were the Navy answers to ception capacity would be adequate. Army queries as to how the area system Still, these estimates were undoubtedly was to be preserved when the JCS had the most tenuous part of the logistic directed a changeover to a functional system of command. General Gross statforecast. In making the logistic forecast, neither ed the Army position quite positively: service was being asked to sacrifice its Now that General MacArthur has been own plans, for, though the margin was given a wider command authority over all narrow, it appeared that resources would troops, it is most natural that he should be ample to fulfill the combined require- extend the system that he is now using to ments of Army and Navy as long as mili- the one system the Army has used, at its tary demands were given priority over initiative, for its supply and transportation system..... If there was ever any thought civilian needs. When the conferees that the CINCPOA system of supply ... is turned to the consideration of proce- satisfactory to the Army nowit should be dures, the situation was quite different very clear that it is not satisfactory and and a clear conflict emerged. The Army never was entirely satisfactory. The Army representatives came prepared to insist adjusted to it because, after all, Admiral Nimitz was in command and the command on logistical procedures in the Pacific functions gave him that authority. The to conform to the new command system. command system having been changed, the The Navy representatives, in contrast, Army wishes to control its system of requisi-
603
But neither Gross nor any of the other Army representatives could answer very satisfactorily Admiral Ingersoll's queries on how, under separate service control, supplies and services common to both Army and Navy would be handled or how priorities were to be determined in cases of conflicting service demands. "Supposing that the requirements submitted by the various Army and Navy commanders for something amounted to say 250 ships," asked Ingersoll, "and the total capacity to receive is only 200 ships. . . . Who makes the decision as to where the reduction to 200 ships should be made?"16 These were the questions the Army itself had been asking back in early 1943 when the original Basic Logistical Plan that assigned logistical control to each area commander was under discussion. Since then, however, it had been in POA, a theater in which the Navy had over-all command, that the Basic Logistical Plan had been applied, while MacArthur's policies had been much closer to the old prewar conception of co-ordinated but parallel supply lines. To a certain degree at least the War Department had been forced into the position of championing the MacArthurian viewpoint that emphasized a minimum of joint arrangements in the field of logistics. But in a larger sense, the confusion over logistical arrangements was simply a product of the failure to agree on a single unified commander for the Pacific, for the Navy's position was
15
16
no more defensible if the old area commands were to be abolished than was the Army's insistence on separate supply lines if area commands were to be kept intact. Each side was emphasizing the part of the JCS command directive that happened to fit its positionthe Navy using the part prescribing a gradual transition to insist on the preservation of the area commands indefinitely; the Army using the part prescribing a new command setup to insist on as rapid a transition as practicable. Lengthy discussion served only to clarify the respective Army and Navy positions. Finally two separate committees were appointed, one from the Army and the other from the Navy, to draw up their views on what the procedure for shipping control should be. The Navy proposal provided for the continuation of the existing area system indefinitely for delivery of supplies to bases and mounting areas with shipping control to be exercised in the final assault on Japan by an agency acting jointly for CINCPAC and CINCAFPAC, "except that since CINCAFPAC's requirements for supplies will be paramount at the objective ports, he should control all unloading at these ports."17 The Army proposal, on the other hand, argued that with separate Army and Navy commands, "separate Army and Navy supply controls follow." It pointed to a "solid core of command functions embracing supply in the Pacific almost wholly a matter of Army concern" and another solid core "almost wholly a matter of Navy concern," each sphere susceptible of separate control. But the Army also recognized that there
Ibid., 4th mtg, Attachment E, Rpt of Navy Ad Hoc Com on Shpg Control.
17
604
were "inherent in the Pacific situation . . . localities and operations where Army and Navy interests are so closely interwoven that reconciliation by joint or unified control is and will be required by mutual agreement between the commanders concerned or by direction of the J.C.S."18 To handle these matters, the Army report proposed temporary joint co-operative arrangements between Nimitz and MacArthur. Between these widely divergent views there proved to be no common meeting ground. The Shipping and Supply Conference merely included the two opposing statements of position as a part of its final report and there let the matter rest.
continue the fight, General Marshall, on the advice of OPD, decided it would be best not to insist on treating the assault shipping issue separately. Once the OLYMPIC directive had been approved on 25 May 1945, he agreed to King's proposal for a study of over-all cargo shipping requirements to support it, but not without a polite suggestion that the study should also include naval assault shipping in its purview.19 Marshall's proposal followed by only a few days the receipt of a message from MacArthur summarizing the state of the SWPA roll-up. Between 15 June and 15 September 1945, MacArthur said, he would have to move 150,000 troops and 1,780,000 tons of Army supplies, and 11,000 naval personnel and 622,000 tons of naval supplies, from rear bases to the Efforts to Resolve the Shipping Philippines. Moreover, as a result of an Issue agreement with Nimitz that a large porAt the JCS level, where the shipping tion of the AAF in the Pacific should issue was concurrently being debated, be based in the Ryukyus rather than there was even less agreement. The JCS the Philippines, 112,000 men, 24,000 discussions of shipping control grew out vehicles, and 160,000 dead-weight tons of the controversy over the use of Pa- of supplies had to be moved from the cific assault shipping for logistical pur- Philippines to Okinawa. To assist in poses. Despite Admiral King's earlier these moves, he said, Nimitz had made refusals, General Marshall continued to available 24 LSM's in April to be used hammer away at the proposition that until mid-July, and 7 APA's and 6 there should be a study by the JCS com- AKA's to be available from late May mittees of the availability of assault ship- until 1 July. Limited numbers of LST's ping for the roll-up of rear areas. Ad- from the Seventh Fleet could be used in miral King continued as adamant as July, August, and September. With the before, insisting that the theater com(1) JCS 1286/2, 24 Apr 45, memo by CofS, USA, manders alone could properly estimate title: Cargo and Assault Shpg for Roll-up in Pacific. the availability of assault craft for logis- (2) JCS 1286/3, 30 Apr 45, memo by COMINCH tical uses, and ended by suggesting an and CNO, same title. (3) JCS 1286/5, 28 May 45, memo by CofS, USA, title: Cargo and Personnel over-all study of cargo shipping require- Movement Required for OLYMPIC. (4) Memo, Gen ments in the Pacific for the OLYMPIC Lincoln for CofS, 1 May 45, OPD 560 TS, Case 26/2. operation. Despite Somervell's desire to (5) Memos, Somervell for Marshall, 16 May 45, and
19
Ibid., 4th mtg, Attachment F, Rpt of Army Ad Hoc Com on Shpg Control.
18
29 May 45, sub: Co-ordination of Troop and Cargo Lift for Redeployment and Support of OLYMPIC, ABC 320.2 (3-13-43) Sec 9.
605
LST's when he makes up his mind to do so,"22 there was little the Army could do about it. King's second proposal, for a joint agency to control other types of shipping in the Pacific, served as an effective counterbalance and shifted the whole basis of the JCS controversy. King would make the establishment of a joint shipping agency by CINCAFPAC and CINCPAC a necessary prerequisite to any over-all study of Pacific shipping requirements and availabilities. This joint agency should submit, he said, as soon as possible "a study of their coordinated shipping requirements for the remainder of the year, into which is integrated estimated use of such assault craft as can be made available for general lift 23 from time to time." On this basis the JMTC and JLC would prepare their over-all shipping study, taking into consideration the OLYMPIC directive and other requirements. On this rock the whole proposal for a worldwide cargo shipping survey by the JCS came to grief. To the Army neither the joint agency to determine shipping requirements nor the proposition that assault shipping in the Pacific "be considered, in effect, the private proper24 ty of CINCPAC" were acceptable. Somervell proposed a torrid memo to King, but Marshall chose merely to inquire into MacArthur's views on King's proposals with a strong hint that the War Department found them unacceptable. MacArthur's reply was not disappointing. He rejected the idea of a joint shipping agency out of hand. "Such
22 Memo, Somervell for Marshall, 16 May 45, ABC 320.2 (3-13-43) Sec 9. 23 JCS 1286/6, 5 Jun 45. 24 Memo, Somervell for CofS, 6 Jun 45, sub: Joint Agency for Coordination and Control of Shpg within Pacific, ABC 320.2 (3-13-43) Sec 9.
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action," he said, "would deprive me of control of the principal means of transportation and would subject my requirements to review by representatives of a commander who has no responsibility for support of Army forces."25 Though he questioned some of King's views on assault shipping, there is no evidence he really disagreed with the Navy's contention that the proper way to regulate the distribution of this asset was by negotiation between himself and Nimitz. His final recommendations were that the Army procedure for dividing control of ordinary cargo shipping along service lines be adopted and that assault craft for the roll-up be requested from CINCPAC under existing procedures, their availability to be taken into consideration in computing other shipping requirements. MacArthur could hardly have failed to perceive that if the Army was to control its own resources in the Pacific as well as the WSA shipping that served it, then it must surrender to the Navy control of amphibious resources that could certainly be construed as being within its proper province. His solution was therefore "close and continued coordination and cooperation between CINCAFPAC and CINCPAC in the use of shipping," 26 and to this solution the Army staff in Washington had perforce to agree. Meanwhile, the combined review of cargo shipping with the British, so long delayed, was at last completed early in June 1945, but under conditions that made it little more than an academic
25 (1) Msg C-18697, CINCAFPAC to WD, CM-IN 11431, 12 Jun 45. (2) Memo, Somervell for CofS, 6 Jun 45. (3) Msg WARX 12523, Marshall to MacArthur, 6 Jun 45. 26 Msg C-18697, CINCAFPAC to WD, CM-IN 11431, 12 Jun 45.
607
for a possible landing on the China coast. Moreover, he saw no possible way to separate Army and Navy functions at the bases within POA, and felt that he must hold on to Army service units at such places as Saipan, Guam, and the Palaus indefinitely. "The essential garrisons of all positions in POA," he reported to Admiral King, "must remain under my operational control as long as I am responsible for these areas. Abolition of unity of command in the subareas and outlying islands would produce chaos and would retard the prosecution 29 of the war." Nimitz did agree to release operational control of Army units to MacArthur as soon as they were released from POA operations, but except for this concession, which had little immediate effect, Sutherland's group had to go home empty handed. The conference never even got around to discussing the vital matters of requisitioning and shipping control, nor was much said about logistical arrangements for the final assault on Japan. Despite this setback, the Army went ahead with its own arrangements. On 20 April General MacArthur was assigned administrative control over the Army in POA, and the War Department decided that henceforth all Army forces and resources moved to the Pacific should be assigned to CINCAFPAC except for Twentieth Air Force units subject to direct control of the JCS and troops specifically earmarked for ICEBERG. This extension of MacArthur's powers, however, did little more than to confuse the
29 Memos, King for Marshall, 14 and 16 Apr 45, inclosing msgs from Nimitz, 14-15 Apr 45. The first memo is in OPD 384 TS, Case 1/42; the second is in OPD Exec 10, Item 68.
608
GLOBAL LOGISTICS AND STRATEGY: 1943-1945 high ranking members of ASF headquarters soon joined his staff. Out of AFWESPAC the ASF hoped to create the ideal theater supply command for the 31 final phase of the war. Of more immediate interest is the anomalous position of AFMIDPAC in this setup. Under the administrative control of MacArthur, most of the troops in its jurisdiction stayed under the operational control of Nimitz until he chose to release them. Until that time, MacArthur could not move troops between his two area commands, nor make any firm estimates of the forces that would be available to him for the invasion of Japan, nor exercise any control
over shipping and the flow of supplies
situation further, for existing "elements under operational control of CINCPOA" were also specifically excepted from the Army commander's control.30 Also, since Nimitz retained control over shipping in POA, MacArthur could not exercise any jurisdiction over the movement of Army personnel and supplies into that area regardless of the Army's intent to assign them to his command when they arrived. Nor did the change in Army organization in the Pacific have much immediate practical effect. Two area commands were established under MacArthur, one embracing the old SWPA area and the
other embracing the Army within the boundaries of POA. The first, Army
Forces, Western Pacific (AFWESPAC), to troops in AFMIDPAC. Just as Nimitz absorbed both the U.S. theater headquar- refused to surrender operational control ters in SWPA (USAFFE) and the U.S. of Army troops in POA, he also declined Services of Supply (USASOS) in that to take the operational control of the theater; the second, Army Forces, Mid- Seventh Fleet, which MacArthur offered dle Pacific (AFMIDPAC), was essen- him. As a consequence, the old joint tially simply a continuation of Head- area commands continued to exist beside quarters, USAFPOA, under a different the new functional commands, making name. General Richardson remained as the new Army theater setup more a ficcommander of AFMIDPAC with the tion than a fact. This confused situation continued afonly change that he now reported to MacArthur rather than directly to the ter V-E Day to prevent the concentraWar Department. Of the two commands, tion of effort on preparations for the AFWESPAC was obviously destined to invasion of Japan that the Army debe the more important. It represented sired. On 21 May Somervell complained a new development in MacArthur's com- bitterly to Marshall that "the orderly mand, a consolidation of the administra- and timely assembly of supplies, service
tive and logistical functions of the the- troops and shipping for the support of Army operations in the Pacific is becomand the purpose of its creation was to ing increasingly difficult as the time for
provide a communications zone for the assault on Japan. General Styer, ASF chief of staff, became commanding general of AFWESPAC and several other
Msg WARX 75413, Marshall to MacArthur and Richardson, 1 May 45.
30
(1) Msg CM-IN 11201, MacArthur to Marshall, 12 May 45. (2) Msg WARX 87663, Marshall to MacArthur, 25 May 45. (3) Msg MacArthur to WARCOS, CM-IN 6056, 7 Jun 45. (4) Memo, Lutes for Somervell, 28 Jul 45, sub: Comd and Logistical Responsibilities in Pacific, History Planning Div ASF, Doc Suppl, III, app. 9 EE.
31
LOGISTICS OF A ONE-FRONT WAR major land operations approaches and as compliance with the spirit of the directive approved by the JCS ... is de32 layed." He contended that Nimitz' continued preparations for the invasion of the China coast, or alternately for extended operations in the Ryukyus, served the POA commander as an excuse to withhold both Army resources and assault shipping needed by MacArthur and to place orders for supplies on Army as well as Navy agencies on the west coast for those purposes. Somervell asked for a firm JCS directive for OLYMPIC at the earliest practicable date, that all Army resources outside the Ryukyus be assigned to MacArthur immediately and that those in the Ryukyus be assigned him when the occupation of Okinawa (first phase of ICEBERG) was completed. Under this scheme Somervell thought it should be up to MacArthur to decide whether further expansion in the Ryukyus would be necessary for successful initiation of OLYMPIC. The firm directive for OLYMPIC was issued a few days later, on 25 May 1945. It assigned to MacArthur primary responsibility for planning and execution of the invasion of Kyushu, except for its naval and amphibious phases. As a result of this directive, Nimitz did cancel the last phase of the Ryukyus Campaign and further specific preparations for invasion of the China coast.33 These decisions went far to clear the air, but they did not, as Somervell had hoped, make any specific provision as to the time that Nimitz should release Army resources.
Memo, Somervell for CofS, 21 May 45, sub: Logistical Support of Pacific Opns, OPD 400 TS, Case 80. 33 (1) JCS 1331/3, 25 May 45. (2) History Planning Div ASF, Doc Suppl, III, 179.
32
609 With the directive for OLYMPIC an accomplished fact, representatives of CINCPAC-CINCPOA and CINCAFPACCINCSWPA met again at Manila on 1-3 June to iron out their problems this time with a greater measure of success, at least as far as arrangements for OLYMPIC were concerned. Nimitz agreed to furnish as much shipping as possible for the SWPA roll-up and for transport of air forces to Okinawa, and to release to MacArthur three Army divisions at the end of organized resistance on Okinawa, two of them to be shipped to the Philippines in CINCPAC shipping. MacArthur in turn agreed to release divisions to CINCPAC for amphibious training. For OLYMPIC the two commanders would, in general, furnish their own logistic support shipping. Each would control shipping completely "at ports under their exclusive control"; at ports used jointly, CINCAFPAC was to control in co-ordination with CINCPAC; each service was to do its own unloading. MacArthur was to control the flow of shipping to Japan itself, as well as the ports in Japan used by both services. He would establish regulating stations at Ulithi and Okinawa. He was also to be responsible for harbor clearance and port development, to allocate land areas in Japan, to furnish Class I supplies for Navy and Marine Corps elements operating under his control, and to deliver other classes of supply (except POL) to those elements on receipt from CINCPAC at the regulating stations. The agreement was limited to the arrangements for OLYMPIC. No specific mention at all was made of release of Army garrisons in POA or of shipping control in that area. The omission constituted a tacit agreement that those
610
GLOBAL LOGISTICS AND STRATEGY: 1943-1945 for executing the final assault on Japan had to be based on its continued existence. The only further developments came at the end of organized resistance on Okinawa when Nimitz agreed that CINCAFPAC should take over shore positions in the Ryukyus on 31 July 1945; and the transfer took place on the scheduled date. Until the war against Japan ended, then, MacArthur did not get that measure of centralized control over all Army resources in the Pacific that the Army staffs in Washington had envisioned for him. Yet, for all the vicissitudes, controversies, and confusion, the trend was clearly enough toward a new logistical system in the Pacific that would emphasize separate service supply lines rather than the joint arrangements that had taken shape during the middle period of the Pacific war. Just how successful or viable the complicated and tenuous arrangements for OLYMPIC would have proved, it is impossible to say. Certainly the ASF continued to complain to the very end of the war of the uncertainty of requirements planning in the Pacific for ships, for men, and for supplies under the mixed system that actually prevailed. Even so, General Lutes, late in July 1945, while recognizing some of the defects, stated flatly that it was "more satisfactory from an Army point of view than any previous command and logistical arrangement in the Pacific."36
matters should remain generally as they were, that Nimitz should continue to control shipping within POA and to forward Army requirements for that shipping through Navy channels to Washington. By the same token, outside of the three divisions to be released as soon as organized resistance on Okinawa ended, there was no provision for a time schedule of release of other Army units in POA to MacArthur's operational control, nor indeed any indication that Nimitz did not intend to hold on to the base and garrison forces there indefinitely. The anomalous status of AFMIDPAC was not really changed.34 On 19 June an OPD officer noted:
CINCPOA's stranglehold on shipping for Army forces in the Central and South Pacific remains unbroken. It is also clear that MacArthur wants us to arrange a procedure whereby he will control shipping for support of all Army forces in the Pacific. Further discussions with CINCPOA about shipping are not planned until we have settled the issue here.35
The basic question, which had been shuttled out of Washington to the theaters, had been shuttled right back to Washington again, but it seems no serious new attempt was made to settle it there either. As the anomalous situation of area and functional commands existing side by side had been tacitly accepted in the theater, it was also tacitly accepted in Washington, and arrangements
34 (1) Memo, Col Johnson, Chief Pacific Sec, The ater Gp, OPD, for Gen Hull, 15 Jun 45, sub: CINCAFPAC-CINCPAC Arrangements for Opn OLYMPIC, OPD 381 TS, Case 135/26. (2) Msg C-18697, CINCAFPAC to WD, CM-IN 11431, 12 Jun 45. (3) OPD MFR, 15 Jun 45, OPD 560 TS, Case 26/5. 35 Memo, TDR for Gen Lincoln, 19 Jun 45, sub: Pacific Shpg, with attached transcript of teletype conf of 18 Jun 45, ABC 320.2 (3-13-43), Sec 9.
611
needs or of reception and mounting capacities for OLYMPIC and CORONET. Second, despite the theory that military necessity would govern, there was constant competition between the requireit had become apparent that German ments of the Pacific war and the prescollapse was imminent. In mid-April, sure to bring American soldiers home the European and Mediterranean thea- for discharge. These two factors created ters were instructed to keep their sup- the greatest complications in carrying ply orders to a minimum, and personnel out the master redeployment plan drawn and supply movements to Europe were up by the JCS committees at the end of both cut back drastically during that April. month. A trickle of redeployment also Though MacArthur's headquarters actually began before V-E Day, and the never presented a final troop basis for prearranged system for disposition of OLYMPIC and CORONET, its preliminary shipping was put into effect gradually estimates, hastily drawn up in response rather than in a single dramatic move to the first OPD Redeployment Forecast, on the day of surrender. Between 2 and produced the principal revisions in the 8 May, 67 cargo ships originally destined master redeployment plan after V-E for Europe were either discharged at Day. MacArthur increased his requireeast coast ports before leaving or were ments for divisions by two and asked returned for discharge; 50 more were for an additional 100,000 service troops, diverted to the west coast and to the while substituting infantry divisions for Pacific theaters. In this manner the three of the armored divisions the JCS Army began its great reorientation of had proposed to furnish him. In order effort from the Atlantic to the Pacific to allow more time for developing staging facilities, he asked that all 17 divitheaters.37 The giant wheels of redeployment sions to be redeployed from Europe be turned for little more than three months sent through the United States. His request for indirect redeployment before they were reversed, so that the machinery developed was never fully of all divisions was granted, but the tested. In evaluating the brief period question of an ultimate Pacific troop during which redeployment did proceed, basis was never finally settled. Mactwo points require emphasis. First, there Arthur's various requests shoved total was never any final analysis by the Army requirements up to 2,624,000 men, alcommand in the Pacific of its troop most 200,000 above the ceiling established in the JCS plan. Though OPD at first insisted on holding CINCAFPAC 37(1) CCS 856, 9 May 45, title: Administrative Proto the ceiling, preliminary drafts of a cedures for Readjustment of Personnel Prior to Renew JCS plan drawn up in July prodeployment. (2) Final Rpt, Ocean Traffic Br, Water vided for the increase. And they did not Div, OCT, 31 May 45, sub: Result of Activities in Connection with RedeploymentETO and MTO, take into account acceptance of a CanaOCT HB file Redeployment. (3) Wardlow, The dian offer of a division, a French offer Transportation Corps: Movements, Training, and of 2 divisions, and a British offer of 3 to Supply, p. 183.
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5 divisions for the Pacific war. Whether all these allied troops would actually be employed against Japan at all and, if so, whether they would be substituted for American divisions was still up in the air when the war ended. The principal effect of MacArthur's evaluation was to increase the number of divisions to be moved by way of the United States, and hence the load the continental establishment would have to carry. Other adjustments were naturally made in individual units to conform to CINCAFPAC's desires. In other respects, redeployment went ahead generally on the basis of the April joint plan.38 As the planners had anticipated, shipping was the key problem. In the face of public pressure to bring high-point men home for discharge, the War Department virtually abrogated the "military necessity" clause, accelerating the Category IV movements home from Europe and applying the point system in the Pacific in the same measure as it applied in theaters now inactive. These steps increased the demand for personnel shipping. The return of high-point men from the Pacific generated a demand for replacements in larger num-
(1) JCS 1053/2, 18 May 45, title: Revised Estimate on Personnel Shpg Including Air Transport. (2) Diary Entry, 22 May 45, Strat Log Br, Plng Div ASF. (3) JLC 321, 24 May 45, title: Logistical Analysis of Strategic Deployment of U.S. Forces Between1 Jul 45 and 30 Jun 46, ABC 320.2 (3-13-43) Sec 9. (4) Msg C-17527, GHQ SWPA to WD, 1 Jun 45, CM-IN 374. (5) Msg WARX 11721 to CINCAFPAC, 4 Jun 45. (6) OPD MFR, 10 Jun 45, OPD 320.2 TS, Case 58/61. (7) Ltr, GHQ, AFPAC, to TAG, 24 Jun 45, OPD 320.2 TS, Case 58/71. (8) JWPC 49/27/M, 2 Jul 45, memo for JPS, title: Strategic Deployment of U.S. Forces, ABC 320.2 (3-13-43) Sec 10. (9) OPD Redeployment Forecast, 24 May 45, OPD 320.2 TS, Case 54/96.
38
States exceeded expectations as ships were overloaded and the airlift was expanded from an estimated 15,000 to 50,000 men monthly. Much of the increased lift was used to bring men home for discharge, and meanwhile a large deficit of personnel shipping appeared to be developing on the west coast. By 29 June it had already mounted to a total of 44,000 spaces and an Army-Navy ad hoc committee, studying the situation, predicted that it would reach 673,000 by the end of the year. The schedules for direct redeployment from 39 Europe were also generally behind. It was really more a question of imbalance than a genuine deficit. The British Queens could be used only in the Atlantic, the bulk of the Army's regular troopships were concentrated there, and the converted Victory ships were initially destined for Atlantic service. The Navy's APA's, which had exceeded their schedules in the Pacific during the first quarter of redeployment, would have to be withdrawn from transpacific service at the end of Septem39 (1) Diary Entry, 29 Jun 45, Strat Log Br, Plng Div, ASF. (2) Unsigned and undated OPD paper entitled Discussion, ABC 320.2 (3-13-43) Sec 10.
LOGISTICS OF A ONE-FRONT WAR ber to meet the 1 November target date for OLYMPIC. The solution to the dilemma was fairly obvious transfer some of the shipping and airlift from the Atlantic to the Pacific. On 28 July 1945 the JCS asked WSA to modify the conversion program so as to place 74 of the 100 converted Victory ships in the Pacific rather than the Atlantic in order to provide 111,000 additional spaces there. This scheme would, the JMTC noted, delay the conversion, since additional facilities were required for the longer Pacific voyage; and these 74 ships over the course of a year could move 965,000 troops from Europe to the United States, only 400,000 from the United States to the Pacific. The committee felt, however, that the "need for troop lift in the Pacific justifies the cost" and the JCS agreed.40 As a second expedient, the Army proposed to divert much of the airlift from the Atlantic to the Pacific, beginning in August 1945. But MacArthur reported that air terminal facilities in the Philippines could accommodate only 10,000 men monthly, and that any effort to expand them could not be justified in terms of shipping cost, construction effort, and service troops. By the time General Marshall had approved this limited increase in the Pacific airlift, the first atomic bomb had been dropped and the surrender of Japan without a mass invasion was in sight. Thus, while tentatively approving the airlift on 6 August,
40 (1) JCS 1306/2, 21 Jul 45, rpt by JMTC, title: Use of Converted Victory Ships for Increased Pacific Trooplift. (2) Ltr, Gen Handy (for JCS) to Adm Land, 28 Jul 45, folder Conversions 1945, Box 122890, WSA Conway File. (3) Related papers in folder Army 1945, Box 122890, WSA Conway File.
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Marshall also decided to hold in abeyance the transfer of 26 of the 74 Victory
ships to Pacific service. Meanwhile, at the TERMINAL Conference in Potsdam in July, the U.S. Joint Chiefs had once again opened negotiations with the British to secure additional assistance in troop lift in the Pacific. They pressed the British on three points. First, they asked agreement that seven specific captured enemy linersEuropa, Caribia, Vulcania, Patria, Potsdam, Pretoria, and Milwaukeebe allotted for U.S. use "as long as the emergency exists," all save the Europa to be placed 42 in the Pacific service. Second, they
wanted the British to go ahead with the conversion of 100 cargo ships to troopships as they had tentatively agreed at ARGONAUT. Third, they wanted the Queens to continue available for Ameri-
41
can troop movements in the Atlantic for another six months with a provision that they might be used in part for repatriation of Canadian troops.
The British would go only half way. They agreed to allocate the seven captured ships to the Americans until 31 December 1945, on condition the Americans would allot space in them for repatriation of 16,000 Canadian troops. On
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about two men out of every three" they themselves wished to redeploy.43 The question of British cargo ship conversions was quietly settled in separate negotiations. The British agreed to furnish 25 sailings for ammunition cargoes from Europe to the Pacific and to furnish ships to support the three to five divisions that it was decided at TERMINAL they should put into the Pacific. The Americans agreed that these contributions would be more important and consequently dropped their request for the conversions.44 The other matters remained unsettled as, with the abrupt end of the war, the ground of the debate shifted solely to one of troop lift for repatriation. In terms of accomplishment, some 886,000 troops were moved from Europe and the Mediterranean to the United States between 12 May 1945 (R Day) and 25 August, and 155,354 were redeployed directly to the Pacific. Of the troops returning to the United States, between one-half and two-thirds were slated for eventual movement to the Pacific, but this phase of redeployment had hardly begun when the news of the Japanese intention to surrender cut it to a trickle. In general, in mid-August movement from the inactive theaters to the United States was ahead of schedule
43 (1) CCS 679/8, 22 Jul 45, memo by Br COS, title: Employment of Captured Enemy Ocean-Going Passenger Shpg and British Troopship Employment in U.S. Transatlantic Programs in First Half of 1946. (2) CCS 679/6, 18 Jul 45, same title. (3) CCS 679/7, 19 Jul 45, title: British Troopship Employment in U.S. Transatlantic Programs, First Half 1946. (4) CCS 679/9, 23 Jul 45, memo by Br COS, title: Employment of Captured Enemy Ocean-Going Passenger Shpg and British Troopship Employment. ... (5) Min, 199th mtg CCS, 23 Jul 45. 44 Msg, VICTORY 233, TERMINAL to WD, Land and Bissell to Conway, CM-IN 23756, 23 Jul 45.
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Arrangements for Logistical Support of Olympic and Coronet
Redeployment was only one aspect of the arrangements for logistical support of the invasion of Japan. Most of the personnel increments for that invasion were to come from Europe, but by far the bulk of supplies would still originate in the United States. Projections of quantities to be shipped over the ensuing year tended to rise monthly with the acceptance of a larger ultimate troop basis for the Pacific, with development of new requirements in the theaters, and with the prospect that the volume of supplies shipped directly from Europe would fall below expectations. By 1 August the projections had reached a total of 39 million measurement tons of Army cargo for the first year of redeployment, as opposed to the figure of 32 million presented at the Army-Navy conference at the beginning of May. Actual shipments during the MayAugust period exceeded the May projections by some 600,000 measurement tons.47 The major problems in connection with this massive movement of supplies were the ones that had been anticipated outloading capacity on the west coast and reception capacity in the Pacific. With regard to the former, WSA sharply challenged the Army-Navy schedules agreed upon at the May conference, contending that a definite ceiling of between 275 and 280 ship loadings monthly on military account should be imposed some 25 to 30 sailings less than the military services had contemplated. WSA argued that it would be inadvisable to
47
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crowd west coast ports to their capacity in view of the limitations on rail service, the shortage of stevedores, and the prospect that repair facilities would be inadequate to maintain all the ships moving in and out in operating condition. The military services, on the other hand, held that the west coast should be used to absolute maximum capacity, and only the surplus above the absolute maximum should be diverted to the east and Gulf coast ports. In the JMTC the Army offered calculations showing that the railroads could handle the load and suggested military port battalions might be used to make up the stevedore shortage. In the end the military position generally prevailed and the effort went ahead full speed to use west coast facilities to full capacity. Only a small number of sailings were added to those scheduled from the east coast.48 In its own major supply establishment on the west coast, the San Francisco Port of Embarkation, the Army carried out a thoroughgoing reorganization. The Control Division surveyed the port in May and found numerous continuing deficiencies, especially in the operation of the Overseas Supply Division. There was a general feeling in the ASF, to which visiting SWPA officials wholeheartedly subscribed, that the San Francisco port should be reorganized along the lines of the New York port. If this was to be done, there were no better people to do it than the commanders at New York, and in June 1945 both Maj.
(1) Control Div ASF, Survey of Pacific Supply, 15 Jun 45. (2) Ltr, Gen Gross to Maj Gen Clarence
49
Capac and Util. (3) JMT 102, 11 Jun 45, title: Merchant Ship Employment on West Coast.
San Francisco. (3) Memo, Col John W. Mott for CG USASOS, APO 707, 7 Jun 45, sub: Rpt on Temporary Duty, U.S., folder Pac Sec Gen File, ASF Plng Div Theater Files. (4) Ltr, Gen Wood to Gen Lutes, 10 Jun 45; ltr, Lutes to Wood, 25 Jun 45. Folder Pac Theaters Apr 45-Apr 46, Lutes File.
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thermore, when the war with Japan ended, there were many ships en route to all the Pacific islands that were not to be unloaded for months afterward. The now hinges on one intangible bit of criteria, most that can be said with any assuri.e., what will the discharge capacity be by phases. As you know, we have always wanted ance is that reception capacity in the to get up a study correlating and collating Pacific remained an unknown quantity the production program, transportation or to the very end. There is good reason shipping schedule, storage capacity, ship- to believe that it would have continued ping capacity and capacity at the destina- to act, as it had acted for a year or more tion to receive. Such a study has been attempted and . . . has fallen flat due to the previously, as the principal limitation on support of forces in the Pafact that the last factor . . . governs. Now logistical 51 our storage is beginning to pile up and our cific. production rolls merrily along without In any case, the logistical plans for definite knowledge on our part that we can OLYMPIC and CORONET put their main ever ship all that we are procuring and stress on direct shipments to the assault 50 storing. . . . area as the principal means for providLutes closed with a plea to Styer to pro- ing maintenance support once troops vide the material for such a study, but were ashore, rather than reliance on the whatever efforts were made in that direc- Philippine or other island bases. The tion were overtaken by the swift march ASF kept its plan on the books for exof events. panding the Philippine base and actually In the period May-August 1945, Pa- got MacArthur to agree to establishing cific reception capacity seems to have an Ordnance Base Center there; but the been reasonably adequate for the ship- continued uncertainty of reception caments sent out, and for that period to pacity raised many doubts whether it have been a potential rather than an could in fact be set up and left the plans actual logistical limitation. The strict of other technical services for such base instructions issued by the JCS at the centers uncertain. The timetable for end of 1944 prohibiting use of ships as OLYMPIC and CORONET did not, in short, floating warehouses and limiting ship permit the ASF to make the Philippine retentions in overseas theaters remained base the "England of the Orient," as the in effect, and both MacArthur and Nim- supply planners had apparently contemitz were careful in their month-by-month plated it should be. Also, the plans for providing direct estimates of requirements to avoid the instances of heavy shipping congestion support for these operations were, in that had occurred earlier. Some degree their shipping aspects, more the product of congestion did develop nevertheless of Pacific than Atlantic experience. They at Guam, where the Navy was prepar- provided, much as CINCPOA-CINCing a major base, and at Manila. Fur(1) Ltr, Lutes to Styer, 20 Jul 45, folder Pac Theaters, Apr 45-Apr 46, Lutes File. (2) Memo, Col Mott for CG USASOS, 7 Jun 45.
50 51 (1) See above, ch. XXII. (2) Memo of Trip to POA 1-24 Jun 45, by unidentified member of WSA party, folder Pac Trip, Box 122890, WSA Conway File.
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PAC plans had previously, for blockloaded ships to move to the theater on a time schedule. There were to be 482 of these specially loaded ships for the invasion of Kyushu, and preliminary planning for the invasion of Honshu provided for 700. Loaded ships would move to the regulating station at Ulithi and await call forward into the assault area, thus providing the main reserve afloat rather than at depots in the Philippines or other Pacific islands. These block-loaded ships somewhat resembled the commodity loaders used in the European invasion. The system for regulating the flow of shipping resembled more closely that used in SWPA than the more carefully regulated echeloning practices typical of POA. The Chief Regulating Officer, CINCAFPAC, was to control movement into the combat area.52 OLYMPIC and CORONET also promised to provide a final test for the system of preparing operational projects in the War Department.53 The ASF started preparation of operational projects for the final phase in the Pacific in December 1944, based on existing tentative plans for the invasion of Kyushu and Honshu and an operation in the North Pacific involving 122,000 men. Separate projects for each of these operations were prepared and procurement planning instituted. The procurement planning, however, had to proceed uncertainly, for none of the operations was specifically approved by the JCS until the end of May 1945, and OPD would not permit the dispatch of ASF plans to the theater
52 (1) History Planning Div ASF, Text, I, 186-87. (2) ASF Final Rpt, Logistics in World War II, pp. 53-54. 53
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the Zone of the Interior," but denying an intention "to initiate any drastic action to roll up rear areas which would in any way affect the successful prosecution of the war."56 MacArthur's reply may be taken as the best available summary of the AFPAC roll-up as of the end of the war. On 19 September he reported that a total of approximately 2,382,000 measurement tons of cargo had been moved forward from old South and Southwest Pacific bases and that approximately 1,398,000 measurement tons remained in those bases. An earlier report showed that 216,000 measurement tons had been moved forward from Hawaii and 700,000 tons remained to be moved.57 As inexact as these figures undoubtedly were, they revealed that the roll-up was at least between one-half and two-thirds complete when the war ended. However, they hardly indicate the extent to which the evacuation of bases was accompanied by wholesale destruction of supplies and abandonment of facilities to the ravages of the jungles in which they had been created. Nevertheless, given the complicated problems of shipping, service troops, and port capacity that were the constant limiting factors in the Pacific war, it is hard to say that the roll-up was not executed in as effective a manner as circumstances permitted. It did not end, of course, with V-J Day. That event brought an even greater problem of surpluses in the forward areas in the
56 (1) Msg WARX 46979 to CINCAFPAC, 9 Aug 45. (2) Memo, Gen Lutes for OPD, 6 Aug 45, sub: Roll-up of Bases, Pacific Areas, OPD 400 PTO, Case 1077. 57 (1) Msg CX-10235, CINCAFPAC to WAR, CMIN 26249, 27 Aug 45. (2) Msg CX-14733, CINCAFPAC to WARCOS, CM-IN 15785, 20 Sep 45.
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Philippines, on Okinawa, and in the Marianas, into which supplies from both the rear areas and the United States were pouring. On many Pacific islands supplies were to deteriorate in open storage until 1950 when the United States was to find a new and unexpected use for them in the Korean War. A naval historian, commenting on the roll-up of naval supplies in the South Pacific, has summed up the effort of the Army just as fittingly: The logic of rolling forward rear bases
was impeccable. In the case of personnel its urgency could not be denied. But to set up a cross current against the normal flow of supply and support proved to be extremely difficult, if not impracticable. Much of the usable material was in fact moved forward. The rest remained in the South Pacific to
be locally disposed of or to stand as a monument to the unsparing waste of war and the greater importance of time over cost.58
The "greater importance of time over cost" might indeed be designated as the most important factor in logistics in World War II.
The Last Year in the CBI
While the massive preparations went ahead in the Pacific for the final assaults against Japan, the last act was also being played out in the China and IndiaBurma theaters. The final American strategy on the Asiatic mainland was shaped largely in terms of a desire to
Ballantine, U.S. Naval Logistics in the Second World War, p. 286.
58
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(1) On these operations, see Romanus and Sunderland, Time Runs Out in CBI, chs. 3-7. (2) John 60See below, Chapter XXVI, for the problem of Ehrman, Grand Strategy VI, 165-201. allocating lend-lease to the British for this campaign.
southward against Sumatra, Singapore, and Hong Kong. British operations along these lines were finally approved by the CCS at the Potsdam Conference in July, but the Americans by then regarded them as little more than mop-up actions.60 Because of the declining strategic importance of the CBI, the opening of the Ledo Road proved a much less significant development than once had been anticipated. The Americans were no longer prepared to devote resources to its exploitation. American service troops in the theater were spread thin. Beginning in the fall of 1944, increasing numbers were moved into China as the center of gravity of U.S. operations shifted forward. The SOS was spread over a wide territory operating a line of communication from Calcutta to east China, and its numbers were never commensurate with the tasks it was charged with performing. Most of the limited augmentations in the last year were in air personnel rather than ground service troops. As early as August 1944 OPD had tentatively decided, over ASF objections, that the Ledo Road should be developed for two-way traffic only as far as Myitkyina, and from there to Kunming only as a one-way road for delivery of vehicles and artillery to China. The decision was based on the reasoning that the most serious shortage in China was motor transport and the road could be developed for truck deliveries without commitment of more resources, whereas to develop it as a two-way road all the way would require trucks and Quartermaster trucking companies that currently were
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GLOBAL LOGISTICS AND STRATEGY: 1943-1945 Wedemeyer's staff presented its requirements for tonnages to be moved into China to support his operations77,000 tons each month in April and May, 80,000 in June and July, and 87,000 in August for the support of 36 Chinese divisions, plus the Tenth and Fourteenth Air Forces. It appeared that prospective airlift tonnages and those on the Ledo Road under one-way operation from Myitkyina would fall 12,000 to 25,000 tons short of meeting these goals. There was the further consideration, as everyone undoubtedly realized, that these tonnage requirements would have to be expanded, particularly if Japanese resistance was stiff. The ASF again proposed that the Ledo Road be developed further but the decision again went against it. The requirements for trucks and operating personnel to bring the road to a capacity of 60,000 tons monthly5,759 more truck-tractors, and 56,500 troops including 137 Quartermaster truck companies compared unfavorably with the matriel the Air Transport Command said it needed to enlarge the airlift to 80,000 tons per month150 more C-54's plus reserves, and about 5,000 troops. The resources committed to the airlift could also be shifted much more easily to other tasks, once a port had been opened on the China coast, than could the fixed investment in an overland route with all the paraphernalia it required. Moreover, the removal of the B-29's from the theater left the east Bengal airfields open for Hump operations and freed 62 additional transports for the Hump. With the scale of road operations set far lower than expected, the theater also
62 Romanus and Sunderland, Time Runs Out in CBI, chs. II, IV, VI-VIII.
in short supply for European operations. Other CBI projects were also adjusted at the time in the light of the new situation in the theater. The Fort Hertz pipeline was finally and definitely abandoned; the other pipelines were kept on the books, the only change being that the terminal for the second 6-inch line from Calcutta was to be a submarine terminal at Chittagong rather than on the docks at Calcutta.61 As the day drew near when the Ledo Road would actually be opened, the whole problem of the CBI line of communication came up for a re-appraisal in Washington. The re-appraisal was conducted in the light of a shifting situation in China. In November and December 1944, Maj. Gen. Albert C. Wedemeyer, faced with what he thought would be a last-ditch defense of Kunming, moved two of the Americantrained Chinese divisions by air from India into China. A t the same time, since more supplies were coming in over the Hump than ever before, he was able to take the first steps toward re-forming and equipping the existing Chinese Army in China. Now confident of his ability to repel the Japanese attack and then take the offensive, he prepared his BETA plan for an advance overland to seize first Fort Bayard, a small port on the Liuchow Peninsula, then Kowloon and Canton, opening a new avenue for shipment of supplies into China. In March 1945
61 (1) Memo, Lutes for ACofS, OPD, 29 Jul 44, sub: Projs TIG-1A and TIG-1C, Ledo Road Construction and Opn, file OPD 1942-44, Hq ASF. (2) Diary Entries, 23 Jul, 16 and 18 Aug, 20 Sep 44, Strat Log Br, Plng Div, ASF. (3) Memo, Handy for Marshall, 14 Aug. 44, and related papers, ABC 384 Burma (8-25-42). (4) For a more detailed account see Romanus and Sunderland, Stilwell's Command Problems, pp. 384-87.
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not enough resources were available for its logistical support. The JCS, however, in approving Wedemeyer's plans (Operation RASHNESS), had really counted on Japanese withdrawals to make the Chinese advance possible, and in this calculation they were not mistaken. The Japanese high command, faced with the necessity of preparing a citadel defense of the home islands, decided to shorten its lines in China. In late May Japanese troops began to withdraw from their recently acquired positions in east China, opening the way for rapid, virtually unopposed, execution of the first phases of
RASHNESS.64
With these events the issue of further development of the Ledo Road was finally and definitely settled. Logistical planning now centered entirely on early development of Fort Bayard to support an advance to Kowloon and Canton. The target date for the first operation was set for August 1945, and five fast cargo ships were loaded in late July with supplies and equipment for shipment into Fort Bayard. In addition, a schedule was arranged for five more ships to move into the port monthly. The target date for opening Kowloon was set at 1 December 1945, and plans envisaged support of 120,000 U.S. troops (to be made available by redeployment from Europe) and 39 Chinese divisions through that port and Canton by 1 June 1946.65 The Japa-
Romanus and Sunderland, Time Runs Out in CBI, ch. VIII. 65 (1) Memo, Somervell for CofS, 7 Jul 45, sub: Supply Procedures for China Theater, file Supply Procedures for CT, ASF Plng Div. (2) Memo, Brig Gen Henry C. Wolfe, Dir Plng Div, for Dep Director, Pls and Opns, ASF, 6 Aug 45, sub: Status of Supply Support to Projected Opns in China, file 12a Genl File 1945 (CBI), ASF Plng Div.
64
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nese decision to surrender, of course, rendered even this final CBI project abortive.
On 6 August 1945 an American B-29 dropped one atomic bomb on Hiroshima. On 8 August the Soviet Union declared war on Japan and its Far Eastern armies began their march into Manchuria. On 9 August another atomic bomb fell on Nagasaki. On 15 August a Japanese Government that had long before concluded that the war was lost made known its intention to surrender. On 2 September the surrender was consummated in ceremonies aboard the U.S.S. Missouri. The war against Japan thus came to its end in a manner radically different from that which the military planning staffs had envisaged. The elaborate plans and preparations for invasion of Japan had no ultimate utility. Events seemingly justified those who, like Admirals Leahy and King, had long been skeptical of the necessity for mass invasion. Yet King, at least, never advocated any diminution in preparations for a concentrated, massive effort in the Pacific, whatever line that effort might take; and to the last he fought for naval expansion beyond anything the circumstances seemed to require. The argument can certainly be made that the Japanese would hardly have surrendered except in the certain knowledge that the United States had the
PART SEVEN
FOREIGN AID
CHAPTER XXV
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during the later war years, there was a definite weakening of the British posiAs the relationship had developed dur- tion vis--vis the American, and the coning 1942, Great Britain was not only cept of the common pool underwent a the principal lend-lease beneficiary, but gradual modification to the point where, also a partner in the disposition of the by the end of the war, it had become total war supplies of the two nations. In little more than a figure of speech. The January 1942 the President and the theory of the common pool had been Prime Minister had agreed that the advanced, and the combined machinery munitions resources of the two coun- set up, during a period in early 1942 tries should be placed in a common pool when British experience in waging war from which allocations should be made and British governmental and military in accordance with strategic need among staff organization were far more mature all the Allied nations fighting the Axis than American. In that early period, too, Powers. To give effect to the princi- the British war economy was more tightple, the Munitions Assignments Boards, ly organized and producing a greater Washington (MAB) and London volume of munitions than was that of (LMAB), were established, under the the United States. As the war progressed aegis of the CCS, to allocate U.S. and the situation gradually changed. AmerBritish munitions production. The twin ican organizations gained experience, principles of lend-lease and reciprocal confidence, and efficiency; planning for aid served as the legal mechanisms to effective utilization of the nation's remake the common pool possible. Around sources in pursuits of war became more the boards the British and Americans exact and systematic; the American insucceeded, during 1942, in building a dustrial machine began finally to show structure for allocation of munitions on its vast productive power, attaining a a combined basis unparalleled in the height of four times British production history of coalition warfare. Though it by mid-1943; more and more U.S. troops cannot be said that the common pool completed their training and moved to was ever a literal reality, there was col- theaters of operations. The theaters withlaboration and consultation in almost in the area assigned as the exclusive reevery phase of the planning and oper- sponsibility of the Britishthe Middle ation of the Anglo-American supply ma- East and Indiadeclined in relative importance to the European theater, chinery.2 While the combined machinery con- where the effort was genuinely comtinued to operate without much change bined, and to the Pacific theaters, where the effort was almost exclusively American. In short, American military and (Continued from preceding page) (1) dollar value statistics on procurement deliveries industrial power began to assert itself, are not strictly comparable to those on lend-lease and with that development its military shipments and transfers, and (2) the tables do not directors tended more and more to resist show annual breakdowns for theater transfers, which form a significant portion of the lend-lease total in attempts, real or fancied, by the British the last part of the war. See Leighton and Coakley, Global Logistics, to direct its use. The British position in relation to 1940-45, chs. X, XI, and XVIII.
2
629
the common pool was even at the start a vulnerable one, since Great Britain was dependent on U.S. production to a far greater degree than the United States was dependent on British. The British in 1940, while still fighting virtually alone, made the fateful decision that in the interests of national survival they should seek from the United States the maximum quantities of supplies they could use without regard to economic consequences. In giving effect to this decision in the years following, the British virtually abandoned their export trade and concentrated upon mobilizing the maximum fighting force from available manpower, relying heavily on U.S. and, to a lesser degree, Canadian production for supplies and equipment. By the time the Americans entered the war the British course was, to all intents, irrevocable. The Japanese attack forced the British to increase the size of the Empire forces even further. Until the end of the war the United Kingdom maintained a far larger proportion of its population in the armed forces than did the United States or any other of
formulation of British production plans or the distribution of British-produced munitions since they had few requirements for them. Reciprocal aid, though it grew to substantial proportions, normally took the form of services, subsistence, and construction materials, rather than finished munitions. Consequently, the U.S. military staffs at first exerted little effort to establish the same strong representation on the London Munitions Assignments Board that the British had
on the board in Washington, nor did they concern themselves to any great degree with British production plans. To the Americans the common pool all too frequently seemed to mean American production, and they inevitably looked askance at a theory that gave the British a dual role as applicant for aid and participant in decisions rendered on their applications. During 1942 the British lost the first, and perhaps the most vital, round in their battle to secure a literal interpretation of the common pool theory. Their attempt to get a genuine combined production program based on combined rethe allies.3 quirements as determined by the CCS Under these circumstances the British and administered by the Combined Profelt they must have a voice both in the duction and Resources Board (CPRB), distribution of U.S. munitions and in the was unsuccessful. By fall of the year, planning of U.S. production programs, when the time came to delineate a definand sought therefore to give a literal itive munitions program for U.S. indusinterpretation to the common pool the- try in 1943, the Americans insisted on ory. The Americans, on the other hand, formulating the program on a unihad little reason to participate in the lateral basis and the British were not permitted to participate. The British in 3 (1) H. Duncan Hall, "History of the Second the meantime had secured acceptance of World War, United Kingdom Civil Series," North the principle of strategic necessity as the American Supply (London: Her Majesty's Stationery criterion for assignments by the MAB; Office, 1955), pp. 158-60, 473, 490. (2)W. K. Hancock and M. M. Gowing, "History of the Second but in the application of that principle World War, United Kingdom Civil Series," British they met many disappointments, and War Economy (London: His Majesty's Stationery they found themselves without any firm Office, 1949), pp. 370-71.
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basis on which to plan for the division of their last reserves of manpower between industry and their armed forces in 1943. The result was the negotiation at the end of 1942 of what was, fundamentally, a compromise arrangement the Weeks-Somervell Agreement for distribution of ground munitions to be produced in the United States during the following year. In this agreement the British reduced their stated requirements in the Army Supply Program by approximately one-third; in return they secured a definite promise that these requirements would be accepted as an equal obligation with U.S. Army requirements against American production, to be sacrificed or reduced only in the same 4 proportion as American requirements. As a corollary to the Weeks-Somervell Agreement, ASF officials came up with their own interpretation of the common pool, which was called the residual theory. Each country, they said, should have exclusive control over its own production facilities and determine what and how much these facilities should produce. Each country should produce to the fullest extent possible the war material it needed and have priority on its own productive capacity to meet its own military needs. The common pool should apply only to residual or marginal requirements that each should have the right to place on the 5 other. This residual theory was seldom,
4 See Leighton and Coakley, Global Logistics, 1940-43, pp. 282-85. 5 (1) International Division, ASF, Lend-Lease as of September 30, 1945 (2 vols, text and 10 vols, documentary supplement), Text, I, 217-18 (hereafter cited as ID, Lend-Lease), MS, OCMH. (2) See also Study, International Division, ASF, sub: Study on International Aid for Joint Staff Planners, Log file, OCMH.
time the issue came up, however, the Americans were in a position to insist that their own actions in asserting the superiority of American claims on American production were in consonance with British practices in relation to British production from the very inception of the common pool. They also were able to insist, as American forces came to predominate in overseas theaters and American ideas on strategy gained an increasing dominance in decisions of the CCS, that their claims had a better basis in relation to strategic need, the very cornerstone on which the common pool was founded. In accepting the Weeks-Somervell Agreement, the Washington Munitions Assignments Board prevented it from assuming the status of a protocol by stipulating that assignments should continue to be made by that body in keeping with strategic directives of the CCS. And the principles of the Weeks-Somervell Agreement were not renewed when British requirements for 1944 and 1945
631
were presented. The British were soon being required to give strategic justification for assignments even as in 1942, despite the acceptance of their requirements in the Army Supply Program. OPD insisted that these justifications be based on prospective or actual employments of troops in battle in accordance with plans approved by the CCS, not simply on theater deployments as the 6 British had proposed in 1942. Thus the doctrine of strategic necessity, which the British had urged as a guide to assignments in 1942 when they had nearly all their troops deployed in active theaters and the Americans very few, turned out to be a two-edged sword. The Americans could and did wield it against the British in the last part of the war to deny or reduce assignments of critical items. There were other facets of the general reassertion of American national interest in the administration of lendlease. Beginning in late 1943 British requirements were subjected to an increasingly critical scrutiny; greater restrictions were placed on the disposition of materials made available under lendlease; numerous civilian articles were ruled ineligible for lend-lease transfer; other semicivilian articles, long procured on military priority, were shifted to civilian agencies making it more difficult for the British to secure them. In short, the concept of lend-lease as an instrument of U.S. national policy came gradually to supplant the concept of lend-lease as a mechanism for pooling resources. The former concept had more solid
6 See, for example, Memo, Gen Tansey, Log Gp,
OPD, for Chmn MAC(G), 14 Apr 43, sub: Special Issue of Equipment to U.K. in Support of a Special Opn, Tab G, 89th mtg MAC(G), 15 Apr 43.
grounding in the original Lend-Lease Act of 1941 and in the extensions voted in 1943 and 1945; the common pool was only the result of an executive announcement, with no congressional sanction. The emphasis placed on this tendency of American leaders to limit the application of the common pool concept must not be allowed to obscure the important role that the practical application of pooling resources played in the victory over Germany and Japan. The British were able to carry out their design of mobilizing an abnormally large proportion of their manpower in the armed forces while relying on American aid for much of their equipment. During 1943 British Empire forces received 24.5 percent of their total munitions supplies from U.S. lend-lease and in 1944 27.2 percent. Even in the first half of 1945, when the American desire to curb lend-lease began to assert itself in earnest, that proportion decreased only to 7 21 percent. On the other side of the ledger, the British in turn made substantial contributions to American operations in nearly all theaters of the war. A British statistician has, in fact, made a case that British reciprocal aid to the United States took almost as heavy a proportion of British resources as American lendlease to Britain took of American re8 sources. In sum, the common pool, as modified in actual practice, proved a successful mechanism for its original purposewinning the war against the Axis. Its reinterpretation in the last years of the war in terms of American national
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interest was an almost inevitable corollary of the vast expansion of American military power vis--vis British military power that had taken place since 1942.
633
British representation on the subcommittees entirely. The Americans did not have representation on the similar subcommittees in London, where most assignments were handled as a routine matter. On 1 July 1943, by unilateral decision, General Wright as chairman of the MAC (G) placed a new system of determining assignments in effect. The British and other applicants would submit monthly bids in writing to the International Division, which would then prepare assignments schedules based on the recommendations of War Department conference groups. The British were to be allowed to have observers at the meetings of these groups but no official representation. The British, or the Liaison Branch of the International Division, which acted for other countries, were to indicate at an agenda conference held two days before each meeting of MAC (G) the adjustments in decisions made by the conference groups or the International Division that they wanted considered in the full meetings of the ground committee. The combined subcommittees on amphibious vehicles, chemical warfare supplies, diesel engines, quartermaster stores, signal equipment, tanks, trucks, and explosives were accordingly replaced by War Department conference groups. The medical and engineer common stockpile committees and the committee on transportation stores were continued on a combined basis, but in November 1944 the engineer committee was also replaced
10 (1) Memo, Col John B. Franks for OQMC, 2 Feb 43, sub: Discontinuance of Regular Mtgs of ISC, ID 337, Confs, II. (2) Memo, Col George W. Smythe, ID, tot CsTechSvcs, 13 Feb 43, sub: Procedure for Processing Lend-Lease Reqmts, Lend-
Lease, Doc Suppl, V. (3) Duncan H. Hall and C. C. Wrigley, "History of the Second World War, United Kingdom Civil Series," Studies in Overseas Supply (London: Her Majesty's Stationery Office, 1956) pp. 153-54.
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by a War Department conference group on engineer items.11 Though "bickering ... at the subcommittee level" was advanced as the reason for the change, the real motive was somewhat different, as General Wright confidentially noted:
The lessening of bickering and friction is of course a minor consideration. There is relatively little and that could be eliminated without too much trouble. The real goals are to remove the hypocrisy of having subcommittees handling all sorts of minutiae where on the surface we and the U.K. are supposed to have equal voices (of course, in the final analysis, we don't) and to restore the concept that our production and our facilities are our own until we actually dispose of finished munitions and not a joint U.K. and U.S. undertaking; to have it understood that the reference to a "common pool" is not to be taken literally but instead is merely a metaphor. . . . The result (it is hoped) would be that the U.S. would give wisely and even very liberally out of its own production and that in the few cases where there would be dissents the resolution of the disagreement would12be made on a strategy or high policy level.
British protests that the situation in Washington was not comparable to that in London, where there was little American demand for most articles of British
(1) Ltr, Gen Macready to Gen Somervell, 3 Jun 43. (2) Ltr, Somervell to Macready, 3 Jun 43; Memo, Gen Wright for Comdr D. C. King, 25 Jun 43, sub: Change in Assignments. (3) Ltr, Gen Macready to Gen Somervell, 8 Jun 43. (4) Ltr, Somervell to Macready, 14 Jun 43. All in ID 334 MAB, I. (5) Min 2184, 102d mtg, MAC(G), 15 Jul 43; min 3945, 165th mtg, MAC(G), 2 Nov 44. (6) Memo, Gen Maxwell, G-4, for Chmn, MAC(G), 30 Mar 44, sub: Engineers Common Stockpile Procedure, Director Materiel File MAB in Washington. (7) ID, LendLease, Text, I, 261. 12 Memo, Gen Wright for Dir Materiel, ASF, 2 Jun 43, ID 334 MAB, I.
11
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(1) Memo, Gen Wright for CG ASF, 29 Jun 43, sub: Items for Consideration 73d Mtg MAB, in ID file of MBW Min, Book IV. (2) Min 2a, 73d mtg MAB, 30 Jun 43. (3) Memo, Secy for Chmn, MAC(G), 3 Sep 43, sub: 45 Day Rpt, Gen Tab 2, Agenda 110th mtg MAC(G), 9 Sep 43. (4) Min 2340, 110th mtg MAC(G), 9 Sep 43. (5) Hq, ASF, Cir 43, 9 Feb 44. (6) ID, Lend-Lease, Text, I, 649-56. 14 Statistics on some major item or group were normally presented by Isadore Lubin, MAB statistician, at each meeting of the board.
13
JMAC was given the primary function of allocating munitions between the U.S. Army and Navy, but it also was able to give greater unity and cohesiveness to the actions of American representatives on the MAB and its committees. Three subcommittees of the JMAC were formed for ground, air, and Navy materials, respectively, so that the final organization paralleled that of the combined munitions assignments machinery. Agreements reached within the JMAC before meetings of the combined board enabled the Americans to present a solid front on issues where there was conflict 15 with the British. The formation of the JMAC was less important than the general extension of the cognizance of the JCS over logistical matters. This cognizance included an increasing number of questions involving lend-lease policy, particularly as it affected nations other than those of the British Commonwealth, such as China, France, and the independent nations of the Middle East. In determining lendlease policy, the Joint Logistics Committee usually took the lead, while the JMAC served as a mechanism for enforcing the policy after its approval by the JCS. Once a policy had been determined within the JCS committees it was very difficult for the British, in combined meetings of the CCS or MAB, to get it changed. Purely within the Army itself, in the realignment of general staff functions in
(1) On the realignments in the JCS, see above, Chapter IV. (2) JCS 202/20/D, 11 May 43, title: Charter U.S. Reps MAB. (3) Memo, Gen Burns for JCS, 20 Aug 43, and related papers in Director Materiel File MAB in Washington. (4) JCS 450/8/D, 10 Nov 43, title: Charter JMAC. (5) ID, Lend-Lease, Text, I, 210-13.
15
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the fall of 1943 to give G-4 a more important place, a G-4 representative was added on both the MAB and the JMAC, and G-4 replaced OPD on the ground committee. G-4 as a rule took a more critical attitude toward lend-lease allocations than either the ASF or OPD had formerly done, insisting that U.S. Army requirements should have a clear first priority. Shortly after gaining its place on MAC (G), G-4 announced its intention of establishing policies for the ground committee to follow. The question might well have been raised whether such policies could be established unilaterally, but the British evidently never knew of the directive. There was always a question, never resolved, as to whether MAC (G) was in fact an agency of the War Department or responsible solely to the Munitions Assignments Board. G-4's claim to the right to dictate policies for the ground committee evidently was based on the former theory; it was another of those straws in the wind that pointed up the growing American desire to exercise complete control over disposition of American equipment without British participation.16 Toward the end of the war General Tansey of OPD summed it up succinctly: ". . . if we ever have lend-lease again there should be no combined assignment boards. Assign-
16 (1) Memo, Gen Handy, OPD, for CG ASF, 23 Dec 43, sub: OPD Representation at MAC(G) Mtgs, OCS 334 MAB. (2) Memo, ACofS, G-4, for Chmn, MAC(G), 11 Jan 44, sub: Sup Div, WDGS Participation in Munitions Assignment Activities, Director Materiel File MAB in Washington. (3) At the MAB 17 meeting, 4 July 1945, Admiral Joseph M. Reeves Memo, prepared by Gen Tansey, sub: Allocation stated the contrary view that personnel of the comof Munitions for Logistic Support of Global Strategy, mittees were merely detailed by the War and Navy no date, ABC 400 (2-17-42), Sec 6. 18 Departments and that the MAB had sole authority Executive Order 9380, Foreign Economic Adover them as far as assignments were concerned. ministration, 25 Sep 43.
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British arrived at their military requirements on the United States. The procedure entailed, first, the determination of a gross requirement (for Empire and Commonwealth forces) for each article, and second, the net deficit above Empire production that would have to come from the United States. The British, to begin with, drew up an order of battle based on forces required to fulfill British Army commitments under current strategic plans. This table showed the forces expected to be deployed progressively in each theater over the ensuing two years and the estimated activity of these forces by time period. Requirements were then calculated including four main components: (1) initial equipment including all ammunition carried by combat organizations; (2) General Staff Reserve, and emergency operational reserve in each theater of war to cover the possible severance of communication lines or unexpected operational requirements; (3) a transit or pipeline commitment to cover the quantity of stores which must be held over and above the General Staff Reserve to avoid depletion as a result of time taken to replace wastage and loss; (4) maintenance to replace wastage and loss. The last three factors varied from theater to theater and from time to time in accordance with the classification of activity in each area as "intense," "normal," or "quiet." To the theater troop requirements many others had to be added: training needs, Admiralty and RAF requirements for Army stores, demands for home defense or from the Dominions and India for equipping forces other than those in theaters of war, a repair pool for certain types of equipment, a "War Office Reserve" based on unit
638
equipment for a mixed force of six divisions to meet unpredictable demands. Then, worth special mention, were the requirements for materials that in U.S. Army terminology had come to be known as operational projects and the British called theater stores, which embraced needs that did not depend upon size and type of forces, but on special considerations of geography, climate, or terrain. Infinitely the most difficult of all to compute, they were based on special strategic forecasts, and might include as well as strictly military materials, some that had definite civilian utility. The gross Empire requirements for each article were then calculated in London, and the deficit that could not be met from Empire production was then forwarded to Washington as the basis for the part of the Army Supply Program covering lend-lease to the British.20 The British did not have quite the same respect for the "scientific" calculation of requirements that the Americans at least professed to have, and regarded the end result as merely an educated guess. It is at least possible that American insistence that the British determine their requirements far in advance was also conditioned less by their confidence in anybody's ability to do so than by their desire to keep production plans stable and not allow them to be continually disrupted by British demands for bits and pieces. The fact that in the pre-Pearl Harbor period the British had come to rely on American production to meet all sorts of emergency
20 Memorandum on the Calculation of British Army Requirements on North America, Incl to Memo, Col Joseph W. Boone for Maj Robert C. Woods thru Maj Gen James K. Crain, 3 Nov 43, ID 400.312 Reqmts U.K. II.
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verely curtailed because of obvious production limitations; the U.S. Navy's mounting needs for Oerlikon light antiaircraft cannon precluded meeting British requests for this item for ground army use.22 In mid-1943 the British renewed their effort to get more of their truck requirements accepted in the ASP, and also asked for increases in the provision of heavy artillery, pistols, binoculars, Universal carriers, engines, and miscellaneous engineer equipment. The ASF refused most of these demands on the ground that they could not be accommodated within the existing limits of the American munitions program. Only in the case of pistols, jeeps, and engines was any sizable augmentation agreed to. On the same occasion, the British presented their 1944 requirements program for the first time, in dollar value about two-thirds of the program for 1943. Again the ASF made reductions in the requests for trucks and signal equipment as well as in miscellaneous categories in the light of prospective production capacities.23
22 (1) Memo, Gen Wood, Dir Reqmts Div SOS, for Dir ID, no date, sub: Revision of Sec VI, ASP, for Jan 43. (2) Ltr, Gen Macready to Gen Clay, 15 Jan 43.
(3) Ltr, Clay to Macready, 17 Jan 43. All in ID 400.192 ASP, I. (4) Hall and Wrigley, Studies in Overseas Supply, pp. 190-99. (5) ID, Lend-Lease,
43, sub: ASP, ID 400.312 U.K. I. (2) Memo, Col George Olmstead for Dir ID, 28 Jun 43, sub: U.K. Requested Changes 1943, ASP, ID 400.192 ASP, III. (3) Ltr, Somervell to Venning, 5 Jul 43, with related papers in Hq ASF file British. (4) Ltrs, Venning to Somervell, 16 Jul 43, and Clay to Venning, 26 Jul 43, ID 400.192 ASP, IV. (5) Memo, British Reps, ISC, for Dir ID, 2 Sep 43, sub: Provision for U.K. ASP I 1943-44, ID 400.312 Reqmts U.K., I. (6) ID, Lend Lease, Text, II, 961-67.
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In assignments, according to British calculations, their accepted requirements program was 86 percent fulfilled during 1943, a performance that compares quite favorably with that of the War Department in meeting the Third Soviet Protocol and not far short of that of American industry in meeting the U.S. Army's own requirements as stated at the time of the negotiation of the Weeks-Somervell Agreement. And, at least in theory, part of the materiel for French rearmament came out of the British share in the ASP. In sum, then, the Weeks-Somervell Agreement was substantially fulfilled, as British requirements in 1943 were met in about the same proportion 24 as American. No similar agreement was negotiated for 1944 and before long the British were to feel the effects of its absence. Until the last part of 1943 negotiations most often simply involved the issue of whether the United States could produce items requested by the British. Little justification of end-use was required in the production planning stage; this was normally reserved for the time when bids were placed before the MAB. Late in 1943, however, under the whiplash of criticism by the McCoy Board, the Richards Committee, and various members of Congress that there was virtually no screening of lend-lease requirements, the ASF moved to require a definite statement from the British as to the use to which they intended to put equipment even before a production requirement was
24 (1) Hall and Wrigley, Studies in Overseas Supply, pp. 196-97. (2) On the Soviet Protocols see below, Chapter XXVII. (3) On the extent of the U.S. Army's own requirements were met, see above, Chapter V.
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By this sort of screening an initial British program for ground equipment totaling $2.75 billion in dollar value was reduced to $2.5 billion by the time of the semiannual revision of the ASP in mid-1944. The program for 1945, presented at that time, which was based on continuation of a two-front war and totaled $2.1 billion in value, was subjected to an even more intense screening to eliminate civilian requirements and those having postwar implications.29 Tighter screening was but one evidence of the generally stricter attitude toward British lend-lease that revealed itself in American military circles as the year 1944 wore on. Increasingly, the residual theory of the common pool came into its own. The principles of the Weeks-Somervell Agreement were soon repudiated. "The fact that a particular Allied requirement has been incorporated into the Army or Navy Supply Program," General Tansey instructed OPD officers concerned with assignments, "does not dictate its assignment to that Ally."30 Instead, Tansey directed, each Allied bid must be intensely scrutinized to see that it was justified on a strategic basis; data on stock position should be required and no Allied army allowed to pile up reserves in excess of those of the U.S. Army; no assignments must be permitted to establish postwar
29 (1) ID, Lend-Lease, Text, II, 972. (2) The acceptance of this program was highly tentative because of the uncertainty of the duration of the war with Germany. Separate calculations were undertaken at the same time for a special program designed for a onefront war against Japan. See below, ch. XXVI. 30 Memo, Gen Tansey, 2 Jan 45, ABC 400 (2-17-42) Sec 6. The cover note reads: "These were produced by Gen Tansey ... as part of his education scheme to insure against the U.S. equipping the postwar armies of Europe."
28 (1) Ltr, Col Boone to Mr. C. W. Reid, British Supply Council in North America, 1 Apr 44, ID file PolicyReqmts and Assignments. (2) ID, Lend-Lease, Text, I, 248-49; 972-74. (3) Hall and Wrigley, Studies in Overseas Supply, pp. 143-45.
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stockpiles or for "quasi-military or nonmilitary use." The effects of the stricter attitude began to show in assignments to the British in the last half of 1944. During the first half of the year 45 percent of the total of British requirements accepted in the ASP were assigned, but during the second half only 30 percent, making a total of 75 percent for the year 1944 as opposed to 86 percent in 1943. Assignments during the last quarter made up only 15 percent of the total 31 for the year. To the British it often seemed that denial of assignments was based on the all-sufficient finding that U.S. Army needs would absorb all the available supply. On 21 December 1944 Brigadier J. M. Godfrey, British member of MAC (G), protested vigorously against what seemed to be the policy on the U.S. side to "fill all U.S. Army requirements before giving consideration to outside bidders," in contravention of the principles of the common pool.32 Godfrey got little satisfaction, the chairman of MAC (G) (then Maj. Gen. Glen E. Edgerton) insisting that final assignments decisions were based on "relative operational priorities."33 This was perhaps literally true, but the British had a legitimate complaint that "relative operational priorities" were being given a distinctly American twist. In several cases where the British ap(1) Hall and Wrigley, Studies in Overseas Supply, pp. 196-97. (2) ASF compilations of assignments of major items of ground equipment to the United Kingdom in 1944 show: 1st quarter, $530 million; 2d quarter, $471 million; 3d quarter, $475 million; 4th quarter, $260 million. See ASF Monthly Progress Reports, sec. 2-G, 30 Apr 44, 31 Jul 44, 31 Oct 44, 31 Dec 44. 32 Min 4108, 172d mtg MAC(G), 21 Dec 44. 33 Ibid.
31
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development of the Cromwell and to require some components from the United States.34 American medium tank production during 1943 totaled 21,250. Of this total the British were assigned 10,464, slightly less than their stated requirements but sufficient to meet all their needs and enable them to establish a sizable reserve. In September 1943 they set their requirement for the following year at 8,500, 4,000 of them to mount the new high velocity 76-mm. gun instead of the 75-mm. Meanwhile, the U.S. Army badly underestimated its own need for medium tanks and set its 1944 requirements at hardly a third of the British.35 As the European war dragged on, tank losses ran higher than the Americans had anticipated. The Sherman's 75-mm. gun and armor proved no match for the heavier German Tiger with its 88-mm. gun. The U.S. Army found itself forced to cut heavily into the quantities originally earmarked in the ASP for the
field. There could be little question of the superiority of the American claim since British tank reserves were far higher, and the British at first were co-operative. The British tank reserves were seriously affected, however, when, of the 4,000 tanks with the 76-mm. gun requested, the Americans delivered only 1,330. In order to provide themselves with tanks capable of meeting the Tiger on something like equal terms, the British pushed production of the Cromwell and began a reconversion program replacing the 75-mm. gun with a 17pounder on a limited number of Shermans. For this latter purpose they made a determined bid for 324 Shermans from
the United States in December 1944,
arguing that although they could accept cutbacks they could not afford to have their assignments discontinued entirely. The Americans, pointing to the need for the U.S. Army in Europenow twice the size of the British Army there but far inferior in tank reservesand to reBritish. In September and October 1944 quirements for an expanded armored medium tank assignments to the British training center and their own tank rewere cut back severely; in November building program, insisted they could and December they were suspended en- make no assignments to the British durtirely. During the Battle of the Bulge, ing the whole first quarter of 1945. FigLt. Gen. Omar N. Bradley's forces bor- ures were produced showing that even rowed tanks from the British in the under this dispensation, the worldwide American tank position in April 1945 (1) Ltr, Somervell to Venning, 22 Mar 43. (2) would still be worse than that of the Ltrs, Venning to Somervell, 23 Mar, 17 and 22 Apr, British. The issue created the first really and 3 Aug 43. (3) Ltr, Somervell to Venning, 5 Aug heated controversy in the MAB since 43. (4) Memo, Brig Gen A. R. Glancy, DCOrd, for Maj Gen Thomas J. Hayes, Chief, Production Div, 1942, and the ailing Harry Hopkins was OCOrd, 5 Apr 43. All in ID 470.8 U.K. I. (5) Memo, finally called in in an effort to settle it. Averell Harriman for Gen Clay, 18 Jun 43, ID In the end the British got a small con400.312 Reqmts U.K., I. (6) Churchill, Hinge of Fate, cession90 new M-4 tanks from January pp. 953-54. (7) Hall and Wrigley, Studies in Overproduction for their reconversion proseas Supply, pp. 18-19 (1) Crawford and Cook, Statistics: Procurement, gram in exchange for 90 used Shermans Table PR-7. (2) ASF Monthly Progress Rpt, 31 Dec to be turned over to ETOUSAbut the 43, sec. 2-B. (3) Ltr, Venning to Styer, 7 Sep 43, ID real result was to make it clear to the 470.8 U.K., I.
34 35
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British that they could no longer count on the United States for more than token quantities of medium tanks.36 U.S. production of medium tanks during 1944 totaled only 13,468. Of these the British were assigned 5,031, a shortfall of more than 3,000 under their ASP requirement; the Soviet Union got 2,197 under the Third and Fourth Protocols; 79 were assigned to other nations, and the rest went to the U.S. Army. While these figures in themselves show that the majority of medium tanks were still going to lend-lease, only the U.S. Army received substantially greater quantities than its originally stated requirements. British requirements for 1945 accepted in the ASP for approximately 4,000 Sherman tanks mounting either the 76mm. gun or the 105-mm. howitzer and for 1,150 of the newly developed heavy tank, the General Pershing, proved to be virtually meaningless. Only token assignments had been made against them before the end of the war in Europe and these were almost all canceled shortly 37 after V-E Day. Whatever the merits of the American position then, the net effect on the British was to leave them with the feeling that they no longer could expect to receive their former share of American munitionsa feeling accentuated soon
(1) Memo, Brig Gen Don G. Shingler, Actg Chmn, MAC(G), for ExO MAB, 5 Dec 44, sub: Min 4016, 4018, 169th mtg MAC(G). . . , ID file MBW, Min, MAB, 9 Dec 44. (2) Min 2b, 148th mtg MAB, 3 Jan 45; min 4, 151st mtg, 24 Jan 45. (3) Memo, Shingler for ExO, MAB, 2 Jan 45, sub: Min 4096-b and -c, 172d mtg MAC(G)U.D. Dissent to . . ., ID file MBW Min, Book VII. (4) Hall, North American Supply, p. 416. (5) Hall and Wrigley, Studies in Overseas Supply, p. 44. 37 (1) Crawford and Cook, Statistics: Procurement, Table PR-7. (2) ASF Monthly Progress Rpt, sec. 2-G, 31 Dec 44, 30 Jan, 28 Feb, 31 Mar, 30 Apr, and 31 May 45.
36
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The original intent of this clause was to prevent lend-lease recipients from turning material received over to a third country in such a manner as to obscure the fact that the United States was the real donor and also to prevent sale of lend-lease goods through commercial channels, particularly where they might be in competition with American exports. In a White Paper issued on 10 September 1941 the British gave assurances on the latter point, asserting that lend-lease materials had not and would not be used for commercial exports, nor would goods similar to those supplied under lend-lease be exported through commercial channels where it involved any development or extension of British export trade at the expense of that of United States.41 The restrictions on retransfer of munitions, on the other hand, were soon relaxed as Americans recognized Britain's need for flexibility in distributing lend-lease supplies among Commonwealth nations and various smaller allies under British sponsorship. In 1942 the Lend-Lease Administrator, Edward R. Stettinius, Jr., to whom the President had delegated his powers under the act, granted the British virtually blanket authority to retransfer munitions to any member of the Commonwealth or to other nations the President had declared eligible to receive lend-lease. This blanket
PL 11, 77th Cong. (Lend-Lease Act), sec. 7. 41 Copy of British White Paper in ID, Lend-Lease, Doc Suppl, I.
40
retransfer authority gave the munitions assignments machinery the flexibility it required in the strategic situation of 1942. Though the Americans never formally accepted the British proposal to divide the world into protege nations, the MAB nevertheless at first followed this system generally in making assignments. The British bid in Washington for munitions in bulk for the United Kingdom, members of the Commonwealth, the several refugee governments of Europe, and for Egypt and Turkey. The LMAB then made final assignments among these claimants. Under this system, the Americans bid before the LMAB for British materials desired by China, Iceland, and the Latin American republics. There was much criticism, even in 1942, of the latitude thus granted the London Board and before the end of the year breaches were made in the system. Australia and New Zealand, members of the British Commonwealth, lay within the American sphere of strategic responsibility, and American commanders in the South and Southwest Pacific asserted the right to exercise final authority over all lend-lease requests emanating from those areas. Beginning in October 1942, materials assigned in Washington for Australia were earmarked and the LMAB was forbidden to vary the assignment. After the invasion of North Africa, the United States took over from the British major responsibility for rearming the French.42
42
Ltr, Thomas B. McCabe, Dep Lend-Lease Admin, to Hon Morris Wilson, Chmn British Sup Council in N America, 26 Mar 42, ID, Lend-Lease, Doc Suppl, II. (3) ID, Lend-Lease, Text, I, 272.
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During 1943, the question of the LMAB's prerogatives came to center largely on the matter of assignments to independent nations in the Middle East. In the prevailing shortage of munitions for all purposes during 1942 requests from these nations received little consideration, for they were not actively engaged in the war against the Axis and needed arms only to preserve internal order. The sole exception was Turkey,
American assignment to Iran, some months old, then pending before the
MAB. But they continued to protest further assignments, even those to Iran where the United States had a special interest in the supply line to Russia. When the Americans proposed to make assignments to Saudi Arabia, where the British had long maintained close control over arms shipments, their protests
took on a new vehemence. While agreeing, perforce, that any independent nation might indeed submit requests directly to either the United States or the United Kingdom, they insisted that the British commander-in-chief in the Middle East should pass on requests arising from within his area just as did MacArthur in Australia and Eisenhower in North Africa. The Saudi Arabia case produced a formal policy statement by the MAB in Washington (MBW 69/1) on 13 September 1943 in which a few concessions were made to the British viewpoint. MBW 69/1 again reaffirmed the right of all independent nations to apply directly to the United States for aid, but it provided that the MAB when acting on these requests should obtain
ily on its own representatives overseas to determine the validity of these requests.43
(1)Ibid. (1), pp. 520-21. (2)Ltrs, Cordell Hull to Adm Leahy, CofS to CinC, 25 May 43, and Leahy to Hull, 3 Jun 43, with related papers in ABC 420.3295 (8 Jun 43). (3) Msg, CM-OUT 6075-76, AGWAR to CG's, NATO and ETO, 12 Jun 43. (4) Egypt was declared eligible for lend-lease on 11 November 1941, Iran on 10 March 1942, Iraq on 1May 1942, Ethiopia on 7 December 1942, and Saudi Arabia on 18 February 1943.
43
the views of the military commanders involved and inform United Kingdom
representatives. On the specific case in hand, it was agreed that each nation should furnish half of a small quantity of arms for Saudi Arabia.44
44 ( 1 ) M i n 1329, 65th mtg, MAC(G), 10 Dec 42; min 1961, 93d mtg, 13 May 43; mins 2095, 2100, 2105,
LEND-LEASE AND THE COMMON POOL Meanwhile, at the MAB meeting on 7 July Admiral Joseph M. Reeves, the U.S. Navy member, had launched an attack on the British right to retransfer, questioning their action in giving four lend-lease LST's and six coastal transports to the Greek Government. Reeves cited the pertinent section of the LendLease Act requiring explicit authority from the President, and argued that if these vessels were to be given to Greece at all they should be given directly by the United States. Harry Hopkins, chairman of the MAB, then appointed a special subcommittee composed of Generals Somervell and Macready to study the question. The subcommittee had reached agreement before the end of the month but it was November 1943
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lend-lease articles without the consent of the secretary concerned. The Secretaries of War and the Navy, themselves, then granted the United Kingdom a new blanket consent permitting emergency retransfers within theaters of operations and allocations of lend-lease materiel among parts or units of the British Commonwealth and Empire and forces of other nations serving directly under the British Chiefs of Staff, but with the proviso that the Washington MAB must give its approval in all cases where any assignment earmarked for a particular dominion, colony, area, or theater should be varied by the London board. Moreover, all retransfers made before a final paper (MBW 67/8) under this blanket consent were to be codifying the new system of retransfers reported at agreed intervals to the Washcould be agreed upon by the entire MAB. ington board. In cases requiring specific The new system worked essentially consent from one of the secretaries, the as follows. The head of the Foreign initial assignment was to be canceled Economic Administration, Leo Crowley, and the material reassigned by the Washrevoked the blanket consent to retrans- ington MAB to the second foreign govfer munitions granted to the United ernment.45 Kingdom and delegated the power to Taken together, MBW 69/1 and consent to retransfers to the secretaries MBW 67/8 just about demolished the of the U.S. Army and Navy. MBW 67/8 British protg system. The British established as a fundamental policy the were left with the right to act as sponsors
98th mtg, 17 Jun 43. (2) Min 2C, 73d mtg MAB, 30 Jun 43; min 4, 81st mtg, 1 Sep 43; min 6, 83d mtg, 15 Sep 43. (3) Memo, Gen Somervell for Gen Burns, MAB, 5 Jul 43, sub: Munitions Assignments Procedure, Hq ASF file MAB. (4) Memo, Wing Comdr T. E. H. Birley for Gen Burns, 19 Jul 43, sub: Munitions Bidding and Assignments Procedure; Memo, Gen Clay for Gen Wright, same sub, 21 Jul 43. Both in ID 008 Lend-Lease, V. (5) Ltr, Hull to Stimson, 24 Jul 43; Msg A756, Winant to Hull, 3 Aug 43; Msg, Gen Crain, LMAB, to Gen Burns for Gen Wright, 25 Oct 43; Memo, Gen Crain for Maj Ogden, 14 Nov 43. All in ID, Lend-Lease, Doc Suppl, V and VI. (6) MBW 69/1, 13 Sep 43, title: Munitions Bidding and Assignments Procedure. (7) Numerous papers in Dir Materiel, ASF, file Middle East. 45 (1) MBW 67/8, 18 Nov 43, title: Retransfer of Munitions. For the entire MBW 67 series, see ID file MBW 67. (2) Min 1b, 74th mtg, MAB, 7 Jul 43; min 6, 76th mtg, 21 Jul 43; min 4, 77th mtg, 28 Jul 43; min 2b, 78th mtg, 4 Aug 43; min 4, 87th mtg, 13 Oct 43; min 4, 88th mtg, 20 Oct 43; min 4, 89th mtg, 27 Oct 43; min 4, 91st mtg, 10 Nov 43; min 6, 92d mtg, 17 Nov 43. (3) Ltr, Gen Macready to Gen Somervell, 15 Jul 43, Hq ASF file British. (4) Ltr, Leo Crowley, FEA, to Rt Hon Ben Smith, British Resident Minister of Supply, 13 May 44, ID LendLease, Doc Suppl, VII. See also related materials in ID, Lend-Lease, Doc Suppl, V-VII. (5) In MBW 67/10, 14 March 1944, the British established similar conditions on U.S. retransfers of British munitions furnished under reciprocal aid.
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GLOBAL LOGISTICS AND STRATEGY: 1943-1945 charge that the British had millions of tires stocked in the Tura Caves near Cairo, "more than the entire holdings in the hands of U.S. manufacturers, wholesalers, distributors, retailers, department stores, gas stations, etc. at the 46 time of Pearl Harbor." Most of these reports that the British were playing fast and loose with American materials in order to enhance their own prestige in the Middle East proved somewhat exaggerated. General Macready found the charge about the tires "so palpably absurd" its author "must have received his information from a source ... deliberately malicious"; the total stock of tires in the whole of the Middle East and North Africa, he said, was approximately one-sixth the quantity alleged to be in the Tura Caves.47 The International Division, ASF, reviewing the cases of British abuse of lendlease reported by USAFIME, thought they only showed that the British had interpreted their right to retransfer and divert more liberally than intended and that a "new set of ground rules" was needed.48 There was, nonetheless, sufficient substance to charges that the British were
46 (1) Memo, Lt Col John B. Breckinridge, Actg Chief, Economics Div, USAFIME, for CG USAFIME, 25 Feb 44, sub: Rpt No. 44. . . , G-4 400.3295. (2) Memo, Lt Loftus E. Becker for Dir ID ASF, 25 Jan 44, sub: Booklet for Gen Somervell, ID 008 LendLease, XII. (3) Memo, Col Boone for Dir Materiel, 4 Sep 43, sub: Disposal of Battle Scrap, Salvage and Surplus Lend-Lease Supplies and Facilities in Middle East, Dir Materiel, ASF, file Middle East. 47 Ltr, Gen Macready to Gen Clay, 14 Mar 44, G-4 400.3295. 48(1) Memo, Col Olmstead for Gen Wright, 23 Jan 44, sub: Your Memo of 14 Jan. . . . (2) Memo, Wright for Olmstead, Maj Harmon, Maj Palmer, Capt Overby, 14 Jan 44. Both with related material in ID 008 Lend-Lease, XII. (3) Memos, Gen Somervell for Gen Clay, 16 Mar 44; Clay for Somervell, 19 Mar 44, in Dir Materiel ASF, file Middle East.
before the Washington board only for the military forces of the Commonwealth, the Empire, and associated nations directly under British command, and for Turkey. Even then the clear recognition of the right of the Washington board to earmark assignments and the necessity for detailed reports of retransfers further restricted the powers of the LMAB. After mid-1943 this practice of earmarking became more common and the Joint Military Allocations Committee, acting under the powers delegated to the Secretaries of War and Navy, rigorously scrutinized all proposed retransfers falling outside the blanket consent. Meanwhile, diversions of military lendlease to civilian end-use in the Middle
East were receiving much critical attention. The problem of diversions, though
they in fact frequently involved retransfers, was normally treated as a separate issue. The U.S. Army Forces in the Middle East (USAFIME) reported such things as gifts of jeeps to King Ibn Saud of Saudi Arabia and King Farouk of Egypt, and the use of lendlease trucks for Syrian harvests, to fight
locusts in Arabia, and for commercial
purposes by the United Kingdom Commercial Corporation. In September 1943 the theater called particular attention to the fact that the British were setting up a committee with no American representation, for the disposition of scrap, salvage, and surplus military goods, much of it of lend-lease origin. There were also allegations that the British were hoarding military supplies in the Middle East while still requisitioning them under lend-lease for use elsewhere. A report from G-4, USAFIME, on 25 February 1944 contained the astounding
LEND-LEASE AND THE COMMON POOL using lend-lease "surpluses" in the Middle East for other than military purposes under existing "ground rules" to lead the Americans to hasten to prepare the new set. FEA representatives in the Middle East were just as critical of British practices as were those of the Army. On 21 January 1944 General Somervell informed General Macready that it was War Department policy that military lend-lease items assigned the United Kingdom should not be diverted to civilian end-use without the consent of the United States; on 3 March Macready gave assurances that this principle would be observed and that instructions would be sent to all theater commanders to that effect. Meanwhile, early in 1944, FEA representatives in the Middle East, James M. Landis and Livingston Short, secured formation of a Joint Transfer Committee in Cairo with British and American civilian and military representation to consider all cases of disposal of surplus. It was agreed that transfers of military lend-lease materials to civilian end-use should be made only after approval of USAFIME or FEA representatives in the theater or, in some cases, reference back to the MAB in Washington to determine whether military need for the articles existed elsewhere. Materials so referred to Washington were then considered in MAC(G), which, if it approved the diversion to civilian use, reassigned the material to FEA for distribution through American 49 channels.
49
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James Landis of FEA wanted to go further and urged that the restriction on British disposal of military material should be extended to goods similar to those of lend-lease origin produced in the United Kingdom itself. Landis argued that any release of surplus in the Middle East was possible only because of lend-lease production and its natural origin was therefore only a matter of happenstance. The American representatives on the MAB soon took over this "similar goods" doctrine and attempted to use it to block a British assignment of 5,000 .303-caliber rifles to Saudi Arabia on the grounds that the British were still receiving large quantities of .303 rifles from American production. Moreover, Admiral Reeves made the specific proposal that the MAB accept the principle that the United Kingdom could not dispose of any equipment either of lend-lease origin or of similar goods "except upon terms accept50 able to the United States." The British protested vigorously, describing the similar goods doctrine as a "fantastic" extension of the principle of their White Paper of 1941. A compromise settlement was reached permitting them to proceed with the assignment to Saudi Arabia, but in the aftermath the Secretaries of War and the Navy urged the Secretary of State to affirm the similar goods doctrine at the diplomatic level. The State Department note to the British Ambassador, dispatched on 20 June 1944, did not go quite so far as the service departments
50 (1) Memo, Col Boone for Gen Clay, 29 Feb 44, sub: Informal Mtg of JMAC, ID file MBW Mins, Book VI. (2) Memo, Landis for Lauchlin Currie, 31 Dec 43, ID, Lend-Lease, Doc Suppl, VI. (3) ID, LendLease, Text, I, 284-89, gives a complete history of the Saudi Arabian case.
(1) Ltr, Gen Somervell to Gen Macready, 21 Jan 44. (2) Ltr, Macready to Somervell, 3 Mar 44. Both in ID, Lend-Lease, Doc Suppl, VI. (3) Ltr, Somervell to Macready, 2 Feb 44, Dir Materiel ASF, file LendLease 1942-44.
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asked, but stressed, rather, the necessity for mutual agreement on retransfers and diversions through the Munitions Assignments Boards.51
The President himself saw and concurred in the note and as a corollary asked that U.S. representation on the LMAB be strengthened. An AAF member was thereupon added to the board. At the same time, the JCS asked that the LMAB modify its previous practice of assigning many noncritical items by administrative action and take formal action on all items of British production and captured enemy equipment that U.S. forces might have an interest in or that were proposed for transfer to armed forces other than those of the British Empire. Moreover, the JCS asked for cumulative monthly reports showing
allocation by theater of all complete items of military equipment received under lend-lease.52 The British accepted these changes and with them the necessity for consultation through the Munitions Assignments Boards on assignments to third countries, but held out to the end against acceptance of the similar goods doctrine. The exchange of notes on the matter ended in September 1944 with a mild State Department reminder that
the decisions as to whether certain defense supplies are transferred to Great Britain is
51 (1) Ltr, Hull to Stimson, 20 Jun 44, with inclosed note, Hull to Lord Halifax, 20 Jun 44, ID, Lend-Lease, Doc Suppl, VII. (2) Ltr, Gen Macready to Gen Somervell, 19 Feb 44; ltr, Secys War and Navy to Secy State, 22 Mar 44. ID, Lend-Lease, Doc Suppl, VI. (3) Min 4, 106th mtg MAB, 1 Mar 44. (4) Min 3209, 136th mtg MAC(G), 30 Mar 44. 52 (1) Ltr, President to Secy War, 23 Jun 44. (2) Ltr, Robert Patterson to President, 29 Jun 44. Both in ID, Lend-Lease, Doc Suppl, VII. (3) JCS 844/1, 15 May 44, title: Assignment of War Materials from British Production.
The Americans had clearly gained a point in that they were now assured a voice in disposition of all "similar goods" through consideration of them in the LMAB, even though the British would not accept their contention that such transfers would have to be approved in Washington. The British War Office, in issuing instructions to its theater commanders, told them that, although the British Government could not agree to the American contention, nevertheless "circumspection is ... necessary in handling such transfers so as to avoid embarrassment with the American Ad54 ministration." The net effect of the American effort to restrict British freedom in disposing of military lend-lease materials was to curb, but not entirely to prevent, their use for civilian purposes in the Middle East. Procedures established were at best cumbersome and not well understood at any level. The British were not inclined to accept so strict a definition of diversion as the Americans held. They were accustomed to use military supplies in support of local economies in order to secure more indigenous support for their armies and considered that it constituted military end-use in the broader sense. Thus they found
(1) Ltr, Secy State to Secy War, inclosing note for dispatch to British Ambassador, 14 Sep 44. (2) Note, Sir Ronald Campbell, British Embassy, to Secy State, 22 Jul 44. Both in ID, Lend-Lease, Doc Suppl, VII.
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53
Major Overseas Comds, 16 Jul 44, ID, Lend-Lease, Doc Suppl, VII.
LEND-LEASE AND THE COMMON POOL ways of using military materials for what the Americans defined as civilian purposes while keeping them under Army control. As late as July 1944 USAFIME could still complain that despite American restrictions "a provisioning program for Middle East requirements is going forward on a military priority basis, which, of course, places the Middle East civilian needs on a higher priority level than civilian needs in the United States and elsewhere."55 The amount of controversy over retransfers, diversions, and lend-lease to independent nations led these questions to assume proportions far beyond their real importance in the scale of global war. The net amount of munitions furnished to nations in the Middle East by either Britain or the United States was small. Their priority was low and assignments were made only when it could be shown that the munitions assigned were not needed for active prosecution of the war. The largest American allocations were made to Iran for an 87,000-man army sponsored by the U.S. Military Mission there, and smaller ones were made to Saudi Arabia and Ethiopia. Egypt and Iraq were in effect left as British responsibilities and American assignments in each case were infinitesimal. The considerable assignments that had been made to Turkey following the TRIDENT Conference (all to go through British channels) were severely cut back after August 1943 and much of the material was repossessed
55 (1) Rpt No. 52 of Office ACofS G-5, USAFIME, 17 Jul 44, ID, Lend-Lease, Doc Suppl, VII. (2) On the effort to evolve an "Interpretative Memo" on the policies for retransfers, diversions, and related matters extending from September 1944 to May 1945 see ID 008, Lend-Lease, X and XL
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as the prospects of inducing Turkey to enter the war faded. In August 1944 at the request of the Supreme Allied Commander, Mediterranean (SACMED) the flow of American supplies to Turkey was resumed but never again assumed 56 large proportions. The principal effect of the American policy on retransfers, diversions, and lend-lease to independent nations was to pose restraints on the British in developing their base in the Middle East either for operations in the eastern Mediterranean or in India or for postwar purposes. The restraints thus imposed were reinforced by critical screening of military requirements for British forces in the Middle East by USAFIME and the War Department, and of civilian requirements by FEA. No formal system of screening in the theater was adopted for the Middle East as it was for India and southeast Asia, but a good deal of informal screening was authorized. Likewise, no formal inventory of all British stock in the Middle East was undertaken, as Somervell had once asked, but inventories of specific items such as tires did prove that British stocks were excessive (if not as large as once charged) and assignments were accordingly cut back or canceled.57 Beyond a local effect in the Middle East, the net result was to restrict the liberty of the LMAB in allocating materials on a broader front, and to enhance the powers of the JMAC acting for the War and Navy Departments in making assignments of American materiel. None
56 (1) ID, Lend-Lease, Text, II, 1310-15, 1317-27, 1344-48 contains a complete summary of assignments to these countries. (2) Memo, Gen Handy for Gen Somervell, 22 Jun 43, sub: Gen Ridley's Mission to Iran, Dir Materiel ASF, file Middle East. 57 Min 5, 38th mtg JMAC, 6 Dec 44.
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of these restraints could be considered unreasonable ones. The British retained considerable freedom in making allocations to the Empire, Commonwealth, and associated forces actively engaged in the war. The way the LMAB operated had never been fully in keeping with the principles of the common pool, which the British insisted on so vociferously in Washington. And the U.S. insistence on broadening the scope of the LMAB and requiring reports of its actions brought British allocations more definitely under the jurisdiction of the CCS than they formerly had been. In net effect the new restrictive doctrines on British disposal of U.S. munitions served to emphasize the fact that Britain could not count on American lend-lease aid for anything beyond the immediate effort to win the war.
Burma, and to keep to a bare minimum supplies furnished for support of the Indian economy and development of the Indian base for broader purposes. The establishment in August 1943 of the Southeast Asia Command under Lord Louis Mountbatten, separate from the British Indian Command and responsible for the conduct of combined operations under the CCS, made such a policy reasonably feasible. All together the British maintained in India forces totaling upward of 2,000,000 men under arms, but only 200,000 were assigned for operations in SEAC; the rest consisted of static defense forces chiefly concerned with maintaining internal security. Using this division of forces between static and operational as a rough rule of thumb to determine which requirements for India were actually justified in terms of strategic need, the American staff adopted the general principle that only Problems and Procedures in India SEAC forces should be eligible for miliand Southeast Asia tary lend-lease. The British and the GovIn contrast to the Middle East, an ernment of India would, for the most inactive theater where the major prob- part, have to support the static defense lems arose out of the disposition of sur- forces and develop the Indian base. plus and confusion of civilian and mili- SEAC's requirements on the United tary requirements, India and southeast States for operational equipment were Asia were the main areas of active Brit- considerable, nevertheless, since many of ish operations in the war against Japan. the special types of supplies needed for The Americans had, since 1942, harbored warfare in the jungle were not produced a healthy skepticism about British re- in Britain at all. In the wake of quirements for forces in Indiathe large QUADRANT, preparations for the camquantities of material requested seemed paign in Burma reached their high hardly in keeping with the scale of the point, and SEAC's operational requireBritish effort in 1942 and 1943. In view ments for this campaign were given a of the basic conflict of aims in that relatively high priority and special efarea,58 the Americans sought to restrict forts made to meet them. Especially lend-lease aid to projects specifically de- significant was the effort devoted by the signed to support operations approved ASF to meeting Brigadier Orde Winby the CCS, that is, the campaign in gate's highly specialized requirements for his long-range penetration groups. See above, ch. XXI.
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for operations in SEAC came under increasingly critical scrutiny.61 In January 1944 the British suggested a procedure for handling India and SEAC requirements by which they would be, for the most part, merged
with those of U.S. and Chinese forces in the CBI and processed as combined requirements. General Somervell would have no part of the system, insisting that supply for the British should go through British channels, that supply for Americans and Chinese should go through American channels, and that requirements for India and SEAC must be segregated. The whole matter was referred to the CCS, who in July 1944 approved a procedure basically in keeping with Somervell's ideas. In this procedure, a
basic distinction was made between organizational and maintenance equipment for troops and "theater stores," the British term for special projects in support of operations. Requirements for unit equipment and maintenance for U.S. and Chinese forces would be processed through normal SOS CBI channels as before. Similarly, unit requirements for British forces would be processed through British channels, with the authorities in London determining what proportion would have to be met under lend-lease. In the case of theater stores the Principal Administrative Officer, SEAC, meeting with representatives of GHQ, India, and U.S. theater headquarters should decide whether each individual project should be British, American, or combined. If American, the requirement would be passed directly to Washington through normal U.S. channels; if British or combined, it was to be processed in the same manner as
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British requirements for organizational equipment. Requirements for SEAC were to be carefully segregated from those for India, and the availability of resources in India carefully investigated before requisitions were placed on out62 side sources. In August 1944, General Sultan, IndiaBurma Theater commander, suggested another step, proposing that his headquarters screen all British and combined requirements for American lend-lease. On 30 August Somervell notified Macready of the American intent to institute this screening. Macready agreed, though reluctantly, to its application to operational projects in India designed to support SEAC operations but protested strenuously that screening of British requirements for unit equipment went far beyond the intent of the CCS and violated the long established custom whereby each country determined what organizational equipment and maintenance were needed by its own forces. Moreover, Macready said, it would be impossible for commanders in India, British or American, to say what part of total requirements must be met under lendlease. Only the British Government in the light of its knowledge of Empire resources could determine this. Somervell admitted there would be difficulties involved, but he was adamant in his insistence that the War Department must have the privilege of consulting its theater commander on any foreign requirements arising in his theater, and
(1) CCS 583/1, 15 Jul 44, title: Development of a Procedure for Submission of Reqmts and Establishment of Shpg Priorities for CBIT. (2) Memo, Gen Macready for Gen Somervell, 24 Jan 44, sub: Administrative Instructions to SAC, SEAC. (3) Ltrs, Somervell to Macready, 29 Jan and 3 Mar 44. All in ID, Lend-Lease, Doc Suppl, VI.
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tainly arose in part because the American theater command felt that the British were being supplied on too lavish a scale for what they were accomplishing. But there was also a broader purpose behind it, which fitted with the general American feeling that the British should supply their own forces for the war with Japan to the utmost extent possible and that any advances along the line of the Netherlands Indies and Malaya should be made only through the use of British, not American, resources. Quite apart from screening, the MAB in late 1944 began to take a dim view of the equipment requirements of SEAC where they were in competition with the Southwest Pacific for critical items. When the British joined the issue by dissents from MAC (G) decisions on tractors, cranes, shovels, jungle hammocks, and jungle boots, they were able to get only token assignments approved by the MAB. In the case of tractors, the MAB in August 1944 resorted to the novel device of negative earmarking, writing into the bulk assignment to the United Kingdom a prohibition on any reallocation of these tractors to SEAC.66 Continued failure of the CCS to give any definite approval for the British plan of operations against Sumatra and Malaya led to a further curtailment of SEAC assignments during 1945.
Lend-Lease, Doc Suppl, IX. (3) Memo, Somervell for Wedemeyer, 23 May 43, sub: Memo on Shipments Required for Opns in India, file Agenda, ASF Plng Div. 66 (1) Min 3682, 155th mtg MAC(G), 17 Aug 42; min 3695, 156th mtg, 24 Aug 44; min 3888, 162d mtg, 5 Oct 44; min 3898, 163d mtg, 12 Oct 44; min 3937, 165th mtg, 2 Nov 44; min 4077, 171st mtg, 14 Dec 44; min 4807, 172d mtg, 21 Dec 44; min 4124, 173d mtg, 29 Dec 44. (2) Min 5, 139th mtg MAB, 25 Oct 44; min 2a, 140th mtg, 1 Nov 44; min 4, 146th mtg, 13 Dec 44; min 2, 148th mtg, 3 Jan 45.
CHAPTER XXVI
never forget that lend-lease was originally authorized by the Congress solely because the English and others . . . did not have sufficient American exchange to purchase materials needed by them. Lend-Lease was never intended as a device to shift a portion of their war costs to us. . . ." Rpt of Truman Committee, 5 Nov 43, Outlines of Problems of Conversion from War Production, excerpt in ID, Lend-Lease, Doc Suppl, VI.
THE END OF THE COMMON POOL would depend on both Soviet and British intentions and plans with regard to the war against Japan. And the International Division was specifically forbidden, until May 1944, to undertake negotiations with lend-lease nations in order to get a better idea of their post V-E Day needs.2 Meanwhile, the AAF proposed gradual curtailment of aircraft production as the day of the defeat of Germany approached, and got JCS approval for the policy. It would serve, as one air officer bluntly put it, to eliminate surpluses "the best method of anticipating Russian and British requests, and thus in turn limiting their potential capabilities in the Pacific."3 As a corollary, General Arnold asked the JCS on 15 March 1944 to adopt a policy stating that: Upon the defeat of Germany, Lend-Lease
military aircraft and related equipment
657 Since there seemed little point in adopting such a policy for aircraft alone, the Joint Logistics Committee was instructed to produce a broader set of principles to cover the entire field of military lend-lease. The committee's report, presented on 2 May 1944, called for a "strict policy on assignments of Lend-Lease material" to be administered by the JCS rather than the MAB: a. Assignment of Lend-Lease munitions will be based on the assumption that after the defeat of Germany, each Allied Nation will maintain its forces to the fullest extent
from its own stocks and production, and will make full use of such forces against
Japan in so far as they can be effectively employed in accordance with our agreed b. Upon the defeat of Germany, assignment of Lend-Lease munitions will be limited to those materials which are not available to the Allied Nations concerned, and
which are necessary to support that portion strategy.
of the forces of such nations as, in the opinion of the United States Joint Chiefs
of Staff, can and will be profitably employed against Japan in furtherance of our agreed strategy.
have access to adequate production facilities of their own to maintain that part of 4
2 (1) Memo, ACofS, OPD for DCofS, 16 Nov 43, sub: Assumptions to be Used in Establishing Basis for International Aid Reqmts during Period Following Defeat of Axis and Prior to Defeat of Japan, ID, Lend-Lease, Doc Suppl, VI. (2) Material in Readjustment Div, ASF, file Lend-Lease Policy Studies. (3) Memos, Gen Handy for Dir Spec Plng Div, WDGS, 11 Mar 44 and 4 Apr 44, sub as in (1), G-4 400.3295. (4) Materials in ID 008 Lend-Lease, XII. (5) Memo, Hq ASF for all BrCs, ID, and CsTechSvcs, 19 Apr 44, sub: Materiel Demobilization Plan, Period I, ID, Hq ASF, ID, Lend-Lease, Doc Suppl, VII. 3 Memo, Gen Kuter, AC of Air Staff, Plans, for Chief of Air Staff, 28 Apr 44, sub: Cutback in Airplane Production, USAAF files, 425.01-E, Production, RG 501 A-49-47. 4 JCS 771, 15 Mar 44, memo by CG AAF, title: Policy Concerning Assignments of Lend-Lease Military Munitions Following the Defeat of Germany.
c. It is contemplated that on the request of the United States Government, Allied nations will make available for return immediately after the defeat of Germany any
munitions furnished by the United States which are not required by such nations for their use against Japan in accordance
with our agreed strategy and5 which are desired by the United States. The first of these principles did provide that lend-lease should be used to promote a maximum and not a minimum participation by Allied countries in operations against Japana viewpoint
(1) JCS 771/3, 5 May 44, rpt by JLC, title: Policy Concerning Assignments of Lend-Lease Munitions Following Defeat of Germany. (2) JCS 771/1, 20 Mar 44, memos by CNO and CofS, same title.
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championed by General Somervell. Yet even Somervell, although he recognized some of the problems of rehabilitation that Britain, the USSR, and other nations would face, was reluctant to suggest that the American contribution to their military effort against Japan might be increased to ease the burden, and neither this question nor that of the support of occupation armies was even discussed in the JCS.6 When the JLC report was considered by the JCS on 9 May, decision was deferred mainly because Admiral Leahy felt the timing was wrong as it was just in advance of OVERLORD and a Soviet drive on the Eastern Front. The JCS did agree at that meeting on a memorandum to the President informing him of the proposed gradual curtailment of aircraft production and asking him to approve the "corollary principle" as a guide to future procurement planning for Period I: "That Lend-Lease munitions will be limited to materials not available to nations concerned and which can be profitably employed against Japan in accordance with agreed strategy."7 Roosevelt approved on the following day, though later events indicate that he was hardly aware of the full implications. Then on 30 May 1944 the JCS definitely
(1) JCS 771/4, 10 May 1944, title: Policy Concerning Assignments of Lend-Lease Munitions Following the Defeat of Germany, notes the President's approval without indicating whether it was written or verbal. (2) JCS 771/5, 27 May 44, memo by JLC, 6(1) The original JLC report was JCS 771/2, 15 same title. (3) Min, 165th mtg, JCS, 30 May 44. April 1944, title: Policy Concerning Assignments of (4) The subsequent JCS study on returns is JCS Lend-Lease Materials . . . Following Defeat of Ger771/6, 2 September 1944, title: Policy Concerning many. It was modified as a result of Memo, Somervell Disposition of Lend-Lease Material Following Defeat for CofS, 18 April 1944, same subject, ABC 400.3295 of Germany. No action was taken on it as a result (15 March 1944), Section IA, which Marshall preof the President's directive just prior to OCTAGON sented to JCS at the 159th meeting, 18 April 1943, prohibiting further military planning on the future and the JCS referred to the JLC for a revised report. of lend-lease. The matter was revived in 1945 and (2) JLC 86/4, 2 May 1944, title: Policy Concerning made the subject of another study, JCS 1448, 23 July Assignments of Lend-Lease Materials . . . Following 1945, title: Policy Concerning Settlement of LendDefeat of Germany, contains memorandum of JSSC Lease Obligations. But no determination was made on this matter. before the end of the war as to what U.S. policy on 7 (1) JCS 771/3, 5 May 44. (2) JCS 162d mtg, 9 returns should be; afterward it was decided few May 44, Item 3. returns should be required.
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imports from some of the Dominions and colonies, for supplies and services for British troops in those areas, and for much of the reciprocal aid furnished American forces in various parts of the Empire, in India, and in countries of the Middle East and Africa. Without the normal offset of exports to balance these payments, British sterling assets in many areas of traditional British influence were turned to liabilities. The British therefore faced a bleak outlook in the postwar world, even if they could recoup some of their losses during the last phase of the war. This, at least, they hoped to do, and their program for what they designated as Stage II called for some easement of civilian living standards, some rebuilding of capital equipment, and some expansion of exports (to two-thirds the 1938 level). These goals, the British Cabinet knew, could not be attained without continuation of American lend-lease on a generous scale if British forces were to participate in the war against Japan and fulfill their continuing commitments in the occupation of Germany and the maintenance of order in the Middle East. Neither the Prime Minister nor the Opposition had any intention of allowing either of these obligations to go by de9 fault. In their own planning for Stage II, consequently, the British presupposed that civilian lend-lease would continue on at least as generous a basis as during the two-front war, and that American military supplies would continue to be furnished in at least as large a proportion of total British requirements. Yet they, like the Americans, did their plan9 Hancock and Gowing, British War Economy, pp. 518-24.
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ning in secret and considered the truth about their own plight as information too dangerous to be communicated to anybody. There seems to have been little appreciation of the true nature of the British position at any level in Washington. Even Secretary of the Treasury Henry Morgenthau, a long-standing advocate of British aid, viewed with suspicion the gradual growth of British dollar reserves to the point where, in early 1944, they had reached over a billion dollarslarge in American eyes perhaps, but considered by the British to be but meagre insurance against the day when they would have to pay for their imports from the United States. In spring 1944, Treasury and FEA, with support from the Army, undertook to reduce those dollar balances by removing industrial equipment, machine tools, and other items having possible postwar uses from lend-lease, making the British pay for them in cash. The British were also asked to include under reciprocal aid raw materials and petroleum products that they procured from their colonies and from such independent nations as Iran and Saudi Arabia, items that the Americans had themselves formerly paid for in cash. Under the circumstances, the British could hardly refuse.10 All these straws in the wind undoubtedly disturbed the British, but they were not aware of the policy adopted by the JCS. After the President had given his approval to that policy, however, the ASF was finally given the go-ahead signal for negotiations on lend-lease re10 (1) Ibid., pp. 524-27. (2) Somervell's interest in this problem is reflected in his memorandum for Under Secy War Patterson and Asst Secy War John J. McCloy, 16 March 1944, Dir Materiel file LendLease 1942-44.
quirements to be included in the special ASP for Period I. On 18 May 1944 Somervell asked General Macready for the British figures for the first year of Period I, assuming that it would begin 1 October 1944. "The requirements so stated," he wrote, "should be for the support of British forces which would be used 11 in the war against Japan." The British promised, with evident reluctance, to try to assemble such figures, protesting all the while that there were too many uncertainties, strategic and otherwise, about Stage II to arrive at more than tentative conclusions. As for the basis on which Somervell proposed that the requirements be calculated, British spokesmen asserted they were "instructed by London to say that we are not authorized to accept such a policy," that it might "render it impossible for us to exert against Japan the full military effort of which we might be capable."12 Subsequent conferences with the British Army Staff produced no agreement and the requirements finally presented in late July 1944 were, in the words of Sir Walter Venning, "based on assessment of our entire needs during Stage II and not confined to operations in any particular theater of war." This basis, Venning insisted, had to be used if the British were to carry out cutbacks in military production requisite to making "some approach to a level of existence which could be regarded as even toler13 able in a civilized country." The final
11 Ltr, Somervell to Macready, 18 May 44, ID, Lend-Lease, Doc Suppl, VII. 12 Ltr, Macready and Venning to Somervell, 16 Jun 44, ID 400.192 ASP, Part I. 13 (1) Ltr, Venning to Somervell, 18 Jul 44, ID 400.192 ASP, X, Part I. (2) Ltr, Maj Gen D. H. Pratt, Br Army Stf, to Gen Somervell, 25 Jul 44, ID, LendLease, Doc Suppl, VII.
THE END OF THE COMMON POOL British presentation the ASF found too close to the program presented earlier on the assumption that the war with Germany would continue. "We do not anticipate any serious question as to our ability to produce the quantities requested," General Edgerton of the International Division admitted, "the question is entirely one of the validity of the requirements in the light of U.S. policy set forth in J.C.S. 771."14 The Americans refused to accept the British requirements as stated and the matter soon came to an impasse. Finally, on 21 August, General Lutes returned the British statement to Sir Walter Venning and the ASF went ahead to make its own approximate calculations of British needs for the war with Japan. There the matter rested until shortly before the President and his military advisers departed for Quebec to meet with the British in September 1944.15
The President Intervenes
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ments of the Government, and, indeed, our whole national policy. I am particularly anxious that any instructions which may have been issued, or are about to be issued regarding Lend Lease material or supplies to our allies after the collapse of Germany be cancelled and withdrawn. I intend to give instructions to all Departments relative to the Lease Lend policy of this government at an early date. . . .16
On 9 September, the day before his departure for Quebec, Roosevelt abruptly called a halt to the military planning for the future of lend-lease. He wrote General Marshall:
There has been a good deal of discussion within the several Government Departments relative to our Lend-Lease policy after the collapse of Germany. It is my wish that no Department of the Government take unilateral action in regard to any matters that concern Lease Lend, because the implications of such action are bound to affect other DepartMemo, Gen Edgerton, ID, for CG ASF, 7 Aug 44, with related papers, ID 400.192 ASP, X, Part I. 15 Ltr, Lutes to Venning, 21 Aug 44, with related papers, ID 400.192 ASP, X, Part I.
14
According to the best information the War Department could obtain, the State Department had learned of tentative orders issued by the Transportation Corps halting lend-lease shipments to Europe on V-E Day and had protested through Hopkins to the President. The President, having been apprised unofficially of the British position, had decided he 17 must take a strong hand. In any case, the JCS had to recognize that this directive rendered Roosevelt's approval of the "corollary principle" in May a dead letter, and all JCS papers on the subject were withdrawn along with all the various tentative instructions issued by the ASF.18 The sequel followed at Quebec a few days later. The British had taken their position in negotiations with the ASF during July and August in anticipation of a direct appeal from the Prime Minister to the President. At Quebec Mr. Churchill made that appeal, marshaling
Ltr, President to Gen Marshall, 9 Sep 44, ABC 400.3295 (15 Mar 44) Sec IA. 17 (1) See Memo, Gen Edgerton for Gen Clay, 12 Sep 44, sub: President's Letter of 9 Sep 44 on LendLease, Dir Materiel file Lend-Lease 1944. (2) On the informal feelers the British had sent out to the President, Hopkins, and FEA, see Hall, North American Supply, page 441. 18 (1) JCS Memo for All Holders of JCS 771 Series, 20 Sep 44, ABC 400.3295 (15 Mar 44), Sec IA. (2) Memo, Somervell for Dir Materiel, 19 Sep 44, sub: Lend-Lease Policy after the Collapse of Germany, file Lend-Lease High Policy, Readj Div ASF.
16
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all the powers of his rhetoric and baring the military formula that supplies should every secret of the British financial bal- be furnished only for the war against ance sheets. In the end he prevailed and Japan, but Morgenthau ruled it "too the President accepted the British Stage rigid to fall within the general underII program in all its essentials, initialing standing reached by the President and an agreement with the Prime Minister Mr. Churchill at Quebec." Other "reato that effect on 14 September 1944. The sonable needs," Morgenthau said, must British would continue to get "food, also be included.20 Under this dispensashipping, etc." during the war with Ja- tion, the military subcommittee propan to meet "reasonable needs"; lend- ceeded to draw up programs for air, lease munitions would continue on such naval, and ground army equipment that a basis as to permit "proportionate and were in general satisfactory to the Britequitable conversion" in the United ish. The ground army program for the States and United Kingdom; the British year following V-E Day was to total would be permitted to take steps to re- $828,256,066 in dollar value, a figure establish their export trade and the somewhere between the British presenAmericans would not impose restrictions tation in July and the separate calculaon lend-lease supplies that would jeop- tions made by the ASF. In the broader ardize British progress in this direction. field, continuance of civilian lend-lease To work out detailed plans for carrying was agreed upon, though it was to be out these agreements, a combined com- somewhat restricted by the further remittee of American and British mem- moval from lend-lease eligibility of many bers would be formed to meet in Wash- articles that entered into the British exington under the chairmanship of Hen- port tradethe price Britain had to pay ry Morgenthau.19 for an American promise to free British The Anglo-American committee held exports from the restrictions of the its meetings during October and No- White Paper of 1941.21 vember 1944. The official American Despite this concession, the British, members were Henry Morgenthau, Ed- by all outward appearances, had won ward R. Stettinius, and Leo Crowley. their point. The principle of proporThe British delegation was headed by tionate and equitable conversion had Lord John Maynard Keynes, Mr. Ben been accepted. But the agreements tenSmith, and Sir Ronald Campbell. A spe- tatively reached were not set down in cial military subcommittee was set up any binding documents to which both to consider naval, air, and ground army 20 Ltr, Morgenthau to Patterson, 20 Oct 44, ID, programs with Generals Somervell and Lend-Lease, Doc Suppl, VIII. Macready as prominent members. Ini- 21 (1) Ltr, Military Sub-Corn to Henry Morgentially, the War Department proposed thau, Chmn, British-American Com on Lend-Lease, that the basis of negotiation should be 23 Oct 44, and related papers in ID, Lend-Lease,
Record of Conversation Between the President and Prime Minister at Quebec on September 14, 1944, and Official Memo of Quebec Conversations 14 Sep 44 initialed by FDR and WSC, forwarded by Secy State to Secy War, 19 Sep 44, ABC 400.3295 (15 Mar 44), Sec IA.
19
Doc Suppl, VIII. (2) For accounts from the British side see Hancock and Gowing, British War Economy, pages 528-33, and Hall, North American Supply, pages 441-47. (3) See also Memo, C. H. B[undy] for Col Roberts, OPD, 7 Feb 45, sub: Combined Com on Mutual Lend-Lease Between U.S. and U.K. . . . , ABC 400.3295 (15 Mar 44), Sec IA.
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The ailing President, meanwhile, did not issue any further instructions to follow up his "cease and desist" order of 9 September 1944 except to authorize negotiations with the USSR on a Fifth Protocol, nor did he indicate any positive confirmation of the Stage II Agreements. The ASF, therefore, when it did turn its attention to Period I planning again in February 1945, had to assume that the Presidential injunction of the previous September remained in force. Finally, on 27 March 1945 Assistant Secretary of War Robert Patterson formally asked the President to remove his prohibition on lend-lease planning, but Roosevelt died on 12 April without having answered Patterson's letter. Five days after Roosevelt's death, the new President, Harry S. Truman, told the War Department to go ahead with its planning; but he laid down no policy, merely intimating that the agreements reached with the British and under negotiation with the Russians should serve as guides, and instructing that any problems be taken up with Judge Fred M. Vinson, Byrnes' successor as Director of the Office of War Mobilization and Reconver23 sion. American policy thus drifted without any positive direction as V-E Day approached. The military staff once again grabbed the reins and were soon urging a return to the principles enunciated by the JCS in May 1944. The crux of the question was whether the tentative agree23 (1) Memo, Robert Patterson, Actg Secy War,
for President, 27 Mar 45. (2) Ltr, Harry S. Truman to Secy War, 17 Apr 45. Both in ABC 400.3295 (15 Mar 44) Sec IA. (3) Memo, Gen Styer for Gen Somervell, 10 Mar 45, Hq ASF file Lend-Lease. (4) Voluminous material in Dir Materiel file Lend-Lease, ID 008 XI and XX, and file Lend-Lease High Policy, Readj Div ASF.
Lease Operations, pp. 56-59. (2) See above, chs. XXII and XXV.
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ments of October and November 1944 constituted official commitments. Somervell queried Morgenthau, who ruled that they did not, that they had only been accepted as "a suitable basis for this government's budgetary and produc24 tion planning." Based on this assurance, when the final surrender of Germany came on 8 May 1945, the military departments were prepared to act on the assumption that further assignments of American material to Britain would be made only for active operations against Japan; the British, on the contrary, still assumed that the Stage II Agreements would go into effect. The British were soon disillusioned by the actions of the MAB and MAC (G) in May and June 1945. Most of the material previously assigned and awaiting shipment to the United Kingdom was repossessed on 10 May. Subsequent assignments of ground equipment to the British during May and June totaled only $20 million in dollar value and were limited entirely to materials that the British could not make for themselvessuch as DUKW's, light tanks, and carbinesand that the U.S. commander in India approved as necessary for the campaign in Burma under the SEAC screening procedure. What the British considered even more serious was that assignments of almost all kinds of air matriel except special types of naval aircraft were denied mainly as a result of cutbacks in American production schedules. As of 27 June 1945, Maj. Gen. F. H. N. Davidson of the British Army
24 (1) Ltr, Morgenthau to Somervell, 27 Apr 45, ID, Lend-Lease, Doc Suppl, IX. (2) MFR, OPD S and P Gp, 27 Apr 45, sub: Lend-Lease Policies After Collapse of Germany, ABC 400.3295 (15 Mar 44), Sec IA.
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dom. It was further agreed that the requirements estimated in the meetings held in October and November 1944 should be accepted as the basis for present requirements. Such estimates, however, are always subject to change in the light of strategic demands and supply considerations. I assume, of course, that the War Department's budget requests appropriations adequate to 28 fu l fill these commitments.
The State Department drafted a reply for the President to send to Churchill generally along this line.29 In the event the draft was never used. On 19 June, Stimson informed Vinson and the Secretary of State that the War Department budget estimates for fiscal year 1946 had not, in fact, been framed in terms of materiel already in the possession or con- the Stage II Agreements, but instead trol of the British Empire be employed had been based on "policies considered to the maximum possible extent in satis- appropriate by the Joint Chiefs of Staff." faction of its requirements and that remain- If Vinson's instructions were to be caring requirements that may be referred to ried out, Stimson said, the War Departthe War Department be considered for have to ask for additional supply . . . only if such requirements (1) ment would 30 funds. appear necessary in order to carry out our The JCS policies to which Stimson agreed strategy, (2) are beyond the supply capabilities of the British Empire, and (3) referred had not in reality taken final can be 27 obtained only from United States shape, but their general tenor was alsources. ready sufficiently clear to justify the secAfter conferences with War, State, and retary's statement. On 11 May General FEA officials, Vinson replied on 13 June: Arnold asked the JCS to reaffirm the policy adopted a year earlier and withIt was agreed that the tentative principles drawn at Roosevelt's direction. In the enunciated in your letter were not broad enough to cover the understanding reached Joint Logistics Committee this recombetween the late President and Prime Min- mendation was modified, at the behest ister at Quebec. In general, it was agreed of General Somervell, to permit use of that, in accordance with those understand- military lend-lease for occupation forces ings, lend-lease should be furnished on a basis which would permit proportional and and "exceptional military programs"
equitable reconversion in the United King26 Paraphrase of cable from Prime Minister to President, 28 May 45, folder Lend-Lease, Hq ASF files. 27 Ltr, Secy War to Judge Vinson, Dir of War Mobilization and Reconversion, 15 May 45, ID Lend-Lease, Doc Suppl, IX.
28 Ltr, Vinson to Secy War, 13 Jun 45, ID, LendLease, Doc Suppl, IX. 29 Incl D to JCS Info Memo 418, 22 Jun 45, title: War Material for British Empire for Period Following V-E Day. 30 Ltrs, Secy War to Dir, OWMR and to Secy State, 19 Jun 45, ID, Lend-Lease, Doc Suppl, X.
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GLOBAL LOGISTICS AND STRATEGY: 1943-1945 the premise, on which the JCS was proceeding, that assignments to the British should be limited to material for the war with Japan that they could not provide for themselves. To this extent, it still left the way open for a limited application of the principle of equitable and proportionate conversion, and on this line the State Department again drafted the long-delayed reply to Churchill's cable of 28 May. The new draft was rather vague. It still purported to accept the Stage II Agreements but laid considerable stress on the possibility of scaling down British requirements because of of changed conditions and on the improved ability of the British to pay cash for more of the material furnished them, particularly articles which might evoke criticism in Congress if supplied under lend-lease, in the light of an improvement in their dollar reserves since November 1944. The President presented this reply to Churchill at Potsdam on 17 July 1945. The private British reaction was that their over-all financial position had never been worse but, making the best of a bad situation, they prepared to make a final fight to salvage as much as they could of the Stage II Agreements at the Potsdam Conference.33 Sometime earlier, on 2 July 1945, the British presented a paper to the CCS in an effort to get the MAB out of its stall, reiterating their understanding of the Stage II Agreements and asking that their programs, now revised, be accepted within the framework of the agreements as a guide to assignments. A few days
within the discretion of the JCS.31 Somervell now foresaw that it would be practically impossible to cut off all support rations, POL, and maintenancefor French, British, and other units in Germany that had previously been almost completely dependent upon American support. It was only a minimum of support pending placing occupation forces of Allied nations on financial arrangements other than lend-lease that he proposed, but when the matter was discussed in the JCS Admiral Leahy objected strenuously to even that minimum as being clearly illegal under the latest extension of the Lend-Lease Act. Leahy's views soon proved to be those of the President. On 5 July Truman issued a directive to the JCS that settled the issue:
Now that the war in Europe has terminated . . . and in order to follow accurately the letter and spirit of the Lend-Lease Act, the following policy is established. . . . Approval of the issue to Allied Governments of Lend-Lease munitions of war and military and naval equipment will be limited to that which is to be used in the war against Japan, and it will not be issued for any other purpose.32
Truman's positive declaration clearly ruled out lend-lease for occupation armies, but it did not specifically accept
31 (1) JCS 771/9, 29 May 45, rpt by JLC, title: Policy Concerning Assignments of Lend-Lease Munitions Following Defeat of Germany. (2) The memo by CG AAF is JCS 77 1/8, 11 May 45, same title. 32 (1) JCS 771/11, 6 Jul 45, title: Presidential Policy on Military Lend-Lease. (2) JCS 771/10, 21 Jun 45, memo by CofS, USA, title: Amendments to Policy Concerning Assignments of Munitions Following Defeat of Germany. (3) Memo, Gen Shingler 33 (1) Memo, Secy State for President, no date, ID 008 Lend-Lease, XXII. (2) Memo, President for Prime for CofS, ASF, 20 Jun 45, sub: Lend-Lease for French and British Forces in Army Occupation, Minister, submitted 17 Jul 45, ABC 400.3295 (15 Mar 45), Sec 1A. (3) On the British reaction see Hall, Dir Materiel file Lend-Lease. (4) Materiel in ABC 400.3295 (15 Mar) Sec 1A. North American Supply, p. 459.
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bined military undertaking, that occupation and rehabilitation were not matters for a combined military commitment. In response to the direct pleas of Churchill, however, on the subject of continuing lend-lease for the occupation and for equitable and proportionate conversion in the United Kingdom, President Truman promised to do the best he could for the British within the limitations imposed by Congress on his action:
... he was handicapped in his approach to this matter by the latest renewal of the Lend-Lease Act. As Vice-President he had worked out its clauses together with Senator George, who had explained to the Congress that the act was intended to be a weapon of war only. The President was now striving to give to the Act the broadest interpretation possible and he had no intention of causing the British any embarrassment in the matter of furnishing supplies to British troops or maintenance thereof. However, he must ask the Prime Minister to be patient as he wished to avoid any embarrassment with Congress over the interpretation of the Act and it might be necessary for him to ask for additional legislation in order to clear up the matter.36
34 (1) CCS 888, 2 Jul 45, Memo by BrCOS, title: Lend-Lease to U.K. (2) CCS 889, 6 Jul 45, memo by BrCOS, title: British Contribution in the Final Phase 36 (1) Min, Plenary Mtg, TERMINAL, Babelsberg, of War Against Japan. Germany, 24 Jul 45. (2) CCS 877, 14 Jun 45, memo 35 (1) JCS 771/12, 9 Jul 45, rpt by JLC and JSSC, by U.S. COS, title: Basic Objectives, Strategy, and title: Lend-Lease to U.K., British Military Commit- Policies, and other papers, in CCS 877 series 5, 21 ments in Stage II. (2) Memo, Somervell for CofS, 14 Jul 45. (2) Min, 195th mtg JCS (TERMINAL), 23 Jul Jul 45, ABC 400.3295 (15 Mar 44), Sec 1A. 45, Item 11.
Following Potsdam, Truman laid down a specific policy in detail indicating the extent to which this "broadest interpretation possible" would go. He reaffirmed that supplies should be furnished only for the war against Japan, but accepted the principle of proportionate and equitable conversion insofar as it was compatible with this dictum, thus overruling the JCS position that
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supplies should be limited to those the British could not possibly make for themselves. He ruled out supplies for armies of occupation, but he authorized them for any purposes that would further redeployment of U.S. troops, thus providing a measure of flexibility. Such other maintenance as the British or others requested for their armies in Europe and the Middle East was authorized only in return for cash payment and was to be handled through FEA. 37 The British had finally won a partial confirmation of the Stage II Agreements, although hedged about in many ways. And, since the British strategic plans (with some modifications) were approved at Potsdam, the MAB was at last in a position to proceed with assignments for British forces in the war against Japan. In the meantime, however, on the recommendation of the JCS Truman had proposed to Churchill that the time had come to end the system of assignments by combined bodies, that the MAB should be abolished and its functions turned over to the Joint Munitions Allocation Committee. The British reply, from Clement Attlee, the newly elected Prime Minister, suggested that the subcommittees at least should continue in existence to consider those few remaining cases where scarcities of specific items were still involved.38 The war against Japan moved so swiftly and unexpectedly to its end that events overtook the new policy before it could be placed into practical effect and made
JCS 771/14, 31 Jul 45, title: Presidential Policy on Military Lend-Lease. 38 (1) JCS 1397/5, 23 Jul 45, title: Review of Combined Procedures for Munitions Assignments. (2) Memo, Prime Minister to President, dated about 31 Jul 45, Incl to JLC 336/5, 13 Sep 45, same title as (1).
37
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THE BIG THREE AND THEIR ADVISERS in the palace garden during the Potsdam Conference. Seated, Prime Minister Attlee, President Truman, Premier Stalin. Standing, Admiral Leahy and Foreign Ministers Ernest Bevin, James Byrnes, and Vyacheslav M. Molotov.
and in no case were to be extended beyond six months after the formal Japanese surrender. Maintenance items might also be furnished for U.S. equipment in possession of Allied forces against payment on terms to be decided by the State Department and FEA. Maintenance, repair, training, transportation, and other services already undertaken would be continued to the nearest practicable stopping point as determined by the U.S. theater commander in the area concerned. A special exception was made of the Chinese forces sponsored by the Americans who were to continue to receive aid essential for the reoccupation of all of China then occupied by the
Japanese, though not for "fratricidal war."40 As a result of these exceptions, a small trickle of lend-lease continued to flow to the United Kingdom and other countries for some months, but to all intents and purposes the surrender of Japan signaled the end of lend-lease. In actual fact, the flow of military materials had been almost entirely cut off earlier in anticipation of the surrender. The Munitions Assignments Board held its last meeting on 8 August, though it was not formally allowed to expire until November. Its residual functions, as expected,
40 JCS 771/18, memo from President to JCS, 5 Sep 45, title as JCS 771/17.
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were turned over to the Joint Munitions Allocation Committee.41 To the British, the sudden end of lend-lease was a virtual catastrophe, coming as it did at the end of a four-month period when they had received few items from the United States that they could make for themselves. They were plummeted into the harsh realities of postwar readjustment without the cushion they had hoped American aid would provide. Their dollar reserves were totally inadequate to meet the cost of American supplies for which they had a continuing need; and there was little prospect that they could, for many years to come, build up their export trade to the point where they could pay for needed imports from either the United States or elsewhere. In the postwar period the United States was to be forced to resort to new devices to maintain a going British economy and to bolster British military strength, starting with a loan in 1946
41 (1)JCS 771/19, 14 Sep 45, title: JCS Responsibilities under Presidential Lend-Lease Policy. (2) JCS 1397/6, 6 Oct 45, title: Revision of Combined Procedure for Munitions Assignment. (3) Memos, Adm Leahy for President, 17 Oct and 2 Nov 45, ABC 400.3295 (15 Mar 44), Sec IB. (4) JCS 1397/9, 28 Oct 45, title: Abolishment of MAB, Washington.
CHAPTER XXVII
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Administration, and the Petroleum AdIn terms purely of logistics, the flow ministrator for War. General Somervell of supplies to the USSR was far smoother was the War Department representative during the later war years. By mid-1943 on the committee. Harry Hopkins was the main obstacles to a large-scale Soviet officially its chairman but because of his supply program had been overcome. ill health General York, executive of the The commitments for Soviet aid had committee, functioned in that capac- been fitted into American supply proity most of the time. The Protocol Com- grams and the growing output of Amerimittee worked principally through its can factories was making it possible to two subcommittees, one for supply and meet them without significant sacrifice the other for shipping. The Army was to the U.S. military effort. The shipping represented on the first by the Interna- situation was vastly improved. Most imtional Division, ASF, and on the second portant of all, there was now adequate by the Transportation Corps. In addi- capacity on the routes of delivery. Inabiltion, in formulating policy on Soviet ity to maintain convoys over the northsupply, the Protocol Committee nor- ern route in the face of heavy losses, mally consulted the Joint Chiefs of inadequate facilities in the Persian Gulf, Staff. All these arrangements insured and insufficient Soviet flag shipping in that military interests would have prop- the Pacific had all combined to frustrate er consideration in the administration every effort to meet commitments under of the protocols, but the basic protocol the First and Second Protocols. But by agreements transcended military author- mid-1943 a capacity of well over 200,000 ity. The guidelines for military policy short tons monthly was in sight in the on supplying the USSR emanated from Persian Gulf, and the transfer of vessels the President himself. to the Soviet flag in the Pacific had Supply to the USSR continued to be created a fleet capable of transporting a collaborative effort with the British, an even greater tonnage to Vladivostok. but the British contribution declined There was no further need to accept in relative importance as U.S. aid in- prohibitive losses on the northern route, creased in volume. Canada also associ- although there remained a good chance ated itself with the United States and that it, too, could be used whenever the Great Britain in the Third and Fourth British could spare naval convoys from Protocols. They were thus four-cornered other operations.2 political agreements, but each country offered its own schedule of supplies sepFormulation of the Third arately and the U.S. schedule overshadProtocol owed the others. Collaboration centered mainly in framing the conditions under The outlook was hardly so optimistic which supplies would be granted, in when consideration of the Third Protopreventing duplication among the vari- col first began. In January 1943 deliverous schedules, and in arranging convoys over the northern route and through On shipping experience during the First and the Mediterranean (for both of which Second Protocol periods see Leighton and Coakley, the British were responsible). Global Logistics, 1940-43, pages 551-97.
2
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ies on the Second Protocol were more promised under the Second. The WSA than a million short tons in arrears. The program left the northern route entirely President, in ordering an intensive effort out of consideration and even assumed to overcome this deficit, also asked for that the bulk of British supplies (appreparation of offerings for a Third Pro- proximately 50,000 tons monthly) would tocol on the assumption that "Russian move through the Persian Corridor. continuance in the war is of cardinal The Second Protocol deficit, now loomimportance and therefore it must be a ing larger than it had at Casablanca, 5 basic factor in our strategy to provide was to be quietly forgotten. Meanwhile, the departments and her with a maximum amount of supplies 3 that can be delivered to her ports." agencies reviewing Soviet requests came At Casablanca, the CCS endorsed this up with a total offering of 7,080,000 concept and approved a shipping sched- short tons of supplies, exclusive of vesule that envisaged bringing Soviet aid sels and fly-away planes, but including shipments up to protocol commitments materials expected to be delivered but by the end of 1943, assuming that the unshipped at the end of the Second commitments under the Third Protocol Protocol period. When a small commitwould be the same as those for the Sec- ment of the Canadian government was 4 added, the total came to one-and-oneond (4,400,000 short tons) . half times the tonnage of the WSA shipThe Casablanca schedule for the first six months of 1943 proved impossible ping program. The Protocol Committee of fulfillment. In March shipments over decided to offer the USSR the whole the northern route had to be suspended amount and ask that they select from to permit preparations for the Sicily the list 4,500,000 short tons to fit the 6 invasion. Capacity in the Persian Gulf maximum shipping available. The Soviet Government, unimpressed increased much more slowly than anticipated. With these difficulties coming on by the generosity of the American offer, top of previous embarrassments in ful- insisted that the Soviet war effort refilling protocol schedules, the Americans quired the import of much more than sought to confine the commitment under 4.5 million tons of supplies. The United the Third Protocol to realizable propor- States could, Soviet representatives said, tions. In March and April 1943 WSA by exerting itself, deliver at least 6 milformulated a shipping program provid- lion tons1.4 over the northern route ing for movement of 150,000 short tons during the fall and winter months, 2.6 monthly through the Persian Gulf and 225,000 monthly over the Pacific route, (1) Ibid ., pp. 589-92. (2) Memo, Adm Land and or a total of 4,500,000 short tons during Lewis Douglas for Harry Hopkins, 30 Mar 43. (3) the Third Protocol year, approximately Memo, W. S. McPherson for Douglas, 13 Apr 43. the same volume of supplies originally (4) Memo, Douglas for Hopkins, 15 Apr 43. Last
5
Memo, President for Secy War, 6 Jan 43, ID 031.1, II. 4 See Leighton and Coakley, Global Logistics, 1940-43. pp. 587-89.
three in folder Russian Shpg 1/1/43, WSA Douglas File. 6 (1) Memo, Gen Burns for Secy War, 26 Mar 43, ID 031.1, III, Part I. (2) Memo, Brig Gen Sidney P. Spalding, PSPC, for Secy JCS, 9 Apr 43, sub: Status of Proposed Third Soviet Protocol, ABC 400.3295 (19 Apr 42), Sec 1.
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GLOBAL LOGISTICS AND STRATEGY: 1943-1945 making a total of 5,600,000 short tons. The USSR accepted this compromise. On 1 September 1943 Soviet representatives notified the State Department that they would take the military and industrial equipment offered at full rates and made specific deductions in their requirements for foodstuffs, metals, petroleum products, and chemicals. The logic behind this move is obvious. Advance planning was necessary for procurement of military and industrial equipment while there was always a possibility of drawing from existing stockpiles of foodstuffs, petroleum, and raw materials if shipping could be found to move them. On 19 October 1943 the Third Protocol was formally signed in London. Long before that date, on 1 July 1943, it had gone into effect as the practical program under which the United States, Great Britain, and Canada were continuing to send supplies to the USSR.7 The military requirements of the USSR under the Third Protocol clearly reflected the change in the Soviet position. They emphasized aircraft, specialized types of transportation and communication equipment, clothing, medical supplies, and bulk explosives, rather
than the tanks, artillery, and ammuni-
instead of 1.8 by the Persian Corridor, but only 2 million via the Pacific where turnaround time would inevitably be greater than the 75 days WSA had assumed in its calculations. The Soviet maneuver was obviously aimed at securing an additional commitment for reopening the preferred northern route. The Americans agreed to go only part of the way. In view of the vast improvement in the shipping situation since the WSA calculations in March, the President's Soviet Protocol Committee, after consultation with the JCS, agreed to increase the total commitment for the Atlantic routes from 150,000 to 200,000 tons monthly, to be shipped either over the northern route or by way of the Persian Gulf "whichever in the light of changing conditions proves from time to time to be more efficient." The committee, while agreeing that the turnaround time in the Pacific should be 90 rather than 75 days, insisted that the Pacific route was capable of handling 225,000 tons monthly since it was currently operating at that level. A provision that the Soviet flag ships in the Pacific should be transferred to the Atlantic in case of Japanese interference with that route was also included in the
final draft of the protocol.
tion emphasized earlier. This shift, already foreshadowed by cancellations under the Second Protocol, was to become
Protocol period, 2,700,000 by the Pacific route and 2,400,000 by the Atlantic, with a provision that, if conditions permitted, the United States, Great Britain, and Canada would "gladly review the schedules from time to time for the purpose of increasing the quantities to be provided and delivered." Soviet representatives were also to be permitted to include a 500,000-ton stockpile in their selections,
7(1) Quotes are from text of Third Protocol in Dept of State Pub. No. 2759, Soviet Supply Protocols. (2) Memo, Gen Burns for Gen Clay, 10 Jul 43, sub: Proposals of Soviet Government in Regard to 3d
Protocol, ID 031.1, V. (3) Ltr, Gen Spalding, Asst ExO, PSPC, to Secy War, 14 Jun 43, ID 031.1, IV. (4) JCS 322/1, 17 Jul 43, title: Third Soviet Protocol. (5) Memo of Embassy of USSR, Washington, in answer to U.S. Remarks on Protocol, 1 Sep 43, ID, Lend-Lease, Doc Suppl, V.
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et request for teletype apparatus was initially turned down.8 By agreement with the British and Canadians, certain conditions were placed on the aid pledged in the Third Protocol, though in order to meet Soviet objections the USSR was assured that they would not be invoked unless absolutely necessary. The shipping promised was to be subject to reduction "if shipping losses, lack of escorts, deficiencies in the anticipated capacity of available routes, the necessities of other operations, or the exigencies of the situation render their fulfillment impracticable," and the lists of supplies were to be subject to readjustment "to meet unforeseen developments in the war situation."9 Military efforts to secure some small quid pro quo from the USSR were less successful. The War Department desired a pledge from the Soviet Union that it would extend American observers the same facilities for visits and information in the USSR that were accorded Soviet representatives in the United States, and the British Chiefs of Staff wanted a pledge of Russian assistance in defending the northern convoy route. The Protocol Committee ruled against inclusion of either of these conditions, remarking that:
In the experience of those engaged in the execution of previous Protocols, the Soviets are very difficult to deal with on a bargaining basis, but respond most satisfactorily in performing their share of an
(1) Third Soviet Protocol. (2) Ltr, Patterson to Hopkins, 17 Apr 43. (3) Memo, Gen Arnold for Gen Somervell, 20 Apr 43, sub: 3d Extension, USSR Agreement. (2) and (3) in ID 031.1, III, Parts I and II. (4) Msg, Roosevelt to Stalin, 16 Jun 43, in MS Index to Hopkins Papers, Book VII, Lend-Lease Aid to Russia 1942-43, Item 65. 9 (1) Third Soviet Protocol. (2) JCS 322/1, 17 Jul 43, title: Third Soviet Protocol.
8
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GLOBAL LOGISTICS AND STRATEGY: 1943-1945 be replaced; most returned to the west coast in need of extensive repairs. Despite these difficulties the Russians were completely unresponsive to WSA suggestions that some of the Soviet flag shipping be transferred temporarily to the Alaska and Hawaii run, an attitude that discouraged any further transfers of American shipping to the Soviet Pacific fleet. In the face of declining Pacific shipments and continuing danger of Japanese interruption of that route, further augmentation of the capacity of the Persian Gulf was seriously considered. In September 1943 General Connolly offered alternate plans for an increase from 216,000 long tons (242,000 short tons) monthly to 244,000 and 260,000 long tons respectively. The first goal, he said, could be achieved with a small personnel increment, simply by putting 450 more railroad cars on the TransIranian Railway and setting up two new mobile truck assembly plants. The second goal would be more difficult, requiring additional major port construction and a considerable augmentation of the motor transport service. The Protocol Committee decided that the additional rail and truck assembly equipment should be sent to provide a standby capacity for 244,000 long tons, but that no additional personnel should go and no commitment should be accepted for the increase.11
11 (1) Memo, Hq PGSC, 14 Sep 43, sub: Rpt on
Movement of 260,000 LT Russian Cargo thru Persian Gulf with Alternative Plan for Movement of 240,ooo Tons. (2) Min, Protocol Subcom on Shpg, 5 Oct 43. (3) Rpt of Subcom on Shpg, attached to Agenda
understanding when a generous offer is made, and which does not force the Soviets 10 into a bargaining position.
In the face of this attitude the JCS and CCS decided not to insist.
Program as of September 30, 1943. (5) See below, Appendix G-3. (6) Memos, Adm Land and Lewis Douglas for President, 11 Oct, 10 Nov, 10 Dec 43,
677
LIBERTY SHIP WITH SUPPLIES FOR THE USSR at the port of Khorramshar, Iran.
Negotiations were already under way for reopening the northern route, and this undoubtedly influenced the decision of the committee. In September 1943 the Soviet Union began to press urgently for resumption of the northern convoys, which had been suspended since March. Soviet spokesmen insisted that the northern route was the only one over which supplies destined for use on the northern front could be delivered in time to serve their intended purposes. Moreover, much of the Third Protocol cargo con11 Jan, and 10 Feb 44, folder RussiaRpts to President, WSA Douglas File. (7) Msgs NA 5409, Douglas
to Harriman, 11 Oct 43; SD 2984, Douglas to Harriman, 17 Oct 43; 1857, Moscow to Secy State, Harriman for Douglas, 6 Nov 43; all in folder Rus Shpg
sisted of heavy and bulky equipment such as locomotives, power and construction equipment, and industrial machineryarticles that for the most part, because of their bulk and ultimate destination in the USSR, could not be handled in the Persian Gulf. In the Pacific there were insufficient ships equipped to handle locomotives; transport of other types of heavy equipment across the Trans-Siberian Railway was difficult. 12 Resumption of the northern convoys depended on the ability of the British to furnish naval escort. Churchill was willing to run convoys from November
12 (1) Ibid. (1). (2) JCS 517, 2 Oct 43, and JCS 517/1, 14 Oct 43, titles: Convoys to North Russia.
678
1943 through February 1944 at an average rate of 35 ships per month, but would make no contract or bargain on the point and sought as a quid pro quo a Soviet promise to relax restrictions on the numbers and movement of British personnel in the USSR. Stalin insisted on a binding commitment without conditions. After an acrimonious exchange of messages in which neither side would give way, a modus vivendi was reached at the Foreign Ministers meeting in Moscow in late October and the convoys were reinstituted on schedule in November. Churchill made no specific pledge for their continuance, nor did Stalin make any concessions on the matter of 13 British personnel in the USSR. The scheduled convoys sailed in November, December, January, and February, and a fifth was added in March. In February and March WSA found it necessary to cut shipments to the Persian Gulf in order to provide ships for the northern route, since heavy shipments to England in preparation for OVERLORD were placing a strain on the Atlantic shipping pool. When the northern convoys were suspended in April to allow naval preparations for OVERLORD, shipments to the Persian Gulf were correspondingly increased, reaching a peak of 289,000 long tons in May. With the return of the icebound fleet, shipments once again mounted to large proportions in the Pacific in May and June. By the end of the Third Protocol period on 30 June 1944, the calculations of the capacities of both the Pacific and Persian Corridor routes had been vindicated. Total tonnage by each route was slightly in excess of the protocol commitment
13 Churchill, Closing the Ring, pp. 263-74.
The initial American supply offering, compiled in the same way as previous protocols, was 7,383,073 short tons of supplies, including a carry-over of stockpiles from the Third Protocol. The Canadian offering amounted to 491,371 short tons. The shipping commitment was initially set at 5,400,000 short tons, equally divided between the Atlantic and Pacific. Again the USSR felt that the offering was too low and pressed for a commitment of 7,000,000 short tons. Maj.
(1)See below, Appendix G-3. (2) Memos, Land and Douglas for President, 11 Oct, 10 Nov, 10 Dec, 11Jan, 10 Feb, 10 Mar 44, folder RussiaRpts to President, WSA File. (3) Min, 7th mtg PSPC, 10 May 44, ID 334 PSPC, I. 15 Memo, President for Secy War, 14 Feb 44, ID 031.1, VII.
14
679
The conditions on Soviet aid and the escape clauses were generally the same as those in the Third Protocol. War Department offerings made up approximately the same proportion with heavy types of equipment needed to rehabilitate transportation, communication, and other facilities predominating. Railway materials included 1,735 locomotives and 12,244 flatcars; truck offerings showed larger numbers of the very heavy types, including for the first time 40-ton tank transporters. Another important addition was mobile construction equipment for roads and airports. The War Department had also, during the Third Protocol period, accepted responsibility for certain types of industrial equipment (industrial lift trucks and tractors, cranes, power shovels, teletype apparatus, and the like), and considerable quantities of these items were included in the Fourth Protocol as part of a total offering of industrial equipment valued at $1,132,453,000. The main change in aircraft schedules under the Fourth Protocol was the elimination of light bombers and a corresponding increase in the number of pursuit planes (from 1,200 to 2,450,) and medium bombers (from 222 to 300). Soviet bids for heavy bombers (B-17 and B-24) and for newer, larger types of transports (C-46 and C-54) were refused. Plans called for delivery of nearly all aircraft via the Alaska-Siberian ferry route, rendering the aircraft assembly facilities in Iran of little further use.18
18 (1) Ibid. (2) and (3). (2) ID, Lend-Lease, Text, II, 1027-28. (3) On the heavy bombers see below, pp. 688-89. (4) All quantities represent those in the final version of the Fourth Protocol, but do not include Annex III. Some items were the subject of negotiation right up to the signing.
680
The Fourth Protocol was not formally signed until April 1945 because of difficulties over terms of payment for industrial materials. The State Department adopted the general formula that no Soviet requirements that would be more than 18 months in production could be financed under lend-lease, on the assumption that such materials were for postwar rehabilitation rather than for the war effort. Much of the industrial equipment fell into this category. The Fourth Protocol was signed without any final agreement on this issue. Delivery of industrial equipment was made subject to future settlement of terms of payment and, indeed, most of it was never delivered, owing mainly to Soviet intran19 sigence over the interest rate. Despite the delay in signing, the Fourth Protocol went into practical effect with the expiration of the Third on 1 July 1944, following a precedent established earlier. Shipping rates were soon exceeding the high ones of the previous year. Availability of supplies and
vigorously during the summer and fall of 1944, and the diminution in the winter of 1944-45 was less than the previous year. In this situation the Persian Corridor assumed the status of an auxiliary route except for the delivery of unassembled trucks. During the last half of 1944 shipments through Iran were well below the capacity of the Trans-Iranian Railroad, and no appreciable tonnage was moved by truck. In midyear the Army and the Protocol Committee proposed disbanding the motor transport service in the area so as to free about 8,000 service troops for duty elsewhere; but the Russians urged delaying the move to preserve a reserve capacity in case the Japanese should interfere with the Pacific route or the northern convoys again be suspended. Not until November 1944 was the move finally accomplished, concomitant with the discon20 tinuance of air assembly in Iran. By September 1944 the Russians had regained complete control of the north shores of the Black Sea, and it was apshipping, principally the latter, had now parent that great economies in both U.S. become the limiting factors on aid to military shipping and Soviet rail transthe USSR rather than capacity of the portation could be effected by shifting routes of delivery. The British proved the lines of supply from the Persian able to maintain the northern convoys Gulf. The Turks agreed to allow passage without interruption, and with incon- of the Dardanelles, and the British sequential losses, from August 1944 agreed to provide convoy escort through through the end of the war in Europe in May 1945. Shipments via Vladivostok and the Soviet Arctic ports were pushed 20(1) See below, Appendix G-3. (2) T. H. Vail
Motter, The Persian Corridor and Aid to Russia, UNITED STATES ARMY IN WORLD WAR II (Washington, 1952), pp. 270-71, 328, and app. A, 19 (1) Deane, The Strange Alliance, pp. 92-93. (2) Tables 6 and 10. (3) Msgs, M 20156, U.S. Military ID, Lend-Lease, Text, II, 1027. (3) Memo, Gen Mission, Moscow, to Protocol Com, 13 Jul 44; WAR Wright, Dir ID, for Harry Hopkins, Chmn PSPC, 60899, Marshall to Deane, 5 Jul 44; M 20115, Deane 25 Oct 43, sub: Policy on Industrial Equipment for to Marshall, 19 Jul 44; WAR 77837, Deane to Russia, ID 008 Lend-Lease. (4) Ltr, Dean Acheson, Spalding, 9 Aug 44. All in ID Cables Moscow IN Dept State, to Gen York, PSPC, 14 Mar 44, ID and OUT Jan-Nov 44. (4) Diary Entry, 12 Jul 44, 031.1, VII. Strat Log Br, Plng Div, ASF.
681
792 10-ton trucks had been delivered by V-E Day, and 3,663 rail cars were scheduled for transfer.21 Even with the Persian Corridor fading rapidly from the picture, American aid under the Fourth Protocol had already surpassed the original 5.7-million short ton shipping commitment by the end of the war in Europe in May 1945. Flight delivery of aircraft was also ahead of schedule.22
The War Department and the Protocols
During the period from July 1943 to May 1945, when U.S. aid to the USSR mounted to its highest point, War Department supply agencies were generally successful in discharging their responsibilities under the protocols. Their relations with Soviet representatives, also, were more cordial and smooth than earlier. Yet certain problems persisted. Although total shipments under the Third and Fourth Protocols generally ran ahead of schedule, the War Department was usually slightly behind in meeting the supply commitments for which it was
(1) See numerous messages exchanged between the Protocol Committee and the U.S. Military Mission in Moscow in ID Cables Moscow IN and OUT Jan-Nov 44, and in folder Russia, Box 122869, WSA Conway File. (2) JMT 73, 7 Sep 44, title: Allied Communications to Russia Via the Black Sea. (3) Various materials, mostly cables, on the closing out of the Persian Gulf Command and difficulties in early shipments to the Black Sea are in a notebook kept by F. E. Phelps of Planning Division, ASF, entitled PGOHands Off (hereafter cited as Phelps Notebook), ASF Plng Div, Job A46-371. (4) ID, Lend-Lease, Text, II, 1071-74. 22 (1) FEA, Report on Status of Soviet Aid Program as of April 30, 1945. (2) Deliveries were only 95 percent of commitments if Annex III is included, see below, pp. 691 ff.
21
682
responsible. Against Third Protocol schedules, the War Department made available 84 percent of its offerings and in May 1945 had furnished 79 percent of its share of the Fourth Protocol, as 23 opposed to a scheduled 82 percent. The cause of this lag was not any lack of will or effort on the part of the ASF in procurement and delivery of material or any considerable retentions to meet requirements of U.S. military forces. It lay rather in the difficulty of programing Soviet requirements for timely production and in the fact that shipping was not always adequate to move certain heavier types of equipment, notably locomotives and trucks. The Army Supply Program was drawn up by calendar year, with a major revision semiannually. The protocols covered a fiscal year. They were never made final until well after the period they were to cover had begun, and requirements frequently changed in the interim. Under this system, it was difficult to plan Soviet aid in the Army Supply Program, particularly where nonstandard items with special specifications were involved. In December 1943, General Clay proposed that the protocols be put on a calendar year basis to match the Army Supply Program, but the Protocol Committee was reluctant to recommend a change on the ground that it might be disturbing to the Soviet Union at that stage of the war.
23 (1) Memo, Dir ID, for Dir Materiel, 24 Jul 44, sub: Rpt to President on Action by WD under 3d Protocol Thru 30 Jun 44. (2) Rpt, Secy War to President, 28 Jul 44, ID 031.1, X. (3) Memo, Gen Shingler, Dir ID, for Dir Materiel, 7 May 45, sub: Rpt to President on Action by WD under 4th Protocol. (4) Rpt, Secy War to President, 11 May 45. (3) and (4) in ID 031.1, XII.
AID TO THE USSR IN THE LATER WAR YEARS cause of delayed placement of contracts 24 or competition with U.S. needs. The Soviet Union almost invariably accepted War Department offerings at their full rate in order to obtain the advantages of advance procurement planning, and then, under changing conditions, sometimes gave preference to other supplies for shipment. Increases in Third Protocol tonnage as a result of the improved shipping situation were made, at Soviet request, mainly in food, steel, aluminum, nickel, and alcohol.25 Much of the reason for this lay in the nature of available shipping space. Total tonnage in itself was never an adequate measure of ability to ship specific items. Normally more shipping space for bulk bottom cargo was obtainable than for finished equipment, which in many cases required deck loading or special facilities for packing and handling. Shipment of petroleum products, toluol, alcohol, and other liquid cargo depended upon the availability of tankers, not dry cargo ships. The Russians often desired
683
route, though items such as petroleum, foodstuffs, trucks, locomotives, and engineering equipment of either military or civilian end-use moved over it. Before the opening of the Black Sea, the Persian Gulf, because of its superior assembly facilities, had to be the principal reliance for shipment of unassembled trucks. Medium tanks had to be shipped almost entirely over the northern route. The Iranian ports could not handle locomotives and there were too few ships on any of the routes equipped to carry them. In these circumstances, shipment of some types of military cargo lagged behind, and this lag, rather than difficulty in procurement, was the principal reason why the War Department failed to meet protocol schedules. For instance, under the Third Protocol 121,620 trucks were shipped instead of the 132,000 promised and 1,802 medium tanks instead of 2,000. Similarly, though at the Tehran Conference the greatest Russian emphasis had been put on locomotives, many still had to be held back under the Third particular cargo only by a particular Protocol because of lack of ships capable route of delivery, and there were other of delivering them. Movement of locofactors influencing the nature of cargo motives was speeded up, beginning shorton each route. Finished military equip- ly after the Tehran Conference, by adapment was excluded from the Vladivostok tation of Soviet flag vessels in the Pacific and performance under the Fourth Pro26 (1) ID, Lend-Lease, Text, II, 1023-28, 1050-58, tocol was better. 1074-83. (2) Memo, Gen Clay for Executive PSPC, Regulation of assignments to the 22 Dec 43, sub: Fourth Soviet Protocol, ID 031.1, VI, Part II. (3) Memo, Gen Shingler, for Dir MateUSSR was normally accomplished at the riel, 6 Apr 45, sub: Rpt to President on Action by production end rather than in distribuWD under 4th Protocol, ID 031.1, XII. (4) Other tion. The protocol schedules were, at Monthly Rpts of Secy War to President and related material in ID 031.1, III-XII. (5) For correspondleast as long as the war in Europe conence relating particularly to the negotiation of the tinued, virtually ironclad commitments
24
Fourth Protocol see ID 031.1, Volume VIII. 25 (1) Memo, Col L. C. Strong, Liaison Br, ID, for Gen Wright, 28 Feb 44, sub: Protocol Tonnage, ID 031.1, VII. (2) Deane, Strange Alliance, pp. 96-97. (3) Msg 138, American Embassy, Moscow, to Dept State, Harriman for Hopkins, 15 Jan 44, OPD Exec 9, Book 16, Paper 364.
26 (1) Rpt, Secy War to President, 28 Jul 44. (2) Msgs, 10042, SEXTANT to AGWAR, CM-IN 15521, 25 Nov 43, Somervell for Styer; 10056, CM-IN 16123, Douglas, WSA to MacPherson, WSA, 26 Nov 43. All in OPD Exec 5, Item 13.
684
GLOBAL LOGISTICS AND STRATEGY: 1943-1945 In an effort to give practical effect to this principle, the ASF attempted in fall 1943 to secure application of its own stock control procedures to all supplies for the USSR, but the Protocol Committee was unwilling to go this far. The committee did institute a program for controlling the flow of supplies at the production end, essaying in each case to get Soviet representatives in Washington to cut back programs of their own
for delivery. Military materials were formally assigned by the Munitions Assignments Board, but that body's practical jurisdiction over the protocols was limited mainly to adjustments in the rate of delivery and to decisions on Soviet
bids for critical equipment that arose
outside the protocol commitments. The responsibility for preventing interference with deliveries for the U.S. Army rested for the most part with the ASF
agencies that drew up the protocol schedules and reviewed extraprotocol requests for War Department materials. Under this system, regulation of USSR stockpiles was a major problem. Because of the difficulties caused by excessive backlogs during the first two protocol periods, the Army placed the greatest emphasis on limiting the stockpiles to reasonable proportions. Under the Third Protocol the Soviet Union was to be allowed a stockpile of 500,000 tons and under the Fourth 600,000 tons. However, the Russians began the Third Protocol period in July 1943 with a stockpile of 1,200,000 tons and, in fact, never brought it down to the stipulated figures. General Wright, head of the International Division, ASF, secured a clause in the Third Protocol, one that was continued in the Fourth, reserving to the United States "the right to limit the size of individual stockpiles, either by control of production or diversion of product, or both, when in its judgment such action is in the best interest of the com-
free will when it was apparent that materials would pile up in storage. Large backlogs of trucks and locomotives were forestalled in this manner. Along the same line, the committee adopted the principle that when the Russians made requests for new materials, they must cancel part of their existing requirements to provide the necessary shipping space. As an example, during the Third Protocol period, the Russians canceled requirements on the War Department for ammunition and scout cars in order to permit extraprotocol shipments of
pipeline, 40-mm. antiaircraft guns, artillery pieces, and explosives. Only in ex-
treme instances did the War Department resort to the repossession procedures administered by the MAB, and
mon cause," but the clause was hedged by another provision which said that making up resulting arrearages was to be given "all possible consideration."27
(1) See final texts of Third and Fourth Protocols. (2) Memo, Gen Wright for Gen Burns, 14 Sep 43, sub: Revision of 3d Russian Protocol, ID 031.1, V.
27
then Soviet representatives were given many warnings and several extensions before any repossession action was taken. Only in the case of 48 wreckers, repossessed in June 1944 after eight months in storage, did the USSR suffer any serious inconvenience, for U.S. Army requirements prevented resupply of these wreckers when the USSR bid for them again.28
(1) Memo, Col Boone, Actg Dir ID for CG ASF, 11 Sep 43, sub: USSR Reqmts with related papers in ID 031.1, V. (2) Memo, John N. Hazard, Secy PSPC, for Gen Burns, 18 Oct 43. (3) Ltr, Burns to
28
AID TO THE USSR IN THE LATER WAR YEARS In general, adjustment of the Soviet program to both shipping capabilities and the changing war situation in the USSR itself was a difficult matter. Soviet representatives in the United States could take little action without constant reference to Moscow, and U.S. representatives in or out of the Soviet Union were permitted to get little firsthand information on Soviet needs on which to base their own conclusions.
685
by a new lend-lease mission headed by Brig. Gen. Sidney P. Spalding, long assistant to Maj. Gen. James H. Burns on the Munitions Assignments Board and the President's Soviet Protocol Committee. Spalding's mission was subject to the over-all co-ordination of the Ambassador and the chief of the military mission, although he reported directly to the Protocol Committee. In practice his group functioned virtually as a part of Deane's mission. Though both missions were expected to render such technical The Deane-Spalding Mission assistance as the Russians requested, neiThe main effort to gain more first- ther was given any power or authority hand information on Soviet needs and to investigate or make more than inforon the use of American supplies in the mal recommendations on lend-lease reUSSR was made by the U.S. Military quests. The United States Government Mission established in Moscow in Octo- had evidently decided, after its bitter ber 1943. At that time the United States experience with the Greely mission in reorganized its representation in the So- early 1942, that the USSR would hardly viet Union. Averell Harriman replaced permit any group charged with the latter Admiral William H. Standley as Ambas- functions to enter the country.29 sador, and at Harriman's suggestion the Both General Deane and Ambassador military mission was created with Gen- Harriman soon became convinced that eral Deane, formerly U.S. Secretary of the United States should establish a closthe CCS, as its head. The military mis- er control over the flow of supplies to sion was to work with the Embassy in the USSR now that the crisis in the promoting the closest possible co-ordina- Russo-German War had passed. They tion of the military efforts of the United did not, at least in the beginning, want States and USSR. The old Supply Mis- power to screen all Soviet requests as sion to the USSR under Col. Philip Fay- MacArthur screened Australian requests
monville, which had handled lend-lease matters independently in the Soviet Union since October 1941, was supplanted
K. I. Lukashev, SGPC, 22 Oct 43. (4) Memo, Gen
Wright for Dir Materiel, ASF, 3 Dec 43, sub: Mtg
or Stilwell did those of the Chinese; they merely wished to force Soviet officials to give them fuller information on, and justification for, their requirements for critical items. In January 1944 Deane learned that many lend-lease diesel marine engines were rusting in storage be29(1)For background material on the formation of the Deane mission see OPD Exec 1, Item 21, Moscow Mission September 1943, and Deane, Strange Alliance, pages 9-12. (2) On the Greely mission see Motter, The Persian Corridor and Aid to
686
cause the Soviet Union had not prepared hulls for their installation, a circumstance that gave rise to the suspicion that much other lend-lease material might be similarly misused. The USSR was, at the time, pressing for an increase in protocol tonnages of aluminum, nickel, alcohol, and copper wire, all materials vital to American war production. A. I. Mikoyan, Soviet Commissar for Foreign Trade, turned aside lightly all queries as to the use the Russians intended to make of the materials, promising information in the near future but intimating clearly that he thought Soviet representatives in Washington could secure the materials without such specific justification as requested. In mid-January 1944, Deane and Harriman both recommended to Washington that before items in critical supply were allocated to the USSR, the military mission should be required to obtain information and submit recommendations that would indicate the relative urgency of the Soviet need.30 In Washington, the War Department and the JCS readily agreed to the application of the Deane-Harriman proposals, but it proved impossible to overcome the pronounced fear of wounding Soviet sensibilities that prevailed in circles close to the President. The JCS drafted a memorandum for the President on 17 January 1944, asking approval of Deane's recommendations. When it was discussed with Isadore Lubin, statistician on the MAB and an intimate of Harry Hopkins, Lubin indicated that there
30 (1) Msg 138, American Embassy, Moscow, to
Dept State, Harriman for Hopkins, 15 Jan 44, OPD Exec 9, Book 16, Paper 364. (2) Msg CM-IN 11287, Deane to JCS, 17 Jan 44. (3) Deane, Strange Alliance, pp. 96-98.
Leahy's note on memo from Capt Freseman, 20 Jan 44. (4) Memo, Gen Styer for Gen Somervell, 31 Jan 44, folder CG ASF 1943-44, CofS ASF file.
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members of their respective missions. The information had at least some influence on the formulation of the Fourth Protocol schedules. The mission, however, had no lever with which to force Soviet officials to give operational justification for their supply needs as long as the normal channel for transmission of requests stayed in the Soviet Government Purchasing Commission in Washington. The Soviet officials probably lost more than they gained by their attitude. Deane and Harriman were prepared to support Soviet requests if justified by "little more than a sob story." General Spalding, who had particular responsibility for lend-lease, was never overly critical of Soviet requests. On the few occasions that Spalding and Deane were permitted to travel and observe, they obtained or speeded up shipments of items such as DUKW's, trucks, landing mat, and port cranes sorely needed in 35 the areas they visited.
State, 2 Mar 44. ABC 400. 3295 Russia (19 Apr 43), Sec 2. 34 (1) Deane, Strange Alliance, p. 84. (2) Memo, BG F.N.R. [Gen Roberts], OPD, 12 Aug 44, ABC 400.3295 Russia (19 Apr 43), Sec 2.
688
GLOBAL LOGISTICS AND STRATEGY: 1943-1945 against these contingencies, to tide the Soviet Siberian Army over until one line or the other could be reopened, therefore seemed imperative. It seemed equally imperative to begin as soon as possible the even more elaborate build-up required for strategic bombing from Siberian air bases and to plan for maintaining at least a minimum flow of supplies across the Pacific to Siberia in the event of a Soviet-Japanese clash. Assuming that the United Nations could maintain control of the Sea of Okhotsk north of Vladivostok, the port of Nikolaevsk and certain smaller ports in the Amur River region could serve as supply bases, as could Petropavlovsk on the Kamchatka Peninsula. But these ports were relatively undeveloped, and were open only from June through October; inland clearance facilities were poor. In order to keep even this line open, the Americans postulated that a campaign to seize one of the Kurile Islands would be required, and to support such a campaign and subsequently run convoys through the Sea of Okhotsk, naval and air bases on Kamchatka must be prepared.37 Even after Stalin's promise at Tehran, General Deane found Soviet officials curiously indifferent to any of these things, seemingly fearful of compromising their neutrality too early and of permitting Americans to make surveys in Soviet territory. On the matter of Siberian air bases, they blew hot and cold by turns. When in April 1944 the USSR requested 500 B-17 or B-24 bombers as part
37
The Americans hoped to use Siberian bases in the strategic bombing of Japan and thought the Soviet Siberian Army could effectively prevent the withdrawal of the Japanese Kwantung Army from Manchuria to the home islands to oppose an American assault. It seems fair to say that, after late 1943, they counted more heavily on the USSR to defeat the Japanese on the continent of Asia than on either the Chinese or the British. All operations on the Asiatic mainland were, after the SEXTANT Conference, considered subsidiary to the main effort in the Pacific; but in the whole scale of subsidiary effort in Asia, the prospective Soviet contribution appears to have ranked highest in American eyes. The value of Soviet military collaboration would, in the American view, clearly depend on genuinely combined Soviet-American advance planning and preparation. The U.S. staff reasoned that, once the USSR was at war with Japan, the Japanese Navy could certainly cut the supply line to Vladivostok and the Japanese Army could probably initially cut the Trans-Siberian rail line. An advance build-up of supplies in Siberia
36 (1) Memo, JCS for President, 23 Jan 45, in Dept State, The Conferences at Malta and Yalta, pp. 396-400. (2) Min, 1st Plenary Session, EUREKA Conference, Tehran, 28 Nov 43. (3) For a detailed treatment of the military view on this subject see Dept of Defense Release, 19 October 1955, The Entry of the Soviet Union into the War Against Japan: Military Plans, 1941-45.
Far East, ASF Rpt 13, Part 3, ASF Plng Div files,
Job A 47-147. (2) JLC 260/M, 15 Jan 45, title: Log Support of USAF in Pacific Russia. (3) JCS 1176/6, 18 Jan 45, title: Russian Participation in War Against Japan.
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parties into those areas. Nevertheless, the American staff continued contingent planning for a North Pacific operation to open a route through the Kuriles with forces to be made available from Europe once Germany was defeated. In conferences between Churchill, Stalin, Harriman, Deane, and Sir Alan Brooke during the British Prime Minister's visit to Moscow in October 1944, Stalin temporarily cleared the air. He agreed definitely that the "Soviet Union would take the offensive against Japan three months after Germany's defeat provided the United States would assist in building up necessary reserve supplies and provided the political aspects of Russia's participation had been clarified."40 Moreover, the Russian leader indicated that airfields in the Maritime Provinces and on Kamchatka would be provided, and he offered the use of Petropavlovsk as a naval base. He said that great improvements were under way at ports in the Amur River area and that a rail line would be built connecting the ports with the Komsomolsk area to the south in which the Americans had expressed interest as the site for their air bases. Staff planning on these matters could begin immediately. Stalin placed his primary emphasis, however, on the supply build-up for Soviet ground forces in the Far East, and Soviet representatives presented an additional list of supplies they wished delivered via the Pacific route before 30 June 1945. This list included 500 transport aircraft; 230,000tons of POL supplies including liquid products, collapsible gas stations, tanks, and pipelines; 186,000 tons of food and fodder; 14,580 tons of clothing material and hospital supplies; 296,385 tons
40
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for production. On this basis, a commitment for only 46 percent, or about 400,000tons, of the dry cargo could be undertaken. Certain items, such as locomotives, rolling stock, naval vessels, transport aircraft, and heavy trucks, were ruled out, but the entire POL requirement was accepted subject to availability of shipping. Shipping in any case would be the big problem, the JLC thought, since it would mean new transfers to the Soviet flag in the Pacific in the face of an over-all shortage of cargo shipping in that area and operations in winter when ice conditions lessened capacity on the Pacific route. The committee therefore thought the commitment could not "be based on a definite guarantee as to the time this tonnage will be moved," and speculated that twenty sailings per month might be available beginning no earlier than March 1945. As an interim measure, the committee suggested that the USSR might be asked to substitute tonnage for MILEPOST for
would have been higher than the A-2 priority granted U.S. troops on movement orders) and that the USSR refused many of the substitutions, the ASF still found that by adjustment of production or release schedules, use of Persian Gulf surplus, and diversions from the Fourth Protocol it could provide virtually all the material requested, not, it is true, by 30 June 1945 but by stretching out requirements to the end of the year. By February 1945 schedules calling for delivery of 840,000 short tons of dry cargo out of 914,000 requested (the USSR had meanwhile added a request for 54,000 tons of landing mat) had been set up. And since the original Fourth Protocol commitment for POL had been fulfilled by the end of 1944, further shipments by the Soviet tanker fleet in the Pacific in 1945 promised to surpass the MILEPOST targets for liquid cargo. Moreover, by February, it also appeared that the naval vessels could be made available later in the year. At Yalta supplies already in the Fourth Protocol.44 General Deane was able to persuade the The JCS accepted the JLC report as AAF to promise the USSR 150 C-47 the basis for the MILEPOST project and transports to supplement the limited rail asked that the Protocol Committee ad- facilities in Siberia. On 3 April 1945 minister it. The ASF, to whom responsi- the entire revised MILEPOST list was forbility for procurement of most of the mally added to the Fourth Protocol as 45 supplies was entrusted, soon reported Annex III. that the proposed availability schedules (1) ID, Lend-Lease, Text, II, 1036-40, 1071-74. could be improved considerably if the (2) Memo, Gen Lutes for Gen Roberts, 15 Nov 44, USSR were willing to accept certain sub- sub: Supplies and Equipment for MILEPOST. (3) stitutions and diversions from the Fourth Memo, Gen Tansey for Gen Roberts, 15 Nov 44, sub. (2) and (3) in ABC 400.3295 USSR (24 Protocol, and if MILEPOST shipments same Apr 44), Sec 2. (4) JCS 1138/3, 27 Jan 45, title: were given an operational priority (A-1- Supplies and Equipment Requested by USSR. (5) b-5). Despite the fact that OPD ruled JCS Info Memo 360, 4 Feb 45, title: Summary of and Equipment for "Milepost." (6) Deane, against the operational priority (it Supplies Strange Alliance, pp. 99. 249-50. (7) Msgs, WAR
45
( 1 ) I b i d . (2) JCS 1138/2, 11 Nov 44, title: Supplies and Equipment Requested by USSR. (3) Memo, S&P Gp, OPD, for Asst Secy, WDGS, 27 Oct 44, same sub, ABC 400.3295 Russia (19 Apr 42), Sec 2.
44
51933, PSPC to Spalding, 25 Oct 44; M 21510, Spalding to PSPC, 26 Oct 44; WAR 53251 to Spalding, 27 Oct 44; all in ID Cables Moscow IN and OUT Jan-Nov 44. (8) Dept State, Conferences at Malta and Yalta, pp. 834-39.
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Meanwhile, a shipping program had been arranged in the face of even greater obstacles and competing demands. The general story of the steps taken to alleviate the shipping crisis in fall 1944 has been told elsewhere. In the proposals made by General Somervell in November, provision was made for 85 sailings for MILEPOST, beginning with the transfer of 16 ships to the Soviet flag in the Pacific in December 1944. Shipping for this purpose and for simultaneously reducing deficits for support of Pacific operations was to be made available from the Atlantic, mainly by reductions in the British Import Program and in protocol shipping via the Atlantic. The JCS accepted this solution subject to the proviso that "if the full number of ships proposed cannot be obtained from the Atlantic or other sources, the deficit will be applied to the proposed Russian requirement and not to shipping for Pacific areas."46 WSA objected to cutting either British or Soviet quotas until the military services had cleared up stagnant pools of theater shipping, and the President, while agreeing to negotiation with the British on releases, forced the JCS to take positive action to reduce congestion. At the same time, he made no specific mention of cutting protocol shipments in the Atlantic and gave the MILEPOST program a high priority:
While the additional Russian request complicates the program still further, I am convinced we should move at once to get these supplies moving. Specifically, I wish that the 16 additional ships required for December for Russian account be made
46 (1) JCS 1173/1, 18 Nov 44, title: Remedies for Existing and Prospective Shortages in Cargo Shipping. (2) See above, ch. XXII.
WSA provided the 16 ships in December, taking them as far as possible not solely from the Atlantic but "from vessels . . . not as adaptable to military needs as Liberty ships" in both the Atlantic and Pacific. Those from the Pacific were taken with the understanding that the tonnage was to be replaced. The MILEPOST program was inaugurated three months ahead of the March 1945 date the JLC had first predicted, and the ASF was hard put to it to get the necessary cargo to port to fill the ships. Some sailings were shifted to the east coast. By 10 December, also, the JMTC had agreed, despite the fact that "deficits will still exist," to allocate twenty additional ships to the USSR from At48 lantic services in January 1945. By the end of December a total of 50 ships had either been earmarked for, or had already been turned over to, the Soviet flag in the Pacific and 2 more were earmarked shortly afterward, against an ultimate target of 85.49 In the event, only 37 ships were actually transferred. As the Joint Logistics Committee had warned, the Pacific route
JCS 1173/2, 21 Nov 44, title: Remedies for Shortages in Shipping, app. A. 48 (1) JCS 1173/9, 9 Dec 44, rpt by JMTC, title: Remedies for Shortages in Shipping. (2) Memo, Adm Land for President, 9 Dec 44, sub: Merchant Shipping, WSA Conway Reading File, Nov-Dec 44, Box 122894. (3) Msg WAR 69405 to U.S. Military Mission, Moscow, 25 Nov 44, with related material in OPD 400 TS, and ABC 400.3295 USSR (24 Apr 42), Sec 2. 49 Ltr, Conway to Harriman, 29 Dec 44, WSA Conway Reading File Nov-Dec 44, Box 122893.
47
693
proved incapable of carrying the load a rapid cutback in Atlantic shipments 51 imposed upon it during the winter after 12 May. months. Ice in Tartary and La Perouse While the Americans were working so Straits and congestion at Vladivostok diligently to fulfill their supply obligaconvinced WSA by late February that tions, Soviet officialdom continued as the pace of the MILEPOST shipping pro- dilatory and obstructionist as before in gram in the Pacific would have to be getting any combined planning under slowed down. Fifteen of the ships in- way. With the effort at genuine coltended for MILEPOST were instead allo- laboration stymied, General Deane cated to meet urgent Navy requirements turned his planning teams to studies for mounting the invasion of Okinawa. of the very premises on which the AmerIn compensation, fifteen additional sail- icans were operatingthe actual value ings were allotted to Soviet Protocol or necessity of both the Siberian air account in the Atlantic. The goal of 85 project and the proposed operation for ships was quietly abandoned, and a deci- opening a supply route through the sion was reached that the 37 ships allo- North Pacific. The planners concluded cated could, by making repeated trips, that, this late in the war, the limited fulfill any MILEPOST requirements that results to be obtained by establishing a could not be met in Pacific shipping U.S. Strategic Air Force in Siberia would already turned over to the Soviet flag.50 not justify the high cost, and that the MILEPOST shipments were not far be- supply route would not be vital to Soviet hind schedule on V-E Day, and any success in a war against Japan though it deficits were more than remedied in May would be insurance against initial reand June 1945. Meanwhile, regular verses and prolongation of the war. Fourth Protocol shipments hardly suf- Deane consequently recommended to the fered at all. The only month in which JCS that the United States withdraw any appreciable cutback occurred was from all these projects and await Soviet January 1945, and heavier shipments in initiative to resume them. In mid-April the three months following more than 1945 the JCS approved. The only conmade up for it. In November 1944 it tingent planning that continued was for was contemplated that, with MILEPOST a naval operation to force passage of shipments and the proposed reductions convoys through the North Pacific. in the Atlantic, a total of 7,063,000 short The whole broad plan for Soviettons of Soviet aid would be shipped by American collaboration in the war 30 June 1945. The actual total was against Japan died without any real re7,200,000 short tons, and this despite grets, it appears, on the Soviet side. In retrospect, it seems likely that all the Soviets had originally expected out of (1) Msg WAR 42974, WSA and PSPC to U.S. the negotiations was an extension of
50
Military Mission, Moscow, 23 Feb 45, Phelps Notebook, ASF Plng Div files. (2) Msg DTG 110917 Z, NCR 3562, ALUSNA, Moscow to COMINCH, 11 Mar 45, CM-IN 12463, 12 Mar 45. (3) Memo, CG ASF for U Secy War, 24 Feb 45, sub: Weekly Situation Report, ASF Ind Pers Div File Rpts to Under Secy War and Secy War.
(1) FEA, Rpt on Status of Soviet Aid Program as of June 30, 1945. Actual shipments from 1 July 1944 through 30 June 1945 were no percent of Fourth Protocol commitments, including Annex III (MILEI'osr). (2) See below, Appendix G-3. (3) Msg, WAR 67471 to U.S. Military Mission, Moscow, 23 Nov. 44.
51
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GLOBAL LOGISTICS AND STRATEGY: 1943-1945 under lend-lease for any purpose other than the pursuit of the war was unmistakable. Roosevelt died on 12 April 1945 without having clarified his policy further. The 5 January directive, meanwhile, had led to the usual negotiations with the Russians on their requirements for a Fifth Protocol. Planning was well along by mid-April, when it became obvious that final victory over Germany would not be long delayed. Averell Harriman and General Deane, both then in Washington, felt that a change in lend-lease policy was now imperative as a corollary to the change in policy on combined planning for Soviet entrance into the war against Japan. In conferences with the State Department and FEA, Harriman urged that no Fifth Protocol be signed, that the escape clauses in the Fourth be invoked on V-E Day, and that further aid to the USSR be limited to needs that could positively be justified for the war against Japan. Deane asked General Marshall to seek JCS support for these views. Meanwhile, General York, acting chairman of the Protocol Committee, urged on everyone the necessity for an early decision, for without it, he said, it would be impossible to stop the massive shipments for May and June roughly 700,000 tons each month. Nevertheless, V-E Day passed without a final decision. The Joint Logistics Committee on 2 May 1945 presented the JCS with a draft letter for the President embodying Deane's views, but it was apparently held pending final decision in the State Department. That decision was made in a meeting of all interested agencies, including the Army and Navy, held at the State Department on 10 May 1945, when a more drastic policy than the one
their lend-lease supply program, and in this they were outstandingly successful.52
The Soviet Aid Program After V-E Day On 30 September 1944, President Roosevelt informed the Secretary of State that the instructions issued on 9 September suspending all planning for lend-lease after V-E Day should not apply to "lend-lease negotiations current with the Government of the USSR."53 Then on 5 January 1945 he issued the last of his directives on aid to the Soviet Union, ordering the formulation of a Fifth Protocol covering the period1 July 1945 to 30 June 1946, and emphasizing the importance of aid to the USSR in almost precisely the same terms as a year earlier.54 Though the reason given continued to be the "defeat of Germany," even the most pessimistic of prophets at the time hardly expected the war in Europe to continue until mid-1946. Roosevelt thus clearly implied that aid to the Soviet Union would continue uninterrupted after V-E Day, despite the fact that the USSR would not then be at war with Japan. Yet doubts and misgivings plagued the heads of all the agencies involved, and the opposition in Congress to supplying the USSR
52 (1) Deane, Strange Alliance, pp. 249-66. (2) Dept State, Conferences at Malta and Yalta, pp. 757-62, 834-39, 841. (3) JCS 1313, 16 Apr 45, title: Revision of Policy with Relation to Russia. (4) JCS 1313/1, 16 Apr 45, title: Specific Actions to be Taken Under Revised Policy with Russia. (5) JCS 1313/2, 23 Apr 45, title: Revision of Policy with Relation to Russia. 53 (1) Ltr, President to Cordell Hull, 30 Sep 44, OPD 400.3295 (Russia), Case 21. (2) See above, ch. XXVI. 54 Memo, President for Secy War, 5 Jan 45, ID 031.1, XI.
AID TO THE USSR IN THE LATER WAR YEARS proposed by the military authorities was drawn up and approved in principle.55 This policy, expressed in a memorandum sent on 11 May to the new President, Harry S. Truman, by Acting Secretary of State Joseph Grew and Leo Crowley of FEA, proposed that the supply program for the USSR be immediately and drastically curtailed. So long as it was anticipated that the USSR would enter the war against Japan, deliveries under Annex III of the Fourth Protocol should continue, as should supplies to complete industrial plants for which shipments had already begun; but other supplies on hand or on order for the Fourth Protocol should be delivered only when they were required to support military operations against Japan. "Other lend-lease supplies now programmed for the USSR should be cut off immediately as far as physically practicable, and such goods and the related shipping tonnage should be diverted to approved supply programs for western Europe." There should be no Fifth Protocol. Future supply programs for the USSR should be designed to meet new military situations as they arose, "on the basis of reasonably adequate information regarding the essentiality of Soviet military supply requirements and in the light of all competing demands for supplies in the changing military
(1) Memo, Gen Shingler for CG ASF, 18 Apr 45, sub: Lend-Lease Policy Toward USSR Following Collapse of Germany, Dir Materiel file Lend-Lease.
(2) JCS 1325, 26 Apr 45, title: Allocation of U.S. Supplies to USSR. (3) JCS 1325/1, 2 May 45, rpt by JLC,
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situation." The residuary Soviet aid program would continue to get existing priority ratings for production, and the Protocol Committee would continue to administer it as before. The Soviet Union would also be allowed to purchase 56 other material for cash if it so desired. President Truman approved the policy on 11 May, informing Grew and Crowley that they should "proceed on the assumption that the USSR will enter the war against Japan."57 The new policy, in its first expression, was even tougher than the policy Deane had long been urging. As General York succinctly put it, the new approach should be "when in doubt hold" instead of the former approach of "when in doubt give."58 In interpretation and application, however, the new policy at first turned out to be somewhat less tough than it sounded. As General York had warned, it took time to reverse the momentum behind the protocol program. A literal interpretation of the State-FEA memorandum meant that even ships at sea should be turned around, supplies unloaded, and distinction made between those intended for the war against Japan and those for European Russia. The Protocol Committee at first proposed to so interpret the memorandum, though
56 (1) Memo, Joseph C. Grew, Actg Secy State, and Leo Crowley, FEA, for President, 11 May 45, ABC 400.3295 Russia (19 Apr 42), Sec 3. (2) This policy
same title. (4) Memo, Gen Lincoln for CofS, 11 May 45. (5) Record of tel com, Gen York with Gen Hull, 27 Apr 45. (6) Memo, Gen Lincoln for Asst Secy, WDGS, 11 May 45, sub: Allocation of U.S. Supplies to USSR. (4), (5), and (6) in ABC 400.3295 Russia (19 Apr 42), Sec 3.
was officially promulgated in Memo, Gen York for Members, PSPC, 15 May 45, ID 334 Pres Sov Prot Com, II. 57 Memo, Harry S. Truman for Actg Secy of State and FEA Administrator, 11 May 45, ABC 400.3295 Russia (19 Apr 42), Sec 3.
58 Min, 29th mtg, Soviet Protocol Subcom on Shipping, 12 May 45, Dir Materiel file, folder Gen Edgerton's Lend-Lease.
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military spokesmen protested vehemently that it would only lead to confusion and chaos. When Harriman, the principal architect of the new policy, also protested that he had not meant the phrase "cut off immediately" to be applied so literally, the Protocol Committee reversed itself and agreed that both ships at sea and those already loaded in port on 12 May should proceed. Material at port, en route, or in storage, however, was to be held for review to see that it was in fact intended for Soviet Far East programs. In successive Protocol Committee meetings, policy was defined as permitting shipments for Annex III (MILEPOST) , for a Trans-Siberian Airways project approved by the JCS in the fall of 1944, for the annual summer program to the Soviet Arctic, and for maintenance of material already shipped. However, because it was virtually impossible to conduct a real item by item review, the committee decided simply to permit all Pacific shipments to proceed as planned since about 90 percent of them involved the approved programs, and to cancel all further berthings in the Atlantic for the Black Sea, northern USSR, or the Persian Gulf. It is ironical that under these policies, owing to the large Pacific shipping program in May 1945, shipments for that month totaled 768,400 long tons, the most that had ever been shipped to the Soviet Union in any one month. It was not until June that the new policy was re59 flected by a fall to 329,200 long tons.
(6) Min, 23d mtg, Protocol Subcom on Supplies, 16 May 45, ID 334 PSPC, II. (7) Msg WAR 83643, Protocol Com to CG U.S. Military Mission, Moscow, 16 May 45, Phelps Notebook, ASF Plng Div files. (8) Memo, Gen Edgerton, Dep Dir Materiel, for 59 (1) Ibid. (2) Memo, Gen Lincoln for Gen Hull, CG ASF, 17 May 45, sub: New Policy for Lend13 May 45. (3) MFR, Gen Lincoln, 14 May 45, ABC Lease. (9) Memo, Edgerton for ACofS 6-4, 21 May 400.3295 Russia (19 Apr 42), Sec 3. (4) Min of Mtg 45, sub: Revised Lend-Lease Aid Policy to USSR. on Soviet Lend-Lease Program in Mr. Clayton's (8) and (9) in Dir Materiel file, folder Lend-Lease. Office (State Dept), 14 May 45, ID 334 PSPC, II. (10) FEA, Rpt on Status of Soviet Aid Program as of (5) Min, 10th mtg PSPC, 15 May 45, ID 031.1, XII. 30June 1945.
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purposes of Annex III, at least in some amount. In most cases, we cannot give full justification for the amounts requested and an effort to force the Soviet authorities to do so would be so time consuming as to destroy the effectiveness of our aid.62
to AGWAR, 28 May 45, Spalding for Protocol Com. (2) Msg WAR 10182, Deane for Spalding from Protocol Com, 1 Jun 45. (3) Msg M 24531, Spalding to Protocol Com, 3 Jun 45. All in Phelps Notebook, ASF Plng Div files. (4) Ltr, Gen York, Exec PSPC, to Lt Gen L. G. Rudenko. Chmn Soviet Govt Protocol Com, 7 Jun 45, ID, Lend-Lease, Doc Suppl, IX.
61
The selected items approved included 30,000 trucks, 2.5 million yards of cotton cloth, 1.8 million yards of woolen goods, 6,000 tons of leather, 600,000 pairs of shoes, and 500 construction machines, all for procurement by the ASF, and naval supplies, industrial equipment, raw materials, and foodstuffs for pro63 curement by other agencies. There was considerable opposition in Washington, among both civilian and military authorities, to acceptance of even the limited program proposed by Deane without specific justification in each case. Leo Crowley took the position that the USSR should pay for the nonmilitary supplies, and Admiral Leahy's attitude was critical. General York, again in a quandary as the deadline for loading ships for July and August approached, pressed the JCS for a policy decision as to the military importance of the program. The JCS obliged on 23 June 1945, but limited its approval of assignment of military materials to those that could be shipped during July and August; the rest of Deane's list was approved for production planning purposes only. The Joint Chiefs also expressed the opinion that a similar policy for nonmilitary materials was justifiable on the basis of military necessity. This policy, in its broader application, was accepted, and
62 (1) Ibid. (2) See also Msg, M 24531, 3 Jun 45. 63 Memo, Gen Edgerton for Gen Somervell, 11 Jun 45, sub: USSR Developments, Dir Materiel file Lend-Lease.
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the State Department so informed the Soviet Embassy on 27 June. Soviet ships ready for sailing in July and early August were filled. July shipments totaled 64 309,000 long tons. Neither Deane nor the authorities in Washington were able to secure any further justification for the Soviet requests for the rest of the year. Deane concluded that the Soviet authorities were incapable of providing "detailed adequate, military justification," and that the mission "could not verify such justification if it were made available." The best the mission could do was to obtain "impressions of urgency and sincerity."65 With Harriman's concurrence, Deane asked for continued shipping of such supplies as the mission recommended as long as the Pacific route stayed open. The time to revise the policy, Deane thought, would be when and if the Japanese closed the Pacific route, at which time a military decision would be required on the institution of convoys. The JCS, not completely satisfied, simply extended the existing policy for one month in order to fill ships loading in the month of September.66
(1) Record of tel conv, Gen York with Gen Lincoln, 11 Jun 45. (2) Memo, Gen Lincoln for Chief Log Gp, OPD, 14 Jun 45, sub: Strategic Guidance for Lend-Lease Supplies for Russia. Both in ABC 400.3295 Russia (19 Apr 42), Sec 3. (3) JCS 1325/4, 16 Jun 45, memo from PSPC, title: Lend-Lease Reqmts of USSR for Balance of 1945. (4) JCS 1325/5, 24 Jun 45, same title. (5) Memos, Actg Secy State for Soviet Embassy, 26, 27 Jun 45, ID 334 PSPC, II. (6) Memo, Gen Edgerton for CG ASF, 18 Jun 45, sub: New Policy for Lend-Lease to USSR, Dir Materiel file Lend-Lease. (7) Min, 11th mtg PSPC, 29 Jun 45, ID 334 PSPC, II. (8) See below, Appendix G-3. 65 JCS 1325/6, 2 Jul 45, title: Lend-Lease Reqmts of USSR After 31 Aug 45. 66 (1) Msg M 24897, U.S. Military Mission, Moscow, to WD, 4 Jul 45, CM-IN 3446. (2) JCS 1325/7, 11
64
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Committee was dissolved on 7 Septem70 ber 1945. The end of the Soviet aid program, announced five days before the general proclamation of the end of lend-lease, came as a climax to the shift in American policy toward supplying the USSR that had started belatedly with the end of the war in Europe. This policy change was one of the many harbingers of a new period in Soviet-American relations, a period when many Americans, in retrospect, would look back with a certain amazement at the whole heroic U.S. effort to supply the USSR during World War II.
70 (1) Memo, Actg Dep Dir, USSR Br, FEA, 25 Aug 45, ID, Lend-Lease, Doc Suppl, X. (2) Memo, Harry Hopkins for President, 7 Sep 45, ID 334 PSPC.
CHAPTER XXVIII
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,
MILITARY SUPPLY, LIBERATED & LATIN AMERICAN NATIONS 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 materiel, shipping, convoy escort, and port capacity in North Africa forced the Americans
1 Except where otherwise noted, this section is based on Marcel Vigneras, Rearming the French, UNITED STATES ARMY IN WORLD WAR II (Washington, 1957), pp. 74-296. A concise account of the first phase of French rearmament, December 1942-May 1943, is in Leighton and Coakley, Global Logistics, 1940-43, pages 511-20. 2 The designation of phases of French rearmament as here used conforms to the usage in ASF at the time. The phases apply only to the North African Program and not to the French Metropolitan Program which was given separate phase designations. The phases in the North African Program were roughly as follows: Phase IJanuary-April, 1943; Phase IIJuly-August 1943; Phase IIISeptember 1943-January 1944; Phase IVFebruary-October 1944. 3 See above, ch. V.
701
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 100,000tons 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.
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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
4 5
CCS 87th mtg, 18 May 43, Item 6. (1) Plng Div ASF, Diary of a Certain Plan, Entry,
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tember 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 6 American ports by the end of August. 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
Memo, Col Robert A. Case, Dir Stock Control Div, ASF, for Dep Director Opns, ASF, 5 Sep 43, sub: Weekly Rpt of Status Phase III, French Rearm Program, ID 475, Equipment of Troops France, III.
6
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 bottlenecksscarcity of materiel and limitations on convoys, shipping, and port capacitywere 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
These were light armored divisions requiring slightly less equipment than their U.S. counterparts. The four French armored divisions were normally equated to three and two-thirds American ones. 8 CCS 317/3, 23 Aug 43, title: Equipping Allies, Liberated Forces and Friendly Neutrals.
7
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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 materiel 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 materiel 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
9 Memo, Col Olmstead for U.S. Members, MAC(G), 30 Oct 43, sub: Status of French Rearmament Plan, ID 475 Equipment of Troops France, III.
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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
12 CCS 414/4, 3 Mar 44, title: French Army Rearmament Plan.
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The War Department accepted from reality, more serious problems had emerged during Phase III as parts of the the start the obligation to furnish mainrearmed French army were committed tenance and replacement supplies for in combat. The Americans learned dur- the American equipment issued to the ing this period the manifold difficulties French units in the approved program, of raising, equipping, and supporting an and in fall 1943 set up a system for disarmy in liberated territory where the charging this obligation. All assignments de facto government had few real re- of initial equipment included a provisources at its command. The actual arm- sion for thirty days' maintenance and ing and training of combat forces proved six months' supply of spare parts. Bethe easiest task, the provision of an ade- yond this the French were expected to quate system of support the most dif- submit timely requisitions for additional ficult. maintenance and replacement requireThe initial American approach to ments to the Joint Rearmament ComFrench rearmament involved elements mittee in North Africa for submission not completely compatible. A compact to the MAC (G) in Washington for asFrench striking force was to be formed signment and shipment through normal to operate under the strategic direction lend-lease channels, though in emerof the Anglo-American CCS in conjunc- gencies the theater commander was aution with British and American forces. thorized to make issue directly from At the same time, this French striking theater stock. Approved units ready for, force was not to be supported directly or actively engaged in, combat with an as a part of an American or British com- American command were authorized remand, but was to be made as self-reliant placement and maintenance on the same as possible. Supplies would be furnished scale as U.S. troops operating in the same the French in bulk under lend-lease theater, and those remaining in North arrangements in accordance with CCS Africa on a U.S. zone of interior basis.13 plans, and the French would be expected The French were expected to provide to develop their own supply organiza- subsistence for all their forces either tion, paralleling the American one oper- from indigenous North African producating in the same theater. There would tion or from food supplies shipped under be American advice and guidance in the the civilian supply program. In either operation of the French supply system case, they would themselves be responsias there would be in the equipping and ble for storage and distribution of the training of the striking force, but not supplies available to them from both direct American management. French America and indigenous sources. Lendmilitary lend-lease was to be treated as lease supplies were shipped to North nearly as possible like British and Rus(1) Memo on Mtg to Establish Principles Govsian with the minimum of allowance for erning Supply of Maintenance Equip to French the fact that the French political and Forces in N Africa, 26 Oct 43, ID 475 Equipment of military organization in North Africa Troops France, III. (2) The theater commanders' was not a really going concern but at emergency powers were covered in WD Circular 220, 20 September 1943, paragraph 14b. This proleast a semidependency of the Allied vided that, except in emergencies, advance authority military command. for such transfers would be obtained from the MAB.
13
MILITARY SUPPLY, LIBERATED & LATIN AMERICAN NATIONS 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 selfreliance, the French in September 1943 established a central SOS organization for handling American materielthe Service Central des Approvisionnements et Materiels Americains (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
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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
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GLOBAL LOGISTICS AND STRATEGY: 1943-1945 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 Materiel 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
TAG Ltr, 14 Mar 44, sub: Replacement and Maintenance of Equipment and Supplies for French Forces in Approved French Rearmament Program, AG 400 (8 Mar 44) OB-S-SPLLD-M.
15
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 availablethe 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
In addition to Vigneras, Rearming the French, see ID, Lend-Lease, Text, II, 1205-08.
14
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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
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GLOBAL LOGISTICS AND STRATEGY: 1943-1945 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 reequipment 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
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 M e t r o p o l i t a n 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.
Except where otherwise indicated, this section is based on Vigneras, Rearming the French, pp. 299390. 17 Memo, National Defense Committee, FCNL, 16 Oct 43, ABC 091.711 France (6 Oct 43), Sec lA.
16
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 manpowerFrench, Dutch, Belgian, Danish, and Norwegiancould 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
CCS 317, 18 Aug 43, memo by U.S. CsofS, title: Equipping Allies, Liberated Forces and Friendly Neutrals.
18
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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 conMeanwhile, a considerable effort was tinued to press for the program of Octodevoted to furnishing supplies to resist- ber 1943, but to little avail. After the ance groups, particularly in France. This combat successes of July and August, the program had begun in 1941 under the American commanders concerned, Genauspices of the British Special Opera- erals Eisenhower and Devers, indicated tions Executive (SOE), and it was joined it would be better to limit re-equipment in later by its American prototype, the of French combat troops to small units Office of Strategic Services (OSS). The that could be quickly trained and put to operation continued to be predomi- use. On 2 August 1944 the CCS definitely nantly British until shortly before the authorized the organization of the 172,Normandy invasion in 1944 when the 000men into liberated manpower units OSS sponsored several large-scale air- for rear area work as planned earlier, but drops in an attempt to dispel a common took no action on the question of combat French illusion that their aid was com- forces. When the matter came up again ing entirely from the British. Even pre- for consideration on 22 August, the viously the SOE had procured many of British presented their view that an its supplies under lend-lease, through a 8-division French army should be crespecial procedure whereby its require- ated to promote postwar stability in ments were screened by OSS before sub- Europe and suggested the United States mission to the War Department for pro- should assume responsibility for equipcurement.19 All in all, the airdrops ping such a force, while they themprovided only small quantities of light selves would provide equipment for the equipmentrifles, machine guns, ammu- smaller forces of other western Allies. nition, explosives, radios, and articles of The JCS, however, held to their view clothingand, while they contributed that postwar armies were a political greatly to the effectiveness of the French question "which should be subject of Forces of the Interior (FFI), they could agreement between the governments 20 not provide the heavier equipment concerned." The JCS recommended, needed for an organized army. in keeping with the Eisenhower-Devers After the Normandy invasion, as long view, that 39 separate battalions of as the beachhead in France continued French combat troops be formed at the small, the bulk of supply for the French discretion of SCAEF (General Eisencontinued to take the form of SOE-OSS hower) and SACMED (General Wilson). They thought fullest possible use should be made of captured equipment, 19 On the development of this procedure see of U.S. equipment previously transferred Memo, Gen Wood for Gen Wedemeyer, 10 Nov 42,
sub: Procurement of Special Operations Equipment, AG 400.3295 (11-7-42) (1), and related papers
20
French Manpower.
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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
CCS 661/3, 16 Dec 44, memo by Reps of Br COS, title: Revised French Rearmament Plan and Use of French Manpower.
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
MILITARY SUPPLY, LIBERATED 8c LATIN AMERICAN NATIONS 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
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ble was to be furnished by French industry, now on its way toward rehabilitation. Phase 1 would consist of three divisions, Phase II of two, and Phase III of three more. It was hoped that the five divisions in Phases 1 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 1 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, Denmark, and that two additional French also furnish complete equipment for the infantry divisions be raised, since he now two divisions in Phase II, and for all believed they could be readied in time the supporting corps, army, and service for participation in the war. The pro- units of all three phases. Equipment the gram, tentatively approved in Washing- British had immediately available might ton, was soon absorbed within a broader be used in training the divisions first one that the French worked out with activated and, in some cases, to provide SHAEF and Brig. Gen. Auguste Brossin part of the French share for Phases 1 de Saint-Didier, head of the French Mili- and III. General Eisenhower, now faced with tary Mission in Washington, presented to the CCS on 18 December 1944. Under the serious crisis in the Ardennes and this proposal the French would organize fearful lest he should be short of maneight new divisions, six infantry, one power for the fighting in 1945, approved mountain, and one armored, with 213 the program in all its essentials, but supporting units, one army and two insisted SHAEF should carefully supercorps headquarters, in addition to the vise its execution. The CCS accepted it security and labor units already author- in principle on 28 December along with ized. Saint-Didier emphasized that the the enlarged Liberated Manpower Proplan was "one of active participation in gram and instructed the CAdC to make the war . . . not a postwar plan, the a further study of the sources from which present establishment of which seems equipment should be drawn. The wheels were thus set in motion premature."23 The activation of troop units was to be phased in accordance for an 8-division Metropolitan Rearmawith the availability of French man- ment Program. Requirements were hastpower, and as much equipment as possi- ily computed by the ASF, items sup22 Ltr, Juin to Marshall, 7 Sep 44, Incl, CCS 661/1, 29 Sep 44, title: Revised French Rearmament Plan and Use of French Manpower. 23 Memo, Saint-Didier for Chmn, CCS, 19 Dec 44, Incl, CCS 752, 23 Dec 44, title: Plan to Increase the War Effort of France.
posedly 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
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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 materiel. 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 materiel 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
In addition to Vigneras, Rearming the French, see ID, Lend-Lease, Text, II, 1215-17, and CCS 768/7, 27 Mar 45, title: Equipment for Allied Forces in Europe.
24
Memo, Col Jean Regnault, Chief, French Gp, Rearm Div, SHAEF Mission (France), for Brig Gen Harold F. Loomis, Chief, Rearm Div, 15 Feb 45, sub: French Manufacturers, ID 475 Equipment of Troops France, X.
25
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ish, 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
side 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.
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 out26 CCS 768/11, 7 Apr 45, title: Equipment for Allied Forces in Europe.
716
der British or American command and in any area the CCS should determine. The two divisions were to be equipped as far as possible from materiel already provided under the North African and Metropolitan Programs; they could hardly be committed before the spring of ruled against even completing the equip- 1946, the CCS said, because of shortage 30 ping of the three partially outfitted divi- of shipping to move them to the Pacific. sions. Replacement and maintenance The French protested that all equipsupplies for French forces already ment already in their hands was needed equipped was continued until 30 Sep- for occupation forces, but before they tember 1945 in accordance with the received an answer to this protest the President's interpretative memorandum end of the war with Japan was in sight 29 on lend-lease on 30 July, but ETOUSA and the Americans dropped the plan. divested itself of the responsibility for They had, in fact, shown little enthusidirect support through American chan- asm for it at any time. The French nels and these supplies were furnished return to Indochina therefore had to be the French in bulk. carried out with resources available to Some consideration was given in the the Provisional Government of France. meantime to equipping a French force for use in the war in the Far East. The Italian Military Forces French had suggested this as far back as
United States to complete the French 28 Metropolitan Rearmament Program," 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
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 un-
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,
28 29
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
30 CCS 895/2, 19 Jul 45, title: Participation of Two French Colonial Divisions in Far Eastern Operations.
Min, 160th mtg JCS, 20 Apr 45. See above, ch. XXVII.
717
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 co-operation 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 lendlease, 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
For a statement of the War Department position on extending lend-lease to Italy, see Memo,
Somervell for Chief, Legislative and Liaison Br,
32
(Naples: G. Monta-
Algiers to WAR, 30 Sep 43; CM-OUT 8709, AGWAR to CG FREEDOM, Algiers, 19 Oct 43; CMIN13759,Algiers to WAR, 23 Oct 43; CM-OUT 13033, AGWAR to CG FREEDOM, Algiers, 29 Oct 43. (3) Memo, Lt Col Orrin C. Krueger, Actg Chief Theater Br, Plng Div, ASF, for Col Magruder, 5 Nov 43, sub: Equip for Italians, file Preps for U.S.Bri Stf Conf, ASF Plng Div.
718
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 splitthe 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
34 CCS 386/1, 27 Nov 43, rpt by CAdC, title: Subsistence and Clothing for Italian Troops Other than POW.
719
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 com(1) Memo, Somervell for Lutes, 18 Jul 44, CofS ASF, file CG ASF 1943-44. (2) CCS 386/10, 22 Jul 44. (3) CCS 386/14, 10 Aug 44, title: Combat Equipment for the Italian Army. (4) ID Rpt 10, Lend-Lease Information, 31 Dec 44, Part 1, pp. 6-7.
40
720
bat 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.
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 41 of influence. 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
41 In the most important case in point, the Polish uprising in Warsaw in 1944, the British wanted to dispatch planes with supplies despite failure to secure Stalin's agreement, but President Roosevelt was very lukewarm. See Churchill, Triumph and Tragedy, pp. 128-45.
721
on the Istrian coast never came off, the sumably, with the end of the war in supplies continued to be OSS-SOE spon- Europe the Soviet Union was able to sored. In the end, the Red Army occu- furnish vehicles of its own manufacture. pied Yugoslavia, as it did Poland and It may well be assumed, nevertheless, most of Czechoslovakia. American and that the USSR made whatever disposiBritish aid, which had played such an tion it desired of lend-lease supplies important part in sustaining Tito, as a within its own sphere of influence since consequence, was almost entirely cut off the United States had little means of early in 1945. The British entered Greece controlling that disposition or of even 43 in 1945, and proposed to organize and knowing what it was. equip a Greek army to restore order in that disturbed country, but the JCS Military Aid to Latin America ruled that American resources could not Lend-lease to Latin American repubbe made available for the purpose because liberated manpower units in west- lics did not figure greatly in American ern Europe must have first priority. plans after Pearl Harbor. All of these They approved the British action only republics, except Argentina and Chile, on the same condition as stipulated for followed the lead of the United States the Belgian brigadesthat it would re- and broke off diplomatic relations with sult in no increase in British requests the Axis Powers; but, save for Brazil and, to a lesser extent, Mexico, their on the United States.42 The extent to which the USSR used role in the war was purely defensive. As American supplies to arm liberated the United Nations passed from the deforces in eastern Europe can only be fensive to the offensive at the end of conjectured. Upon several occasions 1942, assignments of military equipment the United States informed the Soviet to Latin American republics of necessity Union that lend-lease retransfers must got a very low priority. Though these have prior American approval, but the assignments were made by the combined Russians ignored the notes. They did, machinery in the same manner as othin April 1945, approach General Deane ers, British participation in decisions on the subject of re transfer of vehicles thereon was largely perfunctory and of lend-lease origin to four Czechoslo- they were treated as almost exclusively vakian divisions Stalin had agreed to within the American province. The equip, but they never made any formal U.S. State Department maintained a request on the U.S. Government. Pre-close surveillance over all Latin American programs and assignments on the
42 (1) On the specific U.S. policy and actual quantities of supplies delivered to each country, see ID, Lend-Lease, Text, II, 1305-10, 1315-17, 1340-44, 1354-57. (2) On the British SOE supply to Yugoslavia and Greece see Ehrman, Grand Strategy V, 141-64, 462-75. (3) CCS 768/1, 1 Feb 45, title: Equipment for Allied and Liberated Forces; CCS 768/2, 8 Feb 45, same title. (4) CCS 425, 4 Dec 43, title: Directive for Intensification of Support of Partisan Forces in Yugoslavia.
(1) Aide-Memoire, U.S. Dept State to Soviet Charge d'Affaires, Washington, 6 Jul 44, ID, LendLease, Doc Suppl, VI. (2) Ltr, U.S. Secy State to Soviet Ambassador, 19 Dec 44, ID, Lend-Lease, Doc Suppl, VIII. (3) ID, Lend-Lease, Text, 1307-09.
722
The basic program for military lendlease 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 44 Nicaragua. The lend-lease agreements were, in effect, small protocols, but they carried no time schedule for deliveries and each
44 (1) Stetson Conn and Byron Fairchild, The Framework of Hemisphere Defense, UNITED STATES ARMY IN WORLD WAR II (Washington, 1960), pp. 232-35. (2) ID, Lend-Lease, Text, II, 1231-34. (3) JCS 629, 23 Dec 43, title: Rpt of Joint Army and Navy Advisory Board on American Republics as Revised at Request of Dept of State.
723
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 aroseof language, of unsuitability
724
GLOBAL LOGISTICS AND STRATEGY: 1943-1945 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
(1) Statistics: Lend-Lease, 15 December 1952 draft, prepared by Theodore E. Whiting, Carrel I. Tod, and Anne P. Craft (hereafter cited as Whiting, Tod, and Craft, Statistics: Lend-Lease), MS, OCMH, table Lend-Lease-7. (2) ID, Lend-Lease, Text, 128990.
49
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
48 (1) JCS 284, 4 May 43, memo from CofS, USA, title: Arming of Brazilian Expeditionary Force, with related papers, ABC 400.3295 (5-4-43) Brazil. (2) Memo, Lt Col L. C. Strong, Liaison Br, ID, for Reqmts and Assignments Br, 14 Jun 43, sub: Assignment of Training Equipment for Brazilian Expeditionary Force, Tab 9, Agenda, 101st mtg MAC(G), 8 Jul 43. (3) Min 2167, 102d mtg MAC(G), 15 Jul 43; 2916, 127th mtg MAC(G), 13 Jan 44. (4) Memo, Gen Wood, Dep Dir P&O, ASF, for Gen Roberts, OPD, 13 Apr 44, sub: Brazilian Expeditionary Force, ABC 400.3295 (5-4-43). (5) CCS 553, 18 Apr 44, title: Brazilian Expeditionary Force. (6) Min 3368, 142d mtg MAC(G), 18 May 44, with Tab 4, Agenda. (7) Cables and other papers in OPD Exec 1, Item 28b. (8) Study, Command and General Staff School, by Maj. L. R. de Freitas Tacito of the Brazilian Army, Logistical Support of a Brazilian Expeditionary Force by American Supply Installations.
CHAPTER XXIX
(1) See above, ch. XXI. (2) Whiting, Tod, and Craft, Statistics: Lend-Lease, p. 7.
2 (1) See Leighton and Coakley, Global Logistics, 1940-43, pp. 547-49, and ID, Lend-Lease, Text, II, 1151-52. (2) On the Canadian program and procedures see CCS 542, 11 Apr 44, and CCS 542/1, 6 May 44, titles: Canadian Mutual Aid to China.
726
General Stilwell's was the guiding hand in shaping the Chinese lend-lease program in the year and a half following the fall of Burma in May 1942. His plan for lend-lease was an integral part of his
general concept of reopening the supply line through Burma and eventually creating an effective Chinese army capable of coping with the Japanese invader. To recapitulate briefly, Stilwell hoped to persuade Chiang to reform and consolidate his scattered understrength armies and to create a compact, efficient force of 60 divisions, the first 30 (X-RAY and YOKE, or X and Y, Forces) to be engaged in the effort to retake north Burma, the second 30 (ZEBRA, or Z, Force) to provide an effective defense of east China. These divisions were to be organized on special tables of organization and equipment providing for considerably less artillery, fewer motor vehicles, and generally less heavy equipment than comparable U.S., British, or French divisions. At first only the Chinese divisions formed at Ramgarh in India (X-RAY Force) could be completely equipped with American or British materiel; the YOKE and ZEBRA Forces in China were to be initially supplied primarily from Chinese sources supplemented by selected critical items that could be flown over the Hump, most of them for the YOKE divisions. Once the road from India to China was open, however, Stilwell would give all 60 divisions enough American equipment to enable them to move on to take a port on the China coast. Once a port was opened, Stilwell hoped a large enough force could be supplied to drive the Japanese out of China. Just before the Cairo Conference
727
ject to policies established in Washington.5 By decision of the MAB in June 1942, all military lend-lease for China was consigned to Stilwell for delivery, and he was empowered to divert materials for use by U.S. troops though cautioned not to do so without permission from the Chinese Government. By early 1943 requirements for China in the Army Supply Program as well as assignments made by MAC(G) were being shaped entirely in terms of Stilwell's 60-division program and his specific requests for materiel for Chinese forces. By an agreement negotiated at Chungking in January 1943, the American commander was made responsible for presenting all Chinese military requirements in Washington and granted the right to comment on all requirements for civilian-type supplies. Moreover, since the Chinese did not have the necessary personnel or facilities in India to handle storage and movement of lendlease supplies, these functions were entrusted to the American theater SOS. On the all-important airlift, the theater controlled priorities (subject, of course, to high-level policy determinations in Washington) on all movements by the U.S. Air Transport Command and part of those by Chinese National Airways Corporation (CNAC) planes. Only on the remaining CNAC lift, always small, could the Chinese move such other essentials as they deemed necessaryarsenal materials, bank notes, supplies for the civilian economy, and military supplies for forces outside the Stilwell program.6
The International Division refers to Stilwell by this title in Rpt 10, Lend-Lease Information, 31 Oct 43, section on China. 6 See Leighton and Coakley, Global Logistics, 1940-43, pp. 532-34.
5
728
GLOBAL LOGISTICS AND STRATEGY: 1943-1945 Supply Program. Theater calculations of the exact requirements for 60 Chinese divisions were continually fluctuating. Unprogramed requirements were exceedingly hard to meet because of the low priority accorded Chinese forces. Moreover, Chinese requirements had to be processed through the military assignment machinery, which, the International Division estimated, took some nine months between the filing of a requisition and the ultimate arrival of material in India. Thus, however small they might seem in relation to those of other lend-lease recipients or other American theaters, they had to be anticipated at least nine months in advance.7 Concerned by the growing stockpile in India and by the seeming lack of system in handling Chinese lend-lease, OPD and ASF, applying the philosophy that war material should never be allowed to accumulate in idle stockpiles, moved in July 1943 to curtail the Chinese program further. While reaffirming the 60-division commitment, they decided that the full second 30 divisions were too far in the future to permit inclusion of more than training materials for them in the Army Supply Program. They therefore cut back the Chinese requirements program for 1943 and 1944 from the full 60 divisions to the first 30, plus 10 percent for training the 8 second 3O. The theater commander was forced to concur, albeit reluctantly, since at this point so very little ground force material was moving into China. It was not until
7 (1)ID Rpt 10, Lend-Lease Information, 31 Oct 43, section on China. (2) Msg 2296, AGWAR to AMMISCA, 11 Mar 43, ID Cables AMMISCA OUT, vol. III. 8 Msg 2976, AGWAR to AMMISCA, 6 Jul 43, and related papers in OPD 400 CTO, Case 61.
The ASF initially included requirements for the full 60 Chinese divisions in the Army Supply Program for 1943 and 1944. Assignments, meanwhile, were limited during 1942 to certain specific tonnage figures (first 3,500, then 5,000) monthly, but this policy was abandoned in early 1943 in favor of one of simply meeting Stilwell's requests. Under the new policy, shipments rose to around 10,000 tons monthly by mid-1943. Despite the seeming simplicity of the basic programmaterial for 60 divisions there were many complications in administration. The theater SOS in India inherited from the Chinese a stockpile of miscellaneous materials, mostly lendlease but some of it consisting of purchases made by China Defense Supplies, Inc. (CDS), in 193940. The materials were scattered in various places, many of them deteriorating in open storage, and there was no adequate inventory. With an excessively long supply line to operate and an acute shortage of trained personnel, the theater SOS was in no position either to provide proper storage or to make an adequate inventory. Some of the supplies in India could be used at Ramgarh, others, with Chinese permission, were diverted to U.S. forces, but the great bulk remained in storage in India awaiting the day they could be moved into China. Each month's shipments added to the burden of storage and inventory, and the ASF soon observed a tendency to requisition new material for Chinese troops when the need arose rather than to try to locate specific items already in India. Besides duplicate requisitions, there were others that fell outside the estimates originally made in preparing the Chinese lend-lease section of the Army
729
"overburdening American production" was less the real consideration than was a belief that the 60-division program was impossible of achievement, and a concern lest supplies accumulate in idle storage in India awaiting the uncertain contingency of the opening of the Ledo Road. Shortly thereafter, in any case, OPD asked G-4 to work out a definite policy that would effectively prevent any further growth of the stockpile. As finally agreed and dispatched to the theater on 8 December 1943, this policy established the rule that no assignments or shipments should be made to India for Chinese forces unless the theater could give definite assurances that material to meet the requirement was not already in the theater or en route and that it could be delivered to using forces in India or China within six months after arrival in India.10 The message placing this restriction on stockpiling in India arrived in the theater just when hopes were highest for a much larger lend-lease program for China. Stilwell's plan for a Chinese Army of 90 divisions had been presented to the President at SEXTANT in late November, and the President had indicated at least a conditional assent. Marshall reported to the JCS on 25 November that the President had told him that the Generalissimo should have something for his trip and that he (the Presi(2) Ltr, Col Frank Milani, AG USAFCBIT, to Chief, Asiatic Sec, OPD, 11 Oct 43, same sub. Both in OPD 400.3295 China, Sec lA, Case 50. (2) Romanus and Sunderland, Stilwell's Command Problems, ch I. (4) Msg AG 2524, AMMDEL to AGWAR, 29 Oct 43, file CBI CM-IN Sep-Nov 43, ASF Plng Div. 10 (1) Memo, G-4 for OPD, 6 Dec 43, sub: Proposed Supply Policy Pertaining to Equipping Chinese Divs. (2) Msg 4795, AGWAR to AMMDEL, 8 Dec 43. Both with related papers, in OPD 400.3295 China, Sec lA, Case 50.
730
dent) had spoken to Chiang about arm- training of the second thirty divisions ing the third 30 divisions but had post- with the very limited equipment can be poned any definite commitment. Tak- undertaken; any equipping of the third ing his cue from these conversations, thirty divisions is considered impos12 Stilwell instructed his subordinates in sible." the theater to prepare requisitions for Handy took the matter to General
the equipment for the second 30 divi- Marshall on 31 December, noting that sions and forward them to Washington. the President had made no commitBrig. Gen. Benjamin G. Ferris' message ment on the timing of the flow of equipcontaining the requisitions crossed that ment, and obtained the Chief of Staff's of OPD informing the theater of the approval for a message to the theater afmore restrictive policy. On receipt of firming the G-4 policy that set the upper OPD's message, Ferris, evidently non- limit of the Chinese program at 33 diviplussed, cabled Washington asking sions and established the 6-months' rule whether this policy had not been pre- on delivery.13 pared prior to SEXTANT decisions. But The President himself, whatever the OPD was not ready to make any change, reason, seemed much less concerned informing the ASF on 16 December about Chiang's position after meeting that it had received no notification of the Chinese leader at Cairo. He exerted any Presidential commitment and stat- no such pressure on the War Departing that if one had been given "an at- ment to speed up Chinese lend-lease as tempt will be made to have the decision he had after Casablanca to see that his reversed as impractical."11 promises to General Giraud were fulIn reality, at Cairo and Tehran the filled. On the contrary, he finally adoptwhole strategic concept behind the 90- ed a policy not unlike the one Stilwell division plan had been swept away. The had long been urging, threatening to swift pace of the Pacific advance, the halt the flow of lend-lease to YOKE Force new emphasis on the air effort in China, entirely if Chiang did not use it to atand the prospect of Soviet entrance into tack across the Salween.14 the war against Japan left no compelling necessity behind the Chinese ground The 33-Division Program force program. The sequel was inevitable. On 28 December 1943 Col. ThomThe 90-division program thus became as S. Timberman, head of OPD's Asiatic a vague, nebulous concept based on an Theater Group, told General Handy that "thirty divisions are the maximum 12 Memo, Col Timberman for Gen Handy, 28 we will be able to reasonably equip Dec 43, sub: Equipping Chinese Divs, OPD 400.3295
China, Sec lA, Case 50. 13 (1) Memo, Handy for CofS, 31 Dec 43, sub: Equipping Chinese Divs. (2) Msg 4171, AGWAR to 11 (1) DF, Col John J. Binns for Dir Plng Div ASF, USAFCBI Forward Echelon, 31 Dec 43, with for 16 Dec 43. (2) Msg CM-IN 9772, AMMDEL to AGrecord note. Both in OPD 400.3295 China, Sec lA, WAR, 15 Dec 43. Both in folder CBI Theater, ASF Case 50. Plng Div. (3) Romanus and Sunderland, Stilwell's 14 See Msg, AGWAR to AMMISCA, President to Command Problems, ch. II. (4) JCS 130th mtg, 25 Stilwell for delivery to Chiang Kai-shek, 27 Dec 44, Nov 43, Item 6. Stilwell Personal File, Book V, Item 1578.
731
Chinese Government."16 Gaud's first reports revealed deplorable conditions in the storage of and accounting for Chinese lend-lease supplies, particularly those shipped under civilian programs; and he was instrumental in the establishment of a joint War DepartmentFEA Screening Committee in Chungking to pass on all Chinese lend-lease requisitions for civilian supplies. The theater continued to exercise primary responsibility for the Stilwell program but, again, Gaud's reports led to a more concerted effort by the War Department to secure a complete physical inventory of all Chinese lend-lease supplies on hand in India. Though some progress was made with this inventory, it was not to be completed to the satisfaction of the War Department until April 1945. In the meantime its imperfection constituted a stumbling block to intelligent stockpiling.17 The theater was never happy with the restrictions placed on stockpiling by the G-4 6-months' policy, realizing that, adequate inventory or not, the existing stockpile in India was unbalanced and could not provide critical items needed in emergencies for forces at Ramgarh or, more important, could not satisfy the requirements that must be met on that unpredictable date when the Ledo Road would open. In April 1944 General Sultan, citing the long time lag between assignments and arrival of materials in the theater, asked for a stockpile of equipment for 8 Chinese diviTAG Ltr to Col Gaud, 11 Nov 43, sub: Instructions Relative to Duties of WD Military Aid Representative to the Republic of China, ID, Lend-Lease, Doc Suppl, VI. 17 (1) Gaud's reports are in ID file 319.1, Reports Col Gaud. (2) See also ID Rpt 10, Lend-Lease Information, 31 Mar 44, section on China.
16
732
sions and supporting troops of 2 Chinese armies to be shipped without regard to the 6-months rule. The theater based its request on an estimated shipping time of 6 months; OPD, reasoning that the shipping time was actually only 70 days, reduced the stockpile requirement proportionately to 5 divisions and supporting troops for one army before approving it. Shortly afterward OPD also approved, at Stilwell's request, the assignment and shipment of equipment for 3 Chinese long-range penetration battalions to be organized at Ramgarh.18 Despite OPD approval, the 5-division stockpile for a long time was more promise than reality. MAC (G) delayed assignments awaiting proof from a physical inventory that materials were not already in India, and the CBI theater could not complete the inventory satisfactorily. A common feeling in OPD that proper control of the Chinese program was "lacking within the theater" played its part in dictating delays in assignments calculated to insure that the new stockpile in India would be built at a leisurely pace.19 Continued complaints from General Sultan finally brought some action. Based on new tables of organization
(1) Ltr, AG Hq, CBIT, to Chief, Asiatic Sec, OPD, 7 Apr 44, sub: WD Policy on Supply of Chinese Army. (2) Msg CRA-2487, CG USAFCBI Rear Echelon, to AGWAR, 1 May 44. (3) Memo, OPD for G-4, 2 May 44, sub: WD Policy on Supply of Chinese Army with for record note. All in OPD 400.3295 China Sec lA Case 50. (4) Min 3382, 143d mtg MAC(G), 22 May 44. 19 (1) See Memo, Col William H. Wood, Asiatic Sec, Theater Gp, OPD, for Gen Handy, 20 Jul 44, and cables exchanged between War Department and CBI, 19 May-16 Jun 44, in OPD 400.3295 China, Sec lA, Case 50. (2) Memo, Col Kreuger, Chief, Theater Br, Plng Div, ASF, for Col Magruder, 15 May 44, sub: WD Policy on Supply of Chinese Army, folder la Policy File (CBI) 1944, ASF Plng Div.
18
733
supply channels and its distribution to Chinese units closely controlled by General Wedemeyer, successor to General Stilwell, and his staff.23 The Final Phase
By early 1945 when the system was put into effect, the one-way road from Myitkyina to Kunming was finally open, and, combined with the enlarged airlift, promised to inaugurate a new era in the theater. The supply line was still limited, it is true, and the major portion of the airlift would still be absorbed in carrying material for the American air force, and for theater overhead, instruction, advisory, and supply personnel; but, in contrast to the earlier period, it promised to be one of relative abundance for China. General Wedemeyer, taking up where Stilwell left off and working in considerably closer harmony with Chiang, refined and developed the 33-division plan. His first step was to organize a force within China for defense against the Japanese attacks in the east (Plan ALPHA); his second step was to begin preparations for the drive to the coast to open a seaport (Plan BETA) . Wedemeyer urged on Chiang the same line of
(1) Min 201, 86th mtg MAC(A), 31 Jan 44. (2) Memo, Col Olmstead, Secy, for Chmn MAC(G), 7 Aug 44, sub: Policy on Supply of U.S. Military Equip to Chinese Army, ID 008 Lend-Lease, XIV. (3) Memo, Lt Col James R. Stewart, Secy, for Chmn, MAC(G), 21 Jan 45, sub: Transfer of Lend-Lease Equip to Chinese. (4) TAG Ltr to CG's, CT and IBT, 15 Feb 45, same sub. (3) and (4) in ID, Lend-Lease, Doc Suppl, IX. (5) The final shift was made following a visit by Colonel Olmstead of the International Division and Brig. Gen. William J. Morrissey of G-4 to the China Theater on a lend-lease inspection mission in November 1944. For the Olmstead Morrissey Report see OPD 400.3295 China, Sec II, Case 63.
23
734
that with the increased rate of deliveries pated as to many important items within a very short time."25 The ASF moved quickly to comply and secured assignments by MAC (G) to meet the first phases of the program in February. The assignments committee also approved Wedemeyer's request for foodstuffs,
agreeing to furnish 4,000 to 6,000 tons
be better fed, better equipped, and bet- now possible they can be entirely dissiter trained. From General Ho Yingchin, Chinese Chief of Staff to the Generalissimo, he received and approved a plan for 36 divisions in China to be American-equipped (including the 2 that had been moved by airlift from
India) with new and slightly reduced tables of equipment and organization.
To these would eventually be added 3 more divisions from India to be moved over the Ledo Road, to make up a total of 39 U.S.-sponsored, U.S.-equipped divisions in the Chinese Army. American equipment to be furnished the 39 divisions under the tables would be no more than had been promised the 33 under the old plan. To insure proper distribution and use of available equipment, Chinese as well as American, Wedemeyer permitted his own SOS commander, Maj. Gen. Gilbert X. Cheves, to assume the duties of commander of the Chinese SOS as well. Finding the Chinese soldiers suffered even more from lack of food than from lack of equipment, Wedemeyer requested supplementary foodstuffs from American sources.24
of canned meat and canned or dehydrated vegetables monthly through U.S. sup-
ply channels for a 6-months' trial period. The phasing of shipments was generally in keeping with the theater's desires.26 The question of whether the Chinese program should be enlarged was considered once again in the light of the new developments, but the Joint Staff
Planners decided any move in that direc-
American aid, put effective fighting forces in the field. There was no longer any overwhelming military importance attached to even the 39 divisions, and
it seemed most unlikely that any larger force could be formed, equipped, and
Satisfied now of the theater's ability trained in time to play an appreciable 27 to move and use equipment for the role in the war against Japan. Chinese in China, the War Department Msg CRAX 943, CG USAFIBT to AGWAR, and MAB moved rapidly in early 1945 to assign and ship the equipment for 12 Jan 45, OPD 400.3295, Sec II, Case 58. (1) Memo, Gen Styer for Gen Wood, 8 Jan 45, the 39-division force. On 12 January folder 12a Genl File (CBI) 1945, ASF Plng Div. (2) General Sultan relayed China Theater's Mins 4174, 175th mtg, MAC(G), 11 Jan 45; 4266, requests that this equipment be phased 180th mtg, 15 Feb 45; 4286, 181st mtg, 23 Feb 45. (3) Memo, Secy for Chmn, MAC(G), 12 Feb 45, sub: through the first nine months of 1945. Assignment of Available Equipment for Chinese 39
25
26
neither sufficiently balanced nor suffiRomanus and Sunderland, Time Runs Out in
Div Program, Gen Tab 3, Agenda, 180th mtg MAC(G). (4) Memo, Styer for Lutes and Shingler, 22 Jan 45, ID 008 Lend-Lease, XIV. 27 Diary Entries, 26 Jan 45, 21 Apr 45, Strat Log Br, Plng Div ASF.
735
units in the approved troop basis for American support. The main effort to improve the Chinese logistical organization centered on the supply of trucks over the Ledo Road and the establishment of Cheves' supervision over the supply and transport system supporting the approved Chinese divisions in China. Most of the SOS supplies, apart from those forwarded to American troops, were requisitioned under the Chinese civilian ministry program and accorded a low priority. The only exception was the FEA truck program that was integrated by theater headquarters into the over-all program for rebuilding the internal transportation system in China.29 As of V-J Day approximately onethird of the equipment for the 39 Chinese divisions had been delivered to them, one-third was in the India-Burma or the China Theater, and one-fifth was en route from the United States to Asian ports. Almost all of the remainder had been assigned to China by the MAB but had not yet been shipped.30 In the Presidential order bringing an end to lend-lease on V-J Day, China was granted a special exemption and continued aid was authorized in order to permit Chinese armies to occupy the parts of the country evacuated by the Japanese. However, Truman specifically excluded any aid to Chiang for prosecu29 (1) Romanus and Sunderland, Time Runs Out in CBI, chs. IV and VII. (2) ID, Lend-Lease, Text, 1121-44, 1159-63. (3) On the FEA truck program see Larson and Bykofsky, The Transportation Corps: Operations Overseas, Chapter XII. 30 (1) Memo, Gen Hull, Actg DCofS, for President, 3 Sep 45, sub: U.S. Commitment for Equip of Chinese Army, WDCSA 091 China. (2) Memo, Hull for Marshall, no date, sub: Lend-Lease to China, ID 014 Civ Sup, XXXV.
28
736
tion of a "fratricidal war."31 The systematic effort to arm the 39 divisions stopped, though much of the material shipped earlier was turned over to the Chinese, as was a sizable proportion of U.S. Army supplies in China. But the aid furnished China in the period immediately following V-J Day consisted mainly of transportation services and supplies necessary to enable the Chinese to reoccupy their land. This chapter in the story of American aid to China belongs to the postwar period. The end of the war with Japan was hardly an unmixed blessing for Chiang. The reform and consolidation of his armies, on which both Stilwell and Wedemeyer had insisted, was left incomplete, and the process of equipping a select force with American supplies
31 JCS 771/18, Memorandum from President to JCS, 5 Sep 45, title: Military Lend-Lease Policy after Unconditional Surrender of Japan. See above, ch. XXVI.
CHAPTER XXX
have to depend on their own production for the major portion of their needs. Yet imports that could be brought in only through Allied channels often represented the vital margin necessary to prevent famine and epidemic or, under better conditions, to permit a small start toward restoration of normal agricultural and industrial production. Civil affairs and civilian supply were problems having both political and military aspects. In the last analysis, they were closely related to high policy, to the question of achieving the avowed United Nations goal of a peaceful and stable postwar world. They of course raised questions of civilian versus military jurisdiction. And, since they were handled as a combined responsibility
in theaters of combined operations, they also raised delicate problems of reconciling British and American approaches. There resulted a kaleidoscopic succession of complex organizational patterns, the description of which must perforce take up an inordinate amount of space in this account of civilian supply. These organizational complexities must not be allowed to obscure the fact that military authorities, national and combined, came to exercise practical control over civil affairs and civilian supply from mid-1943 onward. Some have viewed the extension of military authority into a field at first
738
conceived to be a civilian realm as a prime example of military lust for power and authority. The record does not bear this out. The extension was more a matter of moving into a vacuum than of conscious grasping for power. Military leaders accepted the civil affairs task in the first instance as an unwelcome burden under the pressure of military necessity; they sought continually to limit the responsibility they had undertaken; they were readyeven zealous, it sometimes appeared to divest themselves of it as soon as the military necessity passed. But military necessity did prove in some degree to be self-perpetuating. Once the military authorities had taken over the tasks involved and perfected organizations and procedures
for carrying them out, the transition to civilian control became increasingly difficult, however much all concerned may have wished to make it. The civilian agencies were slow to develop a coherent organization or to make the necessary plans for taking over. The Army had in being the organization, facilities, and resources that civilian agencies were not in a position to duplicate. Theater commanders were reluctant to relinquish control over civil affairs as long as the dangers of disorder and unrest were still present, or over civilian supplies as long as they feared loss of control over the shipping necessary to bring them in.2
For a lucid discussion of the evolution of military control and the reasons for it, see Harry L. Coles and
2
739
were well advanced. The CCS instructed General Eisenhower that economic problems would be handled by American and British civil authorities except as they affected military operations. The general assumption was that French North Africa, primarily an agricultural region, would be able to feed itself. The only provision for civilian supplies in early shipments was some 1,500 tons of "trade goods"talcum powder, lipstick, stockings, buttons, thread, piece goods, and the likeintended to lure hoarded agricultural supplies into the market.3 The planners did not reckon with the dislocations created in the North African economy by German occupation. Vital imports had been curtailed since mid-1940, and the Germans had already drawn off the fruits of an early 1942 harvest for use in occupied Europe. With market places bare of consumer goods farmers frequently preferred to hoard their produce, thereby intensifying the food shortage in cities. Shortage of civilian transport and the disruptive effect
Albert K. Weinberg, Civil Affairs: Soldiers Become Governors, UNITED STATES ARMY IN WORLD
WAR II (Washington, 1964), pp. 91-95, 139-42. 3 (1) International Div, ASF, Civilian Supply: A History of the Civilian Supply Branch (2 vols, text, 3 vols, documentary supplement) (hereafter cited as
ID, Civilian Supply), MS, OCMH, Text, I, 13-26.
(2) Strat Log Div, SOS, Study, 10 Nov 42, sub: Joint
Pool of Military Supplies, ASF Plng Div files. (3)
Ltr, Secy CCS to Secy State, 12 Nov 43, in Coles and Weinberg, Civil Affairs: Soldiers Become Governors, P- 34.
of marching armies on both agriculture and industry completed the pattern of economic dislocation. Eisenhower soon learned that he must import at least minimum quantities of civilian supplies or risk a breakdown in the North African economy that would endanger the success of his entire campaign.4 Eisenhower's early requests, most of them for foodstuffs, were met by emergency procurement and shipment through normal military channels. Meanwhile, a complicated organization was evolved to handle what now promised to be a serious and continuing supply problem. General Somervell's recommendation that the Australian pattern be instituted, under which lend-lease representatives in the theater served as part of the theater commander's staff and determined civilian requirements subject to his approval and assignment of shipping priorities, was lightly turned aside. On 18 November the President placed full responsibility for civilian relief on the Department of State. Within the State Department a special Office of Foreign Relief and Rehabilitation Operations (OFRRO) was established with Herbert Lehman, former governor of New York, as its head. The Office of Lend-Lease Administration (OLLA) was made responsible for furnishing funds and arranging procurement through appropriate government agencies and departments (normally Agriculture, Treasury, and War). The Board of Economic Warfare (BEW) was also given a place in the picture because of its interest in securing strategic materials from North Africa. Then, as it was a matter of combined concern (though it was agreed at the outset that the United
4
740
ater commander. In the United States both planning and procurement to meet NAEB requests rested with civilian agencies, U.S. and combined. The Committee of Combined Boards was a co-ordinate
body with the CCS, though the CCS did furnish part of its secretariat and act as a channel of communication with the theater on civil affairs. The War Department, though it had as an emergency measure to procure and ship civilian supplies to meet Eisenhower's early HERBERT LEHMAN requests, at first had virtually no voice at all in the new setup. Experience soon revealed that the States would be the chief source of civilian supplies for North Africa), a com- Army must play a more important part. mittee of the combined civilian boards General Eisenhower found civil affairs (Combined Production and Resources and civilian supply to be integral parts Board, Combined Shipping Adjustment of military logistics in North Africa. Board, Combined Raw Materials Board, Only he was in a position to evaluate and Combined Food Board) was formed the relative importance of civilian relief to serve as the principal policy-making and determine the shipping space to be body for civil affairs. A subcommittee, allotted it, given existing limitations on called the Combined Committee for convoys, ocean shipping, and port capacNorth Africa (CCNA) but mainly Amer- ities. Within the theater he also had to ican in its composition, became the op- control the ports and internal transportaerating arm of the Committee of Com- tion system. Even before the invasion bined Boards (COB) for handling day- it had been agreed that coal and POL to-day operations. The organization cre- should be treated as common-use items ated in North Africa, which necessarily to be requisitioned and imported entirefollowed the intricate Washington pat- ly through military channels and allotern, was the North African Economic cated within the theater between civilian Board (NAEB) on which all interested American and British agencies were rep- (2) Msg R-3008, AGWAR to USFOR, London, 10 Nov 42, AG 400.3295 (9-1-42) (3), Sec 5. (3) Msg 4990, resented.5
(1) Memo, Somervell for CofS, 11 Nov 42, sub: Civilian Supply in N Africa, folder CofS, Hq ASF.
5
London to AGWAR, 17 Nov 42, ID Cables Economic Sup Program N Africa. (4) ID, Civilian Supply, Text, I, 13-26.
741
here 1 shall be compelled to decide between reducing the size of total forces or causing disaffection with the French by failing to supply essentials which they are expecting 7 to receive.
The Washington authorities could do little to resolve Eisenhower's dilemma since the amount of shipping was controlled by limitations on the size of convoys, and asked him for a command de-
cision. On 28 December Eisenhower ruled that 30,000 tons of civilian supplies should be included in each convoy, but he did so on the mistaken assumption, advanced by shipping experts in the theater, that the tonnage could be accommodated by a combination of reduction in ballast and use of broken stowage. Army shipping experts in the United States disagreed, and it was only after the addition of three ships per convoy in early January 1943 for combined French rearmament and civilian supply tonnages that the goal was met. The 30,000-ton schedule was maintained during the following months. At Casablanca General Giraud thought he had secured a promise for an increase to 65,000 tons monthly but the Combined Boards ruled such an increase was not justified. Actual shipments from December 1942 through June 1943 amounted to 179,450 tons, of which over 140,000 were foodstuffs, 17,000 tons cotton textiles, 10,000 tons chemicals, and the remainder distributed among paper, iron and steel, agricultural machinery, tires, autos, spare parts,
1761, London to AGWAR, 12 Dec 42; 761, AGWAR to FREEDOM, Algiers, 4 Jan 43; all in ID Cable File Economic Prog N Africa. (3) ID, Civilian Supply, Text, I, 16-39. 7 Msg 1654, FREEDOM, Algiers, to AGWAR, 10 Dec 42, ID Cable File Economic Prog N Africa.
742
tools, and other miscellaneous industrial items. In addition, approximately 65,000 tons of coal were furnished monthly from England to ports inside the Mediterranean to meet combined civilian and military needs, 20,000 tons monthly from the United States to ports on the Atlantic coast.8 In every phase the civilian supply program for North Africa showed the effects of hasty planning and divided responsibility. Without an over-all plan, procurement was based entirely on monthly requisitions by the North African Economic Board. The Office of Lend-Lease Administration, charged with co-ordinating procurement by other agencies in response to these requisitions, was illequipped for the task and found it difficult or impossible to secure necessary priorities on scarce items when NAEB requests were in competition with military orders. In general, requests for such relief items as grain, flour, soap, and clothing were met, but procurement and shipment of items for industrial rehabilitation and for transportation and communication needs lagged far behind NAEB requisitions. The system of handling shipments was satisfactory neither to the Transportation Corps nor to WSA. Army port authorities complained that OLLA did not provide supplies at port at the time or in the manner necessary to make proper use of broken stowage on ships carrying
(1) Ltr, Edward G. Meyers to Lt Comdr Donald Watson, WSA, 16 Jun 43, folder Lend-Lease, Box 122874, WSA Conway File. (2) Memo, Lt Col Marvin H. Dixon, Chief International Br, Movements Div, TC for ACofT for Opns, 1 Apr 43, sub: Stockpile of Civilian Sups for N Africa, TC 400 Africa Jan-Jun 43. (3) Memo, J. E. Slater, Regional Dir, WSA, N Africa, for Lewis Douglas, 6 Apr 43, sub: Shpg 8 (1) ID, Civilian Supply, Text, I, 15-16, 32-35. Aspects Lend-Lease Problems, N Africa, N Africa (2) Msgs, 3189, FREEDOM, Algiers to AGWAR, 28 Dec Apr 43, WSA Douglas File. (4) ID, Civilian Supply, 42; 726, AGWAR to FREEDOM, 2 Jan 43; 4860, Algiers Text, I, 33-38. 10 to AGWAR, 5 Jan 43; 5021, 11 Jan 43; all in ID (1) Ibid. (3). (2) Ltr, Gen Wright to OLLA, 15 Cable File Economic Prog N Africa. (3) For com- May 43. (3) Memo, Maj Arthur E. Palmer, CSB ID, plete files of cable exchanges between Committee of for Gen Wright, 6 Jul 43. (4) Ltrs, Stettinius to Combined Boards and NAEB see BOC-COB Cable Gen Wright, 13 Jul 43, and to Douglas, WSA, 14 Files, ID. Jul 43. Last three in ID 014 Civ Sup N Africa, III.
743
ject to approval of the U.S. theater commander there.12 Military Assumption of Responsibility
The President's directive did little to halt the trend already under way toward military assumption of responsibility for civil relief in the initial stages of military operations. The proviso requiring the theater commander's approval of relief programs for his area proved more important than the broad authority delegated to Lehman. On 1 March 1943 the Civil Affairs Division was created on the General Staff, reporting
directly to the Secretary of War. Maj. Gen. John H. Hilldring, head of the new division, took a stand on the issue of
military responsibility as strong and positive as had General Somervell. When on 22 March 1943 the CCS Secretariat suggested that the Committee of Combined Boards be given responsibility for preparing plans for civil affairs, both Hilldring and Somervell disagreed. Somervell reminded the Chief of Staff that in addition to the need for complete military control over transportation to and within theaters, security requirements would preclude allowing civilians on the boards the knowledge of future operations required for intelligent civil affairs planning. In the end the JCS decided that such planning should be carried out by the War and Navy Departments "as an integral part of planning for any specific operation," the departments to
co-ordinate their activities to the extent necessary "directly with the civilian
(1) ID, Civilian Supply, Text, I, 39-52. (2) Ltr, President to Hon Herbert H. Lehman, 19 Mar 43, ID CSB Basic Pol File Gen 1942-43.
12
Memo, Somervell for McCloy, 3 Apr 43, OPD Exec 8, Book 8, Item 50.
11
744
agencies concerned." The Army's Civil out military support in obtaining funds Affairs Division was selected as the "log- and priorities. Likewise, the assumption ical agency" to handle the major portion that the War Department program 13 would be totally guided by theater requiof this military responsibility. Concomitant with this JCS decision, sitions gave way as experience in prepLehman agreed that there should be an arations for the invasion of Sicily showed initial period of military responsibility that to wait for theater requisitions in each newly liberated area during would unduly delay procurement. A which the War Department would un- special operational plan was hastily dertake "complete procurement, operat- drawn up and agreed to between Washing and administrative responsibility" ington and the theater to provide for the for all phases of civilian relief "as func- first 90 days of that operation. By July tions of the theater commander." This 1943 the ASF, under the direction of the period was to be sufficiently long to make Civil Affairs Division, was engaged in the transfer to OFRRO orderly, and was formulating a broader advance program estimated for planning purposes at to cover the period of military responninety days. With the upcoming inva- sibility in other areas. In April 1943 a Civilian Supply sion of Sicily in mind, the War Department informed all theater commanders Branch was established in the Internaon 12 April that they must prepare tional Division, ASF, charged with retimely requisitions for civilian supplies sponsibility for co-ordinating civilian supply responsibilities within the ASF in advance of each operation.14 The establishment of a period of mili- and handling relations with civilian tary responsibility was a development of agencies. Shortly afterward, supply planmajor importance. It launched the War ning was initiated in the technical servDepartment on active and systematic ices. Finally in July 1943 a special Secpreparations for civilian relief while the tion VI was added to the Army Supply civilian agencies still foundered in un- Program solely devoted to civilian supcertainty and confusion. The initial ply requirements. It was based on estiassumption that Army procurement mated relief needs of 45 million people would be merely a supplement to that in the Mediterranean area, and 25 milundertaken under OFRRO auspices lion in northwest Europe, for the 90 soon gave way in the face of the revela- days assumed as the duration of the tion that OFRRO was in no position to military period. The calculation of recarry out a procurement program with- quirements was made on the so-called "disease and unrest" formula, calling for only minimum quantities of food, fuel, (1) JCS 250/2, 10 Apr 43, title: Planning for soap, and medical supplies needed to Handling of Civil Affairs in Occupied Areas Which May Become Theaters of Operations. (2) TAG Ltr prevent starvation and epidemics that to Col John F. Haskell, 1 Mar 43, AG 014.1 (2-27-43). might endanger military operations. (3) Memo, Somervell for CofS, 25 Mar 43, ID CSB Procurement would be carried out unBasic Pol File Gen 1942-43. 14 (1) Quotes from Msg CM-OUT 2457, AGWAR der Army appropriations, not as civilian to CG NATOUSA, 5 Apr 43. (2) WD Cable of Genlend-lease, and it would be phased in eral Application, 12 Apr 43, ID CSB Basic Pol File
13
Gen 1942-43.
745
sary to permit the full exploitation of military operations and until you have had sufficient time after the start of an operation to procure the supplies which will enable you to discharge your responsibilities. Our reason for the adoption of this premise is that we regard supplies for the
support of the civilian population as an
integral part of our troop equipment. . . . We feel it would be unwise at this stage of military plans to adopt the machinery you suggest for the separate handling of this most important phase of our military supply problem. . . .16
General Hilldring's statement delimiting the positive area of military responsibility left Governor Lehman in the difficult position of being without practical means to get the broad OFRRO program off the ground, for the LendLease Administration concurrently was insisting on developing its own plans for procurement of civil relief supplies and was also disinclined to support OFRRO estimates. The President, meanwhile, had come up with still another scheme for insuring over-all civilian control, this one originating in the Bureau of the Budget. "The civilian agencies," he wrote, "have considerable experience and talent that it would be difficult and undesirable for the Army to duplicate. The military operations of our Army should not be unnecessarily diluted or diverted by the questions affecting relief, rehabilitation, . . . and other essentially civilian problems."17 Yet, basically, the Bureau
16
746
of the Budget plan was little more than a revamping of the discredited mode of operations in North Africa. In Washington there would be an interdepartmental policy committee under the chairmanship of State with an operating arm, the Office of Foreign Economic Coordination (OFEC), under the direction of Assistant Secretary of State Dean Acheson. In each theater an area director would be appointed by the Secretary
headed by Leo Crowley. Though a step forward, there were still divided responsibilities. The State Department was still the policy-making agency, the
War Production Board, the War Food Administration, and the Treasury still the procuring agencies, and WSA in charge of shipping. The procession of co-ordinating bodies continued as be-
19
of State to co-ordinate the activities of U.S. civilian agencies there. The area director was to be under two chains of command, one to the military theater commander and the other to the Assistant Secretary of State. Again there was too much co-ordination and too little effective action. The area director system never went into practical effect and military commanders continued in control in Sicily and took over in the early stages in Italy. In Washington the OFEC mechanism failed to resolve the conflicts among the civilian agencies themselves; perhaps its principal achievement lay in the agreement reached within it in late July that the period of military responsibility should be extended from ninety days to six months.18 On 25 September 1943, in a final effort to centralize civilian responsibility for all foreign economic matters within the administration, the President brought the Office of Lend-Lease Administration, Board of Economic Warfare, and Office of Foreign Relief and Rehabilitation Operations together in the Foreign Economic Administration
18 Memo, Palmer for Dir ID, 28 Jul 43, sub: Responsibilities of Civilian Supply Subcom. ID 014 Civ Sup, I.
fore, and FEA was unable to develop any more practicable over-all plan than had its separate components. The problem was by now complicated by the necessity of developing a common program with the British for the war period and a program within an even broader international framework for postwar rehabilitation. In October 1943, the United Nations Relief and Rehabilitation Administration (UNRRA) was founded at Atlantic City, with Governor Lehman as its head and many of the old OFRRO personnel as its American component. But the founding of UNRRA, for the nonce, meant little. It had as yet no funds and no workable international machinery; it was, in any case, designed mainly to take care of the postwar period. By early November 1943 it was apparent that no civilian agency, national or international, was prepared to assume the relief burden in time to meet the situation expected to develop as Allied forces moved onto the Continent of Europe. The combined military authorities had, meanwhile, made considerable progress in planning civilian relief for the period of military responsibility. Recognizing that only the military au-
thorities seemed prepared to act and to act quickly, on 10 November 1943 the
19
747
been determined that the War Department would not exercise this responsibility independently, but in co-operation with responsible British agencies.
Combined Arrangements
The combined military arrangements for handling civilian supply had taken relatively final shape by the time the President's directive was issued. The combined arrangement for North Africa was, of course, the Committee of Combined Boards, but the JCS, in deciding that U.S. military planning for civil affairs should be centered in the Army's Civil Affairs Division, also ruled against continuation of this arrangement and recommended that a combined civil affairs committee be organized directly under the CCS.21 This proposal for the marriage of British and American organizations for civil affairs posed difficult problems of adjustment of divergent national policies, procedures, and interests. In July 1942 the British had established an Administration of Territories (Europe) Committee (AT(E)) in the War Office, responsible for all civil affairs planning for the liberation of northwest Europe. The committee sponsored the preparation of a phased statement of over-all relief and rehabilitation requirements as a basis of forward production and import planningthe so-called Young-Sinclair estimates, named for Sir Robert Sinclair of the Ministry of Production and Sir Hubert Young of the Board of Trade who were jointly responsible for their preparation. The Young-Sinclair estimates provided for three six-month
21
The President's letter definitely and finally confirmed military responsibility for civilian relief during the initial stages of operations and extended it by adding the function of planning for the eventuality of a German collapse. It gave the War Department the leading role in handling civilian supply that formerly, at least in theory, had been in the hands of civilian agencies. By this time it had
20 Ltr, President to Secy War, 10 Nov 43, ID, Civilian Supply, Doc Suppl, 133.
748
periods beginning in mid-1943 and running through the end of 1944, calculated on both a "scorched" and an "unscorched" basis. This AT(E) program, finished in the spring of 1943, was of broad scope, recognizing no differentiation between military and civilian periods of responsibility. It went beyond the approved U.S. War Department categories of food, soap, fuel, and medical supplies, to include rehabilitation items such as clothing, transportation stores, fertilizer, seed, industrial first-aid kits, and materials for repair of public utilities. AT(E) estimates differed from the ASF program, too, in that they were divorced from consideration of supply possibilities and initially from strategic plans. It was contemplated that phasing of procurement would be worked out by application of "Strategic Keys," that is, the CCS timetable for liberation of each area. Such procurement would depend, in part, on imports from the United States or other outside sources. British civil affairs organization and procedure also differed from American. The British Directorate of Civil Affairs in the War Office, like the U.S. War Department Civil Affairs Division, reported directly to a civilian head of a military department, but, unlike the Civil Affairs Division, it was not part of the General Staff. The Administration of Territories (Europe) Committee also, though in the War Office, was of a quasicivilian type, regarded by Americans as comparable to OFRRO rather than to any U.S. military agency. All procurement in Great Britain was carried on by civilian ministries to whom the military services submitted their requirements. Even in determining requirements, the War Office used different channels for
749
up the effective operating arm of MAC(G). The CCAC (S) was in turn to be both the planning and operating arm for the CCAC and CCS in the administration of civilian supply in liber24 ated areas. Before CCAC (S) could assume this role, the basic differences in the British and American approaches had to be further reconciled. Though forced to accept the American scheme of organization, the British did not abandon their fight for a territorial division of responsibility. Moreover, they insisted that the Young-Sinclair estimates, combining requirements for the military and civilian periods, should form the basis for civilian supply planning by CCAC (S) and that the civilian Combined Boards should have a continuing and important place in the determination of relief programs for both periods. The Americans considered the question of territorial responsibility already settled. They made it quite clear that the British could not count on receiving lend-lease supplies for redistribution as relief to other nations, and continued to insist on a combined military plan designating sources of supply by commodity for each area liberated. This plan the Americans would confine to the military period, and during this period provide only the basic necessitiesfood, fuel, and sanitary supplies. These matters, they insisted, were of purely military concern and outside the province of the combined civilian boards. In insisting on a separation of the military and civilian periods, the War Department rejected the YoungSinclair estimates as a basis for planning,
24 (1) CCAC 9/1/D, 9 Aug 43, title: Supply Subcommittee. (2) ID, Civilian Supply, Text, I, 108-12.
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just as it had earlier rejected the broad estimates of OFRRO.25 These differences made it impossible for CCAC (S) to even hold a formal meeting until after the CCS, at QUADRANT in August 1943, had reached decisions on at least some of the questions at issue. The CCS decisions were embodied in a fundamental charter (CCS 324/1) that afterward became the guide for all combined military planning for civilian supply. The CCS recognized that "minimum economic relief for the population of occupied areas must be furnished by the military during the period of military operations and for some time thereafter," and directed the preparation of an over-all combined program by the CCAC, that would indicate the division of supply responsibility in each category between the United States and the United Kingdom. Shipping was to be the responsibility of the nation furnishing the supplies, and maximum use was to be made of local resources to lessen both the supply and the shipping burden. The military program was to be confined to "the basic ration, soap, medical, sanitary supplies, fuel . . . and other agreed articles considered essential to military operations." The basic ration should be nearly as possible the same whether furnished by the United States or Britain. Stockpiling should be limited to the
25 (1) ID, Civilian Supply, text, I, 102-04, 110-12. (2) Memo, Arthur B. Van Buskirk, OLLA, for Edward R. Stettinius, OLLA, 26 May 43. (3) Min, mtg ID and OLLA officials, 28 May 43. (2) and (3) in ID CSB Basic Policy File Genl 1942-43. (4) Ltr, Gen Wright to Bernhard Knollenberg, 1 Oct 43, ID 014 Civ Sup, II. (5) Memo, Gen Wright for Gen Clay, 13 Jul 43, sub: U.K. Questions re Civilian Sups in Military Opns, ID, Civilian Supply, doc suppl, 92.
indeed, it consisted almost entirely of a draft by the U.S. Joint Staff Planners. The main concession to the British was in the clause pertaining to "other agreed articles," one that was open to varying interpretations; nor were the Americans able to secure a clause they advocated making the British responsible for all purchasing outside the United 27 States. Beyond this, the charter left many other matters open to future settlement, and they became the subject of the earliest deliberations of the Supply Subcommittee of the CCAC, beginning with its first formal meeting on 8 September. By that time the development of operating procedures was urgent, for in late August the first requirements for civilian supplies in Italy had arrived from AFHQ. In considering the requirements for Italy, the British made one last attempt to establish primary American responsibility for the Mediterranean area (except for coal and POL) and of course,
by inference, primary British responsibility for northwest Europe and the Balkans. It was foredoomed to failure, and they abandoned their position at the third meeting of CCAC (S) on 21 September when the Americans agreed to
(1) CCS 324/1, 22 Aug 43, Ad Hoc Com Rpt to CCS, title: Rehabilitation of Occupied and Liberated Territories. (2) The recommendations were approved in 115th meeting CCS, 23 August 1943. 27 (1) For a brief sketch of the negotiations at Quebec see Memo, Palmer for Dir Materiel, ASF, 25 Aug 43, sub: Rpt on Trip to Quebec, ID CSB Basic Policy File Genl Aug-Dec 1943. (2) See also ID, Civilian Supply, Text, I, 113-18, for a fuller discussion of relative British and American positions on each point.
26
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Disagreement over the basic ration ship against the first three months' requirements for Italy without prejudice also delayed the processes of CCAC (S) to the final determination of supply for a time. The Americans and British 28 agreed on 2,000 calories as the minimum source and supply responsibility. necessary for the health of civilian popuWith that issue settled, and immediate shipments arranged, the major ques- lations, but the British wanted to furtion became the general method of de- nish specific supplements for each local termining source of supply for items in area, while the Americans proposed a the over-all program CCAC (S) was ex- standard basic ration for all areas. In pected to draw up. The British mem- particular, the British held out for largbers took the position that the military er quantities of sugar and fats for Belsubcommittee should develop require- gium, Holland, and France, and for the ments for each area expected to be lib- inclusion of coffee. A compromise was erated, and then submit them to the reached on this issue in mid-November, Combined Boards which would, in the the U.S. members agreeing to the inclulight of worldwide shipping and supply sion of limited amounts of sugar, fats, availabilities, determine the extent to and coffee. With this agreement the way which the requirements could be met was clear for the preparation of the overand the sources from which supplies all plan that the CCS had directed at should be drawn. War Department Quebec.30 Contemporary with these developspokesmen contended that CCS 324/1 clearly designated the CCAC as the or- ments in the combined machinery, the ganization responsible for determining ASF began in September 1943 to revise sources of supply for the military period. Section VI of the Army Supply Program Again the American view prevailed, but in accordance with the decisions reached with the concession that either side of at Quebec. Although there had been no the subcommittee could, at its own dis- combined agreement on the matter, for cretion, present specific questions to the planning purposes the ASF assumed a Combined Boards for advice through its 50-50 division of supply responsibility own national channels. In actual prac- between the United States and United tice, because of the need for drawing Kingdom for a six months' military perion worldwide sources of supply, civilian od. Broadening the base on which calsupply programs would usually be sub- culations had been made in June, the mitted to the Combined Boards for ad- revision of Section VI was drawn up on vice, though the British members of the premise that supplies must be furCCAC (S) were to regard this advice as nished from the United States to meet more binding than did U.S. War Department representatives.29 III. (3) Min, nth mtg CCAC(S), 16 Nov 43, Item 4.
(1) Mins, 1st mtg CCAC(S), 8 Sep 43; 3d mtg, 21 Sep 43, Item 1. (2) The British retained responsibility for coal and POL see below, p. 758. 29 (1) Ltr, Col G. A. Rickards, Civ Affairs Br, BAS, to Gen Wright, 11 Oct 43, ID CSB Basic Pol File Aug-Dec 43. (2) Ltr, McCloy to Wilson, CPRB, 26 Oct 43, with related materials in ID 014 Civ Sup,
28
(4) Min, 16th mtg CCAC, 14 Dec 43, Item 5. 30 (1) Ltr, Col Rickards to Gen Wright, 24 Sep 43. (2) Memo, Palmer for U.S. Members, CCAC(S), 16 Oct 43. Both in ID CSB Basic Pol File Aug-Dec 43. (3) Mins, 4th mtg CCAC(S), 28 Sep 43, Items 2 and 3; 8th mtg, 26 Oct 43, Item 1; nth mtg, 16 Nov 43, Item 2. (4)CCAC(S) 2/1, 17 Nov 43, title: Agreed Subsistence Reqmts for Northwest Europe.
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50 percent of the minimum needs of 112 million people in combined areas of responsibility in northwest Europe and the Mediterranean.31 The basic premises on which a combined plan for relief and rehabilitation could be formulated had therefore been agreed by the time the President issued his directive of 10 November. However, in its relations with the British the War Department had insisted on restricting military responsibility to somewhat narrower limits than the President now proposed. It seemed necessary to redefine the respective responsibilities of civilian and military agencies.
The Problem of Rehabilitation Supplies
The War Department, while insisting adamantly on military control over civilian supply during the initial phases of operations in overseas theaters, also sought vigorously to limit that responsibility to the narrow field of relief. This attitude in the end produced serious delays in the provision of rehabilitation supplies necessary for the resuscitation of transportation and communication facilities, and industrial and agricultural production in liberated areas. Slow progress in rehabilitation almost inevitably resulted in larger and larger demands for relief. The experience in every liberated territory pointed to the need for a balanced economic program with internal transport as perhaps the real heart of the problem. The military formula of food, fuel, and sanitary and medical supplies was therefore hardly a satisfactory one.
31
ETOUSA officials also, in fall 1943, candidly criticized the existing restrictive nature of the military civil affairs program, predicting the omission of industrial and agricultural maintenance materials would be "nothing short of catastrophic based on the North African experience in which failure of early planning for procurement of these items led to long delays which frequently, by unduly delaying production and distribution in North Africa, led to increased demands for imports of consumers' goods."33 War Department insistence on limiting its responsibility to relief was based on the assumption that rehabilitation was a responsibility of the civilian agencies and on the desire, for budgetary reasons as well as reasons of convenience, to limit Army procurement to the smallest number of articles possible. The Department stipulated that it would sup32 Memo, Col Boykin C. Wright, 24 Apr 43, sub: Civilian Supply, ID CSB Basic Pol file 1942-43. 33 Memo, Col Cornelius E. Ryan, Chief CA Sec ETOUSA, for Chief ID ASF, 8 Oct 43, sub: Memo on Civilian Supplies for Liberated Areas, ID 014 Civ Sup, III.
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taken as a military task, and this proved to be an effective means of controlling the whole affair. CCAC (S) seldom gave its sanction or support to requisitioned items, but merely passed requests on to the Combined Supply Committee for consideration in the light of competing U.S. or Allied civilian demands to be produced on a civilian priority. Without military priority, civilian agencies were seldom able to make timely procurement.35 The President's November directive clearly called for some broadening of the military province, and new arrangements took shape in meetings between State, War, and FEA representatives in December 1943. It was agreed that the War Department would initiate and develop plans for relief for all areas to be liberated, working out its estimates in close collaboration with State and FEA. Besides food, fuel, soap, and medical supplies, the military programs would include transport equipment, utility repair items, clothing and shoes, and seeds, fertilizer, and other agricultural supplies. Industrial rehabilitation items would still be excluded. Military procurement, as opposed to planning, would be limited to relief items already included in the ASP, and to transport equipment and public utility repair items to be furnished from military stocks. FEA would continue to procure other items in the programs, with the War Department to support procurement on military priority of all items included on approved military programs. Military planning would also be limited to the military period, still estimated at six months. Both planning and procurement for the postmilitary period would have
35
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to proceed on civilian priority ratings. The military authorities would also, regardless of the extent of advance procurement, have to determine what items could be brought into overseas areas in the light of transportation limitations.36 To provide a working organization to carry out these decisions, the United States Procurement Committee (USPC) was set up in early February 1944. According to its own official definition of functionarrived at months laterit was "a forum for reaching agreements . . . with respect to civilian supply, requirements and procurement problems during the military period."37 Its purpose was thus to provide a meeting place for the principal operating personnel in War, State, and FEA, and a point of contact for other interested agencies such as the War Food Administration, Treasury, WSA, and WPB. In the USPC the American viewpoint was normally agreed upon before presentation to the British in CCAC (S). The USPC was also the American vehicle for communication with the Combined Boards in accordance with agreed procedures for determining sources of supply. It supplanted the Combined Supply Committee as the agency responsible for processing theater requests for unprogramed items during the military period (subject, of course, to British agreement within the
CCAC (S)). The USPC was, nonetheless, only a forum, and it had no power to bind
(1) Ltr, CPRB, CFB, CRMB, CSAB to J. J. McCloy, Chmn, CCAC, 13 Dec 43, ID CSB Basic Pol File Aug-Dec 43. (2) Memo, Gen Wright, sub: Memo Re Conf ... in Gen Clay's Office, 14 Dec 43, Dir Materiel File Lend-Lease 1942-44. (3) ID, Civilian Supply, Text, I, 154-59. 37 USPC 25 (revised), 12 Sep 44, in ID, Civilian Supply, Doc Suppl, 166; see also Text, I, 184.
36
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Sicily and Italy provided the first testing ground for the policies and procedures taking shape in Washington. The invasion of Sicily was the first Allied operation for which there was a definite civilian supply plan prepared in advance. The plan, to cover a 90-day military period, was based on the assumption that once the dust of battle settled, Sicily would be self-sufficient except for coal and oil. For such immediate relief needs as arose, AFHQ hoped to rely mainly on stockpiles in North Africa. Only 12,100 tons of food were requested from the United States, and some thought even that quantity excessive. The Allied Military Government of Occupied Territory (AMGOT) instituted in Sicily soon found this optimism entirely unwarranted. Whether there was enough grain to provide bread for all the people was a debatable proposition, but. for the moment quantity was irrelevant, since the lack of transport,
the colossal black market, farm hoarding, and the ravages of battle kept grain out of the cities. Two months after the invasion, cities such as Palermo were still living "hand to mouth" with "not even 24 hours reserves of breadstuffs in the town."40 The situation the Allies found on the Italian mainland was even worse. The appearance of economic order, prosperity, and self-sufficiency that Mussolini's fascist government had been able to create was in reality only a facade that cloaked Italy's long-standing economic ills. The country was almost entirely dependent upon the outside world for coal and oil, and much more so for essential raw materials and even foodstuffs than the Fascists admitted. The minor wars in Ethiopia, Spain, and Albania had placed a severe strain on the Italian economy; three years of World War II as a German ally pushed it to the brink of collapse. Italy entered the war in 1940 unprepared and was never able to mobilize her economy in efficient fashion. Though nominally an ally, Italy was forced into an economic as well as political and military dependence on Germany that left her at the mercy of the Nazi overlords of Europe. The country did not prosper under the German hegemony. Shortages of raw materials and agricultural supplies, military demands on the labor force, and demor-
40 (1) Rpt of CCAO, AMGOT for Aug 43, CAD 319.1 AMG (8-17-43), Sec 1. (2) Memo, Palmer for Clay, 14 May 43, sub: Problem of Civilian Supply Raised by JCS 302. (3) Memo, Palmer for Clay, 25 May 43, sub: Civilian Supply for HUSKY. (4) Draft msg, Marshall for Eisenhower, 26 May 43. (2), (3), and (4) in ID CSB Basic Pol File Gen 1942-43. (5) CCS 247/5/D, 28 Jun 43, title: Directive on Civil Affairs for HUSKY.
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alization of the population led to a decline in agricultural and industrial production. Reserves of foodstuffs, clothing, and other consumer commodities sank to perilously low levels with prospects of replacement remote. In early 1942 the daily bread ration, already the lowest in western Europe, had to be cut from 200 to 150 grams per person. The transportation and communication system, subjected to excessive wear and tear, began to show signs of deterioration. Price, marketing, production, and rationing controls broke down, giving rise to a flourishing black market.
The Allied invasion gave the final impetus to economic collapse in the areas taken over. These areas in the south, the poorest section of Italy, were cut off from their normal exchange with the north where the main Italian industrial plant was centered. Bombing, demolition by the retreating Germans, and the ravages of land battles left thousands homeless, further curtailed agricultural production, disrupted an already weak transport system, and created new scarcities for black market operators to exploit. The demands of Allied and Italian military forces absorbed much of the
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agreed to provide two ships monthly to carry such other dry cargo as the theater commander should consider necessary and that could not be carried in Italian ships. This arrangement was to be a temporary expedient; there was little expectation that the British could continue to furnish and haul coal to Italy after the first three-month period. The longrange civilian supply plan the CCS directed at QUADRANT was to cover Italy as well as northwest Europe. But since this plan was not finally placed in effect until June 1944, civilian supply needs for Italy were handled in the interim on an emergency basis, "going forward from crisis to crisis in a prevailing at43 mosphere of urgency." On the assumption that the only food problem in Italy would be supplying deficits in cities, initial estimates envisaged import of foodstuffs for only 10 percent of the population. On this basis, CCAC (S) on 9 November 1943 approved a program calling for shipment of 271,000 metric tons of grain or flour and 72,790 metric tons of other subsistence to cover the first six months south of Rome and the first three months 44 north of Rome. There was, understandably, consternation when, early in December, AFHQ informed the CCS that imported grain would be required for 50 percent of the people south of Rome and 70 percent of those in the north, and requested shipment of 882,000 met43(1)ID, Civilian Supply, Text, I, 229. (2) Memo, Clay for CG ASF, 18 May 43, sub: Coal Reqmts Ref CCS 227, folder CSofS Jt and Comb 1942-44, Hq ASF File. (3) Memo, Somervell for Marshall, 14 May 43. (4) See also above, ch. III. (5) CCS 324/1, 22 Aug 43. 44(1)CCAC(S) 1, 16 Sep 43, CCAC(S) 1/3, 17 Sep 43, and CCAC(S) 1/5, 14 Oct 43, titles: Agreed Italian Civilian Reqmts. (2) Min, CCAC(S) 10 th mtg, 9 Nov 43, Item 4. (3) ID, Civilian Supply, Text, I, 229-30.
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ric tons of grain and 240,000 tons of other subsistence during the first six months of 1944. AFHQ urged that shipments be speeded since theater stocks in both Italy and North Africa were at a very low level. The reasoning behind the AFHQ request was compelling. Civilian supply had previously been neglected, Eisenhower explained, while port and inland transport facilities were absorbed in handling military cargo. By the end of November 1943, the new Allied Control Commission working with the Italian 45 Government was at the end of its rope. The 1943 harvest had fallen 25 to 30 percent below normal; amassing grain under the old unpopular Fascist system completely broke down and the major portion of the short harvest found its way into the black market. Even the low 150-gram bread ration could not be maintained, and the only way to prevent mass starvation in urban centers such as Naples seemed to be a crash program of imports. Eisenhower stressed the military urgency behind the requests:
shipments from the United States were started immediately to meet the emergency. The requirements for the second three months were subjected to a closer scrutiny since the advance had been much slower than anticipated. A theater request for a 134,000-ton stockpile for operations north of Rome was turned down and other reductions were made with the net result that the AFHQ total was cut from 882,000 to 609,000 metric tons of grain and flour, and from 240,000 to 150,000 tons of other subsistence.47 Even with the reductions the new Italian food program, when added to a continuing demand for nearly 100,000 tons of coal monthly, posed a heavy demand on Allied supplies and shipping. The Italian ships the QUADRANT planners had so hopefully postulated turned out to be few in number and best suited to short voyages within the MediterIt should be understood that our requiranean; the burden of transoceanic transsitions for food . . . are not based on conport of Italian relief supplies therefore siderations of humanitarianism or any other factor except that of military neces- fell on British and American shipping. sity. The conditions in Southern Italy are In arranging the enlarged Italian prosuch that unless reasonable quantities of gram the Allied authorities got their first food are supplied very promptly we will exercise in developing the global availability of relief supplies and adjusting it 45 In Sicily and in the early stages in Italy, Allied to the availability of shipping and conMilitary Government of Occupied Territory handled voys. If the development of these arcivil affairs. In an effort to sustain the Badoglio
government in its role as cobelligerent, an Allied Control Commission was set up on 10 November
1943 to work with it in governing the country. The Control Commission was assigned responsibility for rear areas, absorbing in most cases AMGOT personnel there; AMGOT continued to be responsible for forward areas. The Allied Control Commission was military in character and under the Allied theater commander who was nominally its president.
46 (1) Msg CM-IN 9014, 14 Dec 43, AFHQ to CCS. (2) Ltr, MGS AFHQ to CCS, 26 Nov 43, in Coles and Weinberg, Civil Affairs: Soldiers Become Governors, pp. 314-15. (3) Msgs, LAC 32, CM-IN 3851, 6 Dec 43; and LAC 71, CM-IN 18299, 30 Dec 53, AFHQ to CCS. 47 ID, Civilian Supply, Text, I, 231-34.
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which it was apparently unaware. The British were diligently seeking to shift responsibility for furnishing coal to Italy to the United States, and Douglas thought he detected in that effort a part of a general trend to increase the load on American shipping while British bottoms were diverted to commercial trades. WSA-BMWT relations, normally smooth, reached a nadir at the time of the SEXTANT Conference in December 1943.49 At SEXTANT and in the following weeks the specific issues of coal and wheat for Italy were ironed out, and a general framework of procedure agreed that re-established smooth relations between WSA and the War Department on the national level and between WSA and BMWT on the international level. The plan for any sizable shipments of wheat from Argentina was abandoned, not only because of shipping considerations, but also because of political objections from the State Department. Wheat and flour shipments to the Mediterranean continued through March almost entirely from the United States with a small supplement from Canada. For the period beginning in April 1944 arrangements were made for Australia to serve as the main source for wheat and flour, with the United States, Canada, and Argentina (as a last resort) to make up any deficits. Also, arrangements for coal provided that Italian needs should be met from India and South Africa as far as possible, with
49 (1) Ltr, Douglas to Lord Leathers, 18 Oct 43. (2) Memo, James A. McCulloch for Philip Reed, Mission Economic Affairs, London, 17 Nov 43. (3) Ltr, Douglas to Leathers, 7 Jan 44. All in Folder BMSM Misc, WSA Douglas File. (4) See also above, ch. XII.
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deficits to be made up from Great Brit- tation representatives on the spot. Civilain or the United States. For other ian supplies during the military period subsistence, and for sanitary and mis- would be handled through theater chancellaneous supplies, the United States nels and consigned to the theater comwas designated as the sole source. WSA mander for distribution. British vessels and BMWT agreed to divide shipping in the program would be chartered by responsibility on as nearly a 50-50 basis BMWT to the War Office, American as circumstances would permit, and on vessels by WSA to the Army. Shipments other combined procedures for pooling from the United States were to be hancargo space in moving civilian supplies. dled in the usual Army fashion as miliThese arrangements promised to make tary cargo; vessels carrying cargo loaded better use of U.S. and British shipping, outside the United States would be returning from the Far East in ballast, loaded by WSA agents but still chartered and to reduce the inroads on the grain to the Army. supplies of the United States and on the The War Department agreed in gencoal stockpile of England. The War eral to this system, but made certain Department's main objection was that stipulations to protect the military inthese agreements left its supply agencies terest and to preserve the integrity of subject to unexpected demands to make procedures agreed in the CCAC. Miliup deficits that could not be met from tary programs formulated in CCAC(S) preferred sources. This was a cause of would be presented immediately by the some continuing friction, but for the Army Transportation Corps to WSA, most part the arrangements adopted not directly through combined channels worked satisfactorily during the ensuing to the CSAB; the shipping agencies months. would have no authority over determiTentative agreements were also nation of requirements and the CCAC reached on co-ordination between mili- would treat recommendations on sources tary and shipping authorities for han- of supply as advisory only; a combined dling civilian supply programs. WSA military-WSA-BMWT shipping commitand BMWT agreed between themselves tee in the Mediterranean would make that they would screen military civil the necessary decisions on port and insupply programs but would reserve their land clearance capacities in that theater; position when "long term requirements agreement would be reached among all of a speculative nature" were presented U.S. agencies concerned before any matand "await firm shipping programs be- ters were presented to the British.51 fore undertaking commitments."50 ApTo return to the Italian problem proval of monthly shipping require- that occasioned these decisions, the relief ments for each theater would be subject to evaluation of port and inland clear(1)Ltr, McCloy to Douglas, 6 Jan 44. (2) Notes ance capacity by shipping and transpor- of Army-WSA Discussions, 25 Jan 44. (3) Memoran51
Quoted from Memorandum Covering Combined Shipping Employment Policy of WSA and BMWT, 28 Jan 44, ID 014 Basic Policy file Genl 1944.
50
dum Covering Combined Shipping Employment Policy of WSA and BMWT, 28 Jan 44. (4) Memo, Palmer for Dir, ID, 3 Feb 44. (5) Ltr, Douglas to McCloy, 7 Mar 44. (6) Memo, Gen Wright for ASW, 12 Mar 44, sub: Comments re Proposed Agreement
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between WSA and BMWT. (7) Memo, unsigned, sub: Opinion on Memo Covering Combined Shpg Employment. . . . All in ID 014 Basic Policy file Genl 1944. (8) Ltr, CPRB to CSAB, 11 Feb 44, ID 014 Civ Sup, V. (9) For materials on the whole broad shipping question at issue between WSA and BMWT during this period see the Douglas files, Med Relief, U.K. and BMSM. 52 Ltr, Gen Hilldring to Brig Gen Charles M. Spofford, ACofS, G-5, AFHQ, 29 Jun 44, CAD 380 Reconstruction (4-30-44).
first priority on supplies and on transport and productive facilities in Italy had always gone to the Allied military machine; without necessary rehabilitation supplies, and in the existing state of economic disruption and demoralization of the people, it was difficult to even make a start on restoration of production facilities.53 By mid-March military control of civil affairs in Italy had lasted for the six months that, in theory, was to be the period of military responsibility. The War Department began negotiations for transfer of rear areas to civilian authority at that time but made little progress. Even aside from the fact that the civilian agencies did not have the plans or personnel, Italian relief presented formidable legal and financial problems. UNRRA as yet had no funds, and in any case, by the terms of its charter could not operate in an ex-enemy country. Italy had never been declared eligible for lend-lease, and therefore FEA had no authority to spend its funds for Italian relief. Negotiations dragged out interminably with no satisfactory solution in sight. In reality, although the theater was willing to accept civilian infiltration into the Allied Control Commission, it was not ready to relinquish control over areas that still served as military bases. This attitude in the theater made most of the sound and fury in Washington meaningless. The prospect in the summer of 1944, therefore, was that relief for Italy would continue for some time to pose a heavy drain on Allied military resources in competition
53 See documents in Coles and Weinberg, Civil Affairs: Soldiers Become Governors, pp. 319-22, 364-69.
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with the requirements for support of the main campaign that was getting under way in northwest Europe.54
54 (1) Ltr, Lauchlin Currie, Dep Admin FEA to Gen Clay, 3 Mar 44, Dir Materiel file Lend-Lease 1942-44. (2) Notes of discussion held in Gen Clay's
CHAPTER XXXI
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tions, became the primary basis for civilian supply planning in the CCAC(S). The assumption behind the plan was clearly outdated long before it had been agreed; only the most sanguine in early 1944 hoped for a German collapse at any date without a campaign on the Continent. Plan A became the basis of calculations simply because it was prepared first and because it provided a more convenient means than any of the others for calculating minimum requirements of an area for a six-month period. With total area requirements determined and sources of supply tentatively designated, actual procurement and shipment could be phased in keeping with the develop ment of requirements by theater commanders. Plan A was presented to the British in CCAC(S) on 4 January 1944, and, after adjustments, estimates of requirements were agreed to by both sides of that committee early the next month. Estimates for countries in eastern EuropeBulgaria, Czechoslovakia, Finland, Hungary, Poland, and Rumaniawere included only for informational purposes and, it was agreed, they would not serve as a basis for supply procurement. The total requirement for the other areasnorthwest Europe, Italy, and the Balkans came to approximately 9,135,000 metric tons: 4,869,000 tons of coal, 2,866,000 tons of food, 668,000 tons of petroleum, 569,000 tons of agricultural supplies, 79,000 tons of soap, 71,000 tons of clothing, shoes, and textiles, and 16,000 tons of sanitary supplies. In approving the massive program CCAC (S) emphasized that it was for planning purposes only and did not involve any commitment by either the War Department or the War Office to furnish any of the supplies
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major item involved, would come pri- Canadian. The division reflected a heavy marily from the United States, Australia, reliance on the U.K. stockpile of foodCanada, and the United Kingdom stuffs to conserve shipping. This stockstockpile, and from subsidiary sources in pile had, by the end of 1943, grown to North Africa, Argentina, the West In- over 6.5 million tons, a greater reserve dies, and Madagascar; other supplies, than Americans thought necessary now with the exception of phosphates from that the danger of submarine blockade North Africa and pyrites from Spain, of the British Isles had receded. The would come primarily from the United British food authorities, nonetheless, States and the United Kingdom. The sought zealously to safeguard their levsupply of petroleum was left to the com- els. They agreed to make 700,000 tons bined military petroleum authorities of food available from the stockpile in since it was to be imported in bulk for the first three months in case of collapse, military and civilian needs. Sources of but limited the offer to 200,000 tons in supply for seeds and veterinary materials case of assault, and that only on condiwere not determined. tion that the stock be replaced in ninety Disagreement between British and days. Americans over terms of financial reBoth sides of CCAC (S) approved the sponsibility delayed final approval of first three-months' plans on these terms the plan. To allow procurement to pro- on 9 June 1944, the CCAC on 22 June. ceed, in June a modus vivendi was In mid-July the British agreed finally to reached while the question of ultimate the division for the entire plan. The financial settlement was postponed. The final step, approval by the CCS, did not United States would pay for all supplies come until September 1944 but the drawn from this country, the United delay in no way affected implementaKingdom for all those drawn from the tion. In the meantime, Plan A served as British Isles and British colonies and a basis for revisions in Section VI of the
dominions with the exception of Can- Army Supply Program for 1944 and for ada. Payment for supplies drawn from the presentation of a joint War Departother sources was to be divided 50-50. ment-FEA relief budget to Congress,
Based on this arrangement, the final version of Plan A provided that the British should accept procurement responsibility for 1,892,000 tons of supplies, the Americans for 946,600, the
Canadians tentatively for 13,100, and
totaling $536,556,990, for the fiscal year 1945. This budget was necessarily based on the general assumption that military responsibility would continue for only six months in western Europe and north
Italy, and on the unrealistic target dates
of 1 July 1944 in Sicily and 1 October and veterinary supplies) was left unde- 1944 in southern Italy for FEA assumptermined. (Map 7) tion of responsibility in those areas. FEA In the CCAC(S), the Americans sought presented the budget estimates for U.S. a firm commitment only for the first participation in Balkan relief for the ninety days, for which the division was initial period. This agreement on finan1,179,600 tons from U.K. sources, 300,- cial responsibility in no way affected the 600 from U.S. sources, and 8,500 from earlier FEA-War Department agreement
767
for advice. But the approval of supply sources for the quantities in Plan B progressed very slowly. The crux of the matter was the U.K. food stockpile. The JCS coupled their approval of Plan A with an admonition to WSA and the War Food Administration that "maximum use be made of stockpiles in areas adjacent to those requiring relief before any allocation of tankers or cargo ships be made for supplies from more distant sources," and recommended "special scrutiny" of stockpiles of U.S. lend-lease, leading to late year collapse),"31,324,000. "the military necessity for which disapCoal requirements in all these variants peared with the improvement of the 6 were vastly increased over the original strategic situation." The Joint Chiefs Plan A, both because of higher fuel con- thought that the British should be willsumption in winter (under late in year ing to accept a 2- or 3-million-ton reduccollapse estimates) and the probability tion in their 6.5-million-ton food stockof scorching of the mines. Requirements pile, in return for a guarantee of the for food and other supplies were also stockpile at a reduced level, thus making increased in the scorched plans though food available for northwest Europe at in lesser proportion. Import require- a minimum cost in shipping. Marvin ments in the scorched plans were neces- Jones of the War Food Administration sarily much greater. was at first sympathetic and agreed to Of the alternate plans, only the first negotiate with the British for such a revariant of Plan B received consideration lease against Plan B estimates. To the in the CCAC (S). Plan B estimates were surprise and consternation of the miliapproved by the committee in mid-July tary officials, however, the combined supand submitted to the supply authorities ply authorities seemingly ignored the logic of the argument, and in their rec(1) ID, Civilian Supply, Text, I, 166-69, 196-219. ommendations on Plan B provided for and app. D-4. (2) CCAC(S) 12/4 (Rev), 14 Jul 44, only 585,000 tons of foodthe remaining title: Plan "A"Initial U.S.-U.K. Procurement Responsibility. (3) ID Rpts, Essential Civilian Supplies portion of the British offer of 700,000 for Occupied and Liberated Areas During Period of tons in case of collapseto be withdrawn Military Responsibility, 28 Apr and 8 Sep 44. (4) from the U.K. stockpile. The rest of the Min, 34th mtg CCAC(S), 9 Jun 44, Item 2. (5) Hammond, Food: The Growth of Policy, pp. 278-81, 397. food was to come from more distant sources such as the United States, Cana(6) The final terms of financial settlement agreed to between the British and Americans in February da, Australia, and Argentina. 1945 provided that payment for military relief was Thus, while in theory an over-all supto be requested from all governments of liberated ply plan came into being with the quanor conquered areas. Any amounts not recoverable
5
were to be shared 67 percent by the United States, 25 percent by the United Kingdom, and 8 percent by Canada up to a limit of $400,000,000. Canada agreed to these terms conditionally.
6 Ltr, JCS to Marvin Jones, WFA, app. C, JCS 957, 15 Jul 44, title: Civilian Supply Reqmts for Europe.
768
GLOBAL LOGISTICS AND STRATEGY: 1943-1945 ASF Plans Division made extensive studies of shipping requirements based on the plan but in the end it proved only an academic exercise. The British refused even to consider Plan C in the CCAC (S), and WSA as before insisted that firm agreed requirements were necessary before it could make commitments.9 The development and phasing of concrete requirements for liberation of occupied Europe after the Allied invasion therefore rested largely on theater commanders and their staffs. Theater planning for civilian supply went on simultaneously with the broad planning in Washington, and was normally co-ordinated with it. The role of the CCAC (S) was to evaluate theater plans in relation to one another and to fit them into the over-all limits on availability of supplies established in Plan A and the supplementary quantities approved in Plan B. Shipping then had to be arranged within the total military allocation to any theater. Three areas of combined operations need to be distinguished: (1) the Mediterranean under SACMED, including Sicily, Italy, and, for a limited period, southern France; (2) the BalkansGreece, Yugoslavia, and Albaniaalso under SACMED; (3) northwest Europenorthern France, Belgium, the Netherlands, Luxembourg, Denmark, and Norwayunder SHAEF. In the case of Italy, Plan A estimates were, in the first instance, based on theater forecasts of need developed out of the experience of the previous year. Beginning in July 1944 Italian requirements were no longer processed on an
9
tities in Plan A the lower limit and those in Plan B the upper, actually by September the Plan A figures had been expanded by less than a million tons. It was the Plan A estimates then that, in the main, were to serve as the guide to procurement and as limits to the pool of civilian supplies on which theater commanders could draw during most of 7 the year 1944. Neither Plan A nor Plan B estimates, divorced as they were from any valid prediction of the course of the war in Europe, were of much value in planning the allocation of shipping. The combined shipping authorities stuck to their decision not to make positive commitments on "long term requirements of a speculative nature," in which category they placed both plans. WSA kept in very close touch with the planning and indicated Plan A requirements could be met should collapse actually occur as postulated, but pointed out that should the Allies have to invade northwest Europe the situation would be entirely different.8 Plan C was developed by the ASF largely in an effort to provide some phased guide to shipping requirements; Plan C estimates were phased over a period of one year on the assumption of assault operations leading to collapse.
7 (1) JCS 957, 15 Jul 44. (2) ID Rpts. (3) ID, Civilian Supply, Text, I, 227. (4) Min 37th mtg CCAC(S), 23 Jun 44, Item 2. (5) Memo, Palmer for Dir ID, 11 Jul 44, ID 014 Civ Sup, XVI. (6) Memo, Palmer for OCofT and OQMG, 10 Oct 44, sub: Civilian Supplies for Europe, ID 014 Civ Sup, XXIV. (7) Diary Entry, 15 Nov 44, Strat Log Br, Plng Div, ASF. 8 (1) Ltr, Capt Conway, WSA, to Col N. M. Coe, OCofT, 27 Mar 44, WSA Conway File, Reading File Jan-Mar 44, Box 122891. (2) See also ltr of 6 Apr 44 in Reading File Apr-May 44, Box 122893, and Ltr, R. M. Bissell, Div of Ship Reqmts, WSA, to Col Dixon, OCofT, 6 Jun 44, ID 014 Civ Sup, XIII.
769
UNRRA should, as far as possible, undertake the actual distribution of relief supplies. Estimates for the Balkans were, as noted, included in Plan A. These estimates were revised upward in July to conform more closely with the estimates developed by the British AT (B) in Cairo, the excess over Plan A being regarded as tentative and dependent upon action to be taken on Plan B. To meet emergency needs should the Allies occupy any part of the Balkans, the existing Balkan stockpile in the Middle East was augmented by small shipments from the United States; at the same time, however, it lost its completely separate idenANVIL. tity and was placed under SACMED to Establishing any firm requirements form part of the total resources in his for the Balkans was more difficult be- theater to meet civilian supply needs in cause no approved combined operations all areas under his command.11 were scheduled there, and the Americans In the SHAEF area in northwest Euwere loath to contemplate military re- rope, the area of the main Allied effort, lief activity in the area in case of Ger- civilian supply planning by combined man collapse. The British Middle East military staffs in London had begun in Command, however, had long been en- mid-1943. On 6 January 1944 the newly gaged in planning for Balkan relief, and constituted SHAEF staff was able to the British had established at Cairo in present two six-month plans based, re1943 an Administration of Territories spectively, on collapse (RANKIN C) and (Balkans) Committee (AT (B)) as a assault (OVERLORD) conditions, the forcounterpart of the AT (E) in London. mer calling for 1,270,000 tons of supThey had also begun to accumulate a plies, the latter for 532,000 tons. There stockpile of relief supplies for the Bal- was originally a considerable discrepkans. The President, acting on State De- ancy between the basis of SHAEF planpartment advice, in January 1944 ap- ning and that of CCAC (S). Until May proved U.S. participation in Balkan re- 1944, when the CCS finally ruled otherlief on the understanding that only a small American military staff should be (1) ID, Civilian Supply, Text, I, 238-43. (2) employed in a supervisory role and that Memo, McCloy, approved by Roosevelt, 31 Jan 44,
11
10 (1)ID, Civilian Supply, Text, I, 237-38. (2) ID Rpt, Essential Civilian Supplies . . . , 28 Apr 44. (3) On planning for southern France, see Robert W. Komer, Civil Affairs and Military Government in the Mediterranean Theater, MS, OCMH, ch. XXI, pp. 21-34.
Ibid., Doc Suppl 180. (3)CCAC(S) 7/20 (Revised), 5 Jul 44, title: Estimated Import Needs for Civilian Relief in Albania, Greece, and Yugoslavia. The revised tonnage for the Balkans was 1,504,661 as opposed to 1,397,200 in the original Plan A. Variations in quantities of individual items were considerably greater. (4) Komer, Civil Affairs in the Mediterranean, ch. XXII.
770
sault phases in both northern and southern France, the Balkan stockpile, and
so-called hiatus areas such as Denmark, Norway, and the Bordeaux region of France, which military forces would en-
the arrangements agreed as a result of the emergency in Italy, plans were tentative and shaped in terms of an early ter, if at all, only as a result of a gen- German collapse. The pools of supplies eral German withdrawal or collapse. provided in Plans A and B from sources SHAEF plans also included industrial around the globe could not be translatrehabilitation items specifically exclud- ed into reality unless ships were availed from Plan A. By D-day, however, able to transport them at the time they SHAEF collapse planning had been were needed. Apart from shipping, there brought in line with Plan A premises, were other questions left unanswered. though the operational relief plans still Plan A did not provide for the heavy
had not been. In any case, firm commitments were made against only the first
imports of coal that would undoubtedly be necessary once the assault was under
90 days of assault. The requirements way; there was a supposition that the 34,000 tons of food, 23,000 tons of coal, British would furnish coal, but no 2,700 tons of soap and miscellaneous definite agreement. Similarly, the asother supplieswere to be met, in the sumption that the U.K. stockpile would main, from United Kingdom stockpiles. be a principal source for food was valid The U.K. stockpile, moreover, was con- only for collapse conditions, not for asceived as the main reserve from which sault. In general, also, theater opera-
SHAEF emergency demands could be met, though, as has been noted, the
British insisted on limiting withdrawals and on early replacement from outside sources in the case of assault.12 The structure of civilian relief plans in existence when the Normandy invasion got under way on 6 June 1944 was thus a complicated and imposing edifice but one that would require extensive adaptation to the war situation. Other
12 (1) ID, Civilian Supply, Text, I, 166-69, 196-97, 244-47. (2) Ltr, Hq COSSAC, CAD, to Secretariat CCS, 6 Jan 44, sub: Civilian Supply Reqmts, Opns RANKIN C and OVERLORD, ID CSB Basic Pol File Genl 1944. (3) Min, 17th Mtg CCAC(S), 11 Feb 44. (4) ID Rpt, Essential Civilian Supplies . . . , 28 Apr 44. (5)CCAC(S) 11, 31 Jan 41, title: Civilian Supply Opnl Reqmts for Europe. (6) CCAC(S) 9/1, 15 Feb 44, title: U.K. Stockpiles for Initial Relief Reqmts. (7) Min, 18th mtg CCAC(S), 25 Feb 44, Item 6.
771
Operational Procedures
Beginning about June 1944 the emphasis in civilian relief activities shifted from planning to operations. During the summer of 1944 theater needs did not assume large proportions and posed few logistical problems. In northern France, the Allied beachhead remained small for some time and lay in an area relatively rich in agricultural produce. Even in Italy the advance north of Rome was slow, and stockpiles built up during the first half of 1944 permitted a slowdown in shipments. The arrangements already made for civilian supply in the assault phases of operations therefore sufficed. Not until fall, by which time much larger areas had been liberated, was the need for such quantities of supplies as set up in Plans A and B to be felt. That need, nevertheless, was always in the background. During the summer of 1944 the agencies concerned did what they could to adapt the over-all combined plan to the situation as it was developing, to render the procurement and shipment of supplies as responsive as
possible to theater needs, and to make the requisitioning of supplies for civilian relief as simple and direct as that of supplies for troops. The quantities for each area and the sources of supply approved in Plans A and B were accepted as the ceiling on procurement subject to shipping and supply limitations. Theater operational plans were automatically approved as long as they fell within these ceilings. The theater commanders were also required to set up the necessary shipping within their over-all military allocations and to indicate the phasing of their requirements. On the basis of this phasing, CCAC (S) designated specific sources and the theater then requisitioned directly against them. Originally each individual theater requisition on the United States had to be forwarded to the International Division for submission to the CCAC (S) before shipping instructions were issued to the port. But once approved and phased theater programs had been established, the ASF moved to simplify the system. The formal procedure finally established on 3 November 1944 provided that upon allocation of supply responsibility to the United States by the CCAC (S) for a stated quantity of supplies, the International Division would forward a supply program through the Office of the Chief of Transportation to the responsible port of embarkation for the theater concerned. When requisitions against this program were submitted to the port by the theater, the port would, after screening, ship the supplies requested. Theater requirements not falling within the over-all combined program, however, still had to be submitted for an item-by-item review by the CCAC(S),
772
with the exception of certain requests 13 from SHAEF. A fundamental problem arose out of the variation between the area estimates in Plan A and those made by SHAEF. Very soon after D-day, SHAEF took the position that it could not confine its operational requirements within the limits of a plan prepared on totally different assumptions from the conditions under which it was operating, and, in particular, that it could not insure its requirements for any given area would fall within the amounts allotted for that area in Plan A. As a matter of fact, once SHAEF planning had been extended to cover hiatus areas, requirements began to burgeon beyond these approved limits. An International Division officer in mid-August found them three times those in Plan A and double those in Plan B for the areas then under SHAEF control. There was little the CCAC could do to reconcile the discrepancies except to warn SHAEF that the ceilings in the current supply plan (Plan A and approved supplementary quantities in Plan B) were based on actual supply and shipping limitations and to exceed them might be simply to postpone a day of reckoning. The initiative was left in the hands of the theater commander, and the net effect was to transform the Plan A pool into a bank of operational supplies with the initial area estimates on which it had been based practically obliterated.14
13 (1) ID, Civilian Supply, Text, I, 247-52, 271-75; and Doc Suppl, 120. (2) ASF Cir 154, 24 May 44. (3) ASF Cir 363, 3 Nov 44. XVIII. (3) Memo, Capt Ed Jenison, CSB, ID, for 14 (1) Msgs, MEL 89, SHAEF to CCS, CM-IN 9116, Maj Palmer, 16 Aug 44, ID, Civilian Supply, Doc 12 Jul 44, and LEM 103, CCS to SHAEF, CM-OUT Suppl, 280. 15 66385, 17 Jul 44. (2) Memo, Gen Wood, Dir P&O, (1)ID, Civilian Supply, Text, I, 265-71. (2) ASF, for Dir Materiel, 23 Jul 44, sub: Consumption CCAC(S) 8/6, 29 Sep 44, title: Supply of Technical of Civilian Relief Supplies in Europe, ID 014 Civ Sup Stores for Civil Affairs.
773
It was in Italy that the matter came to a head first. By September 1944 the Allies had been in Italy for a year; still the country continued in a state of semistarvation and chaos, with no real amelioration in sight. Press reports painted such black conditions as a mortality rate of 50 percent among infants, 200,000 deaths annually from tuberculosis, and an average food consumption of 664 calories daily. Although these figures were erroneous, the real ones were sufficiently alarming. On 8 September the President sent a special directive to the Secretary of War citing the "critical supply situation in Italy" and instructing the War Department to "take immediate action to make available the additional essential civilian supplies and shipping to remedy this condition."17 This directive was only one indication of a general reorientation of policy toward Italy that The Food Crisis in Italy found further expression in a joint stateIn the rapid advances of August and ment of the President and the Prime September 1944, the Allies liberated Minister at Quebec on 26 September. most of France, Luxembourg, and Bel- On the political side, Roosevelt and gium, and part of the Netherlands, thus Churchill declared that the Italians vastly increasing the areas for which they should have more responsibility for their were responsible and bringing under own government, and decreed that retheir control large urban populations. sponsibility should be gradually shifted In Italy they advanced rapidly north of from the Allied Control Commission, to Rome, and in the Balkans the British be renamed the Allied Commission, to prepared to enter Greece in force and the Italian Government. On the ecoto send an Allied relief mission to Yugo- nomic side, "first steps should be taken slavia. The full impact of the demand toward the reconstruction of an Italian for civilian relief supplies was finally economyan economy laid low under being felt, and at precisely the same time the years of misrule of Mussolini and an acute shipping and port discharge ravished by the German policy of vengecrisis threatened to preclude meeting it. By the end of October the outlines of (1) Memo, President for Secy War, 8 Sep 44, crises both in Italy and in northwest OPD 014.1, Case 128. (2) Msg, WARX 27877, CCAC to AFHQ, U.K. Base, Hq COMZ ETOUSA, and Europe were taking shape.
17
SHAEF, 9 Sep 44. (3) Msg, AFHQ to WD, FX 27517, LAC 700, 19 Sep 44. Last two in Folder Lend-Lease, Hq ASF.
774
ful destruction."18 Following an AngloAmerican suggestion, the UNRRA General Council agreed that it would provide relief for displaced persons and refugees in Italy. On 10 October the President relaxed restrictions on Italian exports and announced that funds available from this source, from dollar remittances of individuals in the United States to friends in Italy, and from the dollar equivalent of lire paid out to American troops would be available to enable the Italians to obtain essential civilian supplies in the United States to supplement the military relief program.19 The new approach called for both an accelerated measure of relief and a beginning on the long-term problem of rehabilitation. General Wilson, Supreme Allied Commander in the Mediterranean, was already convinced of the urgency of both lines of action. On 13 September he told the CCS that the old disease and unrest formula had outlived its usefulness in Italy and asked for a new directive on economic rehabilitation. "If the two governments at this stage," he predicted, "consider only what is required in the interest of the war effort, they may lose the opportunity of ensuring one of their own long term interests, i.e., the establishment of a reasonably prosperous and contented Italy after the war." On 24 September he forwarded a request for a considerable increase in grain shipments to Italy, a request that had disturbing implications.20
18 Joint Statement of President Roosevelt and Prime Minister Churchill on Post-War Europe, 26 Sep 44, OPD 014.1, Case 128. 19 Statement by President, 10 Oct 44, Dept State Bulletin, 15 Oct 44, p. 403. 20 (1) Quote from Msg, NAF 778, AFHQ to AGWAR for CCS, 13 Sep 44, ID 014 Civ Sup, XXIV.
THE ARMY AND CIVILIAN SUPPLY-II ly confined to the south. Even with efficient amassment, it was calculated the 1944 harvest would provide only 160 grams daily for all Italy. To provide supplementary quantities necessary to raise it to 300 grams would require imports of 1,536,000 tons, about 50 percent more than had been scheduled. Yet the Control Commission now felt that the 300-gram ration was a must if the new approach in Italy was to mean anything at all. Wilson urged the CCS to approve the increased imports, pointing out that only in this way could Italian food consumption be brought to the approved minimum 2,000-calorie-a-day level:
775
considerable apprehension. The time had long passed when they had expected to be rid of the responsibility of Italian relief; now they were being asked to assume an additional burden in that area in the face of a shipping shortage to meet military needs in all theaters of war. They were less inclined to accept the Allied Control Commission's view of the situation than that of their own commanders, who emphasized that the problem was more one of equitable distribution than one of shortage of supplies. "Black market operations continue," reported Brig. Gen. Carter B. Magruder, MTOUSA SOS commander, on 30 September, "and the increased ration is There is among sections of the urban largely for the purpose of cutting out population, I am advised, a condition of the black market and thus releasing reunder-nourishment which is the cumulative result of the war years, the mis-management serves held by the Italians hoping for an of the Fascist government and oppression increase in prices. Little is done in the by the Germans. While we are in no way way of enforcing rationing by police responsible for this condition, and have, in power, and the Allied Control Commisfact, in some measure, arrested its growth little responsibility along this during the year in which we have had sion feel 22 responsibility, we cannot on that account line." overlook the consequences of prolonging In his reply to the President's directhe condition. . . . Under the proposed pro- tive of 8 September, made before the gram there will be involved a lower per receipt of General Wilson's enlarged recapita import of wheat than was the case during the first year of the occupation.. . . quirements, Secretary Stimson emphaIt should not be lost sight of that Italy sized that the War Department was only normally imported substantial quantities an agent of the CCS in the civilian supof wheat in peace years when conditions in ply field, and that it was completely fulrespect to cultivation, fertilizer, agricultural filling its obligations under CCS plans. equipment, labor and transport, were not He went on to say that the Department subject to present difficulties. . . .21 would, however, take appropriate action Wilson's requests were clearly in line to provide its share of any additional with the new approach publicly an- requirements received from the theater nounced by the President and the Prime commander, and in this way incurred at Minister, but War Department officials could only look upon the situation with 22 (1) Memo, Gen Lutes for Dir Materiel, 30 Sep
(1) Ibid. (2). (2) Komer, Civil Affairs and Military Government in Mediterranean Theater, ch. XI, pp. 2-14.
21
44, sub: Rpt by Gen . . . Magruder on General Conditions in AFHQ, ID 014 Civ Sup, XXIII. (2) Memo, Somervell for DCofS, 25 Sep 44, sub: Essential Civilian Supplies for Italy ..., ID 014 Civ Sup, XXII.
776
least some obligation to meet Wilson's requests. The President's interpretation of that obligation was indicated by his public announcement on 4 October that steps were being taken to "increase the bread ration in those areas of Italy where food supplies are below the standard necessary to maintain full health and efficiency," a statement that was given wide circulation in the Italian press and generally interpreted as a public commitment to the 300-gram ration for all occupied Italy.23 The President's announcement was clearly premature in the view of the military authorities. As the dimensions of the problem were outlined in the CCS committees, there seemed no means of providing the necessary shipping. It appeared that no further stocks of wheat would be available from Australia, the previous source for the Mediterranean, since all surplus Australian wheat was being diverted to India to meet famine conditions, and that therefore all grain or flour would have to be shipped from North America. The existing civilian supply program for Italy, which covered the year period from July 1944 through June 1945 and was based on a 240-gram ration for all Italy, called for shipments of 1,010,000 tons of grain. Of this, 170,000 tons had been shipped by October and 200,000 tons were scheduled for shipment during the remainder of 1944. The balance of 640,000 tons, to be shipped during the first six months of 1945, would have to be increased to 1,166,000 tons if the 300-gram ration scale were approved, requiring an addi23 (1) OWI Press Release 1827, 4 Oct 44. (2) Memo, Secy War for President, 15 Sep 44, ID 014 Civ Sup, XXII. (3) Komer, Civil Affairs in the Mediterranean, ch. XI, p. 15.
777
supplementary program for feeding displaced persons in Italy and asked for an allocation of ships in December. On 17 November Wilson bitterly complained to the CCS, presenting for the first time an unequivocal demand for more shipping. Once again, however, the CCS could only come up with a negative reply, informing Wilson that no commitment should be made to the 300-gram ration or to the UNRRA supplementary program unless he could provide shipping for these purposes by shifting priorities on allocations already made to his theater.28 The Allied Commission refused to retreat from its position, arguing that the 300-gram ration had now become a military as well as a political necessity. "We must expect disease arising from malnutrition," wrote the chief commissioner, "and acceleration in inflation and the activities in the black market, a decrease in morale leading to an increase in crime and prostitution, disorders and food riots . . ."conditions that might well interfere with military operations.29 On 21 December Field Marshal Alexander, Wilson's successor as SACMED, renewed the appeal to the CCS in stronger terms:
I am aware in general terms of the shipping situation and alive to the effect of conflicting claims of many operations in many Theaters of war. It is my duty, however, to point out to you in terms which
to AFHQ, 8 Dec 44, in Coles and Weinberg, Civil Affairs: Soldiers Become Governors, p. 504. 29 Memo, Chief Commissioner, AC, for AFHQ, 12 Dec 44, in Coles and Weinberg, Civil Affairs: Soldiers Become Governors, p. 504.
778
administer those parts of Italy under my control in accordance with the policies quoted above and which are known to the Italians unless I am regularly provided with the means to do so. The alternative is an Italy embittered by unfulfilled promises, by hunger and distress. This I believe would be a grave handicap to our immediate war effort and a lamentable example to other nations of the injustice of Allied 30 dealings.
Alexander indicated that he was willing to import wheat if necessary "at the expense of military requirements if oper31 ationally possible to do so." The impasse could not be resolved until the shipping crisis itself ended. It will be recalled that in early December 1944, under pressure from WSA, the JCS took action to break up shipping congestion in the various theaters and thus free more ships for outward sailings from the United States.32 They then entered with the British Chiefs, at the latter's request, into an over-all survey of the shipping situation. While awaiting the results of this study, the CCS delayed a reply to Alexander. Finally, however, on 18 January they cabled him authorization to establish within the liberated sections of Italy "the maximum basic ration you decide is practicable in the light of the currently approved shipping programme up to a maximum of 300 grams of bread . . . per person per 33 day." This, as an OPD officer noted, "may or may not comply with the President's desire to increase the ration to 300 grams but it is the best compromise
Msg, Alexander to CCS, 1 Dec 44, Ibid., p. 504. Ibid. See above, ch. XXII. 33 Msg, FAN 478, CCS to AFHQ, 18 Jan 45, in Coles and Weinberg, Civil Affairs: Soldiers Become Governors, pp. 518-19.
31 32 30
layed announcement of the establishment of this ration for all Italy under Allied control.35 There were similar delays in instituting an economic rehabilitation program in Italy along the lines promised by the President and Prime Minister at Quebec. Wilson's cable of 13 September 1944 requesting a new directive remained unanswered for three months. General Somervell argued that the War Department should not depart from its basic premise that civilian supplies should be furnished only on the basis of military necessity. The trouble now was that, even accepting this premise, there was undoubtedly an element of military necessity in the Italian rehabilitation program, and the President evidently looked to the War Department and not to the civilian agencies to take the initial steps to fulfill his general plan for aid to the Italian economy. Moreover, in view of the over-all shortage, the military showed little inclination to relinquish control of even the smallest quantities of shipping to other agencies. Small wonder, then, that
3* Memo, Gen Lincoln, Chief S&P Gp, OPD, for Asst Secy, WDGS, 16 Jan 45, ABC 430, Sec 1. 35 (1) Msgs, Alexander to CCS, 26 Jan and 16 Feb 45, in Coles and Weinberg, Civil Affairs: Soldiers Become Governors, p. 519. (2) Komer, Civil Affairs in the Mediterranean, ch. XI, pp. 24-27.
779
tion. In actual fact, the CCAC did not receive the first Category A program until May 1945, after the hostilities in Europe were ended. Italian rehabilitation therefore became, in the main, a postwar problem.36
780
call forward appreciable civilian supply tonnages. Only 21 percent of SHAEF estimates were imported into northern France during 1944; in the south, more of a grain deficit area, the rate was higher75 percent of advance estimatesbut the sum of civilian supply imports was still small. These shortfalls had the effect of postponing the day of reckoning. Indigenous stocks were rapidly exhausted and food shortages began to appear. Even more serious, the completely disorganized state of the French transportation system, the scarcity of coal, raw materials, seeds, fertilizer, and industrial rehabilitation items, combined with the excessive demands of the Allied military machine on the French economy, threat-
ened to increase the relief burden immensely unless steps were taken soon to provide rehabilitation supplies. Belgium had always been heavily dependent upon imported foodstuffs, and the areas of the Netherlands as yet not taken were known to be reduced to a state of semi37 starvation. By the end of 1944 a large backlog of demand for civilian supplies in northwest Europe had built up. Stated SHAEF requirements for relief supplies for the first six months of 1945 threatened by themselves to place an exceptionally
37 (1) USFET Gen Bd Study 33, Procedures Followed by CA and MG in the Restoration, Reorganization and Supervision of Indigenous Civil Administration, pp. 110-17. (2) ID, Civilian Supply, Text, 1, 331-33, 406-07.
781
that in all probability it could release 5,000 tons daily capacity in Mediterranean ports, 5,000 in Seine ports, 4,000 in Pas de Calais ports, and the entire capacity of Bordeaux when that port was taken, to the French. In informing the CCS of these developments, SHAEF proposed that no definite transfer date be set but that "the military program of direct relief items . . . continue concurrently with [the national import] program . . . but gradually diminish in scope until there is complete termination of military responsibility."38 For the time being, the military program would be confined generally to minimum relief supplies for forward areas while the French Government would import all else. SHAEF candidly admitted that in the situation existing in France, many of the items in the French national program would serve a more useful purpose than the Plan A items scheduled for import as military relief.39 SHAEF's proposals were framed without reference to the developing shipping crisis, and their receipt in Washington early in November found the atmosphere in the War Department considerably changed from that of September. There was no longer any illusion that the war in Europe would soon be over, and the acute shipping shortage had given rise to some sober second thoughts on the question of relinquishing control of civilian supply. The initial War Department proposals had been made on the assumption that as long
38 (1) Msg, SCAEF 122, SHAEF MAIN to AGWAR, 3 Nov 44 (Paraphrase) CCAC 400 France (3-14-44) Sec 1. (2) ID, Civilian Supply, Text, I, 393-98. 39 Memo, Palmer for Dir ID, 22 Nov 44, sub: Summary of Temporary Duty with SHAEF Hq . . . , ID 014 Civ Sup, XXVIII.
782
as military operations continued theater commanders would continue to control all shipping priorities, including within their purview the allocation of shipping for the national import programs. The civilian agencies, and particularly WSA, it now appeared, wanted to make the independent assignment of shipping for the national import programs their own prerogative, subject only to theater certification of port and inland clearance capacities. Faced with possible loss of control over an important segment of available shipping, and belatedly realizing the complications that national import programs would introduce, the military authorities retreated to their original position and insisted that civilian supply shipments be limited to items of military necessity and be kept entirely under military control until the shipping situation eased. On 27 November the CCAC informed SHAEF that no additional shipping space could be allotted for national import programs and that SHAEF would have to decide whether materials in the French program should be substituted in military shipments for those included in Plan A.40 The War Department soon found itself at odds with WSA and with the British on this issue. Captain Conway presented the WSA position to Harry Hopkins on 4 December 1944, arguing
40 (1)Ibid. (2) Ltr, Col Palmer to Maj Gen Frank Scowden, Chief Sup and Economics Br, G-5, SHAEF, 24 Nov 44, ID 014 Civ Sup, XXVIII. (3) Msg, LEM 327, CCAC to SHAEF MAIN, 27 Nov 44, CCAC 400 France (3-14-44) Sec 1. (4) Notes of Discussion in Mr. McCloy's Office 27 Nov 44, ID 014 Civ Sup, XXVIII. (5) Memo, Somervell for Director, CAD, 7 Nov 44, sub: Termination of Civilian Supply Responsibility for France . . . , ID 014 Civ Sup 41 Ltr, Granville Conway to Harry L. Hopkins, XXVII. (6) Draft note, 17 Nov 44, sub: Note on Shpg for Liberated Areas, folder Msc 1944, Box 122870, 4 Dec 44, Harry L. Hopkins, Box 122891, WSA WSA Conway File. Conway File.
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Japan as opposed to rehabilitation in Europe once Germany was defeated. On 14 January 1945 Hopkins and Law reached an agreement providing for commencement of the national import programs on a limited scale:
The French import program and other import programs when received are endorsed for planning purposes and the US and UK agencies concerned should as necessary facilitate, through the established procedures, procurement against these programs so that supplies will be readily available for shipment.45
"Subject to military necessity," preliminary shipping allocations were set up as follows: 6 ships for France from the United States in January, 10 in February, and 10 in March; one for Belgium in January, 2 in February, and 2 in March; one UNRRA ship for Italy in February and one in March. Pending final decision, these allocations were not to be reduced "except in the face of military necessity and not without prior discussion with Mr. Harry Hopkins." A final, controversial clause provided that the agreement was not "to alter any present procedures whereby the availability of shipping tonnages shall be determined by the appropriate shipping authorities after clearance with the appropriate Chiefs of Staff."46 This controversial provision caused trouble. The War Department claimed for the CCS the right to veto any allocations for civilian purposes; WSA insisted that "present procedures" did not provide any such veto power for the
45 Memo of Agreement, Dept State Washington, signed by Harry Hopkins, Dean Acheson, Richard Law, 14 Jan 45, Incl A, CCS 746/8, 31 Jan 45, title: Shipping Agreement. 46 Ibid.
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CCS over allocations outside the military sphere.47 In the last analysis, the basic issue was the priority to be assigned the national import programs vis-a-vis military requirements, regardless of who should make the allocations. The shipping studies revealed that there would be a continuing shortage of cargo shipping for military purposes during the first six months of 1945, assuming the war with Germany continued, and the JCS resisted any effort to expand the civilian programs. The whole argument was carried over into the ARGONAUT Conference at Malta and Yalta in early February, where the British made a determined fight to give civilian rehabilitation in Europe an equal place with the war against Japan on the priority scale. On 30 January the JCS had presented their position in a strong memorandum to the President, expressing serious concern "over the present determined effort to divert resources to non-military uses, with resulting effect on our military operations, and over the implied willingness of the British to consider qualifying our objective of ending the war at the earliest possible date." They reminded him that the price would be "paid directly in the unnecessary loss of lives of many more American fighting men."48 They then recommended an absolute and exclusive first priority on military requirements vital to the conduct of the war including therein only such civilian relief requirements as were essential to that purpose and to maintaining the war-making capacity of the
47 (1) Ltr, R. M. Bissell, WSA, to J. J. McCloy, 13 Jan 45. (2) Ltr, McCloy to Bissell, 22 Jan 45. Both in ABC 560 (26 Feb 43) Sec 1B. 48 Memo, JCS for President, 20 Jan 45, Incl, JCS 1205/3, title: Overall Review of Cargo Shpg.
785
out of the shipping negotiations at the turn of the year. The U.K. stockpile was eventually cut by about one million tons. The general easing of the shipping situation that followed these negotiations made possible the tremendous upsurge in civilian supply shipments in 1945. The release of ships from the British Import Program, the break-up of the stagnant pools of shipping under military control in overseas theaters, and other measures, combined to overcome the much-heralded military deficit even before V-E Day. The victory over Germany freed many ships scheduled to carry military cargo to Europe and permitted a considerable surge in civilian supply shipments immediately following V-E Day. The expected competition between redeployment and civilian relief in Europe never fully developed because of the rapidity with which the surrender of Japan followed the sur51 render of Germany. The result was, nevertheless, a very heavy drain on available supplies of foodstuffs in the United States. Fortunately, some Canadian supplies were available to fill part of the breach. Procedural difficulties also arose, since the Combined Food Board refused to give priorities to military relief requirements over those in the national import programs, and something of a crisis developed in transportation to ports because of heavy
51 (1)CCAC(S) 93, 3 Jan 45, title: Source of Subsistence Supply. (2) Memo, Shingler for Dir, CAD, 26 Jan 45, sub: U.K. Stockpiles as Source of Supply for Civilians in Liberated Areas . . . , ID 014 Civ Sup, XXXII. (3) ID, Civilian Supply, Text, I, 334-37. (4) Hammond, Food: The Growth of Policy, pp. 271-
50
82, deals with the rationale behind the British stock levels. (5) Draft CSAB paper in folder U.K. Msc 1945, Box 122891, WSA Conway File.
786
the principle that "military responsibility for civilian supplies in liberated areas of northwest Europe should be terminated at the earliest possible date," and outlined a procedure whereby the CCS should, on the advice of SHAEF, determine a target date for the transition, provide guidance on the problems to be inherited from the military period, and indicate the extent to which supplies and allocations under military control 53 could be made available. The action taken by SHAEF in early November to prepare for the inception of national import programs in France and Belgium was in keeping with the CLAC design, but that design soon became obscured by the prolongation of the war with Germany and the acute shipping crisis. The position outlined by the U.S. Termination of Military military staffs on 30 January was taken Responsibility not only as the result of the shipping The easing of the shipping situation shortage but also because of a realization during the early months of 1945, fol- that the theater commanders could hardlowed by the final victory over Germany ly relinquish control of any part of their in May, paved the way for the long-de- supply lines as long as large-scale mililayed transition from military to civilian tary operations continued. The expericontrol of relief and rehabilitation in ence in France, where Eisenhower turned liberated areas. The Liberated Areas over control of certain areas of the counCommittees had, since their establish- try to the French, was not a happy one. ment, been working out their plans for French operation of the railways was this eventuality. As recounted in the quite unsatisfactory and some had to be previous section, plans and procedures returned to U.S. military control. Somwere developed during August, Septem- ervell, who became the most outspoken ber, and October 1944 for termination advocate of continued military control, of military responsibility in northwest put his finger on the basic issue: "Since Europe and the Balkans; plans for ter- the transportation system of France inmination in Italy had been under dis- volves complex relationships between cussion for some time longer. On 26 railways, port facilities, and highway October the CLAC formally endorsed movements in the period April through July. But all these difficulties were ironed out, and shipments to the SHAEF area in the first six months of 1945 proved sufficient not only to meet stated needs in liberated areas but to establish a stockpile against the future needs of occupied areas in Germany and Austria when military responsibility in France and the other liberated countries should be terminated. Shipments to the Mediterranean were sufficient to maintain the 300-gram bread ration. In the Balkans military relief operations were hampered by civil war in Greece and the political complications of dealing with Communists in Yugoslavia and Albania more 52 than by scarcity of supplies or shipping.
(1) For fuller discussion see ID, Civilian Supply, Text, I, 337-46. (2) On the Balkans see Komer, Civil Affairs in the Mediterranean, Chapter XXIII.
52
(1) CLAC 8/1, 26 Oct 44, title: Termination of Military Responsibility for Civilian Supply in Northwest Europe, ID, Civilian Supply, Doc Suppl, 332. (2) ID, Civilian Supply, Text, I, 393-98.
53
787
transport, the further complications inMany of the ends of a unified protroduced by the independent handling gram were finally achieved, though more and movement of supplies inland by the awkwardly and with greater friction. French might well produce disastrous Under the Hopkins-Law Agreement the consequences to logistical arrangements national import programs for France of our Army and delay the termination and Belgium got under way in January of the war."54 This objection applied 1945 and gradually gained momentum. with even greater force to Italy where The UNRRA program, begun in Febthe Italian Government had less effective ruary, and the incipient Category B control over the country than the French program provided the germ of a nationProvisional Government had over France. al import program for Italy. Jean MonUnder the circumstances Somervell's net, the celebrated French economic arguments were sound. There were, planner, exerted an unremitting preswithout question, dangers in dividing sure on the U.S. State Department for control of the supply line between the consolidation of the French national immilitary and new national governments port program and the military relief that had little experience in handling the program into one entity under French general transportation and supply prob- control. WSA supported his position lems of modern war. Yet it was equally wholeheartedly. The civilian supply auclear by early 1945 that a military thorities and the combined boards tendrelief formula based on preventing ed to treat the French national program disease and unrest was outdated, both as one having equal priority with miliin northwest Europe and in Italy, and tary relief since it was forwarded after that the long-term national interest of consideration by the SHAEF Four-Party the United States would be best served Committee. In sum, the civilian agencies by early steps toward rehabilitation of began to anticipate the termination of agricultural and industrial production. military responsibility without the anThe situation had reached a point where nouncement of a target date by the CCS the War Department was no longer in as had been provided in the CLAC proa position to carry out an adequate civil- cedure of the preceding October. Finian supply program, but still could not ally, on 6 March, SHAEF itself recomrelinquish control for fear of adverse mended that military responsibility for effects on the progress of the war. The import of relief supplies to France, with basic fault perhaps lay in the unrealistic the exception of coal and POL, be terdistinction established in 1943, in the minated at the end of that month. very early stages of planning, between With the shipping situation considerably the military and civilian periods. What eased, the War Department approved, was needed by early 1945 was clearly a but moved the date forward to the end single program embracing both relief of April in order to assure a smooth tranand rehabilitation regardless of who sition. The date for termination of milishould administer it. tary responsibility for coal and POL was postponed until 1 September because the military imported those supplies in Msg, Somervell, ARGONAUT, to Under Secy War bulk for military and civilian consumPatterson, CM-IN 30109, 31 Jan 45.
54
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ers and rearrangement of that system would take more time.55 Termination arrangements for the other countries of Europe followed rapidly. On 21 May 1945 President Truman pointed out that the time had come to release the War Department from its obligations under his predecessor's 1943 directive. "No responsibility for civilian supply in any liberated country in Europe should continue to rest upon the Army," he wrote, "except as may be dictated by the actual necessities of the military situation. On the other hand, no liberated country should be prejudiced by termination of this responsibility. The date and conditions of termination in each case should be subject, of course, to the recommendation of the military commander in the field."56 Under the terms of this directive, termination was arranged for Belgium, the Netherlands, Denmark, Norway, and Luxembourg for food on 1 September and for coal and POL on 1 October, the burden to be assumed by the national governments concerned. The same termination dates were finally arranged for Italy except for the Venezia Giulia section in the north, the area of YugoslavItalian dispute. The old problem of a successor agency in Italy was finally solved by UNRRA, on 22 August 1945, including Italy in its program for the coming months. In the Balkans UNRRA
(1) Materials in folders French Misc (1945) and ARGONAUT, Box 122890, WSA Conway File. (2) Memo, Somervell for McCloy, 18 Feb 45, ID, 014 Civ Sup, XXX. (3) Msgs, SCAEF 221, SHAEF Fwd to AGWAR, 6 Mar 45; FACS 169, CCS to SHAEF Fwd, 31 Mar 45; in CCAC 400 France (3-14-44) Sec 2. (4) Memo, Capt T. L. Marsh for Director, ID, no date, sub: R p t . . . of Visit to SHAEF. (5) ID, Civilian Supply, Text, I, 413-20. 56 Ltr, President to Secy War, 21 May 45, ID, Civilian Supply, Doc Suppl, 360.
55
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even by the impact of modern war. Nevertheless, a considerable problem was foreseen once U.S. forces reached the densely populated areas off the Asiatic coast and those on the mainland of Asia itself, and Army supply agencies devoted a considerable effort to planning for civilian supply in these areas. Procedures for the Pacific were far simpler than those in Europe. There was unilateral, not combined responsibility, with the United States assuming the burden in its theaters in the Pacific, the British that in southeast Asia. Within the Pacific theaters, too, the Navy assumed responsibility 59 erated areas." The flood of supplies for the scattered islands within Nimitz' shipped during the first nine months command. This made it possible for of 1945 compensated for earlier deficien- planning for the areas of Army responsicies. The major weakness in the military bility in the Pacific and Far East to be program, of course, lay in its entire con- centered entirely in the Civil Affairs centration on mere relief and its lack of Division and the ASF. The basic assumptions behind Army any balanced economic program that planning for the Pacific were generally would permit an early start on rehabilithe same as those for Europea sixtation. This omission had serious consemonth period of military responsibility quences in Italy, a country forced to endure some 20 months of Allied cam- after which civilian authority would take paigning. Consequences were less seri- over. There was, however, this difference ous in northwest Europe where the early in the division of functions with the civilcommencement of national import pro- ian agenciesmilitary responsibility was grams and the end of the war with Ger- to be limited to areas of actual military many after 11 months of campaigning operations and in those areas include served to mitigate the effects of economic clothing, shoes, and textiles as well as dislocation. food, fuel, soap, and sanitary supplies. It was anticipated that since Asiatic and island peoples had always been dependCivilian Supply in the Pacific ent on outside sources for their clothCivilian supply problems in the Pa- ing, it would necessarily be a primary cific never assumed the proportions they item in preventing disease and unrest.60 did in Europe. Military operations were, (1) ID Rpt, Essential Civilian Supplies for Occufor the most part, carried on in island pied and Liberated Areas during Period of Military areas inhabited by numerically small Responsibility, 8 Sep 44, Incl J. (2) ID, Civilian primitive populations whose economies Supply, Text, I, 346-47. (3) Ltr, Sidney A. Mitchess, Liberated Areas Div, Dept State, to Gen could hardly be completely disrupted Chief, Hilklring, 8 Jun 44. (4) Hilldring to Mitchell, 1 Jul
60
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Despite this delimitation of Army responsibility, it was decided that the International Division should develop general plans for a much wider area on the basis of which specific plans for the areas of military operations could later be developed. It was recognized that the division of area responsibility between the Army and Navy might well be changed, and the need for civilian supplies to support U.S. Army operations in parts of the British Southeast Asia Command or in China was always a possibility. The exact division of responsibility in SEAC and SWPA caused occasional trouble since some of the territories in SWPA were former British colonies and American forces in the Far East were operating on supply lines within SEAC. The JCS insisted that any policies the British might wish to put into effect in territories in SWPA over which they had exercised authority before enemy occupation should be communicated to the U.S. Chiefs of Staff for consideration by MacArthur and be subject to his approval. The JCS also said that in SEAC the United States would not assume authority over civil affairs except when U.S. forces were employed in areas "other than those over which His Majesty's Government exercised authority prior to enemy occupation," as China, Indochina, and Thailand, and that in those
countries the extent of U.S. civil affairs administration would be a matter of recommendation to the CCS by the U.S. Joint Chiefs. The British would have to requisition civilian supplies for SEAC through normal lend-lease channels, not
military ones. Despite British fears that this system would make no provision for SWPA areas such as Borneo and Hong
791
generally put into effect, though not, it is true, without some disagreement between Washington and the theater over the size of the requisitions and some disappointment to the Dutch over the limited quantities the War Department was willing to certify for procurement on military priority. Little of the program was actually completed, since in July 1945 all of the Netherlands Indies were transferred to SEAC, and though previous certifications were confirmed no new ones were made. Shipments to the Netherlands Indies through U.S. military channels continued until September 1945 but only reached a total of 16,000 tons.64 The Philippines were consequently the only area in the Pacific in which the Army became involved in extensive civilian supply activities, but even there the transition to civilian control was rapid. Advance planning for the Philippines began in June 1944, based on the supposition of invasion toward the end of the year or early in 1945. It was carried out in close co-ordination with officials of the Philippine Commonwealth Government in Washington. Available in the United States for financing procurement of relief supplies for the Philippines were the Sugar Tax Funds, which were the proceeds of duties collected on sugar imported from the Philippines since the passage of the Philippine Independence Act in 1937. However, it was agreed that the Army would undertake the initial burden of relief from its own relief funds insofar as supplies were necessary for military purposes, leaving the tax funds
64 (1) JCS Memo for Info 315, 27 Sep 44, title: Civilian Relief Supplies for Netherlands East Indies. (2) ID, Civilian Supply, Text, I, 375-84.
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for use in the postmilitary period. A program was worked out in August 1944 and approved by MacArthur for the assumed six-month period. It included some 325,000 metric tons of supplies 224,000 of food, 47,000 of POL, and 20,000 of coal, with the rest made up of soap, veterinary, medical and sanitary supplies, clothing, textiles, and miscellaneous items. As the Leyte operation was undertaken earlier than expected, there was no time to build up a stock of civil relief supplies in advance, and MacArthur at first had to rely on materials originally intended for the Netherlands Indies. When requisitions from MacArthur began to come in, they raised a now familiar problem in civilian supply. Many were for rehabilitation items outside the approved programmotor and marine transportation equipment, construction materials, farm tools, and fishing equipment. The War Department tried to meet these requests, but a new issue soon arose when MacArthur requested trade goods such as combs, brushes, cosmetics, pocket knives, and flashlights, comfort articles designed to lure laborers back to
PART EIGHT
CONCLUSION
CHAPTER XXXII
staffs, taking an over-all view of the worldwide availability of all resources, could effectively plan their division in a multifront war. Since they could make these allocations intelligently only in the light of a strategic design, the result was an unprecedented emphasis on the relationship of logistics and strategy. The complexity of this relationship, as well as of the logistical processes themselves, was accentuated by the need for international agreement on almost every phase of the conduct of the war, for it was fought in a partnership with the British that ran the gamut of military activity from strategic direction to the framing and execution of operational plans. Despite the success achieved in conducting the war as a genuinely combined effort, national interests had to be continually reconciled. Involved combined arrangements for conducting and supporting a coalition war could not give to the whole Anglo-American supporting structure the same cohesiveness that normally exists within a national organization under a single direction. Even within the American national organization, there was considerable diffusion of authority and responsibility, and the extent of conflicts of points of view and interests cannot be ignored. In the military sphere, the War and Navy Departments retained a high degree of autonomy in controlling require-
796
of materiel is ordinarily longer than that for organization and training of combat formations. Thus logistical choices affecting the nature of the production program, if made in the absence of a strategic plan, may turn out to be strategic decisions in disguise; at the very least they will, at a later date, narrow the range of strategic choice. Inadequate provision of any single ingredient may become of decisive importance at the critical moment, when final strategic decisions must be made and operational plans drawn up. Winston Churchill, for instance, was to wonder in mid-1944 how history would ever understand why the "plans of two great empires like Britain and the United States should be so hamstrung and limited" by an "abThe Lead Time Factor 1 surd shortage of ... L.S.T.s." These earliest decisions on the genThe availability of means establishes eral balance within the military machine the limits within which strategists may realistically plot the course of military and the production programs required action. Land campaigns cannot be con- to achieve it must be followed by deciducted without trained and equipped sions on deployment of troops to specific armies; bombing campaigns without areas and arrangements and preparations planes and trained crews; naval warfare for the support of specific military opercannot be conducted without ships and ations. These processes, in World War men, amphibious landings without as- II, also required a considerable lead sault shipping and trained amphibious time. The earlier decisions could be troops; nor can any type of overseas made on the scope of deployment and campaign take place without extensive the nature of operations in each specific means of overseas transport. Within the area, the more economical and efficient limits of the national economy, choices preparations were likely to be. And, must be made far in advance of the under conditions where sea transport actual initiation of combat operations as could never be so plentiful as to permit to the amounts of these and other in- its prodigal use, movements begun in gredients needed in the military ma- any one direction were impossible to chine, and training and production pro- reverse without a prohibitive amount of grams begun to provide them. Planning waste motion; once sizable ground refor the balance within and among all sources were committed in an area, the the elements in the machine is an intricate affair. Experience indicates that the lead time required for the production Churchill, Closing the Ring, p. 514. ments planning, production, and distribution of materiel for their respective forces, the unifying mechanisms within the Joint Chiefs of Staff organization notwithstanding. Within the JCS organization many issues were settled by a process not too different from that used in negotiating with the British. The War Shipping Administration spoke with a potent voice in determining the allocation of critical merchant shipping, and other civilian agencies, especially the War Production Board, were influential in shaping and impelling the war economy, whose capacity ultimately controlled the range and magnitude of military plans.
1
797
omy, that the character of the military machine began to take shape after the eruption of hostilities. Yet, even in World War I, European nations found their range of choice narrowly bound by the nature of their mass armies and by plans for mobilization and subsequent military movements over existing lines of communication, plans mostly determined in advance as part of the military arrangements surrounding elaborate alliance systems. The United States was fortunate in not being so narrowly bound when it entered World War II. The military machine was still in process of formation. There seemed to be ample time to adjust production programs to strategy after the outbreak of war. The only strategic commitment already made was a tentative agreement with the British that Germany should be defeated first; actual deployments planned in support of that principle covered only the immediate future. The period of maximum military effort lay one or two years ahead, and the lack of any immediate threat to the American base itself permitted this time to be used for careful planning and preparation. Strategic planning, for some time after Pearl Harbor, was to involve allocation of resources in prospect as well as those in being.
Grand Design or Pool
Given this set of circumstances, an approach having immense appeal was to begin with a long-range strategic design a master plan to govern the whole paraphernalia of logistical preparations. This plan would form the basis, subject of course to inevitable adjustments in
798
cution, for a detailed requirements program for training of men and production of materiel, for long-range deployment plans, and ultimately for allocation of resources and their deployment to the various theaters of war. A logical sequence of this kind was the ideal to which both the Army staff and American civilian administrators aspired in the early stages of World War II. To logisticians in particular it had a great attraction, for it would permit an orderly plan of action and eliminate much waste motion. This concept of a grand design, at least ostensibly, lay behind the Army's calculations in the Victory Program of 1941, and it dominated the Army's planning in the months immediately following Pearl Harbor, the ultimate product being the BOLERO-ROUNDUP plan for striking a concentrated blow across the English Channel against Germany in spring 1943. There were inherent difficulties and dangers in the "grand design" approach, even apart from those of securing agreement with the British. American organization for directing the war effort was still in a state of flux, the art of requirements determination quite imperfect, and the calculations of both manpower availability and productive capacity imprecise. The supply of merchant shipping, on which the whole scale of overseas deployment depended, could not be predicted very far into the future. In any case, the grand design of 1942 proved ephemeral; perhaps it was too simple a concept to meet the situation in World War II. Emergencies dictated deployments in 1942 far more effectively than did long-range plans. Before the end of that year the decisions to invade North Africa and to undertake limited offen-
799
approach. The over-all troop basisthe ployments and little valid experience foundation on which supply programs data on which to base a scale of variawere computedwas shaped largely by tions. Strategic forecasts of some sort the limits of manpower available for the had perforce to be used in calculating Army after the demands of war industry needs for special types of operational and of the Navy had been met. Internal equipment, but for the most part they composition of that troop basis was de- were educated guesses. The main virtue termined less by projections of require- of the Army Supply Program was its ments of the various theaters than by generous provision for as many continthose of a balanced air, ground, and gencies as possible. The distribution system, too, was service establishment. Demands of an air force adequate to assure overwhelm- shaped as a general system, with no subing supremacy over the Axis cut heavily stantial differentiation of method among into the Army's manpower pool. Exper- the several overseas areas. Emphasis was ience revealed a need for a far greater on wholesale supply pushed forward on number of service troops than prewar an automatic or semiautomatic basis, planners had dreamed of. In the end the with all the implications this carried for practical limit of expansion of ground over supply or under supply of specific combat forces was set at 90 divisions items in specific areas. instead of the 215 divisions contemThe pool of U.S. military resources in plated in the 1941 Victory Program. prospect in early 1943, then, was one Changed conditions, with the USSR based largely on a concept of mass proengaging the main bulk of the Wehr- duction of various items for mass distrimacht and prospects of overwhelming bution without the selectivity that only Allied air power and of creating a sub- calculations of specific requirements for stantial number of French divisions in specific operations could provide. HereNorth Africa, made the reduction a rea- in lay the principal disadvantage of the sonable gamble. Of necessity, however, pool approach. strategic concepts had to be adapted to the scale set for American ground force Conflicting Pulls effort. The supply program took shape genDespite the essentially multipurpose erally in terms of the troop basis, though nature of the military machine being it provided for a sizable reserve that was created, certain built-in features prenot to be reduced to realistic propor- disposed its use in certain areas. If the tions until early 1944. Until well into main rationale for the basic Allied stra1944, specific theater requirements tegic principle that Germany should be hardly entered into the calculations of defeated first was simply that Germany either initial troop equipment or of was the stronger enemy against whom replacement and maintenance supplies. the main forces of our strongest allies Weighted averages were used for all were already engaged in deadly struggle, overseas theaters rather than specific it also had a logistical raison d'tre. The factors for each one, for there was no latent human and industrial power of reliable forecast of specific theater de- the United States, the principal reserve
800
available to the Allied camp, could be brought to bear more quickly and effectively against Germany than against
Japan. The centers of American industrial production were closer to the east coast, ports along that coast and the transportation network far more ample than those in the west; the Atlantic shipping lanes (to the Mediterranean areas
as well as to the United Kingdom) were shorter than those in the Pacific, and
in Atlantic or Mediterranean waters. A powerful fleet in the Pacific would inevitably act as a magnet to draw other resources merchant and amphibious shipping, Army combat and service troops, and air powerinto the Pacific
battle. There were thus two conflicting pulls inherent in the nature of the American military machine. They augured a
reception capacity, real and potential, far greater at the receiving end. Areas in Europe, once a foothold was secured, were far more suitable to the employment of substantial ground and air
forces than primitive islands of the
Pacific or the populous but undeveloped countries of southeast Asia. Indeed, if the United States were to create and utilize a mass ground army within any reasonable period of time, it would have to be in Europe against Germany. Army planners went further
to postulate that a mass ground army
reasonably equal balance in the allocation of total Army and Navy resources between Europe and the Pacific. The pulls were exerted in 1943-44 within the framework of deployment patterns already established in 1942 and that necessarily had powerful influence on those to follow. Theaters or bases, once established, as General Marshall so frequently insisted, generated their own rationale for offensive strategies in given areas. Forces deployed to one area could not be transferred to another except at prohibitive logistical cost. The pressures to reinforce and to launch offensives along several lines rather than to revise
the pattern and concentrate on one line were, therefore, well-nigh irresistible.
shape, with all its supporting establishment, was still a mass army; its creation inevitably predisposed Army strategists toward a concentration of effort against Germany in northwest Europe. The emerging limitations on the size of the ground army merely reinforced the belief that it must be used quickly and decisively in a concentrated effort. At the same time, the design for a two-ocean Navy, set in train in 1940 and 1941 and confirmed in detail by early 1943, made sense only in terms of a strong American effort in the Pacific against Japan, for by 1944 the major part
This logic applied as much to the war with Japan, in which the South and Southwest Pacific Areas developed quite independently of any preconceived strategy for their use, as it did to the war in Europe, in which the decision to invade
North Africa in 1942 created an opportunity for a later invasion of Germanheld Europe from the south as an adjunct to, or a possible substitute for, a direct attack across the English Channel. The war assumed its multifront character as a product of circumstances, then, rather than of long-range strategic design. Five main areasthe United King-
LOGISTICS AND STRATEGY IN WORLD WAR II dom, the Mediterranean, the South and Southwest Pacific, the Central Pacific, and China, Burma, and India, as well as a number of minor ones, emerged to compete for their share of American military resources. Adjustment of resources allocations among these competing areas became, in 1943 and 1944, the central problem of strategic logistics. The Adjustment of Means and Ends Allocations had to take place within the framework of still another process a general adjustment of strategic plans to the means prospectively available. Strategic designs in 1942, like counterpart production plans, were generally too ambitious, at least in the timing of operations. In retrospect, SLEDGEHAMMER, the plan for an invasion of Europe in 1942, could not have succeeded except against incredibly weak German defenses. Feasibility of ROUNDUP in spring 1943, the center of the Army planners' original grand design, will perhaps forever remain a subject of debate. But there is strong evidence that, with the shortage of merchant shipping in 1942, the forces and supplies simply could not have been deployed to England in time even without the diversions to the Middle East, North Africa and the Pacific. Moreover, the administrative machinery in both the United States and the United Kingdom was still immature and U.S. combat commanders and troops alike still were inexperienced and unblooded in battle. In July 1943 as many divisions landed in Sicily as might have been required for the initial stages of a 1943 ROUNDUP, but this is not to say that the same types of amphibious shipping that sufficed for the Sicily landings
801
would have been best suited to a cross2 Channel assault. Then HUSKY was, in the last analysis, an attack on a peripheral island that the Germans could supply and reinforce only by water or air; whereas ROUNDUP would have been an attack directly into the center of German strength, not as yet diminished by the effects of an intense strategic bombing campaign or the bleeding and battering of another year's war in Russia and the Mediterranean. On the other side of the world, the American plan for a full-scale attack on Burma (ANAKIM) in 1943, before the line of communications through India had been developed, was also clearly premature; the three-step advance on Rabaul projected as the main preliminary line of attack in the Pacific in mid1942 had to be retailored early in 1943 to the availability of resources in the Pacific. In fact, the rapidity with which the strategic program agreed to at Casablanca generally receded into the realm of the improbable in the months following that conference was ample evidence of the extent to which, in early 1943, strategic planning had not yet been aligned with a realistic appraisal of the means of execution. The first year after Pearl Harbor was a year of shortages in all areasin equipment, supplies, trained troops, and ship2 Some 148 LST's, 235 LCI(L)'s, 239 LCTs, and 64 attack personnel and cargo transports were used in HUSKY; OVERLORD a year later involved the use of 229 LST's, 209 LCI(L)'s, 923 LCT's, 3 LSD's, and 34 attack personnel and cargo transports. The much greater use of combat loaders in HUSKY is to be noted, for they were far more suitable for employment in the Mediterranean than in the English Channel. The larger numbers of LST's and LCT's in OVERLORD shows the much greater need for a large vehicle lift in that operation.
802
ping. The most stringent limiting factor, hampering the Allied war effort at every turn, was the shortage of merchant shipping to carry troops and supplies overseas. For this reason, decisions on American production programs made late in 1942 provided perhaps more generously for construction of merchant shipping than for any other commodity, and the highest strategic priority at Casablanca went to the war against the submarine. These actions bore fruit. Victory over the submarine and the high volume of new construction of merchant shipping by the summer of 1943 had effectively reduced the restrictive influence of the merchant shipping factor. Over-all supply from mid-1943 on, if not sufficient to meet every military and civilian demand, was adequate for most legitimate needs. At about the same time, the supply situation also began to ease as American industry reached peak rates of mass production. The logistical bottlenecks after mid-1943 were apt to be more specialized than general as the requirements of various specific operations came to be more precisely defined. The most serious bottleneck was to appear in the shortage of amphibious shipping. In general, after mid-1943, the problems were no longer in mass production but in selective production of items for which the planning of mass production programs had inadequately provided. They were the almost inevitable consequences of planning in terms of a pool rather than of a strategic design. By the time of the TRIDENT Conference in May 1943, the prospective availability of resources was far more predictable than it had been a year earlier, and requirements of proposed operations could be anticipated in far more con-
803
however much the situation improved over that of 1942. There was a marked tendency to delay firm and irrevocable agreements on specific operations until shortening logistical lead time forced decision. During 1943 the build-up of American forces and matriel in the British Isles for a 1944 cross-Channel invasion proceeded hesitantly, subject to a first priority for the demands of going theaters in the Mediterranean and the Pacific; delays and changes in plan plagued operations in southeast Asia from beginning to end; the invasion of southern France was not finally and irrevocably agreed on until a few days before it was to be launched. Somehow, nonetheless, in the conferences and other Anglo-American negotiations, ends were tailored to means. For all their imperfections, the conference discussions and evaluations made signal contributions to that outcome. At TRIDENT the concept of a large-scale cross-Channel assault in 1944 was abandoned for one on a medium scale because the Americans and British both came to realize that this was all that was within the realm of possibility. At QUADRANT the ambitious plans for an offensive in the CBI were adjusted and based upon a far more realistic appraisal of logistical requirements. At SEXTANT and after, amphibious operations in southeast Asia and the eastern Mediterranean were eliminated to make way for higher priority operations in northwest Europe, Italy and southern France. Later, the southern France operation was postponed to permit an adequate scale of assault lift for OVERLORD and the more effective prosecution of the drive up the Italian peninsula. In turn, the drive in Italy was weakened, once the Pisa-
804
Rimini line was reached, to permit execution of the southern France invasion. The result was a return to concentration in Europe; but a concentration balanced by a far greater commitment in the Pacific than had been envisaged in any of the plans of 1942. The processes by which these adjustments were achieved were not uncomplicated processes of adjusting means to ends. They had to proceed within the political and psychological framework of the stresses and strains within the AngloAmerican coalition, within the British and American Governments themselves, and the necessities of working with a Soviet ally waging what was in effect a separate war on its own front. Seen in terms of concrete questions of resources allocation raised before the CCS, the fundamental issue involved in the long Anglo-American strategic debate was the degree of flexibility to be allowed in disposing of combined resources between the Mediterranean, northwest Europe and southeast Asia. The British insisted on a high degree of flexibility, regarding the campaigns in the two European theaters as interdependent, and the campaign in southeast Asia as an affair that could await the defeat of Germany. They did not believe, in 1943, that preparations for either the crossChannel assault on a fixed date or for the American-sponsored offensive in Burma should be allowed to interfere with full exploitation of opportunities in the Mediterranean area. The Americans, on the contrary, started from the premise that a decisive victory over Germany could be won only by a maximum concentration of resources on one front the direct blow against northwest Europeand continuously fought against
805
to the Pacific, though most of them were employed in the invasion of Sicily. The U.S. Navy, meanwhile, disturbed by the dislocations the crash program had produced, cut back landing craft production drastically. The JCS simply did not face up to the problem of determining strategic requirements for the year ahead. The Americans, for whatever reasons, came to assume that the pool created, along with limited new production scheduled, would suffice to meet requirements of a 1944 ROUNDUP as well as of all other operations that might be scheduled in the interim in the Mediterranean, the Pacific, and southeast Asia. At TRIDENT, the British and Americans agreed that there would be a demonstrable deficit for a large-scale ROUNDUP in 1944a primary reason for the decision on a medium-scale ROUNDHAMMER. Setting requirements for ROUNDHAMMER, however, was a curious exercise in which the usual processes were reversed. Craft in the existing pool expected to survive amphibious operations in the Mediterranean and in southeast Asia in 1943 were to be returned to the United Kingdom for ROUNDHAMMER. To these would be added something like half of a now limited American production of LST's, LCI(L)'s, and LCT's planned in 1943, plus some British production of LCT's and gun support craft. These estimates of availability were simply transformed into requirements, and this scale of requirements became the fixed pivot on which American thinking concerning a cross-Channel invasion turned until well toward the end of 1943. OVERLORD, on the scale it was eventually mounted, was to require almost double this amount of assault lift. During the last half of 1943 the size
806
of the pool available for combined use in the Mediterranean and southeast
Asia, with the need to preserve even these inadequate allocations for OVERLORD always in the background, narrowed the range of strategic choice at
used long after the assault landings to mined to accelerate the pace of the war bring in supplies over the beaches. Lack against Japan, and at QUADRANT proof readily available craft was a critical posed as a goal the defeat of Japan withfactor in preventing immediate follow- in a year of the defeat of Germany. up of the Sicilian victory by an assault Though no specific plan was advanced,
on the Italian mainland. The Amerand the British refused to accept the
by the unexpected small losses in Sicily should remain in the Mediterranean for ANVILdespite clear evidence in the
OVERLORD plan that additional assault
well beyond their scheduled departure come effective too late to provide more build-up and to launch an amphibious scheduled for 1 May 1944 or any accom-
ment, limitations on the supply of landing craft for European operations hedged in military planners and states-
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could be supplied for a May OVERLORD. The President consequently decided against it. In a somewhat frantic effort to provide for ANVIL, Admiral King made a second offer of diversions from future Pacific allocations, and the Americans then agreed that BUCCANEER should be canceled and assault shipping returned from India to the Mediterranean. The shipping thus returned, the British figured, could be used seriatim for Rhodes and ANVIL. Only the amphibious operation in southeast Asia had to be immediately canceled. The target date for OVERLORD (and a simultaneous ANVIL) was adjusted to a fuzzy "in May," which in the event was to mean a postponement to early June. Admiral King's promise of additional landing craft for ANVIL was at least partially conditioned on this delay. In the SEXTANT deliberations, the fundamental fact in the whole equation that the supply of landing craft in being and in prospect for Europe, even with the additions promised, was still inadequate for a simultaneous OVERLORD and ANVILwas almost ignored. No sooner had the OVERLORD high command arrived in England than they demanded an increase in the scale of the assault. While the production authorities had decided, despite Roosevelt's second thoughts, to go ahead with the new crash landing craft program, its products would come off the line too late and therefore mainly benefit the Pacific war. Additional craft to strengthen the OVERLORD assault, it appeared, could only be had from the Mediterranean increment earmarked for ANVIL. Meanwhile, new complications arose when it developed that the turning movement in Italy could not be exe-
808
cuted in December 1943. Then, at Churchill's behest, new delays were arranged in LST movement schedules so that a 2-division landing at Anzio could take place in January. Perhaps fortunately, the Turks refused to move toward intervention in the war and the Rhodes operation disappeared from the agenda; in view of the demands for Anzio, amphibious shipping could not have been made available for it. Whatever the delays and complications introduced by the Anzio landings, the basic competition now narrowed to OVERLORD and ANVIL. The OVERLORD planners in London, like those at TRIDENT, once again engaged in a curious reversal of the usual procedures, and built the "requirements" for OVERLORD around a scale of assault lift that included their SEXTANT allotments plus what they thought could be brought from the Mediterranean should ANVIL be canceled. A long technical debate ensued over what would or would not be sufficient to provide the requisite OVERLORD lift. Despite a belief in Washington that enough lift was on hand to execute both OVERLORD and ANVIL, the upshot was the postponement of the southern France invasion and the transfer of the major portion of its allotted assault lift to OVERLORD. Granted that the postponement of ANVIL grew more immediately out of the continuing stalemate in Italy, without it OVERLORD almost certainly would not have received the assault lift it evidently required. ANVIL was actually to be executed two months after OVERLORD, using the residual lift in the Mediterranean supplemented by a third diversion from Pacific allocations by Admiral King and craft released by General Eisenhower.
brought into consonance with strategy. The whole controversy over landing craft was hardly an object lesson either in anticipating strategic requirements or in planning the division of a critical resource among several theaters. Nevertheless, the effect of the landing craft shortage on the course of the war was probably less than all the sound and fury surrounding it would indicate. The major casualties were operations that might well have fallen by the wayside for other reasonsthe invasion of the Andamans (and with it the offensive in Burma early in 1944), Rhodes, and a southern France operation simultaneous with OVERLORD. Its greatest effect was in curbing British opportunism in the Mediterranean and the American design for an early offensive in Burma. OVERLORD was not affected, nor were operations in the Pacificby mid-1944 the two centerpieces of American strategy. It would be difficult, however, to prove that the outcome was the result of any conscious design. After the launching of OVERLORD, assault shipping ceased to be the great arbiter of strategic decision. The new construction program assured a sufficient quantity for Pacific operations in the fall of 1944, despite the continued tieup of craft in logistical operations in Europe. In what might be designated the third logistical phase of the war, limitations in more conventional areas, port and inland clearance capacity, supply of military manpower, specific types of supplies, and, once again, merchant shippingsucceeded assault shipping as the principal bottlenecks.
809
with primitive facilities. The shortage of all kinds of shipping was compounded In the peculiarly American sphere of by a shortage of facilities for unloading, the Pacific theaters it would be hard to which promoted the wasteful use of pinpoint any single factor that exerted shipping. Given the geography of the Pacific war the same influence the landing craft shortage did in shaping the course of fronts, a shortage of facilities and supoperations in the combined theaters in plies was endemic, the problems of Europe and southeast Asia. The Pacific equitable distribution to widely scattered Fleet, rather than the ground army, was island bases almost insoluble. Demands the decisive force. The fast naval air inevitably arose for a higher ratio of carrier task force may be said to have service to combat troops than could be been the most important single element, satisfied within the existing troop basis, though in the Southwest Pacific land- and for all kinds of special operational based aircraft fulfilled much the same supplies on relatively short notice. role. No significant strategic controverAmphibious operations until well tosies developed around the allocation of ward the middle of 1944 required a carrier task forces among the main generous measure of improvisation, particularly in the Southwest Pacific. If the Pacific areas. Although fleet strength and air power rationale of an accelerated Pacific adwere the decisive factors, they required vance is accepted, the solicitude with many adjuncts. After tailoring objectives which Admiral King guarded Pacific alto resources in early 1943, the general locations of assault shipping had contendency was to accelerate the Pacific siderable justification. Some British writadvance, pacing it to the growth of the ers in the postwar period have asserted power of the Pacific Fleet. This accelera- that as high as eleven-twelfths of Amerition generated numerous shortages of can amphibious shipping was sent to the resources for a balanced effort, the im- Pacific during the critical period in Euro3 pact of which fell most heavily on the pean operations. The proportion, in Army, certainly in part because it sought fact, was never nearly so high, though to give first priority to the war in Europe. any exact calculation is difficult to make. In theaters in which all routes of ad- The division between the two areas of vance and most internal supply lines larger types of landing craft was relawere over water, means of water trans- tively even; the Pacific did have, after port were necessarily the primary ele- mid-1943, a heavy preponderance of comments of logistics. The most compelling bat loaders. In contrast to early Navy shortages in the Pacific were of all types plans for a relatively even division of of floating equipmentnot only the these vessels between Atlantic and Paocean-going ships required to bring in cific, by June 1944 approximately threemen and supplies and the amphibious fourths of all American combat loaders shipping required to land them on Japanese-held islands, but the small boats, See particularly Chester Wilmot, The Struggle barges, and other types useful for short for Europe (London: Collins, 1952), pp. 176-78, and voyages and in the operation of ports Bryant, Turn of the Tide, p. 587.
3
810
were in the Pacific. The shift began with the movements from the Mediterranean after HUSKY to flesh out the lift for the Gilberts-Marshalls campaign. Afterwards, almost all new APA's and AKA's were assigned to the Pacific. Without doubt there was much logic in this distribution. Combat loaders were better suited to the ship-to-shore operations in the Pacific than to operations in the English Channel where the primary need was for large shore-to-shore landing craft and ships. Yet, British combat loaders (LSI (L)'s) did play an important part in OVERLORD, and combat loaders were used extensively in Mediterranean operations. A more serious flaw in the Navy's handling of the amphibious shipping problem than this distribution lay in its insistence, from TRIDENT onward, in planning boosts in production almost exclusively in terms of Pacific needs on the assumption that TRIDENT allocations would suffice for the European war. The general boosts in production begun in the fall of 1943 did, in the end, benefit OVERLORD and ANVIL, but only as a result of Admiral King's unilateral decisions to accept some sacrifice in allocations made earlier to the Pacific. And King's three separate offers were all timed to influence strategic decision along lines favored by the American JCS. The most curious facet of the entire landing craft situation is the extent to which these decisions on redistribution of a critical resource were not determined by the CCS in the light of over-all strategy, or even by the JCS as a body, but by the U.S. Chief of Naval Operations. There is little evidence that the diversions King sanctioned actually deprived Pacific commanders of their essen-
811
port that, because of the lack of a land supply line, could not be given him. The resources that meanwhile poured into the Pacific resulted in an accelerated advance, and by the end of 1943 it was apparent to the American and British staffs alike that the China coast could be invaded from the Pacific much earlier than it could be reached either by overland advance through Burma and China or along the sea route via Malaya and the Indies. The importance of the CBI was consequently further downgraded on the American strategic scale. American staffs sought first to nourish the air forces in China to support the Pacific advance; that failing, they finally hoped simply to realize as much from the previous investment of resources in the area as possible with no further substantial commitments. Since this was also the principal area of British participation in the war against Japan, the new strategic outlook had its effect in diminishing American lendlease support to British forces in southeast Asia. At the same time, the prospective Soviet effort on the Asian mainland took on added importance as means of preventing withdrawal of sizable Japanese ground forces to their home islands to oppose an American assault.
Logistical Adjustments
As the specific direction of the Allied effort unfolded, the logistical processes were adapted, as far as they could be, to the developing situation. Production planning for 1944 and 1945 evidenced a transition from emphasis on mass production of standardized articles toward concentration on more specialized areas. In the field of shipping the turn was
812
toward specialized military types at the expense of mass production of Liberty shipsa shift of which the new landing craft and combat loader programs were the most important evidence. In Army production, the shift was toward heavier equipment of all types and toward greater quantities of artillery and artillery ammunition at the expense of lighter items such as 37-mm. guns, small arms, 4 and ammunition. These adjustments were not easily or readily made, and the necessity for them was seldom appreciated far in advance. The McCoy Board and the Richards Committee, studying the entire Army supply system late in 1943, identified its major weaknessesits too generous provision of reserves and its lack of differentiation in requirements of various theatersbut neither of these groups really foresaw the need for adjustments rather than simply economy. Their efforts resulted in what was very probably a premature reduction in military production early in 1944 in an atmosphere of optimism about an early end to the war with Germany. Over-all Army production requirements for 1944 and 1945 were cut back to finally conform to the prospective limits of manpower mobilization for the Army and to eliminate what seemed to be excessive reserve, maintenance, and pipeline allowances. Within the framework of these reductions, the ASF meanwhile proceeded with its effort to make the whole logistical system more responsive to developing operational requirements, as well as more economical. The adaptation took
4 For evidence of these trends, see below, appendixes C-1 and C-2.
813
haust its manpower resources in support of the European war and to cut back, after June 1944, the relative pace of deployment to the Pacific. The net result was a shortage of Army manpower resources, particularly service troops, in the Pacific for the campaigns in early 1945. This shortage exerted some influence on the decision to invade Luzon rather than Formosa, and, combined with geographic factors, it delayed Philippine base development and other preparations for the final phase of the war against Japan. In Europe, meanwhile, the shortage of both port facilities and inland clearance capacity, the result of a change of pace The Climactic Phase and direction in the military advance By the fall of 1944 the American war contrary to the best-laid logistical plans, effort had reached its climax in both played its part in producing the fall and main spheres. In Europe, as a result of winter stalemate along the Siegfried the convergence of the OVERLORD and Line. In the bitter winter war, supply ANVIL-DRAGOON forces, it involved one shortages did developmost acutely in main, excessively broad, front, and a sub- the areas of artillery ammunition and sidiary one in Italy. In the war against winter clothingdue in part to failure to Japan, there were two main fronts in the anticipate requirements and in part to Pacific, and a subsidiary front in south- difficulties of distribution. The armies east Asia. The direction of the main in Europe, too, suffered shortages of both efforts was irrevocably fixed, and the combat and service troops. Rear estabcompetition for resources among thea- lishments had to be combed for infantry ters to some degree narrowed, but the replacements; a new program for organworldwide extent of the entire American izing and arming liberated manpower commitment imposed a strain on what took shape. On the supply side, producwas now a mature war economy and war tion programs that had been cut back in machine. The newly liberated nations of the belief that the war in Europe would western Europe emerged as competitors soon be over had to be hastily reaccelerfor both supplies and shipping to resus- ated. Lend-lease to the Russians continued at its previous high levels, but citate their war-torn economies. There was no longer any real doubt the British began to suffer serious disof eventual victory on both main fronts; appointments. the only questions were time and cost. If the supply of manpower seemed The dashing of optimistic hopes for vic- likely to be the ultimate limitation on tory over Germany before the end of the American war effort, the more imme1944 forced the Army to practically ex- diate crisis in fall 1944 came to center
814
primarily on the distribution process. Cargo shipping once more became the most critical logistical factor, affecting the whole range of Allied plans. The cargo shipping crisis of late 1944 was not, however, like the crises of 1942. The number of ships by now was gigantic, despite some slackening in the rate of construction, and the loss rate to enemy action was no longer a serious factor. The shortage of cargo shipping for outward movement from the United States resulted largely from the retention of great numbers of ships in overseas pools to serve as floating warehouses or to be used for intratheater movements. Shipping congestion of this sort reached its greatest heights in Europe and the Southwest Pacific simultaneously. In Europe it resulted from failure to seize and develop ports rapidly enough to support the advance to the German border; in the Southwest Pacific from the decision to invade Leyte two months ahead of schedule. In both areas congestion was in large part a product of decisions of theater commanders to push ahead to seize the tactical advantage without regard to the logistical dislocations that would follow. It led, however, to uneconomic use of shipping and to partial loss of control by the central shipping authorities over allocations. The mounting shortage for overseas movement of military supplies coincided with the emergence of large civilian relief demands in Europe and of a requirement for merchant shipping in the Pacific to carry supplies for a Soviet stockpile in Siberia against the day the USSR would enter the war against Japan. To meet the crisis the JCS demanded drastic curtailment of American assistance to British shipping programs, of Soviet Pro-
815
sonable in terms of such a strategy, but the scale of the reserve it planned to maintain in the United States was more questionable. The scale of both Army and Navy air deployments and of naval fleets seems to have been calculated more in terms of a strategy of blockade and bombardment. To almost the very end, as well, the American staffs considered Soviet entrance into the war desirable if not absolutely essential. Also, the effort to give some substance to the Chinese war effort continued, though it no longer held a place of much importance. There did remain little place for the British. Without much enthusiasm or sense of any great need on the part of the Americans, plans were finally approved at the Potsdam Conference for a further drive in southeast Asia toward Singapore and the Netherlands Indies and for a British ground force to participate in the invasion of Japan. The scale of military lend-lease to the British continued its downward trend. What the Americans did need from the British was assistance in lifting personnel in their large ocean liners. This was finally promised, though not in quite so large a measure as desired. And the military priority on cargo shipping proved less overriding in the application than in the Malta-Yalta statement. The civilian relief programs gathered momentum in the spring of 1944 and mounted to new heights after the defeat of Germany, profiting from a temporary easing of the military demand for cargo shipping in the Atlantic. Before the full force of the competition of the redeployment movement could be felt, the war had come to an end. The end came in an unexpected manner, nullifying all the elaborate plans
816
two countries should be regarded as a common pool out of which allocations should be made in accordance with strategic necessity by combined munitions assignments boards in Washington and London, operating under the jurisdiction of the CCS. Allocations among nations on the basis of strategy proved to be even more difficult than allocations among theaters. International Supply During 1942 the effort to plan the diviThe supply of military matriel under sion of the common pool between British lend-lease in World War II also involved and Americans on the basis of a longa close relationship to the development range strategy came to nought. Actual of coalition strategy. When the concept assignments were made at short range of lend-lease was first advanced by the and were dictated to no small degree by President late in 1940, it was proclaimed the emergencies of that year. The whole as a method whereby America could be- problem was one of "dividing a deficome the "arsenal of democracy" without ciency." National interest intruded on itself becoming actively engaged in the the perfect theory of the common pool war. This seems, in retrospect, to have with irritating frequency. been wishful thinking. The idea that In effect, the Weeks-Somervell Agreethe United States could add to the over- ment, negotiated by the British and all striking power of the anti-Axis coali- American military authorities at the end tion by extending part of the fruits of of 1942, recognized that strict adherence its production to Allied nations none- to the doctrine of strategic necessity, in theless survived. Lend-lease became an a situation in which strategy could not extremely effective instrument of coali- be fixed, was impossible. It substituted tion warfare. It did what Roosevelt pro- the principle that requirements calcuposed it should do in the first instance: lated separately by national organizations remove the dollar sign from inter-Allied based on the projected size of forces to supply transfers. When combined with be equipped and supplied should be the its counterpart, reciprocal aid, it gave guide to long-range planning. The Amerthe directing Anglo-American military icans agreed to meet the marginal restaffs unprecedented flexibility in allo- quirements for British ground forces, cating supplies and equipment among that is, those that British industry could national forces without regard to their not supply, in the same proportion that
origin and without cumbersome financial accounting. The whole concept of lend-lease and reciprocal aid found its most perfect expression in the announcement of Roosevelt and Churchill in early 1942 that military supplies and equipment of the
they met the requirements of their own ground forces. Within the munitions assignments machinery, adjustments continued to be made as specific strategic and operational plans unfolded, but agreements reached in the production planning stage, largely in the absence of
and calculations for the movement of the military machine into position for the final blow. The invasion of Japan did not have to be executed. And the way in which the final blow was struck promised to alter the whole complex pattern of relationships between logistics and strategy in the future.
LOGISTICS AND STRATEGY IN WORLD WAR II detailed strategic concepts, became the principal guide to assignments. Under this arrangement the munitions assignments machinery worked much more smoothly than it had in 1942. During 1943 and the first half of 1944, British marginal needs were satisfied roughly in the same proportion as American. This enabled the British Commonwealth of Nations to maintain far larger forces in the field than it could otherwise have done, to the mutual benefit of both Great Britain and the United States. It represented, nevertheless, a serious modification of the original idealistic common pool concept. In terms of finished military equipment, the common pool was largely a one-way street, however much the British may have contributed to the American war effort in the form of services, installations, and maintenance supplies. This situation inevitably led Americans to modify the common pool concept in practice, and to insist on determining the allocations of American equipment in terms of American national interest. In the later war years, British participation in the allocation of American production through the munitions assignments machinery became more nominal than real. In the last year of the war, the Americans returned to the principle of strategic necessity in making assignments, and applied it to the detriment of the British. The principles of the Weeks-Somervell Agreement were not renewed for either 1944 or 1945. By the fall of 1944, American forces had become predominant in the main theater in Europe; the Mediterranean theater, where British forces predominated, was no longer considered of great importance; and the British
817
effort in the war against Japan had been relegated to a subsidiary position. The British began to find strategic justification difficult, and their share in American production fell sharply. Once the war in Europe was over, the American staffs, reluctant to consider any of the postwar implications of continuing a generous scale of military aid to Britain, determined to limit that aid to proven needs for the war with Japan based on strategy agreed within the CCS. Since the CCS did not agree until Potsdam on any program for participation of British ground forces in the final stages, assignments came virtually to a standstill. In sum then, lend-lease to Britain served as an admirable and effective instrument for furthering the aims of coalition strategy in the middle war years; its diminution was almost directly proportionate to the waning of British influence in strategic councils and to the increasing preponderance of American forces in the overseas theaters that the JCS considered decisive. The lend-lease program for the USSR constituted a separate case, for it was not controlled by the CCS, JCS, or MAB, but by the President's Soviet Protocol Committee. The strategic justification for the Soviet aid program was a general one; it was not tied to specific Soviet strategic or operational plans, for the American staffs had no knowledge of them. The general justification was compelling enough. The Soviet Union was exerting a maximum effort against the common German enemy, and it therefore seemed but natural to aid the USSR in any way possible to speed the ultimate military victory. In 1943 and 1944 the increase in the availability of American supplies and
818
shipping, and the conquest of the obstacles to forwarding these supplies over the routes of delivery, made it possible to increase the volume of aid substantially over the level of 1942 without any real sacrifice to the effort of the western Allies on other fronts. Strategic conditions were changed; the Red Army was no longer reeling backwards but was on the offensive on all fronts. Some voices were raised in the wilderness demanding a closer scrutiny of Soviet needs for supplies, but these voices were largely ignored by the Protocol Committee. Until the war in Europe was over, the flow of aid to the USSR continued as a maximum effort simply to meet all possible Soviet requests, on the premise that the Soviet contribution to military victory was sufficiently important to warrant it. Meanwhile, late in 1944 the MILEPOST program was added to provide a stockpile of supplies in Siberia against the day the USSR should enter the lists against Japan. This program, which involved a transfer of American shipping to the Soviet flag in the Pacific, was carried out despite a threatened shortage of cargo shipping for the support of the American military effort in that area, and without any diminution of the flow of supplies under the existing protocol. With victory in Europe, the situation changed. Further protocol shipments via the Atlantic routes were abruptly canceled, and an attempt made to limit the Soviet aid program to the USSR's proven needs for the war with Japan, on the assumption that it would make good its promises to enter that war. Yet, there were, in fact, no real means of determining whether Soviet requests really reflected those needs, and a fairly generous program of shipments to Vladivostok
819
delayed by the priorities the Americans insisted on giving to strictly military needs. This policy in turn was a product of the over-all philosophy that all available resources, American and Allied, must be used first to bring a quick end to the war; postwar problemspolitical, economic, and militarywould have to wait. The alignment of means and ends, of logistics and strategy, in World War II was, then, a complex and never-ending process. To say that logistical factors were the sole determinants of strategic decision would be as erroneous as to say that the makers of strategy were not constantly limited and bound by the realities of the logistical processes. In the first stage of the war scarcities of both matriel and shipping hamstrung Allied planners at every turn. In the last phase almost every article in the catalogue was in plentiful supply for a one-front war, but the timing of the final blow was still controlled by the logistical processes involved in moving selected portions of the military machine into place. Sometimes singly, sometimes in combination, critical elements succeeded one another as limiting factors. First it was merchant shipping, then assault shipping; and in the final stage it was military manpower and reception and clearance capacity within overseas theaters. On the surface it appears that, for all the controversies and byways into which planners and statesmen were led or wandered, what emerged was a balanced strategy fundamentally in line with the resources available for its pursuit, and that the logistical effort was
820
consequently channeled in the right direction and was reasonably economic and efficient despite the waste that must inevitably attend war. All that can really be said with any certainty, however, is that complete military victory was achieved, and that it is difficult to see how it could have been achieved in much less time and at much less cost. The processes by which victory was gained were not the product of any grand design determined in advance but of a series of decisions made under conditions of stress and uncertainty. Flexibility in adjusting to circumstances
Appendix A
SHIPPING TERMINOLOGY AND PLANNING DATA: 1943-45
APPENDIX A-1WEIGHT, SPACE, AND DISTANCE MEASUREMENTS
WEIGHT MEASUREMENTS
822
Source: ASF Manual M-409, 1 Mar 46, Logistic Data for Staff Planners, p. 13.
824
a These figures were compiled by ASF officers shortly after the war, based on a study of actual monthly shipments from U.S. ports to each theater over a representative period of operations as reflected in MPR-3, Transportation, to be used as a general guide. The data do not include bulk petroleum products shipped by tanker or initial equipment that might have been acquired in the theater from Army stockpiles or local procurement. The figures for measurement tonnage, moreover, do not include an allowance for a stowage factor. Source: Draft, Logistical Data for Staff Planners, prepared by Command and Staff College, Fort Leavenworth, Kans., Sep 46, p. 33.
APPENDIX A
825
The term maintenance requirements as used here may be construed to mean all shipments to the theater for use by the Army except for initial equipment. b This figure is computed by converting short tons into measurement tons through use of the appropriate conversion factor for each item and the addition of 15 percent for stowage loss. Figures on short tonnage and conversion factors in source omitted. c Minor discrepancies in totals due to rounding. d Assumes 90 percent of quantities shown shipped by tanker and 10 percent in packaged containers.
APPENDIX B
829
APPENDIX B-2U.S. PRODUCTION OF MAJOR TYPES OF LANDING SHIPS AND CRAFT 1940-45
Source: CPA, Official Munitions Production of the United States, May 1, 1947, pp. 99-104.
832
APPENDIX C
APPENDIX C-2DELIVERIES OF SELECTED ITEMS OF MUNITIONS TO THE ARMY 1942-45Continued
833
Includes data for period 1 January through 30 August 1945 only. Source: Crawford and Cook, Statistics: Procurement, 9 Apr 52.
838
APPENDIX D-5TROOP AND CARGO FLOW TO THE UNITED KINGDOM FOR OVERLORD JANUARY 1943-JULY 1944
a
b
Includes arrivals from Mediterranean and Iceland, mainly in November 1943. Data not available before May 1943.
c
d
Preshipment continued through August and September 1944, totaling in those months 561,963 measurement tons, or 13.6 percent of total shipments. Source: Richard M. Leighton, The Problem of Troop and Cargo Flow in Preparing the European Invasion, MS, OCMH, Appendix.
Appendix E
THE DIVISION AND AIR GROUP SLICE
APPENDIX E-1DIVISIONAL FORCE ANALYSIS OF ACTUAL ARMY STRENGTH ON 30 JUNE 1945
a Estimate based on proportion among hospitalized battle casualties. Inclusion of nonbattle casualties would increase the proportion of hospitalized members of the Air Forces and reduce the above divisional force portion. Source: Figures furnished by Office, Comptroller of the Army, February 1951.
840
a b
d c
Those units or organizations whose primary mission is destruction of enemy forces and/or installations. Those units or organizations whose primary mission is to furnish operational assistance for the combat elements. Those Thoseunits units or or organizations organizations whose primary mission mission is is that that of ofservice servicein in support support ofof the the combat combat and and combat combat support support elements. elements, and
which normally operate in the communications zone. e Number of divisions in basis: 61. f Number of divisions in basis: 7.
Number of divisions in basis: 15. h Number of divisions in basis: 6. The relatively high support strengths for the Central Pacific Base Command are explained in part by the Army support rendered to 6 Marine divisions also present in the theater. The Marine divisions are not included in the combat strength shown because the extent of support rendered these divisions by Navy and Marine sources is not known.
g
Source: ASF Manual M-409, 1 Mar 46, Logistic Data for Staff Planners, pp. 15-16.
Appendix F
MERCHANT SHIPPING
APPENDIX F-1UNITED NATIONS MERCHANT SHIPPING DRY CARGO GAINS, LOSSES, AND CONSTRUCTION: 1941-45a
(IN THOUSANDS OF DEAD-WEIGHT TONS)
Data include all ships 1,600 gross tons and over excluding vessels in Black and Baltic Seas and on the Great Lakes. b Figures do not include gains through additions to pool of neutral or captured shipping. Losses on an occurrence basis. d Data not available before this date. Source: ASF Statistical Review World War II, app. G, p. 144.
c
APPENDIX F
APPENDIX F-2GROWTH OF THE U.S.-CONTROLLED TANKER FLEET DECEMBER 1941-OCTOBER 1945
(IN THOUSANDS OF DEAD-WEIGHT TONS) a
843
Includes vessels 1,600 gross tons and over; data as of the first day of each month. Includes naval auxiliaries converted to aircraft carriers. c WSA assumed control of American shipping between April and July 1942. Source: WSA Shipping Summary, Dec 45, p. 106.
b
846
APPENDIX G-2VALUE OF WAR DEPARTMENT LEND-LEASE SHIPMENTS TO THE UNITED a KINGDOM, USSR, AND OTHERS BY SIX-MONTH PERIODS: 1941-49
(IN THOUSANDS OF DOLLARS)
a Data represent amounts that were tabulated in time to meet reporting due dates; corrections have not been made for any reporting lags. Includes commanding general shipments but excludes theater transfers. b Theater transfers would increase the figures for others by $3,593,848, while it would not affect totals for the United Kingdom and
USSR appreciably. c Negative figure resulting from adjustments. Source: Whiting, Tod and Craft, Statistics; Lend-Lease, 15 Dec 52, Tables LL-5, LL-10, LL-12.
Appendix H
CIVILIAN SUPPLY
APPENDIX H-1U.S. SHIPMENTS OF CIVILIAN SUPPLIES 1 JULY 1943-30 SEPTEMBER 1945a
(LONG TONS)
a b
Doesnot include petroleum products shipped in bulk for combined military and civilian relief use. Less than 0.5. Source: International Div, ASF, Civilian Supply, MS, OCMH, general app. D-15.
852
sions on wartime strategy, and it was in the joint and combined committees that all of the logistical factors affecting these decisions were apt to emerge in reasonably clear and succinct outline. OPD was the Army staff agency principally responsible for advising the Army Chief of Staff on policy and strategy, the principal link of that staff with the joint and combined organization, and the principal recordkeeper for the War Department of joint and combined papers. The joint and combined papers used so extensively in the preparation of this volume were mainly consulted in the excellent file of these and related Army papers kept by OPD's Strategy and Policy Group (ABC file) rather than in the JCS and CGS files themselves. These latter files, unique among the wartime military records of World War II, remain under control of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. The groups of OPD records have been succinctly described by Maurice Matloff in the bibliographical note to Strategic Planning for Coalition Warfare, 19431944, UNITED STATES ARMY IN WORLD WAR II, (Washington, 1959). The most important groups for the purposes of this volume have been the ABC files and the informal policy files of Executive Office, OPD, identified as OPD Exec. Despite this heavy reliance on CCS, JCS and OPD records, the files of the Army Service Forces agencies are the most important source for reconstructing the record of the Army's own logistical activities and of its relationships with civilian agencies in the detailed execution of production and other programs. Moreover, the ASF materials shed added, and sometimes different, light on the relationship of logistics and strategy, for
853
papers relating to the conferences. In some cases they have been useful to supplement the military record, but in general they do not contain the detailed logistical papers that have been the authors' principal concern. Of somewhat less utility, but still of value in the preparation of this volume, have been the files of the Office of the Secretary of the Army, the Office of the Chief of Staff (OCS), the Supply Division of the General Staff (G-4), and The Adjutant General of the Army. The TAG records, however, are of far less import for the war years than for the prewar period, since after early 1942 the Office of The Adjutant General really ceased to be a War Department central file for anything other than formal directives and backup papers pertaining to them and for the papers generated by TAG business. Records of overseas theaters have not been extensively consulted, though manuscript monographs and published works relating to operations in these theaters have been the basis for many sections of this book. A single exception has been the selected use of Secretary General Staff files of Supreme Headquarters, Allied Expeditionary Force, identified as SHAEF SGS, for material on the development of European strategy and the requirements for landing craft. The originals of the SHAEF files are with other
wartime military records in National Archives. For a full description of these records see the bibliographical note in Forrest C. Pogue, The Supreme Command, THE UNITED STATES ARMY IN WORLD WAR II (Washington, 1953). Of manuscript histories prepared outside the Army's program, those forming part of the history of the wartime activi-
854
ties of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, prepared by the historical section of that organization, have been most valuable. When used as a primary source of information, these studies have been cited in detail in the footnotes. The most useful of them have been Vernon Davis' account of the development of JCS organization and that of Grace Hayes on strategy in the war against Japan. Outside the strictly military records of World War II, the files of the War Shipping Administration (WSA) have been of greatest assistance. WSA, as the principal agency responsible for operation of U.S. merchant shipping, was vitally concerned in problems relating to overseas movements of both troops and supplies. WSA officials frequently looked at shipping problems from a different vantage point from military authorities, and consultation of the WSA records has enabled the authors to add balance to their story. Most important for this purpose have been the files of the two successive directors of WSA, Lewis Douglas and Capt. Granville Conway, identified in the footnotes as WSA Douglas and WSA Conway files. The WSA records form part of the collections now under the control of the Federal Records Center, Region 3, Suitland, Maryland. We have not similarly consulted the files of the War Production Board in the preparation of this volume. Use has been made, however, of the War Production Board study prepared by the Civilian Production Administration, Industrial Mobilization for War: Program and Administration (Washington, 1947) and of the unpublished War Production Board historical monographs. Of these monographs, Special Study 11, Landing Craft and the War Production Board, April
855
In this work, the authors have sought to present a scrupulously balanced account of the British view in the controversies strategic and logistical which characterized the Anglo-American partnership. Information on British points of view and actions has been gleaned from CCS papers, from British papers included in U.S. Army records, from the memoirs of various British participants, and from the published volumes in the British series, History of the Second World War. Of British memoir literature, incomparably the most important items are the last three volumes of Winston Churchill's memoirs, The Hinge of Fate (Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company, 1950), Closing the Ring (Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company, 1951) and Triumph and Tragedy (Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company, 1953), and the two volumes of Arthur Bryant based on Lord Alanbrooke's diary and memory, Turn of the Tide (New York: Doubleday & Co., 1957) and Triumph in the West (New York: Doubleday & Co., 1958). Of the British official histories the two volumes of John Ehrman, Grand Strategy, Volumes V and VI (London: Her Majesty's Stationery Office, 1956) provide a well-balanced story of development of worldwide strategy and the considerations behind it from the British point of view covering the period from August 1943 through August 1945. In the United Kingdom Civil Series H. Duncan Hall, North American Supply (London: HMSO, 1955) and Hall and C. C. Wrigley, Studies in Overseas Supply (London: HMSO, 1956) present a detailed and interesting account of lendlease from the British vantage point. C. B. A. Behrens, Merchant Shipping and the Demands of War (London:
856
HMSO, 1955) is equally important in the field of merchant shipping and the operations of the British Ministry of War Transport. The work of W. K. Hancock and M. M. Gowing, British War Economy (London: HMSO, 1949) was of considerable value in the preparation of this as well as the previous volume. Similarly, for information on the U.S. Navy's views and actions, we have relied mainly on the papers and minutes of the JCS and the many committees that served them, on Navy papers to be found in Army records, on memoirs, and on published histories, official and unofficial, based on naval records. Information on naval operations has been drawn largely from the series of volumes written by Samuel Eliot Morison. For naval logistics, Duncan Ballantine's U.S. Naval Logistics in the Second World War (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1947) is the best summary. Two works, one by Rear Adm. Worrall Reed Carter, Beans, Bullets and Black Oil (Washington, 1953), the other by Admiral Carter and Rear Adm. Elmer Ellsworth Duvall, Ships, Salvage and Sinews of War (Washington, 1954), shed light on operational naval logistics in the Pacific and the Atlantic, respectively. A number of agency administrative histories were produced as part of the Navy's wartime historical program. These have been synthesized and related to a larger whole by Rear Adm. Julius Fuhrer in Administration of the Navy Department in World War II (Washington, 1960). Still lacking, on the Navy side, is any work comparable to Matloff's Strategic Planning for Coalition Warfare, 1943-1944, that reflects the role and thinking of the Navy's war planners in the development of the strategy of the war.
857
Official Munitions Production of the United States by Months, July 1, 1940August 31, 1945, prepared by the Civilian Production Administration in 1947. These and other statistical sources less frequently used are cited in footnotes and notes on sources appended to each statistical table.
List of Abbreviations
A &N AAF ABC ACNO ACofS ACofT Actg Admin AFHQ AFPAC AFMIDPAC AFWESPAC AG AGC AGF AGWAR AK
AKA AMG AMGOT AMMDEL AMMISCA ANMB ANPB ANZAC AP APA APD ARL ASF ASN ASP Asst ASW AT(B) ATC AT(E) BAS Bd BEW
BMSM
Army and Navy Army Air Forces American-British Conversations (January-March 1941) Assistant Chief of Naval Operations Assistant Chief of Staff Assistant Chief of Transportation Acting Administration Allied Force Headquarters Army Forces, Pacific Army Forces, Middle Pacific Army Forces, Western Pacific Adjutant General Amphibious headquarters ship Army Ground Forces Adjutant General, War Department Cargo ship, auxiliary (cargo ship of any type operated by the Navy) Cargo ship, attack Allied Military Government Allied Military Government of Occupied Territory American Military Mission, Delhi American Military Mission to China Army-Navy Munitions Board Army-Navy Petroleum Board Australia-New Zealand Army Corps Transport (operated by the Navy) Transport, attack Old destroyer used as transport, attack (high-speed) Landing craft, repair ship Army Service Forces Assistant Secretary of the Navy Army Supply Program Assistant Assistant Secretary of War Administration of Territories Committee (Balkans) Air Transport Command Administration of Territories Committee (Europe) British Army Staff Board Board of Economic Warfare British Military Supply Mission
LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS
BMWT Br C-type vessel CA CAD CAdC CBI CBIT CCAC CCAC(S) CCAO CCNA CCS CDS CESF CFB Cft CG Chmn CinC CINCAFPAC CINCJAPA CINCMED CINCPAC CINCPOA CINCSWPA CLAC Class I
Class II
859
British Ministry of War Transport British; branch Standard cargo vessel Civil Affairs Civil Affairs Division, War Department Combined Administrative Committee China, Burma, India China, Burma, India theater Combined Civil Affairs Committee Combined Civil Affairs Subcommittee for Supply Chief Civil Affairs Officer Combined Committee for North Africa Combined Chiefs of Staff China Defense Supplies, Inc. Commander, Eastern Sea Frontier Combined Food Board Craft Commanding General Chairman Commander in Chief Commander in Chief, U.S. Army Forces, Pacific Commander in Chief, Japan Area Commander in Chief, Mediterranean Commander in Chief, U.S. Pacific Fleet Commander in Chief, Pacific Ocean Area Commander in Chief, SWPA Combined Liberated Areas Committee Supplies consumed at an approximately uniform daily rate under all conditions, and that are automatically issued Supplies for which allowances are fixed by table of allowances and table of basic allowances Fuels and lubricants other than aviation Aviation fuels and lubricants Supplies and equipment for which allowances are not prescribed or which require special control measures and are not otherwise classified Ammunition, explosives, and chemical agents Classified message, incoming Classified message, outgoing Controlled Materials Plan Combined Military Transportation Committee Chinese National Airways Corporation Chief of Naval Operations Commanding Officer Committee of Combined Boards Chief of Staff Chief of Transportation Committee
860
Comb Comd Comdr COMGENSOPAC COMINCH Comm COMNAVEU COMNAVNAW Conf Conv Corresp COS COSMED COSSAC COS(W) CPA CPBC CPRB CPS CREGO CRMB CSAB CSB CT CTO D-day DCofS Dep DF Div DUKW ELOC Equip ETO ETOUSA ExO FAN
FCNL FDR FEA FFI FILBAS G-1 G-2 G-3 G-4 G-5
LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS
GAL GCM Gp HMSO Hq IBT ICAF ID Ind ISC J-4 JAdC JCS JDCS JLC JLPC JMAC JMTC(JMT) JOSCO JPS JPSC JSM JSSC Jt JWPC KMF KMS LAC LCA LCA(H) LCP LCG(L) LCG(M) LCI LCI(L) LCM LCP LCP(L) LCP(R) LCS LCS(L) LCS(M) LCS(S) LCT LCT(5) LCT(6) LCT(7) LCT(R) General George A. Lincoln General George C. Marshall Group Her Majesty's Stationery Office Headquarters India-Burma theater Industrial College of the Armed Forces International Division, ASF Indorsement International Supply Committee Joint Staff logistics section Joint Administrative Committee Joint Chiefs of Staff Joint Deputy Chiefs of Staff Joint Logistics Committee Joint Logistics Plans Committee Joint Munitions Allocation Committee Joint Military Transportation Committee Joint Overseas Shipping Control Office Joint Staff Planners Joint Production Survey Committee Joint Staff Mission (British) Joint Strategic Survey Committee Joint Joint War Plans Committee British troop convoy from the U.K. to Gibraltar British cargo convoy from the U.K. to Gibraltar Liberated Areas Committee Landing craft, assault Landing craft, assault (hedgerow) Landing craft, flak Landing craft, gun (large) Landing craft, gun (medium) Landing craft, infantry Landing craft, infantry (large) Landing craft, mechanized Landing craft, personnel Landing craft, personnel (large) Landing craft, personnel (ramp) Landing craft, support Landing craft, support (large) Landing craft, support (medium) Landing craft, support (small) Landing craft, tank Landing craft, tank (Mark V) Landing craft, tank (Mark VI) Original designation for LSM Landing craft, tank (rocket)
861
862
LCV LCVP Ldg LMAB LOC Log LSD LSE LSG LSH LSI LSI(L) LSI(M) LSI(S) LSM LST LST(1) LST(2) LVT MAB MAC(A) MAC(G) MAC(N) MBW Med MEDCOS MEE MFR MG MIDPAC MMSR MPR MS MSR MT MTO MTOUSA NAEB NAF
NASBO NATOUSA NEI NTS NYPOE OCMH OCofT OCOrd
LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS
OCS
OCT HB OFEC OFRRO OLLA ONI OPD Opn OSS OWI OWM OWMR P&O PAC-AID Pam PGSC Plng PM POA POE POL POM POR POW PSPC PTO Pub QMC RAF Recmn Reqmt Rev S&P SACMED SCAEF SCAMA
863
864
SOPAC
SOS SOWESPAC SPA SPBC SS Sup
Supplement Service Southwest Pacific Area The Adjutant General Table of Basic Allowances
Transportation Corps Table of Equipment Technical
Tel
TOE Trans Trng UGF UGS
Telephone
Table of Organization and Equipment Transportation Training U.S. troop convoy from New York to Gibraltar U.S. cargo convoy from New York to Gibraltar
U.K. U.N.
UNRRA USAF USAFCBI
USAFCBIT
USAFFE USAFIME USAFISPA USASOS
USFET USN
USPC U.S. Reps MAB USSR USW VCNO V-E Day VHB V-J Day VLR WAR WD WDCSA WDGS WFA WMC
LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS
WPB WPD WSA WSC XAP ZI War Production Board War Plans Division War Shipping Administration Winston S. Churchill Troop transport, attack, modified Zone of Interior
865
CHAMPION CORONET CULVERIN DRACULA EUREKA FORAGER FOREARM FREEDOM GRANITE HERCULES HUSKY ICEBERG LONGTOM MANHATTAN MATTERHORN MERCANTILE MILEPOST
Code name for U.S. Sixth Army while operating as a special ground task force under GHQ SWPA. Plan for defense of Kunming and Chungking in eastern China. Plan for recapture of Burma. Early plan for invasion of southern France. U.S.-British conference held in Washington, December 1941-January 1942. International conference held at Malta and Yalta, January-February 1945. Invasion of Italy at Salerno. British invasion of Italy on Calabrian coast. Plan for opening the port of Fort Bayard on the China coast. Build-up of U.S. forces and supplies in the United Kingdom for cross-Channel attack. Communications code name for QUADRANT. Plan for amphibious operation in Andaman Islands. Plan for British operation against northern Calabria in case BAYTOWN plan failed. Plan for invasion of Bordeaux region of western France as alternate to landing in southern France. Offensive to capture north Burma, 1944. Converging drives on Rabaul by South Pacific and SWPA forces. Plan for general offensive in Burma, 1943. Plan for operation against Honshu, Japan. Plan for assault on Sumatra. Plan for attack on Rangoon, 1944. International conference at Tehran, November 1943. Operation for the capture of the Mariana Islands, 1944. Kavieng, New Ireland. Cable designation for Algiers messages. Plan for operations in POA in 1944. Plan for assault on Rhodes, early 1944. Allied invasion of Sicily, July 1943. Allied invasion of the Ryukyu Islands, 1945. Plan for Allied occupation of Chusan Archipelago, 1945. Code name for atomic energy project which developed the atomic bomb, August 1942-August 1946. Plan for bombing Japan from bases in Cheng-tu, China. Manus Island, Bismarck Archipelago. U.S. supply program for Soviet forces in Siberia in preparation for Russian entry into war with Japan.
867
sault area and target date, for which a special security procedure was developed.
U.S.-British conference at Quebec, September 1944. Plan for invasion of Kyushu, March 1946.
June 1944. Plan for limited operation on south Mayu Peninsula, Burma.
Combined bomber offensive against Germany. U.S.-British conference held at Quebec, August 1943.
Plan for Allied return to Europe in case of deterioration of German position. Revised BETA plan.
Assault force for Hollandia operation, 22 April-25 August 1944.
along northern coast of New Guinea and on to Mindanao.
SWPA plans for operation in the Bismarck Archipelago Cross-Channel invasion plan presented as a compromise
between SLEDGEHAMMER and ROUNDUP. Plan for a major U.S.-British cross-Channel operation in 1943. International conference at Cairo, November-December 1943. Amphibious operation at Anzio, Italy.
Build-up of U.S. Eighth Air Force in the U.K. for bomber offensive against Germany.
Early cross-Channel attack plan which bore close
TIGAR 26-B
ing Fourteenth Air Force over the Eastern Line of Communications. Project for overland delivery of vehicles to China by way of Soviet Turkestan.
Allied invasion of northwest Africa, November 1943. U.S.-British conference held in Washington, May 1943.
TORCH
TRIDENT
Strategic Planning for Coalition Warfare: 1941-1942 Strategic Planning for Coalition Warfare: 1943-1944 Global Logistics and Strategy: 1940-1943 Global Logistics and Strategy: 1943-1945 The Army and Economic Mobilization The Army and Industrial Manpower
The Army Ground Forces The Organization of Ground Combat Troops The Procurement and Training of Ground Combat Troops The Army Service Forces The Organization and Role of the Army Service Forces
The Western Hemisphere The Framework of Hemisphere Defense Guarding the United States and Its Outposts
The War in the Pacific The Fall of the Philippines Guadalcanal: The First Offensive Victory in Papua CARTWHEEL: The Reduction of Rabaul Seizure of the Gilberts and Marshalls Campaign in the Marianas The Approach to the Philippines Leyte: The Return to the Philippines Triumph in the Philippines Okinawa: The Last Battle Strategy and Command: The First Two Years
The Mediterranean Theater of Operations Northwest Africa: Seizing the Initiative in the West
Sicily and the Surrender of Italy Salerno to Cassino Cassino to the Alps
The European Theater of Operations Cross-Channel Attack Breakout and Pursuit The Lorraine Campaign The Siegfried Line Campaign The Ardennes: Battle of the Bulge The Last Offensive
The Supreme Command Logistical Support of the Armies, Volume I Logistical Support of the Armies, Volume II
The Middle East Theater The Persian Corridor and Aid to Russia
The China-Burma-India Theater Stilwell's Mission to China Stilwell's Command Problems Time Runs Out in CBI The Technical Services The Chemical Warfare Service: Organizing for War The Chemical Warfare Service: From Laboratory to Field The Chemical Warfare Service: Chemicals in Combat The Corps of Engineers: Troops and Equipment The Corps of Engineers: The War Against Japan The Corps of Engineers: The War Against Germany The Corps of Engineers: Military Construction in the United States The Medical Department: Hospitalization and Evacuation; Zone of Interior The Medical Department: Medical Service in the Mediterranean and Minor Theaters The Ordnance Department: Planning Munitions for War The Ordnance Department: Procurement and Supply The Ordnance Department: On Beachhead and Battlefront The Quartermaster Corps: Organization, Supply, and Services, Volume I The Quartermaster Corps: Organization, Supply, and Services, Volume II The Quartermaster Corps: Operations in the War Against Japan The Quartermaster Corps: Operations in the War Against Germany The Signal Corps: The Emergency The Signal Corps: The Test The Signal Corps: The Outcome The Transportation Corps: Responsibilities, Organization, and Operations The Transportation Corps: Movements, Training, and Supply The Transportation Corps: Operations Overseas
Special Studies Chronology: 1941-1945 Military Relations Between the United States and Canada: 1939-1945
Rearming the French Three Battles: Arnaville, Altuzzo, and Schmidt The Women's Army Corps Civil Affairs: Soldiers Become Governors Buying Aircraft: Materiel Procurement for the Army Air Forces The Employment of Negro Troops Manhattan: The U.S. Army and the Atomic Bomb
Pictorial Record
The War Against Germany and Italy: Mediterranean and Adjacent Areas The War Against Germany: Europe and Adjacent Areas The War Against Japan
Index
Abadan, 681 Acheson, Dean, 746, 772 Administration of Territories (Balkans) Committee, 769 Administration of Territories (Europe) Committee,
ANAKIM, 7, 62, 80, 84, 86, 501-03, 509, 510, 801 Andaman Islands, 281, 509, 516, 807, 808. See also BUCCANEER. Anders, Lt. Gen. Wladyslaw A., 720
Andes, 35
747-49 Admiralty, British, 328, 333, 334 Admiralty Islands, 405, 406 Aegean operations, 226-29, 237, 278, 289-91
Angaur, 448 Antwerp, 382, 387, 553, 557, 596, 781 ANVIL, 204, 234-36, 284-85, 381-84, 464, 704. See also DRAGOON. Afrika Korps, 9 assault shipping for, 288, 290-92, 307, 310-15, 317, Agriculture Department, 671, 739 323-29, 331, 335-50, 357, 375n, 375-76, 376n, 381, Air bases. See B-29's; Siberian air bases. 807-08 Air Forces, U.S. See also Army Air Forces. and HERCULES, 311, 314 Tenth, 622 and Italian campaign, 331, 336-38, 350, 359-65, Thirteenth, 409, 565 374-81 logistical preparations for, 355-65, 376, 705 Fourteenth, 80, 502, 519, 521, 526-27, 622 Twentieth, 521, 579, 607 and OVERLORD debate, 284-92, 296, 311, 313, 321Air Service Command, 136, 152 50, 357 Air Transport Command, 522, 525, 587, 622, 727 Anzio, 310-17, 331, 336, 338-39, 340, 366, 808 Airborne Division, 82d, 33, 35, 42, 45, 241 Aparri, 412 Aircraft, 116, 393, 657, 664 Apulia, 224 for aid to USSR, 675, 679, 679n, 691 Aquitania, 36, 298, 588 Arakan, 524 Aircraft Resources Control Office, 111 Airlift Arawe, 399 ARCADIA, 6 of supplies. See Hump air line. of troops, 613 Ardennes, 548, 713. See also Battle of the Bulge. Akyab, 71, 80, 211, 503, 509 Argentina, 721-22, 759 ALAMO Force, 435, 436 ARGONAUT, 573-74, 584, 587-89, 613, 688, 691, 784, Albania, 786, 788 815 Aleutian Islands, 396, 398 Armies, U.S. Alexander, Field Marshal Sir Harold R. L. G., 39, Second, 47 229-30, 234, 312, 315, 321, 331, 336, 338-40, 345, Third, 383 363, 374-80, 384, 534, 777-79. See also Supreme Fifth, 192, 224-25, 231, 312, 369, 378, 384, 387, 534, Allied Commander, Mediterranean. 705, 707-08, 723 Algiers, 37, 237, 239, 240 Sixth, 435, 436 Allied Air Forces, 435 Seventh, 40, 176 Allied Commission, 777, 779 Tenth, 412 Allied Control Commission, 758, 758n, 761, 773, Armored Divisions 774-75 2d, 241 7th, 370 Allied Force Headquarters, 176, 331, 356, 701-04, 707, 740, 755, 757-58, 761, 779 Army, U.S. Allied Land Forces, 435, 436 build-up in British Isles (BOLERO), 194-95, 219, Allied Military Government of Occupied Territory, 240, 242-43, 298, 353-54, 370-71, 374, 380, 383, 755, 758n 392 Allied Naval Forces, 435, 436 build-up in Pacific, 59-61, 74, 298, 392, 403 Ammunition, artillery, 550 strength, 412, 471, 515, 547-48, 578. See also Ammunition Supply Report, 148-49, 153-54, 473 Troop basis; Troop deployment. Amphibious equipment, procurement of, 11, 23, 439, Army Air Forces, 100-03, 116, 123, 526, 657, 691 489 distribution of supplies, 136, 144, 149, 152, 168, 604 Amphibious Force, Atlantic Fleet, 47 Amphibious lift. See Assault shipping. redeployment, 544, 585, 589-91, 600 Amur River, 689-90, 698 VLR bombing, 404-06, 415, 513-15
872
Army Service ForcesContinued Army Forces, Middle Pacific, 608, 610 Strategic Logistics Branch, 106 Army Forces, Western Pacific, 608 Army Ground Forces, 44, 47, 55, 100, 141, 144, 196, Theater Branch, 106 Zone of Interior Branch, 108 547 Army Specialized Training Program, 547 Army Groups Army Supply Program, 102, 103, 106, 109-16, 118-19, 6th, 709 121-23, 128, 130-34, 167, 241, 351, 423, 487, 48821st, 333-35 89, 549, 799, 812 Army-Navy Munitions Board, 89 and CBI, 510 Army-Navy Petroleum Board, 43, 92, 93, 96, 97, 125, civilian supply in, 744, 751, 753, 765, 790 149, 425 and lend-lease, 630-32, 637-44, 656, 660, 665, 727Army-Navy Shipping and Supply Conference, 599604, 615 29 for redeployment, 595 Army Regulation 10-15, 103 Richards Committee report, 124-27 Army resources in POA, operational control of, Soviet Protocol shipments, 682 607-10 Army Service Forces, 24, 76, 108n, 113, 115, 127, 131, Army Transport Service, 163 Arnold, Lt. Gen. Henry H., 36, 116, 201, 284n, 376, 351, 812. See also Somervell, Lt. Gen. Brehon B. 665, 675 ANVIL preparations, 352, 359, 362, 364-65 civilian supply, 739, 741, 744, 748, 751, 768, 771,and CBI, 514, 519, 524-26 and Pacific operations, 408, 536, 656, 657 789 Arundel Islands, 399 Civilian Supply Branch, 744, 749, 773 Assam Line of Communication, 80, 501, 504-12, 515, Control Division, 153-55, 164-65, 477-80, 616 522-24 Directorate of Materiel, 105, 106, 111 Directorate of Plans and Operations, 104-08, 114, Assault shipping, 10-24, 33, 183n, 392-93, 401-03. See also Combat loaders; Landing craft and 129, 130, 147, 162 ships; Landing vehicles. Directorate of Supply, 106 for ANVIL, 288, 290-92, 307, 310-15, 317, 323, 335Distribution Division, 138 36, 375-76, 376n, 381 distribution of supplies, 136, 157, 159-60, 167, 168 Atlantic versus Pacific, 342, 392 French rearmament, 702, 713, 714 for Burma, 280, 283, 293, 294, 509 HUSKY planning, 44, 45, 47, 51-56 deficits for ANVIL and OVERLORD, 321-22, 329-30, India Committee, 510, 512 331n, 335-36, 357 International Division, 632-34, 637, 641, 648, 654, ferry service, 333-34 657, 672, 728, 741, 749, 771, 790 lend-lease, 633, 636, 638-40, 652, 656, 660-62, 663, for HERCULES, 310-11 for HUSKY, 33-34, 40, 44, 46, 48-49, 189-92 728, 730, 734 for Italian campaign, 175-77, 189-92, 224, 230-35, logistical organization, 91-93, 95, 97-98, 100-104 279-80, 280n, 288-89, 338-39, 346 logistical planning for CBI, 507, 509-14, 518, 621, as limitation on strategy, 10, 321-51, 393, 805, 808 622 for OVERLORD, 182-84, 186-88, 205-07, 212-13, logistical planning for Pacific operations, 407-08, 212n, 213n, 229-34, 262-70, 279, 283, 288-90, 422, 423, 425, 445 292, 296, 307, 312-16, 322-23, 335-36, 338-46, Mobilization Division, 106, 144, 160 350, 393 Monthly Progress Report, 133 in Pacific, 207-09, 211-13, 212n, 221, 252-58, 268, Movements Branch, 47 342-43, 343n, 402, 403, 405, 407, 411-12, 414-16, Pacific supply, 473, 476, 477, 479, 484-87, 495, 498, 418, 439, 443, 462, 575-77, 587, 602, 604-05, 619 569-70, 580, 583, 608, 610, 616-18 for ROUNDHAMMER, 71-74 Planning Division, 106, 108, 155-56, 160, 166-67, for ROUNDUP, 67-71 169, 465, 482, 702, 768 after SEXTANT, 306-10 preshipment, 193, 195-97, 221, 241-44 for SHINGLE, 312-17 production, 131, 133, 549-51 Atherton, Warren H., 499 redeployment planning, 539-45, 595, 597-98 Atlantic Convoy Conference, 8 Requirements Division, 111 Attlee, Clement, 668 Requirements and Stock Control Division, 106 Auchinleck, General Sir Claude J. E., 506, 509-12 Richards Committee recommendations, 122-23 Augusta, Sicily, 39, 41 shipbuilding program of 1944, 254-57 Australia, 759, 776 shipping allocations, 303, 306, 352, 368, 386, 452, bases in, 396, 474, 483, 493, 619 458, 464, 552, 557, 592 lend-lease to, 645, 656 Soviet Protocol shipments, 682, 684, 691-92, 697 ship procurement from 488-89 Stock Control Division, 161, 243
INDEX
Australian Munitions Assignments Committee, 725 Austria, 763n, 786 Automatic Supply Report, 148-49 AVALANCHE, 178, 189-92 Azores, 84, 175
873
British export trade, 659, 662, 670 British import program. See United Kingdom Import Program. British Ministry of War Transport, 143, 238, 302, 358, 366, 759-60, 782 British role in Pacific theater, 536-38, 588, 656, 667, 815 British units Airborne Division, 1st, 191 Army, Eighth, 40, 191-92, 224-25, 231, 369, 384 Division, 10th Indian, 226 Division, 78th, 192 British war economy, 628, 641, 658-59, 670 Brittany, 372-73, 381-82 Brooke, Field Marshal Sir Alan and aid to USSR, 690 and Cairo-Tehran Conference, 271, 279, 283, 28687, 289, 294-95 and OVERLORD, 185, 343-44 and QUADRANT, 200, 201, 205, 210 and TRIDENT, 57-58, 63n, 64, 70-73, 78-79, 81 BUCCANEER, 280-84, 288, 289-94, 516, 807 Bureau of the Budget, 745-46 Burma campaign, 621, 652-53, 664, 726-27, 731, 733. See also ANAKIM; BUCCANEER; CAPITAL; DRACULA; Mountbatten, Vice Adm. Lord Louis; TARZAN. Burns, Maj. Gen. James H., 685 BUTTRESS, 190 Byrnes, James F., 91, 94, 97, 102, 561-62, 590 and shipbuilding program, 251-52, 283, 287, 308, 556, 559-60
B-29's, 116n, 208, 294, 393, 403-06, 415, 465, 552 in CBI, 509, 513-15, 520-22, 528, 622 Pacific bases, 294, 404, 406, 520, 567, 571 Badger, Rear Adm. Oscar C., 96, 255 Badoglio, Marshal Pietro, 176, 717, 758n Bailey, Frazier, 461 Balkan relief, 765, 768-69, 769n, 786, 788 Balkans, 185-86, 200, 204, 222-23, 225, 227, 273, 27577, 279, 290, 347, 377-78, 534-35 Bangkok, 520 Bari, 239 Barker, Maj. Gen. Ray W., 180, 184, 187, 207, 266 Base Logistic Plan for the South Pacific Area, 442 Bases in Pacific establishment of, 406-08, 416, 418, 474, 485-87, 487n, 593. See also Philippine base development. roll-up of, 565-70, 604-05, 609, 619-20 Basic Logistical Plan. See Logistics in Pacific area. Battle of the Bulge, 643. See also Ardennes. Bay of Bengal, 280, 282, 293, 404, 806, 807 Bay of Biscay, 375-76, 382 BAYTOWN, 190 Belgium, 780-81, 788 Bengal and Assam Railway, 505-06, 512, 522 Bessell, Col. William W., Jr., 178 Biak, 410 Bieri, Rear Adm. Bernhard H., 253 Cairns, 490 Billo, Col. J. J., 256n Cairo Conference. See SEXTANT. Black market, 756, 774, 775, 777 Calabria, 175, 189, 190, 224 Black Sea, 278, 680-81, 683 Calcutta, 505, 507, 512-15, 520-23, 621-22 Blakelock, Col. David H., 446 Calhoun, Admiral William L., 445-46 Board of Economic Warfare, 739, 746 CALIPH, 347 BOLERO, 28, 32, 36, 48, 50, 51, 55, 56, 76, 193-97, 273 Camp Edwards, 45 shipping budgets for, 215, 219, 240-45, 303, 354, Camp Kilmer, 45 360, 367-68 Camp Patrick Henry, 47 Bomber Command, XX, 521, 526-57, 731 Camp Pickett, 47 Bne, 37, 237 Campbell, Sir Ronald, 662 Bonin Islands, 400, 415, 563 Canada, 759, 765 Bordeaux, 346, 375-76, 382-83, 781 Canada Mutual Aid Program, 725 Borneo, 582, 790 Canton, 445, 452, 622-23 Boston Port of Embarkation, 161 Cape Gloucester, 399 Bougainville, 399, 402, 460, 565 CAPITAL, 535-36 Bougie, 37, 238 Cargo distribution charts, 163, 165 Bradley, Lt. Gen. Omar N., 643 Caribia, 613 Brahmaputra River, 506 Caroline Islands, 400-401, 405-06 Brazil, 721-24, 818 CARTWHEEL, 207, 399-402, 458 Breene, Maj. Gen. Robert G., 442, 443, 460, 476, 496 Casablanca, 37, 38, 702-04, 707 Brest, 372-73, 382 Casablanca Conference Breton ports, 372-73, 379, 381-82, 383, 386 and BOLERO build-up, 49-50 Brisbane, 471, 474 and civilian supply, 741 British Command in India, 509, 511-12, 652 and French rearmament, 700-701, 703
874
Chinese Army in India, 515, 725-27, 733, 735. See Casablanca ConferenceContinued also X-RAY Force. and lend-lease, 646, 673 Chinese Communists, 736 and strategy, 6, 10, 21, 26, 78, 273, 396, 801-02 Chinese National Airways Corporation, 727 Casey, Brig. Gen. Hugh J., 483-84, 497 Chittagong, 622, 623 Cassino, 336, 340 Choiseul, 565 Cavalry Division, 2d, 356, 547 Christmas Island, 445, 452 Central Pacific Area, 396, 398 Chungking, 727, 731 joint logistics in, 444-53 offensive operations in, planning for, 399-406, 410, Churchill, Winston S., 32, 34, 57, 63, 85, 192, 538, 796 412 and CBI operations, 7, 80, 280-82, 292, 293, 514, supply of, 476, 481, 498, 561 515, 522-23, 535-36 CHAMPION, 280-82, 515-16 and civilian relief, 574, 773, 775, 777-78 Channel ports, 379, 382 and lend-lease, 628, 642, 646, 659, 661-62, 664-68, Charleston, South Carolina, 161 816 Chemical Warfare Service, 425 and Mediterranean strategy, 29, 175-78, 185, 201, Cheng-tu, 514, 520-21 Chennault, Maj. Gen. Claire L., 7, 79-80, 513, 528 222-23, 225-31, 233-34, 271, 278, 310-17, 379-81, and logistical support of air operations, 502-04, 534, 804, 808 511, 521, 526-27, 727, 729, 731 and OVERLORD, 200, 262, 272, 274, 295, 295n, 296, 323-24, 367 Cherbourg, 182, 241, 369, 372, 373, 385 and OVERLORD-ANVIL debate, 330, 332, 338, 345-46, Cheves, Maj, Gen. Gilbert X., 734, 735 Chiang Kai-shek, Generalissimo, 271n, 314-15 378, 381-82 and CBI operations, 500-502, 511, 514-16, 518, 526, and QUADRANT, 200, 201, 206-07 and Soviet Protocol shipments, 677-78, 690 528-29 and Tehran Conference, 271n, 284-90 and equipping Chinese forces, 726-27, 729-31, 733, Chusan-Ningpo, 563, 582, 593 735-36 Civil affairs, 737-38, 743, 747-49, 761, 772-73, 790 at SEXTANT, 280-83, 292-93, 515, 807 Chief Regulating Officer, SWPA, 440-41, 469, 618 Civilian relief, 541, 552, 554, 559, 561, 562, 573-74, Chief of Staff, U.S. Army. See Marshall, General 589. See also Civilian supply. Civilian supply, 737-38, 819 George C. Chief of Staff to Supreme Allied Commander (desBritish-American co-ordination of, 747-52 financial responsibility for, 765, 767n ignate), 182-83, 187, 204, 207, 210, 233. See also Morgan, Lt. Gen. Sir Frederick. military responsibility for, 743-47, 786-89 national import programs, 779-86, 787, 789 Chiefs of Staff, British, 177, 178, 191, 545, 647, 667 in North Africa, 739-43 and CBI operations, 281, 506, 508, 517, 535 and Italian campaign, 223, 224, 226, 231, 233, 338operational procedures, 771-73 over-all plan, 763-71 39, 379, 384 in the Pacific, 789-92 and lend-lease, 675, 703, 723 and OVERLORD, 205, 229, 262-63, 265-66, 276, 280, rehabilitation problem, 752-55, 770, 774-79, 781, 784, 789 288, 295, 322-23, 327, 330 shipping requirements, 573-74, 741, 750, 758-60, and OVERLORD-ANVIL debate, 236, 331-32, 336-37, 768, 776-78, 782-83 343, 345-48, 377-78, 380-81 in Sicily and Italy, 755-61, 768-69, 773-79 and SHINGLE, 313-15 theater planning, 768-70 and shipping quotas, 7, 357, 360, 365, 375, 778, 782 Clark, Lt. Gen. Mark W., 312, 315, 331 and strategy, 64, 67, 70, 271, 396, 534 Chiefs of Staff, U.S. See Joint Chiefs of Staff. Clay, Maj. Gen. Lucius D., 105, 106, 639, 682 Combat loaders, 10, 11, 16, 23-24, 33-34, 175, 252-58, Chihchiang, 623 393, 401-03, 407-08, 462, 551, 577, 801n, 809-10. Chile, 721 See also Assault shipping. China-Burma-India theater, 80, 395, 397-98, 404, 467n, 500-504 Combined Administrative Committee, 95, 297, 538, logistical planning for, 504-29, 621-24 588, 713, 715, 718-19 shipments to, 456, 459, 465, 790 Combined Bomber Offensive (SICKLE), 32, 36, 48, 50, China coast assault, 396, 400, 406, 563, 572, 581, 583, 55 607, 609 Combined Chiefs of Staff, 4, 27, 28, 92, 142-43, 190, China Defense Supplies, Inc., 728, 731 192, 803, 804, 810 Chindwin River, 516 at Cairo-Tehran Conference, 290, 292-97 Chinese Army in China, 622, 726, 733, 735. See also and CBI operations, 282, 314, 503, 506, 508, 511YOKE Force; ZEBRA Force. 12, 514, 519-20, 524, 536, 538, 621
INDEX
Combined Chiefs of StaffContinued and civilian supply, 739-41, 743, 747-51, 757, 763, 765, 769, 774-79, 782-84, 786-87, 790 and French rearmament, 700-703, 705-07, 709-11, 713-16 and HUSKY planning, 35-36, 39-40, 49-50 and Italian campaign, 222, 224, 226, 228, 231 and landing craft production, 206, 267, 306-07 and lend-lease, 627-32, 635, 652-55, 664, 666, 816 and Mediterranean operations, 277, 310-11, 311n and military supply to Italians and Yugoslavs, 717-21 and OVERLORD-ANVIL planning, 322-23, 330, 332, 338, 346-47, 355, 357, 359-60, 364-65, 375, 377, 381 and Pacific operations, 208, 405, 493, 538, 817 and QUADRANT, 202-04, 211 and redeployment, 538, 544, 546, 584, 587, 588 and shipping deficits, 573, 606 and Soviet Protocol shipments, 673, 676 and TRIDENT, 64-65, 70-71, 78, 80, 84, 92 Combined Civil Affairs Committee, 748-49, 751, 760, 763-65, 772, 774, 776, 779, 782, 785 Combined Civil Affairs Committee (Supply), 749-51, 753-54, 757-60, 763-69, 771-73, 785 Combined Committee for North Africa, 740-41 Combined Food Board, 89, 740, 785 Combined Liberated Areas Committee, 772, 786-87 Combined Military Transportation Committee, 361, 365, 539, 606, 776 Combined Munitions Assignments Board, 92-93, 97, 725 Combined Production and Resources Board, 89, 629, 632, 740 Combined Raw Materials Board, 89, 740 Combined Shipbuilding Committee, 248 Combined Shipping Adjustment Board, 89, 606, 740, 785 Combined Staff Planners, 24, 207, 208, 210, 332, 358, 396, 509, 584, 588 and redeployment plans, 538, 541 Combined Supply Committee, 753, 754 Commander in Chief, Pacific Fleet, 419, 446-47, 58182, 603, 605-06. See also Nimitz, Admiral Chester W. Commander in Chief, Pacific Ocean Areas, 419, 44649, 575, 580, 582, 600, 608, 610. See also Nimitz, Admiral Chester W.; Pacific Ocean Areas. Commander in Chief, U.S. Army Forces, Pacific, 581-82, 603, 605-07, 610-12. See also MacArthur, General Douglas. Committee of Combined Boards, 740-41, 743, 747 Commodity loaders, 355, 368, 371, 385-87, 553 Connolly, Brig. Gen. Donald H., 676 Controlled Materials Plan, 110 Convoy Cycle and Shipping Period Charts, 163 Convoys, cargo in Atlantic, 366 for civilian relief, 741-42
875
ConvoysContinued for HUSKY, 33n, 37, 38, 43-46 to Mediterranean, 236-40 to USSR, 672, 677-80, 698 Convoys, scheduling of, 45-46, 162-63 Convoys, troop, 33, 33n, 35, 40-42, 45-46 Convoys to North Africa, 33, 35, 37-39, 41-48, 54, 236-38, 302 Conway, Capt. Granville, 468, 552-53, 555, 558, 782 Cooke, Rear Adm. Charles M., Jr., 22, 68-69, 81, 96 and OVERLORD, 187, 206, 333-35, 333n CORONET, 563-64, 568, 570, 573, 578, 584-88, 591, 594, 599, 611, 617-18 Corps, XXIV, 414, 469, 566, 591 Corsica, 222-23, 315, 359, 704, 707 Covell, Maj. Gen. William E. R., 523, 655 Critical Items Report, 155 Crotone, 71 Crowley, Leo, 636, 647, 662, 686, 695, 697, 746 CULVERIN, 280-81 Cunningham, Admiral of the Fleet Sir Andrew B., 191, 333 Cushing, John A., 429 Czechoslovakian Armored Brigade, 720 Darlan, Admiral Franois, 717 Davidson, Maj. Gen. F. H. N., 664 Days of supply, 113, 122, 125, 137, 549 Deane, Maj. Gen. John R., 267, 275, 295, 685-91, 693-95, 697-98, 721 Denmark, 788 Depots, 136-37, 561, 597 Devers, Lt. Gen. Jacob L., 363, 365, 376, 546, 711, 715, 718 Dibrugarh, 507, 512, 523 Dijon, 383 Dill, Field Marshal Sir John, 234, 234n, 344, 360 Disease and unrest formula, 744-45, 755, 787 Distribution allowance, 111-13, 112n, 125-26 Division slice, 380, 496, 496n, 565, 714 Dodecanese, 201, 222-23, 226, 228, 273 Dollar reserves, British, 660, 666, 670 Dollar value of procurement, 115, 119, 119n, 134n, 550, 597, 662 of production, 115, 116, 116n, 131, 549, 597, 639, 641, 664, 722, 724 Douglas, Lewis W., 8, 8n, 38, 53-54, 251, 759 and Mediterranean shipments, 239, 302 and QUADRANT, 213, 217 and ROUNDHAMMER, 82-84 and shipping crisis, 457, 459, 462-63 DRACULA, 535, 538, 545, 621 DRAGOON, 381-84. See also ANVIL. DUKW's. See Landing vehicles. Duncan, Rear Adm. Donald B., 572 Durazzo, 200
876
Eastern Line of Communication, 527-28, 623 Eastwood, Brig. Gen. Harold, 600 Eden, Anthony, 8, 185, 229, 230 Edgerton, Maj. Gen. Glen E., 642, 661 Edwards, Vice Adm. Richard S., 188 Eisenhower, General Dwight D., 546, 717, 718 and ANVIL, 204, 234-35, 310-11, 321, 323, 332-33,
French Forces of the Interior, 711, 712 French Forces in North Africa, 701 French Frigate Shoal, 445 French Provisional Government, 715, 781, 787 336, 339, 341-44, 346, 355, 357, 362, 367, 374, French rearmament, 241-42, 640, 645, 711, 818 380, 383 Metropolitan Program, 701n, 713-16 Embick, Lt. Gen. Stanley D., 181 North African Rearmament Program, 700-710, Emirau Island, 399, 409 701n Empress Augusta Bay, 402 French units Empress of Scotland, 35 Air Force, 701 Engineer Special Brigades Armored Division, 2d, 370, 374 Army, 1st, 709, 714 2d, 402, 491 4th, 491 Frosinone, 279 Engineers, Corps of, 425 Gailey, Brig. Gen. Charles K., Jr., 600 Eniwetok, 405, 406, 450, 462, 468, 567, 575 Escort vessels, 19 Gaud, Col. William S., Jr., 731 Espritu Santo, 460, 575 Gaulle, General Charles de, 700, 701, 703-05 General Headquarters, Southwest Pacific Area, EUREKA. See Tehran Conference. Europa, 613 435-37, 440-41, 584 European Advisory Commission, 589 General Purchasing Board (Australia), 436 European Theater of Operations, 51-52, 243, 708, George, Senator Walter F., 667 Gibbs, William F., 248 714, 716, 749, 752 Gilbert Islands, 400-401, 448, 474, 477, 619 Gilbreath, Maj. Gen. Frederick W., 429, 567 Fanning Island, 445, 452 Farouk, King, 648 Giraud, General Henri, 700-705, 741 Faymonville, Col. Philip, 685 Godfrey, Brigadier J. M., 642 Goodman, Brig. Gen. William M., 154, 164, 478, 616 Ferris, Brig. Gen. Benjamin G., 730 Fiji Islands, 475 Gothic Line. See Pisa-Rimini Line. FILBAS Agreement. See Philippine base develop- GRANITE, 405 ment. Greece, 786, 788. See also Lend-lease, to Greece. Finschhafen, 339, 461, 468, 474 Greely Mission, 685 Fleet, British, 537-38 Greenslade, Vice Adm. J. W., 429, 430 Fleet service squadrons, 422-23 Grew, Joseph, 695 Fleets, U.S. See also Navy, U.S. Groninger, Maj. Gen. Homer M., 616 Pacific, 392-95, 399-400, 403, 405, 408, 411-12, 419, Gross, Maj. Gen. Charles P., 38, 53, 54n, 83, 147, 445, 449, 569, 587, 809 254, 256 and boat procurement, 426, 438 Seventh, 402, 409, 419-20, 436-38, 439, 441, 493-94, and Pacific shipping, 464, 600, 602-03 569, 577, 580, 604, 608 Fletcher, Vice Adm. Frank J., 419 Guadalcanal, 396, 402, 442, 460, 575 Floating equipment, 438, 488-89, 809 Guam, 450, 462, 575, 617 Floating warehouses and bases, 355, 407-08, 553, 562 Gulf of Genoa, 347 Gulf of Lions, 347, 348 Foggia, 223, 230 Guns, tank, 643, 644. See also Tanks. FORAGER, 394 Foreign Economic Administration, 636, 641, 649, 651, 653, 658, 660, 668-69, 735, 746, 753-55, 761, Halsey, Admiral William F., 399, 402, 414, 419-20 and joint logistics in SOPAC, 431-32, 442-43, 445 763, 765, 772, 792 and aid to USSR, 671, 694 Hampton Roads, 47, 161
INDEX
877
Iran, 679-81. See also Lend-lease, to Iran. Handy, Maj. Gen. Thomas T., 197, 203, 232, 730 and OVERLORD planning, 265, 314, 316, 324, 328-30, Ismay, Lt. Gen. Sir Hastings L., 284, 338 Istria, 534, 535 332-33, 346 Italian campaign, 223-25, 229-34, 311 Harmon, Lt. Gen. Millard F., 420, 442, 495 and ANVIL debate, 331, 336-38, 340-41, 344-50, Harriman, Averell, 685-87, 689, 690, 694, 696, 698 359-62, 363-65, 374-81, 384 Hawaii, 444-46, 448, 468, 474, 498, 575, 588, 619 Heileman, Brig. Gen. Frank A., 106 and assault shipping for, 175-77, 189-92, 224, Henning, Col. Frank A., 243 230-35, 279-80, 280n, 288-89, 338-39, 346 and Cairo-Tehran Conference, 273, 278-80, 284, HERCULES. See Rhodes operation (HERCULES). Hilldring, Maj. Gen. John H., 743, 745, 761 289 Italian military forces, supplying of, 716-20 Hiroshima, 624, 698 Italy Hitler, Adolf, 192, 222, 225 Ho Ying-chin, General, 734 policy toward after OCTAGON, 773-74 war economy of, 755-57 Hokkaido, 563, 676 Hollandia, 401, 408, 410, 461, 465, 469-70, 474, 481, Iwo Jima, 498, 561, 563-64, 571, 601 551, 566 Japan, logistical planning for invasion of, 578-79, Hong Kong, 621, 667, 790 Honshu, 415, 563-64, 578, 585, 618. See also CORONET. 582, 593, 607, 609, 615-19, 624. See also CORONET; OLYMPIC; Strategy for war against Japan. Hopkins, Harry, 8, 83, 292, 382, 555, 558 Japen Island, 401 and aid to USSR, 672, 686 Java, 80, 667 and civilian supply, 782-83 and lend-lease, 643, 647, 661 Johnston Island, 445 Hopkins-Law Agreement, 783-84, 787 Joint Administrative Committee, 92-95, 250-51, 253, Horne, Admiral Frederick J., 96, 255, 430, 445 259-61, 264-65 Hull, Cordell, 229, 353, 754 Joint Aircraft Committee, 632 Joint Army-Navy Advisory Board on American Hull, Brig. Gen. John E., 55, 178, 333, 333n, 334 Hump air line, 80, 501-07, 510-11, 515, 518, 521, Republics, 722, 723 Joint Army-Navy Standardization Committee for 524-28, 535, 622, 726-27, 729, 733-34 HUSKY, 31-56, 702, 801, 801n Vehicles and Construction Materials, 426 Joint Army-Navy Surface Personnel Transportation Ibn Saud, King, 648 Committee, 431 Joint Army-Navy-WSA Ship Operations Committee, ICEBERG, 563-64, 572-73, 575, 584, 607, 609 Ile de France, 298 429-30 Imphal, 504, 506, 510 Joint Base Planning Board (SOPAC) , 444 Indaw-Katha, 516 Joint Chiefs of Staff, 16, 18, 24, 28, 29, 36, 48, 51, India, 396, 759. See also China-Burma-India theater. 142, 143, 632, 796, 805, 810 Indian Munitions Assignments Committee, 725 and Burma operations, 7, 281-83, 291-93, 315 Indochina, 716, 790 and CBI operations, 500-502, 509, 511, 517, 524-26, Infantry Divisions 535-38, 623 1st, 241 and civilian supply, 743-44, 747, 767, 784, 790 5th, 59, 241 directive on Pacific Command, 581-83, 602, 603, 9th, 241 607 27th, 401 and French rearmament, 700, 703, 705, 710-11, 29th, 59, 194 715-16 36th, 33, 35, 42, 45 and joint logistics planning, 89, 91-98, 424-26, 433 45th, 33, 35, 42, 45-47 and lend-lease, 635, 646, 650, 656-58, 661, 663, 80th, 370 665-68, 670, 717, 721, 723, 729 81st, 566-67 and OVERLORD planning, 211, 295-96, 314, 324, 85th, 242 327, 360, 368, 370 86th, 572 and OVERLORD-ANVIL debate, 330-32, 336-41, 34388th, 242 46, 348, 348n, 361-62, 376-78, 380-81 91st, 347, 370, 384 and Pacific operations, 208, 342, 397, 399-401, 92d, 384 405-06, 408-11, 413-14, 419, 498, 559, 563, 56597th, 572 66, 571-72, 592, 607, 609, 618 Ingersoll, Admiral Royal E., 600, 603 and Pacific shipping, 402, 437-39, 452, 454, 456, International Supply Committee, 632-33 457, 462, 467, 468n, 470, 576-77, 604-05, 617 Inventory control, 475-76, 479. See also Supply conand Philippine Base Development Plan, 591, 592 trol, lack of in Pacific. and QUADRANT, 198-200, 203-04, 206-08, 212, 397
878
Joint Chiefs of StaffContinued and redeployment, 539-40, 545, 577-79, 588, 59091, 598-99, 611, 613
reorganization of, 92-93
and shipbuilding program of 1944, 248-57, 256n, 260-61, 266-67, 352, 551 and shipping deficits in 1944, 544-59, 562, 573-74,
777-78, 783
and Soviet Protocol shipments, 672, 674, 676, 679, 686-87, 689-94, 696-98 and strategy in Europe and Mediterranean, 17778, 180-81, 184-85, 188, 197, 223, 227-28, 232-34, 236, 274, 276-77, 279, 288-89, 291, 365, 535 and TRIDENT, 57-63, 65, 68-71, 78-80
and war production, 110, 116, 117
Joint War Plans Committee, 60, 67, 93-94, 98, 218 and European strategy, 178-81, 187-88 and Pacific operations, 425, 544 and shipbuilding program of 1944, 253-54, 256, 261-63, 265-67 Joint Working Board (CINCPAC), 445, 447
Joint Working Board (SOPAC), 442
Joint committee system, 91-99, 424-25 Joint Communications Board, 129 Joint Deputy Chiefs of Staff, 260 Joint Logistics Board (CENPAC), 445-47 Joint Logistics Board (SOPAC), 442, 444 Joint Logistics Committee, 95-98, 106, 365, 567-68 and lend-lease, 635, 657-58, 665, 668, 690-92, 694 and Pacific operations, 405, 408, 414-15, 424, 426, 546, 583, 790 and Pacific shipping, 576, 605 and redeployment, 544, 546, 591-92
and shipbuilding program of 1944, 254-55 Joint Logistics Plans Committee, 94, 95, 97-98, 106, 168
Kavieng Island, 405, 408, 462 Kesselring, Field Marshal Albert, 192 Keyed projects system, 125, 129-30, 166-69, 241, 812 in Pacific, 482, 485-87 Keynes, Lord John Maynard, 662 King, Admiral Ernest J., 16, 18, 26, 29, 58, 96, 181, 184, 500, 600 and ANVIL, 291, 347-48 and Burma operations, 281, 283, 290, 292 and HUSKY planning, 34, 35, 37 and joint logistics in Pacific, 433, 447 and Mediterranean operations, 175-76, 222, 234, 236, 279, 290, 363, 535, 806-08, 810
and Pacific operations, 391, 396, 400, 404, 405, 581, 591, 593, 607, 624, 656, 698, 809 and Pacific shipping requirements, 462, 491, 554,
Joint Military Transportation Committee, 92, 93, 96-97, 162, 434 and redeployment needs, 541, 544, 613, 616 and shipbuilding program of 1944, 248, 253-55 and shipping allocations, 218, 360-61, 424, 426, 437, 452-53, 456, 463-69, 468n, 605, 689, 692 and shipping deficits, 414-15, 555, 556 Joint Munitions Allocation Committee, 97, 102, 138,
635-36, 648, 651, 668, 670
556, 577, 604-06 and QUADRANT, 203, 205-06, 209-10 and redeployment, 579, 590, 592 and shipbuilding program of 1944, 253, 255, 25960, 267-70, 307, 309, 551 and strategic plan for Pacific, 406-08, 411, 413-15, 536, 538 and TRIDENT, 65-66, 66n, 68-71, 73, 79, 81, 84
Kinkaid, Admiral Thomas C., 419-20 Kiriwana, 399 Komsomolsk, 690 Kos, 226, 227
Joint Purchasing Board (SOPAC), 441 Joint Rearmament Committee, 701, 704, 706, 707, 710 Joint Screening Board (SOPAC), 444 Joint Ship Operations Committee, 162, 431-32, 449 Joint Ship Repair Committee, 430 Joint Staff Planners, 92, 93, 95, 96, 98, 177, 734, 750
and landing craft production, 253, 260-61, 266
Kowloon, 622, 623 Krueger, Lt. Gen. Walter, 436 Kunming, 501, 507-08, 512, 518, 526-28, 621-23, 733 Kurile Islands, 396, 398, 563 Kuter, Brig. Gen. Laurence S., 180, 513 Kwajalein, 406, 448, 475 Kweilin, 729 Kyushu, 411, 415, 563-64, 578, 585, 598, 618. See also OLYMPIC. La Perouse Strait, 676, 693 Labor, local, 414, 497
Labor, troop. See Service and supporting troops. Lae, 399, 460
and redeployment planning, 540, 542, 544, 577, 584, 588-89, 591-92 Joint Strategic Survey Committee, 8, 36, 38, 95-97, 179-81, 400, 406 Joint Transfer Committee (Cairo), 649
Land, Rear Adm. Emory S., 8n, 457 and shipbuilding program of 1944, 251-52, 257, 353 and shipping deficits in 1944, 462, 555-56, 558-59
INDEX
Landing craft and ships, 10-11, 67, 73-74, 327n, Lend LeaseContinued 333n, 393, 438-39, 490-94, 801n, 805-08. See also screening of requirements, 640-41, 651, 654-55 Assault shipping. "similar goods" doctrine, 649-50 LST's 229-36, 247, 259, 261, 263-65, 268, 270, 314, support of occupation armies, 658, 664-68 to Turkey, 646, 648, 651 316-17, 576-77, 796, 805 production program, 17-20, 22-24, 67-68, 206, 209and U.S. production, 627-30, 638, 657, 664
879
10, 259-70, 283, 307-10, 327n, 335, 342, 343n, to Yugoslavia, 720-21 490-94 Lend-Lease Act of 1941, 631, 663, 666, 667
Landing vehicles, 11, 24, 41, 206, 308-09, 393, 403, 482, 489, 638. See also Assault shipping. Landis, James, M., 649 Law, Sir Richard, 783, 783n Leahy, Admiral William D., 34, 234, 250, 624 and Cairo-Tehran Conference, 283, 289 and lend-lease, 658, 666, 686, 697 and strategy in Europe, 179, 185, 202 and TRIDENT, 62n, 66, 66n, 78, 81 Leathers, Lord Frederick, 82, 84, 217, 239, 545 Leavey, Brig. Gen. Edmond H., 446-48
Ledo Road, 80, 503-08, 510-12, 516-17, 519-20, 522, 535, 621-23, 729, 731-32, 734-35
Lee, Lt. Gen. John C. H., 386 Le Havre, 382, 387, 553, 596 Lehman, Herbert, 739, 743-46 Lend-Lease. See also Army Supply Program, lendlease; French rearmament; Liberated Manpower Program; Soviet Protocols; United Kingdom Import Program. administration of, 628-37, 652, 816-17 British requirements and assignments, 550, 63744, 642n British Stage II planning, 656, 659-58 methods, 144-46, 472, 481-82 to China, 506, 507, 518, 526, 656, 725-36, 818 in Pacific, 451, 460-62, 557 civilian requirements, 640-41, 659, 662 in U.S., 47-48, 53, 615 conversion, 656n, 666, 667 Local procurement, 436, 482 to Czechoslovakia, 720, 721 Logistics in Pacific area, 417-21 diversions, 648-51 Army versus Navy systems, 421-24, 580, 582-84 to Egypt, 646, 646n, 651 Basic Logistical Plan, 427-29, 431, 435, 439-40, 442, to Ethiopia, 646, 646n, 651 444, 454, 582-83, 603 to Greece, 647, 700, 720-21 control of shipping, 445, 449-54, 583, 600, 602-07 to independent nations, 644-52 to India and Southeast Asia, 652-56 co-ordination of, 403, 429-31, 435-53 for final phase, 600, 602-04, 607-10 to Iran, 646, 646n, 651, 660 to Iraq, 646, 646n, 651 joint planning and procurement attempts, 424-27 Joint Priority List, 431-33 JCS "corollary principle," 657-61 limiting factors, 617, 619 to Latin America, 721-24, 818 support of forces, 593, 600-604 to Poland, 720, 720n, 721 policy on, 627, 631, 635, 637, 646, 649-51, 655, 720, London Coordinating Committee, 772 LONGTOM, 563, 593 772-73, 725, 727-29, 731 policy on after defeat of Germany, 656-58, 661-70, Lorient, 372, 382 Los Angeles Port of Embarkation, 160, 429-30, 539, 695, 699 principle of strategic necessity, 629, 631, 664 597, 601, 733 repossession, 634-35, 664, 684 Los Negros Islands, 406 residual theory, 630, 641 Lubin, Isadore, 353, 635n, 686 retransfers, 644-48, 717, 721 Lucca, 384 return of munitions, 658, 658n Lutes, Maj. Gen. LeRoy, 55, 56, 255, 510, 661 reverse, 656n and joint Army-Navy logistics, 421, 424, 428, 430, to Saudi Arabia, 646, 646n, 649, 651, 660 445, 446
Leros, 226-28 Levels of supply, 47, 121-22, 125, 135-36, 156-60, 595 in Pacific, 449, 465, 473-74, 476-80 Leyte bases on, 474, 568, 575, 591 offensive operation, planning for, 411-14, 469-70, 486, 551, 563, 566 shipping for, 553, 557 supply of, 561, 569 Liberated Areas Committee, 755, 772-73, 786 Liberated Manpower Program, 710, 713-15 Lincoln, Brig. Gen. George A., 265-66, 333n, 334, 555, 578-79, 606-07 Lincoln, Col. Rush B., 600 Lindsay, Col. Richard C., 179 Lines of communication in Europe, 382-83, 387, 546 in Pacific, 407, 410, 437, 440 Lingayen Gulf, 412 Liri Valley, 312 Liverpool, 596 Ljubljana Gap, 374, 376-77, 379 Loading and unloading operations in Europe, 38, 316-17, 385-87, 555, 557, 560-61, 742
880
Lutes, Maj. Gen. LeRoyContinued Marine DivisionsContinued and logistical planning, 105-08, 147, 154-55 2d, 308, 400, 401 and Pacific supply, 475-76, 489, 495-96, 610, 617 Mariposa, 35n and preshipment, 195-96 Maritime Commission, 16, 91 Luxembourg, 788 and shipbuilding program, 246-57, 259, 352, 402, Luzon, 396, 406-15, 470, 498, 538, 557, 561, 563-64, 408, 463, 488, 551, 554, 559 566, 568H59, 571 Marseille, 375-76, 383, 596 LVT's. See Landing vehicles. Marshall, General George C., 3, 34, 58, 94, 101, 181, 196, 284n, 554, 800, 804 MacArthur, General Douglas, 294, 685 and CBI operations, 282, 291, 510-11, 518-19, 522 and civilian supply, 790-92 and civilian supply, 743 and joint logistics, 432, 435, 439-40 and French rearmament, 703-05, 712 and local fleet, 410, 437-38, 455, 457-58, 461, 488 and lend-lease, 661, 687, 694, 729-30 and operational control of Army resources in and Mediterranean strategy, 175-77, 185, 275-76, POA, 607-10 278 and operations and strategy for 1944, 406, 408-14 and OVERLORD, 185-86, 283 and Pacific command problem, 419, 579-81, 602-03 and OVERLORD-ANVIL, 331-32, 342, 352, 376-77 and Philippine base development, 568-70, 591-93 and Pacific operations, 400-401, 404, 413, 415, 447, and redeployment, 565-66, 579, 598-99, 611-12, 498, 567, 581 613, 619 and Pacific shipping, 461, 464, 576-77, 604-05 and RENO IV, 405-06 and Philippine base development, 591-92 and RENO V, 411 and QUADRANT, 203, 206-07, 210 and ship retentions, 217, 554, 557 and redeployment, 579, 590, 592, 594, 600, 613 and shipping requirements, 208, 464-65, 469, 491- and shipbuilding program, 255, 265-66 93, 565, 574, 576-77, 583-84, 604-06, 617, 814 and TRIDENT, 64, 66, 70-71, 78-79 and SWPA operations, 398-402, 498, 536-37, 561, Marshall Islands, 400-401, 405, 448, 474, 477, 619 Marshall Plan, 670 563, 582 Macassar Strait, 791 MATTERHORN, 514-15, 519-21, 526-27 McCloy, John J., 741, 749 Mauretania, 36, 298 McCoy, Maj. Gen. Frank R., 120 Maxwell, Maj. Gen. Russell L., 103-04, 123 Mayu Peninsula, 314 McCoy Board, 102, 120-21, 124, 127, 131, 133, 152, 549, 640, 812 Merrill's Marauders, 522 McNair, Lt. Gen. Lesley J., 55, 196, 495, 547 Messina, 40, 190-92 Metropolitan Program. See French rearmament. McNarney, Lt. Gen. Joseph T., 101-03, 117, 121, 124, 128 Mexico, 721-24, 818 McNarney directive, 123-24, 152, 157-59, 479 Middle East, 644, 646, 648-52 Macready, Lt. Gen. George N., 633, 647-49, 654-55, Middle East Command, 769 660, 662 Midway, 445 Maddocks, Col. Ray T., 117-18 Mihailovic, Col. Draza, 720 Mikoyan, A. I., 686 Maddocks Committee, 117-18 MILEPOST, 690-93, 696, 698, 818 Magruder, Brig. Gen. Carter B., 243, 702, 775 Maintenance and maintenance factor, 111,111n,113 Milne Bay, 460-61, 468, 474-75, 490 Makin, 403, 448 Milwaukee, 613 Mindanao, 408, 411, 413-14, 465, 469 Malaya, 80, 517, 535-37, 655, 790 Mindoro, 412 Malta-Yalta Conference. See ARGONAUT. Minimum essential equipment, 595 Mandalay, 516 Missouri, USS, 624 MANHATTAN Project, 564 Monnet, Jean, 787 Manila, 474, 568-69, 598, 609, 617 Montgomery, General Sir Bernard L., 40, 190, 192 Manipore State, 505-06 Manokwari, 401 and OVERLORD, 316, 321-23, 332, 334, 336 Monthly Materiel Status Report, 148-49, 153-55, Manus Island, 399, 401, 406, 619 161, 165-66, 473, 479, 708 Mariana Islands Moore, Maj. Gen. Richard C., 590 operations against, 400, 405-08, 410-11, 462, 465 Morgan, Lt. Gen. Sir Frederick, 29, 67, 74 proposed B-29 bases, 294, 404, 406, 520, 567, 571 and OVERLORD, 182-84, 188, 204-06, 236, 262-63, supply bases, 474-75, 601, 620 265-66, 270-71, 321-22 Marine Corps, U.S., 392, 423, 425, 429, 436 Morgenthau, Henry, 660, 662, 664-65 Marine Divisions Morotai, 410, 619 1st, 400, 401
INDEX
Morrissey, Brig. Gen. William J., 733n Mountbatten, Vice Admiral Lord Louis Burma offensive, 290, 292-93, 508-12, 515-17, 519, 524, 621, 652 Operation PIGSTICK, 314-15, 516 New Zealand, 645, 656 Nicaragua, 722
881
Nieuw Amsterdam, 298 Nikolaevsk, 688 Nimitz, Admiral Chester W., 207, 342, 579 Munitions and GRANITE Plan, 405-06 and lend-lease, 628-31, 645-47, 651, 657 and joint logistics, 432, 442, 444-48 and production goals, 116-17 and operational control of Army resources in Munitions Assignments Board, 24, 27, 92-94, 96-97, POA, 607-10 102, 138, 700, 702 and operations and strategy, 408-13, 537, 563, 572and lend-lease, 628, 630, 632-37, 636n, 640, 642-43, 73, 582-83, 609 645-49, 647n, 655, 657, 663-64, 666, 668-69, 708, and Pacific shipping, 452-53, 455, 462, 464-65, 468, 725, 727, 732-35 554, 576-77, 583-84, 604-06, 608, 617, 619, 814 and Soviet Protocol shipments, 684, 696 and Pacific supply, 474, 498 Munitions Assignments Board, London, 628-29, 645and Philippine base development, 568, 570, 591-93 and POA command problem, 398, 419-20, 579-80, 48, 650-52, 702, 725 Munitions Assignments Committee, Air, 632 581, 602 Munitions Assignments Committee, Ground, 138, and SOPAC bases, 566-67 425-26 Noemfoor Island, 410 and lend-lease, 632-37, 642, 649, 654-55, 664, 706- Norfolk House Conferences, 333, 339, 350 08, 723, 727, 732, 734 Normandy, 182, 369, 372, 377-78 and Pacific allocations, 484, 489 North African Economic Board, 740-42 Munitions Assignments Committee, Navy, 24, 632 North African Rearmament Program. See French Mussolini, Benito, 176, 178, 190, 755, 773 rearmament. Mutual Security Program, 670 North African Shipping Board, 237 Myitkyina, 503, 515-18, 527, 621-23, 733 North Pacific Area, 419-20, 568, 573, 584, 597, 693, 698 Norway, 788 Nagasaki, 624 "Notional" vessels and sailings, 54n, 82n, 242, 242n, Naples, 189, 223-24, 239, 366, 596, 723, 758 470 Nassau Bay, 399 Nouma, 421, 429, 442-43, 460, 474 Nauru, 400 Naval Districts OCTAGON, 387, 415, 559 Twelfth, 428 and British role in Pacific, 534, 537-39, 544-45 Thirteenth, 429 and lend-lease to British, 661-62, 664 Fourteenth, 445 and policy towards Italy, 773, 778 Naval Operations, Chief of. See King, Admiral Odessa, 681 Ernest J. Oerlikon light antiaircraft cannon, 639 Naval Transportation Service, 429-30, 452-53, 600 Office of Defense Transportation, 89 Navy, U.S., 487, 800. See also Fleets, U.S.; Logistics Office of Economic Warfare, 636 in Pacific area. Office of Foreign Economic Coordination, 746 assault lift for OVERLORD-ANVIL, 340-42, 348, 350 Office of Foreign Relief and Rehabilitation Operacombat loader production, 252-57 tions, 636, 739, 743-46, 750 deployment of forces to Pacific, 78, 81, 81n, 589 Office of Lend-Lease Administration, 636, 739, 741landing craft production, 11, 16-18, 24, 68, 209-10, 42, 745-46 259-61, 335, 490-94, 805, 806, 810 Office of Price Administration, 89 and personnel strength, 392, 547, 590-91 Office of Strategic Services, 711, 720-21, 736 Navy Department, 436, 439, 463, 671, 722, 743, 795 Office of War Mobilization, 91, 251, 257 Bureau of Ships, 259, 260, 267, 491 Office of War Mobilization and Reconversion, 663 Material Distribution Committee, 599-600 Okinawa, 498, 563-64, 571-73, 575, 577, 610. See also Nelson, Donald, 263, 266-67 ICEBERG. Netherlands, 780, 788 bases on, 591, 601, 604-05, 609, 618, 620 Netherlands Indies, 561, 563, 574, 577, 618, 655, 791 Olmstead, Col. George, 733n Netherlands Purchasing Commission, 791 OLYMPIC, 563-64, 568, 570, 573, 578, 584-88, 591-95, New Caledonia, 442-43, 483 598-99, 604-05, 609-11, 617-18 New Georgia, 399, 460, 565 OMAHA Beach, 372 New Guinea, 399, 405, 407-08, 483, 493, 619 Operational projects, 618, 638, 652-55, 790 New Orleans Port of Embarkation, 160-61 Operations Division. See War Department General New York Port of Embarkation, 160-65, 478, 616, 769 Staff, Operations Division.
882
Oran, 37, 38, 238 Oro Bay, 460 Osborn, Capt. Donald R., Jr., 333n OVERLORD and ANVIL debate, 235-36, 284-92, 296, 311, 313, 321-50, 357, 383 and assault shipping, 182-84, 187, 205-07, 212-14, 213n, 262-70, 279, 283, 288-90, 292, 296, 307-08, 312-16, 321-29, 327n, 328n, 331, 333-50, 801n, 805-08 and cargo shipping, 303-04, 355-57, 359, 385-87 and Mediterranean strategy, 230-34, 271-78, 28490, 294-95 and moves to strengthen, 321-29 opposition to, 178-81 plan for, 70, 181-86, 276, 316, 321, 371-72 priority of, 188, 198-205, 370 resources and requirements for, 186-89 and SHINGLE, 313, 315 and Soviet reactions to, 275, 277n, 284-88, 295-96 and supply build-up, 353-55, 371-74, 383, 385, 769 and troop build-up, 297-98, 353-54, 370-71, 374, 383-84 and troop shipping for, 298, 352-54 and U.S.-British relations, 184-86, 198-204, 271-90, 294-95, 321-50 Overseas supply system. See supply, overseas system of.
PAC-AID, 518-20, 526-27 Pacific command problem, 399, 409-10, 419-20, 57984, 607-10 and redeployment, 599, 602-04 Pacific Military Conference, 7, 399 Pacific Ocean Areas, 398, 407, 410-20, 447-53, 480, 565-66, 570, 572, 577, 580. See also Central Pacific Area; Commander in Chief, Pacific Ocean Areas; Nimitz, Admiral Chester W.; South Pacific Area. control of shipping in, 600 friction with SWPA, 408-10 roll-up of bases, 619-20 supply of, 471-99, 599-601, 616 Pacific Service Force, Subordinate Command, 428-30 Pacific Shipping Conference, 362, 464-67 Palau Islands, 343n, 400-401, 405-06, 408, 410-11, 485 proposed bases on, 407, 474-75, 567, 571, 601 Palermo, 176, 755 Palmyra, 445 Panama, 722 Paraguay, 722 Parbatipur, 505-06, 522 Pasteur, 35, 35n Patria, 613 Patterson, Robert, 663 Patton, Lt. Gen. George S., Jr., 176 Persian Gulf, 672-74, 676-78, 680-81, 683 Persian Gulf Command, 681
on West Coast, 428-29, 477-82, 539, 541, 599-601, 615-16 Port surveys, 163-64, 477-79 Portland, Oregon, 429, 539, 597, 601 Ports of Embarkation. See by individual name.
Potsdam, 613 Potsdam Conference, 613-14, 621, 666-68, 670, 698, 716, 815, 817 Pound, Admiral of the Fleet Sir Dudley, 81 Power, Capt. M. L., 313, 316 Preparation for Overseas Movement, 47, 143-44, 146, 193 Preshipment, 76, 146, 472 for BOLERO, 51-56, 193-97, 240-44, 306, 354 for OVERLORD follow-up, 371-72 Prestowage, 355, 371 Pretoria, 613 Prince Rupert, 429, 597 Priorities. See Supply priorities. Procurement, operations and planning, 119-20, 130, 618, 658, 682
INDEX
ProcurementContinued
883
RequisitioningContinued editing, 148, 154-55, 161, 476-77 for overseas theaters, 161-68 for Pacific, 441, 445, 448-50, 453, 478-83, 596 Reserves, 121-23, 135, 159 strategic for manpower, 370, 383, 572, 578, 585, 589, 591, 595 strategic for supplies, 112, 112n, 124, 159 unpublished, 457, 459 Resources allocation. See also Lend-Lease. between Army and Navy, 443, 451, 578-79, 800 between Pacific areas, 408-10, 434, 524
for civilian supply, 742, 744-45, 752-54, 764n, 764-68, 771, 791
joint Army-Navy, 425-27 for 1944 and 1945, 550, 597 Production
between theaters, 330, 332, 391-97, 400, 405, 451, 512-13, 546, 801, 803-05, 820
Rhodes operation (HERCULES), 201, 226-29, 278, 280-
81, 285, 288-91, 310-11, 314, 806-08 Rhone Valley, 331, 375-77, 383
Richards, Brig. Gen. George J., 121 Richards Committee, 102-03, 121-25, 124n, 131, 133,
and civilian supply, 737, 739, 743, 745, 747, 752, 763, 769, 773-78, 819
and French rearmament, 700-701, 704 and lend-lease, 628, 645-46, 650, 658, 661-63, 670, 720n, 729-30, 816 and Mediterranean operations, 222, 227-30, 310, 314, 315
and OVERLORD, 185-86, 203, 207, 272, 313, 324, 807 and Pacific operations, 411, 470, 538 and SEXTANT, 282n, 282-83, 292-93, 515, 727
and shipbuilding program, 251-52, 257, 308, 559 and shipping deficits in 1944, 554-56, 558, 573-74 and Soviet Protocol shipments, 675, 678, 686, 692, 694 and Tehran Conference, 271n, 284-88 and TRIDENT, 62-63, 79-81 ROUNDHAMMER, 70-71, 73-74, 86, 173, 197, 805
Requirements, military calculations of, 109-15, 123-34, 137-38 and production, 114-19, 115n, 127, 130-31
Requisitioning, 138, 148-56. See also Supply. for CBI, 728, 733, 735
Russell Islands, 460, 575 Ryuku Islands, 400, 415-16, 563, 572, 582, 609
proposed bases in, 415, 567, 571, 588, 604, 610 Saidor, 399 "Sailings," 82n
884
Saint-Didier, Brig. Gen. Auguste Brossin de, 713 Shipment procedures, 162-66, 617-18 Shipments Saint-Malo, 373, 382, 386 bulk, 146, 595 Saint-Nazaire, 372, 382 Saipan, 448, 450, 462, 485, 521, 575, 588, 591, 598 direct, 480-82, 580, 617 Salamaua, 399 Shipping British controlled, 298, 298n, 300, 556 Salerno, 189, 192, 223-24 Salter, Sir Arthur, 83 captured, 587-89, 606 control of in Pacific, 445, 449-54, 583, 600, 602-10 Salween River, 515, 727, 730 conversion to troop carriers, 214, 252-54, 402, 457, Samos, 226 San Diego, 429 462-63, 589, 613-14 San Francisco Port of Embarkation, 160-61, 164, diversion from Atlantic to Pacific, 362, 395, 402, 410, 456, 464, 467, 512, 553, 810 428-29, 472-73, 475-82, 485, 539, 597, 601, 616 San Francisco Ship Operations Committee, 430-32, garrison, 450-52 local fleets in Pacific, 410, 418, 437-38, 455, 457437, 457, 459, 461-62, 467 San Pedro, 429 58, 467, 487-88 Sansapor, 410 maintenance, 450-51, 453, 468 Santahar, 505-06 operational, 356-63, 366, 401, 468 Sarangani Bay, 411-12 Pacific pool, 418, 455-56, 459, 467 requirements for Pacific operations, 457-68, 599Sardinia, 222-23 Sarmi, 410 602, 604-07 serviceability factor, 326, 327n, 328, 335-36 Schage, Herbert, 441 Sea of Okhotsk, 688 transfer to Soviet flag, 455, 457, 674, 676, 689, 691Searls, Fred, 97 92, 818 U.S.-controlled, 298n, 298-300, 363-64 Seattle Port of Embarkation, 160, 429-30, 539, 597, Shipping, assault. See Assault shipping. 601 Secretary of Navy, 647, 649 Shipping, cargo, 6, 7, 9, 76, 387, 393, 395 Secretary of War. See Stimson, Henry L. for BOLERO, 193, 195, 195n, 241-44, 303-05, 367-68 Selected Items Report, 149, 153, 473 for CBI, 520-21 Service Central des Approvisionnements et Matriels for civilian relief, 573-74, 741, 750, 758-60, 768, Amricains, 707 776-78, 782-83 Service Squadron Ten, 567 deficits in 1944, 551-62, 694, 778, 781, 786, 814 Service and supporting troops deficits in 1945, 606-07 deficits for Europe, 352-53 in CBI, 510-11, 521-22, 621 in ETO, 356, 380, 548, 598, 714, 717-20 deficits for Pacific, 410, 415-16, 456-70, 478, 570, in Pacific, 405, 418, 540-41, 565-68, 579-80 573-76, 689, 691, 802, 809-10 shortages of, 395, 410, 412-14, 494-98, 496n, 544, estimates after SEXTANT, 297-306 570-73 for HUSKY, 36-39, 42-44, 49-56
Services of Supply, 108, 108n. See also Army Service for Italian campaign, 359-61, 363
Forces. CBI, 508, 621, 653, 725, 727-28 ETOUSA, 194, 243, 374
NATOUSA, 707-08 SWPA, 435-38, 440-41, 461, 493, 608
to Mediterranean, 236-40 for OVERLORD, 303-04, 355-57, 359, 385-87 for OVERLORD-ANVIL, 352, 357-65 for Pacific, 303, 305, 343, 401-03, 429-31, 436-38,
440-45, 449-53, 459-62, 601, 604-06, 618, 815
Ste, 375-76 SEXTANT, 271n, 277-84, 290-96, 310, 705, 720, 759, 802, 803, 807 and CBI, 515-16, 519, 522, 653, 688, 727, 729-30
and Pacific timetable, 403-05, 536
QUADRANT budgets, 214-18 for redeployment, 541, 544-45, 587, 589, 614-15
U.S. assistance to British, 558-59 volume increases in 1944, 365-68 Shipping, retentions and turnarounds, 552, 555-56,
and shipping negotiations, 302-03, 305-06, 309 and shipping schedules, 354-55, 357, 359, 366, 459 and strategy, 391, 394, 397 SHINGLE, 310-17 Shipbuilding Precedence List, U.S. Navy, 18, 19
Shipbuilding program. See also Landing craft and ships, production program; Shipping, conversion to troop carriers.
814 in Atlantic and Mediterranean, 353, 358-59, 366-67 in Pacific, 353, 458, 460-62, 464-70, 557, 574
Shipping, troop, 50, 59, 74, 815
INDEX
Shipping, troopContinued for redeployment, 541, 544-45, 586-89, 612-14 shortages, 431, 456-57, 459, 495, 612, 809 Shipping budgets, British, 81-86, 82n, 219, 300-504, 300n, 302n Shipping budgets, U.S., 81-86, 82n, 214-18, 302-03, 302n, 305 Shipping crises in Pacific, 455-56 in 1943, 456-60 in 1944, 460-70 Shipping quotas, U.S. versus British, 360-453 Shipping of troop equipment, 143-46, 195, 242, 371-72 Ships. See also Combat loaders; Commodity loaders; Landing craft and ships. cargo, 247-50, 462 coasters, 385 manning of, 437-39, 445 procurement of, 438-39 resupply, 481-82, 575 SHOESTRING No. 2, 402 Short, Livingston, 649 Shortages, 297, 801, 813 of equipment, 134, 141, 144, 243, 483, 561 of labor, 410, 551-52, 554, 568 of manpower, 351-52, 395, 410, 412-13, 483, 54648, 572 of materials, 410, 477-78, 548-50, 560-61 Siam, 667 Siberian air bases, 688-90, 693 SICKLE, 32, 36, 48, 50, 55 Siegfried Line, 383, 533, 545, 548-49, 813 Sinclair, Sir Robert, 747 Singapore, 621, 654 Sirajganj Ghat, 512 SKYSCRAPER, 67, 67n, 68 SLEDGEHAMMER, 17, 58, 61, 63, 63n, 66n, 801 Smith, Ben, 662 Smith, Maj. Gen. Walter B., 232-33, 705 and OVERLORD, 322, 324, 328-29, 332-33, 335 Smuts, Field Marshal Jan Christian, 178, 317, 378 Solid Fuels Administrator for War, 89 Solomons, 399, 444, 482, 619
885
Somervell, Lt. Gen. Brehon B.Continued and redeployment, 545, 584, 592-93, 597-98 and shipbuilding program of 1944, 255, 341-42 and shipping crisis of 1944, 552-55, 557-59 and Soviet Protocol shipments, 672, 692 and TRIDENT, 70, 73, 83-84 Soong, Dr. T.V., 504, 511 South Africa, 759 South Pacific Area, 396, 403, 409-10, 413, 419-20. See also Halsey, Admiral William F. and joint logistics, 441-44 offensive operations in, planning for, 398-99, 401-02, 406, 408 roll-up of bases in, 565-70, 619-20 supply of, 476-77, 496-98 South Pacific Base Command, 619 Southeast Asia, 397-98, 404 Southeast Asia Command, 293, 315, 315n, 508, 511, 516-17, 520, 524-25, 536, 538. See also Mountbatten, Vice Adm. Lord Louis; Stilwell, Lt. Gen. Joseph W. lend-lease supplies to, 652-55, 664, 716, 790-91 Southwest Pacific Area, 396, 398, 407, 419-20. See also MacArthur, General Douglas. British role in, 536-37 civilian supply to, 790 and Engineers, 482-87, 493, 497 offensive operations in, planning for, 398-407, 410 roll-up of bases in, 567, 576-77, 601-02, 604-05, 609, 619 and shipping, 410, 437-38, 440-41, 487-94, 557, 561 and supply, 435-41, 471, 475, 477, 480-81, 497, 568-70 transfer of SOPAC resources to, 565-66 Sovereignty Forces, 707, 709 Soviet-American collaboration against Japan, 687-99 Soviet Government Purchasing Commission, 687, 696 Soviet Protocol Committee, President's, 671-76, 680, 682, 684-86, 690-91, 695-96, 699, 817-18 Soviet Protocols, 367, 386-87, 552-56, 558, 573, 640, 642, 644, 817-18 Third, 656, 671-78, 681-84 Fourth, 671-72, 678-84, 689-91, 693, 695-97 Somervell, Lt. Gen. Brehon B., 44, 49, 50, 52-54, Fifth, 663, 671, 694-96 156, 206, 278, 352. See also Army Service Forces. administration of, 671-72 and BOLERO, 195-97 military policy on, 672, 694-99 and CBI operations, 507-13, 515, 519, 522, 623 Spalding, Maj. Gen. Sidney P., 678-79, 685, 687, 689, and civilian supply, 739, 743, 778, 786-87 697 and French rearmament, 703, 714 Special Lists of Equipment, 144, 166 and joint Army-Navy logistics, 421-24, 428, 430, Special Operations Executive, British, 711, 720-21 445, 447, 583 Staging, mounting and rehabilitation facilities, 566and lend-lease, 633, 638, 642, 647, 649, 651, 65369, 587-88, 591-92 55, 658, 660, 662, 664, 666 Stalin, Marshal Josef, 285n, 720n, 721 and logistical organization, 93-95, 100-101, 103-05 and OVERLORD, 230-31, 287n, 324, 807 and Pacific operations, 401, 407, 470, 574, 577,and Soviet Protocol shipments, 675, 678, 690 604-05, 608-09 and Tehran Conference and OVERLORD-ANVIL, and Pacific supply, 471-72, 475, 477, 479, 483, 271n, 284-88, 295-96, 330, 380-81 494, 497 and war against Japan, 290-91, 687
886
Standley, Admiral William H., 685 State Department and aid to USSR, 671, 674, 680, 694, 698 and civilian supply, 739, 743, 746-47, 753-55, 759, 772, 783, 787 and lend-lease, 646, 649-50, 658, 661, 665-66, 669, 721-22 Steel allocations, 250-52, 254-55, 257, 259, 309 Stettinius, Edward R., Jr., 645, 662, 686 Stevedores, 430, 597, 616 Stilwell, Lt. Gen. Joseph W., 7, 79-80, 280, 282 and CBI operations and logistics, 501-04, 507-08, 510-11, 514-15, 518-19, 521, 525-26, 528-29, 685 and lend-lease to Chinese forces, 726-30, 732-34, 736 Stimson, Henry L., 3, 25 and civilian supply, 747, 754, 775 and lend-lease, 647, 649, 665 and OVERLORD, 185-86, 200 Stock control, 131, 152-56, 160-61, 476. See also Supply control, lack of in Pacific. Stockpiles in India, 727-29, 731-32 postwar, 641-42 Soviet, 674, 679, 684, 689 in U.K., 52, 765, 767, 770, 785 Storage facilities, 369, 475, 539, 598, 601 Strait of Tartary, 676, 693 Strategy, divergencies between U.K. and U.S., 25-30, 57-58 over CBI, 281-84, 502, 515 Italy versus ANVIL, 374-82 over Japan, 26-27, 396 in Mediterranean, 175, 344-46
Supply control, lack of in Pacific, 475-77 Supply Control System, 106, 127, 131-33, 154, 159 Supply distribution, 135-69, 546, 560, 799, 812-13. See also Port operations. 69-71, 175, 200-203, 222-23, 229, 231, 271-77, automatic, 147-49, 155-56, 450-51, 473, 575 535, 804 cargo planning, 478-79 and ANVIL, 330-32, 336-38, 344-46 Date-line system of, 163, 165, 478 at Cairo-Tehran Conference, 277-80, 284-88, 290, in Pacific, 474-75 310 and redeployment, 595, 597, 601 Strategy for Mediterranean, U.S., 60-63, 71, 173-81, semiautomatic, 149, 152-53, 473, 476 186, 188, 232, 234, 271-77, 535, 804 Supply priorities, 55, 138-42 and ANVIL, 330-32, 337-38, 344-46 for ETO, 241, 243-44, 303-06, 351 at Cairo-Tehran Conference, 284-90 for Pacific, 435, 440-41, 465, 480-81 at QUADRANT, 199-200, 204 between Pacific theaters, 433-34 Strategy for Pacific, 207-08, 210-11, 294, 391-401, for Soviet Protocol shipments, 691 404-45, 517-18, 536, 564
INDEX
Supply prioritiesContinued theater, 141-42, 162, 193-94, 479 between theaters, 391-95 Supreme Allied Commander, Mediterranean Theater, 525, 651, 711, 768-69, 776-77. See also Alexander, Field Marshal Sir Harold R. L. G.; Wilson, General Sir Henry Maitland. Supreme Commander, Allied Expeditionary Force, 711, See also Eisenhower, General Dwight D. Supreme Headquarters, Allied Expeditionary Force, 322, 325, 327, 333-34, 341, 355, 375, 380, 382. See also Eisenhower, General Dwight D. and civilian supply, 768-70, 772, 779-82, 786-87 and French rearmament, 713, 715-16 SHAEF Mission (France), 710, 781 Survey of Supply of Pacific Areas, 477-78, 488 Sutherland, Lt. Gen. Richard K., 607 Sweden, 277n Sydney, 474 Syracuse, Sicily, 39, 41
887
Treasury Islands, 399, 565 TRIDENT, 10, 29, 57-86, 173-75, 193, 198-99, 201, 296, 651, 702, 757, 802-04 and assault shipping allocations, 175, 182-83, 186-87, 205, 208, 212, 214, 262, 296, 307, 805-06 and cargo shipping budgets, 195, 215-19 and CBI operations, 502-05, 726 and formula for Japan, 391-92, 395-96, 400 Troop basis, 117-18, 122, 124-25, 128, 130, 160, 495,
Table of Basic Allowances, 449-50, 477, 483-84 Tacoma, 429 Talaud Islands, 411, 414, 469 Tanks, 111, 642-44, 674-75 Tansey, Brig. Gen. Patrick H., 101, 168, 636, 641, 732 Taranto, 71, 190-92, 237, 239 Tarawa, 403 TARZAN, 516, 524 Tehran Conference (EUREKA), 271n, 284-90, 316, 324, 330, 350, 683, 687, 730 TERMINAL. See Potsdam Conference. Territorial Forces, 707, 709 Thailand, 790 Theater stores, British, 638, 653 TIGAR 26-A, 527 TIGAR 26-B, 527 Timberman, Col. Thomas S., 730 Tinian, 450, 575 Tito, Marshal Josif, 720 TORCH, 31 Toulon, 375-76, 383 "Trade goods," 739 Trans-Iranian Railway, 676, 680 Trans-Siberian Railway, 677, 688-90, 696 Transportation, Office of the Chief of, 108, 147, 452, 771 Movements Division, 143 Ocean Traffic Branch, 162 Water Division, 162 Transportation Corps, 56, 136, 140, 149, 164, 197, 358, 401, 431, 459, 470 and civilian supply, 741-42, 760 and lend-lease, 661, 672 and redeployment, 597-98 and ship manning in SWPA, 437-38 and ship procurement program, 488-89 Treasury Department, 671, 739, 746-47, 754
498, 547, 595, 799. See also Victory Program Troop Basis, for ETOUSA, 193-94, 196-97, 221, 240, 243, 298, 351-52, 354 for MTOUSA, 298 for Pacific, 579, 585, 590, 611-12 Troop deployment, 297n, 395 for BOLERO, 74-76, 193-94, 218-20, 241-42 forecasts of, 128, 299 for HUSKY, 35-36, 41-42, 45, 47, 49-52 for OVERLORD, 297-98, 370-71, 383-84 for Pacific, 298, 402, 432, 456, 459, 565-66 systematized procedures of, 143-46 Troop List for Operations and Supply, 106, 128n, 160 Troop Schedule for Army Supply Program, 128 Truk, 400-401, 404, 406-08, 410 Truman, Harry S. and civilian supply, 788-89, 819 and lend-lease, 663-64, 666-68, 670, 695, 699, 735 Truman Committee, 656n Tsushima Strait, 698 Tura Caves, 648 Turkey, 201, 204, 222, 226, 228-29, 273, 277-78, 290, 310, 311n, 806, 808. See also Lend-lease, to Turkey. TWILIGHT, 514
Ulithi, 567, 575, 609, 618 Union of Soviet Socialist Republics, 540, 624. See also Siberian air bases; Soviet Protocols. Unit costs, 115, 115n, 119 United Kingdom Commercial Corporation, 648 United Kingdom Import Program, 50, 55, 300-302, 302n, 367, 386-87, 553-54, 556, 558-59, 562, 692, 776, 785 United Nations Relief and Rehabilitation Administration, 746, 761, 769, 774, 777, 787-88 U. S. Army Forces in the Far East, 435-36, 440, 608 U. S. Army Forces in Middle East, 648-49, 651 U. S. Commercial Company, 792 U. S. Military Mission to Moscow, 685-87, 689, 696 U. S. Procurement Committee, 754
Vargas, Getulip, 723 Vella Lavella, 399, 565 Venezia Giulia, 535, 788 Venning, Sir Walter, 660-61 Vessel Allocation and Cargo Subcommittee, 430
888
War Department General StaffContinued Operations DivisionContinued and redeployment, 542-43, 584, 594-95, 59798, 611 Six Months' Forecast, 141, 143, 160 Theater Group, 101, 108 Troop Movements Section, 47 War Department Personnel Readjustment Plan, 542, 577 War Department Procurement Review Board. See McCoy Board. Wakde, 401, 410 War Department, 100, 386, 548, 718, 795 War Department Shipping Documents, 165 War Department Troop Deployment, 128 and CBI, 514-15 and civilian supply, 739-41, 743-45, 747-49, 751- War Food Administration, 89, 746, 754, 767 54, 759-61, 763-65, 773, 775, 777-78, 781-83, War Manpower Commission, 89, 117 War Office, 650, 654, 714, 748, 760, 764, 777 783n, 787-88, 790-92, 819 and deployment of troops, 240, 369-70, 380, 383, War Production Board, 89-90, 110, 115-16, 488, 746, 754, 796 472 and French rearmament, 702-03, 706, 708, 710, and aid to USSR, 671 and shipbuilding program of 1944, 247-50, 255, 712, 716 and lend-lease, 633-34, 636, 640-41, 646, 649, 651, 257, 263, 309 653-54, 661-63, 665, 667, 722, 724-25, 727, 730- War Shipping Administration, 16, 82-83, 89-90, 92, 386, 559, 613, 636, 796 32, 734 and aid to USSR, 671-74, 676, 678-79, 692-93 and overseas supply, 129-30, 146, 148, 152, 157, and civilian supply, 741-42, 746, 754, 759-60, 767160, 162, 167-68, 363, 371-72, 476-77, 550, 618-19 68, 776, 778, 782-83, 787 and Pacific bases, 565-66, 570-71 and HUSKY, 37-38, 53-54, 56 and Pacific command problem, 436, 603, 607 and production, 131, 133 and Pacific shipping, 437-38, 457, 459, 461-62, 464, 467-68, 470, 488, 576, 601, 606, 615-16 and redeployment, 543, 596, 610, 612 and shipping in Pacific, 436, 439, 458, 460-61, 463, and sailings, 360-61, 366, 555-56, 558 491, 556, 560, 574-76, 605 and shipment procedures, 162, 238-39, 562 and Soviet Protocol shipments, 671, 675, 679, and shipping budgets, 195, 214, 302, 358-59 Water transportation equipment, 487-89 681-86 Wedemeyer, Maj. Gen. Albert C., 180, 528-29, 622War Department Basic Plan for Period I, 594 War Department-FEA Screening Committee 23, 733-34, 736 (Chungking), 731 Weeks-Somervell Agreement, 630, 638-42, 816-17 War Department General Staff Western Task Force, 47 Civil Affairs Division, 743-44, 747-49, 773, 789 Wheeler, Maj. Gen. Raymond A., 513, 653 White Paper, British, on lend-lease, 645, 649, 662 G-1, 100-101 Williamson, Col. Raymond E. S., 442 G-3, 100-101, 111, 123, 138, 495 G-4, 100-104, 122-24, 128, 138, 600, 636, 729-31 Wilson, Charles E., 248, 263 Operations Division, 59, 123-24, 128, 178, 199, Wilson, General Sir Henry Maitland. See also Supreme Allied Commander, Mediterranean. 253, 303 ANVIL-OVERLORD planning, 342, 346, 362-63 and ANVIL, 316, 321-22, 331, 336, 346-50, 362-65, 375-78, 381 CBI operations, 513, 516-17, 519, 522, 621 and assault shipping, 337-39 civilian supply, 741, 778 deployment of troops, 143, 149, 166-67, 495- and civilian relief, 761, 774-78 and Italian campaign, 226, 340-41, 344-46, 35997, 566 and HUSKY, 44, 50-56 61, 384, 535 lend-lease, 631-32, 636, 656, 691, 723, 728-30, and rearmament, 711, 718-19 Winant, John G., 266, 278 732 logistical organization, 91, 94-95, 100-104, 108 Wingate, Brigadier Orde Charles, 506, 652 Logistics Group, 101-04, 111, 138, 142, 160, Wolfe, Brig. Gen. Kenneth B., 514, 521 Wood, Maj. Gen. Walter A., Jr., 256, 407, 499, 566 576 and Pacific operations, 412-13, 438, 458, 572, Woodlark Island, 399 574, 604, 618 Woods, Maj. Robert C., 640 Wright, Brig. Gen. Boykin C., 633-34, 684, 752 and Pacific supply, 473, 492 and preshipment, 193, 196-97, 242-44 Wylie, Brig. Gen. Robert H., 441, 469
Victory Program of 1941, 10, 798, 799 Victory Program Troop Basis, 102, 109, 111-12, 114, 118-19, 121-22, 124-25, 160 Vienna, 534, 535 Vinson, Fred M., 663, 665 Vladivostok, 672, 680, 683, 688-89, 693, 818 Vogelkop Peninsula, 294, 401, 404 Voroshiloff, Marshal Klementy, 287 Vulcania, 613
INDEX
X-RAY Force, 501, 503, 726. See also Chinese Army in India. Yalta Conference. See ARGONAUT. Yap, 410, 414 YOKE Force, 501, 503-04, 510-11, 515-16, 526, 726-27, 729-31. See also Chinese Army in China. York, Maj. Gen. John Y., 664, 672, 694-95, 697 Young, Sir Hubert, 747
889
Young-Sinclair estimates, 747-49 Yount, Col. Paul, 512 Yugoslavia, 786, 788. See also Lend-lease, to Yugoslavia. Yunnan, 80, 501-03, 516, 518, 526, 726 ZEBRA Force, 726, 729. See also Chinese Army in China.
PIN : 038756-000