- Chapter III:
The Procurement and Supply
Activities of the ASF
The Army Service Forces came into being
during a crucial period. The defenders of Bataan were trading their lives for
time. To reinforce them had proved impossible; their battle was but a delaying
action to permit the establishment of defense lines to the South and Southeast.
Elsewhere in the Pacific the Japanese moved almost at will. In western Europe
German forces were unchallenged, and England awaited the long delayed invasion
from across the Channel. If German armies were momentarily stalled in Russia,
most observers credited this to the winter weather, and expected Germany to
resume her march in the spring.
On the economic front, too, the Allies
were still being worsted. In modern warfare, materiel has an unprecedented
importance. Leadership, loyalty, courage, and other military virtues are not the
monopoly of any one nation. It is no derogation of the quality of American
soldier: to say that German and Japanese troops were as patriotic and brave as
our own. The difference in the fighting ability of armies is often the
difference in the quantity and quality of their weapons. Wan are won and lost
partly on the production line. Because of an early start, Germany and Japan were
well ahead of the Allies in production at the outbreak of war. But that
lead was overcome during 1941 and for a while, Allied production forged head.
Then Germany and Japan began to develop their newly conquered resources and made
a new bid for industrial supremacy. During 1942 and 1943 the Axis out produced
Great Britain and Russia. The outlook for United States war production,
eventually to be the deciding factor, was still uncertain in March 1942.1
Military procurement and supply were
only one part of the struggle of economic resources, and the ASP was responsible
for only a pan of the total American economic effort. Nevertheless it was still
faced with a huge task. A few statistics will perhaps indicate how huge. When
the United States became involved actively in the war in December 1941, the Army
had reached a strength of nearly 1.7 million men. Only 192,663 of these were
stationed outside the United States. At that time a total of thirty-seven
divisions had been created, but only three of these plus a few nondivisional
units were overseas. In terms of training, another seventeen were ready for
combat; in terms of supply, there was little
[45]
equipment for them. If all the critical
items of military equipment had been pooled, five infantry and two armored
divisions of the thirty-four in the United States could have been prepared for
combat soon after Pearl Harbor.
At the end of 1941 the United States
Army had 1,100 antiaircraft guns in the hands of troops or delivered to depots.
There were 9,000 field guns, 78,000 machine guns, 2,000,000 rifles, 4,000 tanks,
and 200,000 trucks. There was sufficient clothing for a million more men than
were in the Army, although 300,000 of them would have lacked overcoats. There
were no crawler tractors, or airplane landing mats. There were some 10,000 radio
sets for ground communication, less 'than 6,000 radio sets for aircraft, and
about 500 radar sets. There was practically no transportation equipment,
almost no chemical warfare equipment, and little in the way of medical supplies.
In December 1941 the Army provided ground equipment worth $13,500,000 for
lend-lease. In the same month procurement deliveries of all kinds, exclusive of
aircraft, came to 8360,000,000.2
From these meager beginnings the Army
Service Forces swiftly moved forward until, in the single month of March 1945,
procurement deliveries reached a total of more than two billion dollars. In
three-and-one-half years the ASF obtained 96,000 tanks, 61,000 field guns and
7,000,000 rifles. It bought over 2,300,000 trucks. Clothing of all kinds was
obtained in large quantities, including 80,000,000 pairs of shoes, 505,000,000
pairs of socks, and 143,000,000 cotton khaki and Flannel shirts. The ASF bought
78,000 crawler tractors 15,000 cranes and shovels, and over 800,000,000 square
feet of airplane landing mats. The Army was provided with
more than 1,200,000 radio sets and 20,000 radar sets. For transportation
purposes overseas, the ASF bought 98,000 railway cans, 7,000 steam locomotives,
and 6,000 barges. In the field of chemical warfare, nearly 2 billion pounds of
incendiary bombe were procured, along with I1 million mortar shells, and nearly
41,000 Rome throwers. Medical deliveries included 9,000 X-ray machines,
10,000,000 surgical instruments, and 31.5 million first-aid packets. AST
purchases included also such diverse items as 1,000 Diesel locomotives and
136,000,000 pairs of trousers.3
There is sharp difference of opinion
over whether the ASF paid too much for what it procured. Cost, though a vital
consideration in so vast a procurement program, and the subject of constant
concern, was secondary to speed and results. Somervell, while still chief of
army construction, had expressed his philosophy on expenditures: he tiled to
save money wherever he could, but in war, speed and results were more important
than cost. Spending might be saving in the long run. He told the Truman
Committee investigating the defense program that it often took more courage to
pay a high prim than to pay a low price. With "parachute jumpers" and
"bloodhounds," (as he dubbed the inspectors and auditors who
[46]
tweed up at the jobs), always ready to
criticize extravagance, many men played it safe.4
General Somervell looked for and found many ways to save money, but always
within the limits of military urgency.5
Because production experience with most
military items was so limited, prices on initial orders were often little more
than the best guess of the producer and the contracting officer. In time, the
ASF acquired a body of coat data and obtained reductions in unit prices. And as
output increased, it was possible to take advantage of mesa production
economies. Thug, in the year ending 30 June 1944, the average price on guns,
tanks, and ammunition declined S percent, the price for radio equipment more
than 7 percent.6
Storage was another greatly expanded
function of the ASE At the time of its creation, the Army Service Forces
operated
55 depots; by the end of the war this number had risen to 127. These storage
plants contained nearly 145,000,000 square feet. At the beginning of 1942,
depots shipped 1,000,000 tons per month; at the end of 1944, shipments rose to
nearly 2,500,000 tons a month. Tonnages received ran somewhat higher.7
Some of the most impressive figures
were in the field of transportation. Between 1942 and 1945 the Army Service
Forces transported 6.9 million soldiers overseas, as well as 250,000 navy
personnel, 110,000 civilians, plus 30,000 others. Of the total passengers
carried, 4.6 million men went to Atlantic theaters and 2.7 million men went to
the Pacific. From a half a million measurement tons of cargo shipped overseas in
the first month of 1942, the ASF attained a peak rate of 5.9 million tone in one
month in the early part of 1945. Whereas the Army had 154 ships in
operation in January 1942, the ASF was operating 1,765 ships in December 1944.8
Perhaps the single ASF undertaking
dwarfing all others was the MANHATTAN DISTRICT, which produced the atomic bomb.
The Office of Scientific Research and Development (OSRD) requested the Army to
take over the active operation of this project in June 1942. The Chief of
Engineers officially established a special unit, the so-called MANHATTAN
DISTRICT, on 13 August of that year. The Army was asked to be the administrative
agency (or the project because it alone could obtain the funds and administer so
large an undertaking and still preserve secrecy. The very size of the Army
Service Forces itself is best indicated by the (act that it absorbed a project
which spent 2 billion dollars, built 2 large manufacturing plants, one of which
housed 75,000 persons, and employed a peak of 80,000 individuals.9
Yet all of this was done without attracting undue attention and without arousing
any strong suspicions that the Army was engaged in anything other than normal
operations in support of the war effort.
[47]
These achievements were attained is the
face of great difficulties. In March 1942, the major problem of the ASF was
procurement. Production and more production was the overwhelmingly urgent need.
As time went on, increasing attention had to be given also to quality, as in the
constant improvement of the tank, the development of the recoilless gun and
variable time (proximity) fuze, and the many advances is electronics equipment
As the American production effort
began
to turn out military supplies in overwhelming quantities, transportation became
the great bottleneck. It remained a limiting (actor in war operations until the
surrender of the Japanese.10
But even when the supplies arrived overseas, there was not always assurance that
they would be properly handled and distributed. The ASF had technical
responsibility for overseas supply performance. But it was never very happy
about either the organization which was developed to do the task or the
character of the supply operations overseas.11
In 1944 the most important shortage
confronting the Army Service Forces was manpower. While raw material shortages
had largely been overcome or brought into balance, there was no corresponding
administrative system for directing the best use of the nation's manpower.
Partly, industrial manpower shortages reflected the growing need for military
personnel.12
Partly, they arose from lack of efficient methods of manpower control. Labor
shortages were all the more vexatious because the ASP itself could do little
about the problem. Control of manpower was properly a civilian responsibility
which had to be undertaken on a nationwide basis. The ASF managed to reduce its
own personnel requirements by improving its operating
efficiency; it encouraged individual contractors to avoid waste of labor; and it
proposed production priorities to civilian agencies directing labor assignment.
But there was no overall program of control to insure effective civilian
direction
of manpower. These problems became acute in the autumn of 1944 and the spring of
1945.13
They were beyond the control of the Army; the ASF itself could resort only to
palliatives.
From the very outset, the ASF
emphasized the need for careful planning of procurement needs. When General
Somervell was G-4, he had pushed the preparation of a complete and unified Army
Supply Program. With the creation of the Army Service Forces, its staff took
over active direction of this work.
Procurement was inextricably linked
with distribution. Military supplies produced in America's industrial plants
were useless unless delivered where and when demanded for military operations.
No matter how ample the production, the entire effort was wasted unless the
supplies could be delivered to their destination for use as intended. After 1942
the ASF had to give increasing attention to all phases of supply distribution.
In the spring of 1944 the ASF
instituted a new procedure which attempted to relate procurement requirements to
actual distribution experience. At the beginning of the war future needs could
only be roughly estimated. By 1944 figures based on distribution experience made
it possible to compare estimates o( requirements
[48]
with actual consumption. This brought
into existence the supply control system which, by 30 June 1945, covered 1,887
major items making up about 75 percent of the total dollar volume of all ASF
procurement.14
In addition to other problems, wartime
supply faced a difficulty in the time lag from requisition of an item to
delivery at the point of use overseas. To be sure, this time factor varied from
item to item. Studies made in early 1945 indicated that eighty-seven days were
normally required from the receipt of a requisition at the New York Port of
Embarkation until arrival overseas of ships bearing the necessary supplies. But
such a time period assumed that the supplies needed were already available in
storage in the United States.15
At one time, the Army Service Forces set up a timetable to serve as an ideal for
the supply aspects of overseas operations. As a minimum, it contemplated that
six months would intervene between the final decision to undertake a large
military operation and the delivery of the necessary supplies overseas. And of
course the scale of operations had a further impact upon the timetable. The ASF
found that it not only had to anticipate specific operations and their supply
needs but also that it had to be prepared for almost any conceivable sudden
demand.16
The commanding general of the ASF, his
staff associates, and the heads of ASF operating units were not under the
illusion that supplies alone were winning the war. Perhaps the proper place was
indicated in a brief comment which General Somervell made to the Academy of
Political Science in January 1943. In his prepared paper for that assembly he
remarked: "Good logistics alone cannot win a war. Bad logistics alone can
lose it." 17
Lend-lease
An essential part of American military
supply operations after April 1941 was to make available under lend-lease, war
materiel to the Allies fighting Germany, Italy, and Japan. Between the passage
of the Lend-Lease Act and the end of the war, the War Department provided nearly
fifteen billion dollars worth of equipment and supplies (or other nations. Of
this, the United Kingdom received about 56 percent, Russia 25 percent, France 10
percent, China 5 percent, and other nations the remainder. Included in these
supplies were 26,000 medium tanks, nearly 800,000 trucks (including 188,000
"jeeps"), and 3,4001ocomotives.18
In lend-lease matters, the ASF was
fundamentally
an operating organization. Policy was determined either on a high political
level or by the Combined Chiefs of Staff. Nevertheless, the ASF did influence
policy through membership on various policy committees and through exercise of
its operational responsibilities. First, the Office of Lend-Lease Administration
(OLLA), and later, the Foreign Economic Administration (FEA), was the control
agency for civilian type supplies, but for military lend-lease these offices
served
[49]
only an accounting purpose. After Pearl
Harbor appropriations for military Lendlease supplies were made directly to
the War Department. The ASF procured military supplies for the U.S. Army and (or
lend-lease in a single unified production program. 19
American munitions production along
with that of the British Empire theoretically was placed in a "common
pool" to be distributed according to strategic need. To decide the problem
of strategic distribution, two Munitions Assignments Boards, one in Washington
and one in London, were set up as a part of the Combined Chiefs of Staff
machinery. The Washington Board, responsible for allocation of American
production, was composed of equal representation of the British and American
Chiefs of Staff with Harry Hopkins, the President's alter ego, as chairman. The
board was directly responsible to the Combined Chiefs of Staff, and made its
decisions in accordance with strategic guidance received from them.
Three subcommittees-Ground, Navy, and
Air-prepared allocation for thousands of different items. Each of these
subcommittees
had one British representative. The chairmanship and secretariat of the Ground
Committee were vested in the International Division, ASF, and the spadework for
all transfer schedules was largely done by members of that division. Although
these schedules had to be approved by the board, only when there was some
disagreement in the Ground Committee was this approval anything but automatic.
Once transfers were approved, the ASF was responsible for moving the supplies to
port .20
General Somervell constantly pressed
for careful forecasting of the supply requirements of Allied nations in order to
prevent undue interference of their
demands with the process of equipping U.S. divisions. Lend-lease supply
requirements were included in the Army Supply Program alongside those of the
United States. General Somervell argued that the Munitions Assignments Board
(MAB) should not allocate materials unless a procurement requirement, generally
controlled by the ASF, had been presented for it. He felt that U.S. Army needs
should get first consideration, and usually he won his point.21
Great Britain was the only full partner
of the United States in the assignments machinery. These two major powers
allocated supplies to the other Allies normally on a strategic, though sometimes
on a diplomatic basis. The Russians received lend-lease aid according to a
definite protocol drawn up through diplomatic negotiations.
Generally, the Anglo-American supply
partnership functioned smoothly, but there were some conflicts. Actually, only
the Americans had any real stock of supplies to distribute. The British
contended that allocation from American production should be made to the British
in one block for their Empire (except Canada), (or the European refugee
governments under their sponsorship, and for the small nations of the Middle
East. General Somer-
[50]
vell opposed this principle of
"proteges," and the MAB eventually ruled against it.22
Somervell tried to keep British
requirements
within reasonable limits, and to re, dace to a minimum emergency demands outside
the Army Supply Program. He instituted a rigid review of British requirements to
prevent use of lend-lease supplies for postwar economic recovery, for
nonessential
civilian purposes, and for accumulating excessive reserves. When the Middle East
ceased to be an active theater, the use of British surplus there for civilian
purposes became a serious issue. On one occasion, the Americans learned of large
supplies of rubber tires stored in Egypt, and forced the British to restate
their tire requirements.23
In the Far East, where British and American political, economic, and military
interests often diverged, Somervell, over British protest, approved a procedure
for review of British requirements by the U.S. theater headquarters.24
In the case of tanks, heavy trucks, and tractors, the United States was
virtually the sole source of supply fin the British. As a result, negotiations
over requirement sad assignment programs of these articles were always long and
difficult.25
In practice, though it was never
officially stated, the ASF and other U.S. staff agencies concerned evolved the
"residual" theory m replace that of the "common pool."
Simply stated, this principle assumed that each country had primary
responsibility to produce all munitions required for itself, and that each
country had first call on its own productive capacity.26
For obvious reasons, the British clung to the theory of the "common
pool."
Just as the British were dependent on
supplies from the United States, the Americans
sometimes were dependent on British shipping to transport their troops and
supplies. Though there were usually no overt attempts to swap British shipping
far American supplies, some of General Somervell's negotiations with the British
were essentially horse trading.
The British maintained a full military
and civilian staff is Washington to look after their interests. General
Somervell had his principal contacts with Sir Walter Venning, head of the
military section of the British Supply Council in North America, and his
assistant, Lt. Gen. George N. Macready. Sir Walter Venting was a pleasant
gentleman with whom it was easy to get along, and Somervell became quite fond of
him. General Macready, on the other hand, while an able and intelligent officer,
was difficult for Somervell to work with. He forcefully presented the British
position on every issue and stuck to it until compelled to retreat. General
Somervell clung just as tenaciously to the American position. Venning often
smoothed matters over when tempers were ruffled. General Somervell came to the
conclusion that Venning and Macready made a happy combination. Macready was
the tough man who presented unacceptable demands; Sir Walter then
[51]
stepped in and agreed to a compromise.
In the process, the British usually got as much as they originally expected.
The Russian protocols were worked out
on a yearly basis and constituted an ironclad promise of delivery by the United
States to Russia. With rare exceptions, the Munitions Assignments Board in
making allocations conformed to protocol commitments. General Somervell was the
War Department representative on the President's Soviet Protocol Committee. This
was an interdepartmental group under the chairmanship of Harry Hopkins, which
advised the President on the offerings in the protocol sad determined polity on
carrying out commitments. The ASF commander and his staff worked to keep the
offerings under the protocol within the limits imposed by shipping and other
logistical considerations. Once accepted, the President himself exerted heavy
pressure to see that commitments were fulfilled. In consequence the ASP staff
had to give priority to meeting them, sometimes even at the expense of supply or
transportation for U.S. troops. One whole overseas command, that in the Persian
Gulf, was devoted exclusively to the job of getting supplies to Russia.27
French rearmament became a major
concern after the Casablanca Conference. It was more expedient to supply French
troops already in the theater, assuming of course that they were experienced and
reliable, than it was to transport U.S. troops there. The size of the French
forces to 6e rearmed was determined in a general way at Casablanca by the
President's promises to General Giraud, later augmented by decisions of the
Combined Chiefs of Staff. The ASF staff had little to do with these decisions.
They were made largely on the advice of General Eisenhower in the theater.
Eisenhower also dictated priorities on shipping, for French rearmament was more
frequently a problem of shipping than of the availability of supplies. In July
1943 General Somervell did negotiate further understandings with General Giraud
at a series of meetings is Washington, but these agreements for the most part
reflected requests which had already been submitted by General Eisenhower.28
On the other hand, ASF responsibilities for delivery to French troops were
considerable, since supplies to the theater commander for the French were
shipped with supplies for American forces.29
Despite the fact that Chinese
lend-lease constituted only 5 percent of the total, it presented some of the
moat difficult of all logistical problems. Supplies for Chinese forces were
limited to driblets because of the lack of transportation facilities. Interested
in seeing what could be done to remedy this situation, Somervell personally
visited the area. He resisted Chinese pressure for more supplies than could 6e
transported into China, and guided himself by the advice of the American
commander
in the theater.
There was never any particular
difficulty in handling lend-lease in the Southwest Pacific because of the
harmonious relations between General MacArthur and the Australian Government.
For a time,
[52]
shipments were made to
General MacArthur for division among the national forces under his command, but
this system was abandoned by mutual agreement since the Australian Government
had better facilities for receiving and distributing supplies. MacArthur
retained the power to divert military supplies where necessary from one national
force to another .30
Although the procurement of military supplies for lend-lease was entirely
under Army control, except in limited instances, the War Shipping Administration
(WSA) took over when the supplies arrived in port. Nevertheless, the ASF had to
give careful attention to coordinating supplies with shipping. Otherwise, large
backlogs might clog depots and ports. Also, supplies would be lying idle when
they could be used for other purposes. The ASF advocated that after forty-five
days, the U.S. Army should repossess supplies assigned to, but unshipped by, a
foreign government. The Munitions Assignments Board modified the proposal by
requiring that such material should be reported to it for assignment at its
discretion.31
Actual repossessions were infrequent, but the procedure checked additional
assignments of material of which there was a backlog.
The complicated international machinery for lend-lease worked with surprising
smoothness. No doubt General Somervell's past association with Harry Hopkins and
their friendship during the war years had much to do with this happy situation
for, until ill health removed him from the scene, Hopkins was the real
lend-lease policy maker. Lend-lease was a part of the supply strategy of World
War II, and proved an admirable instrument of coalition warfare. In utilizing
it, the Army Service Forces had the major operational role.
The Relation Between Strategy and Supply
It was inevitable that the ASF should
show a special concern for the supply phases of military operations. What,
precisely,
were these "supply phases?" 32
According to the official definition of its mission, the ASF was to provide
"services and supplies to meet military requirements." Among the
seventeen duties specifically assigned to the ASF, there were only two
references to supply. One was an omnibus statement covering research,
development, procurement, storage, and distribution of supplies and equipment.
The other was "transportation and traffic control." These terse
phrases embraced an enormous complex of interrelated activities.33
[53]
All these functions were related,
directly or indirectly, to the provision of military mat6riel for combat
operations overseas. (For purposes of the present discussion,
"services" are eliminated from consideration.) To provide this
materiel and make it available to the troops overseas involved an unbroken chain
of activity extending back to the design and development of individual items
of equipment and supplies. The close interrelation among all the links of this
chain presented constant organizational difficulties which had ramifications
beyond the confines of the War Department. It constituted a continuing problem
during the war that of defining the relationship of the ASF to the War
Department
General Staff and to overseas theaters. This problem will be examined in
subsequent chapters.34 Finally, the close connection between military
procurement and control of all the nation's economic resources complicated the
relations of the ASF and of the War Department, for which it was the agent, with the War
Production Board as the principal civilian agency concerned with mobilization
of the nation's economic resources. These relations will be treated in Part
Three of the present volume.35
It was the vital relationship between
procurement and the employment of military materiel which made the ASF so
important a (actor in the conduct of military operations.36 It prevented the
ASP from being simply an operating agent for executing War Department
instructions,
and gave it instead a vital role in the determination of military strategy.
Looking back at four years of supply
operations of the most varied kinds, Somervell's planning officers attempted
at the end of the war to analyze the influence of logistics on strategy.37
They conceived the major elements to be four:
1. "Practicabilities" (i. e.,
the supply of military materiel actually available in the United States during
the time of any projected military operation).
2. Shipping and other necessary
transport
capacity in the United States.
3. Discharge and handling capacity of
ports and beaches overseas, and the overland transport capacity to the combat
areas.
4. The enemy's ability to interfere
with logistical preparations and support.
It was the function of logistical
planners, in so far as they could forecast these ele-
[54]
ments and reduce them to quantitative
terms, to determine the bottlenecks which stood in the way of projected military
operations, Having done so, they then had to find means of removing these
obstacles or, if this were not practicable, to lay down the alternatives open to
the strategic and operational planners under irreducible physical limitations.
On this basis, military objectives could then be redesigned to fit these
limitations. This, in simple terms, was the pattern of "logistical
planning,"
as it was usually referred to, for military operations. It meant, in essence,
determining in advance what could and could not be done to put in the hands of
troops the military materiel they needed to accomplish stated ends.
The process of actually providing the
support estimated to be logistically possible involved four general types of
supply operations. In the first place, troops being trained in the United States
had to be given training equipment, clothing, ammunition, and many other kinds
of supplies. In the second place, as military unit went overseas, last minute
efforts were necessary to insure that their equipment was complete and in
workable condition. Third, once the troop were overseas, they constantly had to
be supplied with fresh stocks of replacement equipment and all types of
expendable items. Wear and tear, loss, and battle destruction ate continually
into the supply of gone, tanks, communication facilities, trucks, and other
military equipment which troops had on hand. Without new stocks to replace these
losses, the battle strength of overseas troops would steadily decline the longer
they remained overseas. Supplies like ammunition, gasoline, food, and even
clothing had to be provided on a continuing basis, since these were expendable.
By the beginning of 1944, more than half of all ASF procurement was designed to provide
replacement equipment and expendable supplies
for troops already overseas.38 In the fourth place, each major area of
overseas
operations had its own special needs for supplies with which to maintain its
military operations. It had to have port facilities for unloading supplies
shipped from the United States. If these facilities were not available, or if
they were inadequate, port equipment of all kinds would have to be shipped
from the United States. After supplies were unloaded, they had m be warehoused
until required. Depots had to be constructed to handle the steady flow of
material from the United States. As troops moved farther and farther forward,
supply stocks also had to be moved up into intermediate and advance depots. This
meant that trucks and sometimes railroad rolling stock had to be sent from the
United Staten. Each overseas area required communications facilities to ensure
that commanders would have rapid and dependable contact with their subordinates.
Swift intercommunication between all parts of a vast military organization was
indispensable. Hospital facilities, troop accommodations, airfields, depots, and
roads had to be built. This required the shipment of bulldozers, caterpillar
tractors, lumber, steel, prefabricated hutments, portable bridges, cranes,
graders, coal, asphalt, cement. Specially trained troop units also had to be
sent to operate and use all this material. In certain areas, the Army had
responsibility for supplying the basic needs of the civilian population: food,
clothing, and fuel for utilities.
These needs naturally varied from one
area to another, and from one phase of
[55]
operations to the next. At one end of
the scale was the European Theater of Operations (ETO), with a troop
population running into millions, complicated rear area activities, and combat
operations gigantic in scope and intensity. At the other end was a tiny garrison
of an outpost like Ascension Island in the South Atlantic. Each presented
special problems of supply. As the war progressed, the WDGS and the ASF worked
out separate supply procedures appropriate to the support of the various types
of overseas theaters-those in the initial stage of operations; those in which
American forces had become fairly well organized, particularly with respect to
supply operations; and finally those which had become inactive after the
attainment of major objectives.
Of the four general types of supply
operations, the first two supplying troops training in the United States, and
checking equipment of units going overseas absorbed the main efforts of the
ASF during the first two years of the war, while the Army was being deployed
overseas. The fourth category supplying major areas of overseas operations by
constructing adequate port and other necessary facilities became increasingly important as
American forces in the British
Isles in 1943 built a large base establishment launching the European invasion
at the same time that large reserves were being assembled in the Pacific. From
the middle of 1943 on, the third category continuing supply of forces already
overseas steadily overshadowed the job of equipping troops in the United States
and in process of deployment. Finally, in the spring of 1945, the ASP plunged
into the huge undertaking of redeploying troops and supplies from Europe to
the Pacific for the assault upon Japan. Seriously complicating this task was the
jab of returning to the United States troops and enormous stocks of munitions
from all the areas where military operations had ceased. Starting as a thin
trickle comparatively early in the war, this countermovement increasingly
competed
with the supply of overseas operations until, with victory over Japan won in
August 1945, it became the final supply job of the Army Service Forces in World
War II.
[56]
Page Created June 13th 2001
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