Global logistics and strategy PDF
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UNITED STATES ARMY IN WORLD WAR II The War Department GLOBAL LOGISTICS AND STRATEGY 1940-1943 by Richard M. Leighton and Robert W Coakley CENTER OF MILITARY HISTORY UNITED STA 1'£S ARMY c., WASHiNGTON, D. J9 95 Foreword The present volume, and its successor, depict a massive achievement: the performance by the Army of the task of effecting the orderly assembly, move- ment, and delivery of great masses of men and matériel throughout the world to meet not only American requirements but also those of the other nations fighting the Axis. The authors show how the demands of this task affected American strategy and how it reacted on the shape and mission of the Army. These volumes present the outlook of the War Department as a whole on this task, rather than that of any one agency or command of the Army. Two other volumes in the same subseries will deal with the Army's procurement of munitions and supplies from that standpoint. The rest of the logistical story will be told in volumes on the Army Service Forces, the seven technical services, and the theaters of operations. Logistical tasks account in large measure for the enormous administrative machinery that the Army developed in the course of the war. Its development, though not a complete surprise, exceeded all anticipations. The demand for service troops seemed insatiable and required repeated revisions of the troop basis. With this went a "proliferation of overhead" in the form of complex controls and higher headquarters that ate up officers needed for the training and leading of fighting troops, drew into the service a multitude of specialists, and confused the chain of command. The trend ran counter to the traditional American belief that the overriding mission of the Army is to fight, a conviction so deep that some commanders, like General McNair, fought to keep the Army lean and simple. In World War II they lost this fight. Those who fear that administration is supplanting combat as the primary mission of the Army will find much to ponder in this book and its companion volumes. A. C. SMITH Washington, D. C. Major General, USA 12 March 1954 Chief, Military History vii The Authors Richard M. Leighton, who received the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in History from Cornell University, has taught in Brooklyn College, the University of Cincinnati, and George Washington University. During World War II, com- missioned in the Quartermaster Corps, he was assigned to the Control Division, Headquarters, Army Service Forces, as a historical officer, and wrote various studies on the organization and administration of that command. Robert W. Coakley, who has a Ph. D. in History from the University of Virginia, has taught in that university, Tulane University, the University of Arkansas, and the Fairmont State College, West Virginia. After serving as a noncommissioned officer in Headquarters Battery, 927th Field Artillery Bat- talion, 102d Infantry Division, he became a member of the Historical Division of ETOUSA and USFET and wrote for that office the studies, "Organization and Command in ETO" and "Supply of the Army of Occupation." Since 1948 the authors have been members of the Logistics Section of this Office. Dr. Leighton is chief of the section. viii Preface The great conflict of 1939-45 was not the first world war (nor even the second), nor was it the first war that drove some of its participants close to the limits of their material resources. But in the combination of these characteristics it brought forth problems, in the technical and administrative spheres, of a degree if not of a kind that was new in the history of warfare. World War II pro- duced, in effect, a new logistics—new in that it was at once interconnected and global. Every local logistical problem was part of a larger whole; none could be settled without consideration of the impact its settlement would have on other local problems, often in a widening circle of repercussions rippling clear around to the other face of the world. As the war itself was global, the logistics of each battle or campaign often had world-wide ramifications, even though the outcome of the operation itself might be purely local in its effects. A handful of landing craft, two or three freighters, a few precious tanks used at one spot might mean a desperate lack somewhere else. In this volume we have viewed the logistical problems of the U.S. Army in World War II from the point of view that most accentuated their interconnected and global character—the point of view of the high command and staffs in Washington. We have confined ourselves to those large problems that more or less constantly engaged the attention of the high command: transportation across oceans and continents—division of effort and resources in a coalition of sovereign, unequally endowed nations, different in their interests and outlook— co-ordination of logistical support of "joint" operations employing land, sea, and air power in varying admixtures—development of effective planning tech- niques for anticipating needs in men and matériel long before they emerged— organizational and administrative difficulties attendant upon mobilization and an unprecedented expansion of the nation's military power—the delicate rela- tionships between strategy and logistics, especially in the formulation of strategic plans—the frictions of interagency co-ordination, both within the Military Establishment and between it and the civilian authorities. The most persistent theme is the chronic, pervasive competition for resources—a competition that was scarcely diminished even when the war machine began to pour out those resources with a prodigality the world had never before seen. This approach has its disadvantages. In looking out from the center at a distant horizon, so to speak, we may have missed some of the hard and hum- drum reality of logistics, as many of our readers no doubt experienced it— ix
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