THE TRANSPORTATION CORPS: OPERATIONS OVERSEAS. By Joseph Bykofsky and Harold Larson. (1957, 1972, 1990; 671 pages, 3 tables, 7 charts, 12 maps, 17 illustrations, bibliographical note, glossaries, index, CMH Pub 10-21.)
Operations Overseas treats the role of the corps in providing transportation for American forces and equipment overseas on a large scale, over invasion beaches, in ports, and on internal lines of communications by rail, highway, and waterway, since indigenous facilities were in most cases inadequate. Employment of local manpower and facilities was indispensable, and the authors describe the problems of language, labor relations, pilferage, safety, and military security that the corps had to meet under widely diverse conditions around the globe. Given a shortage of trained American transportation personnel, it had often to rely on untrained service and combat troops, while its problems were multiplied by the scarcity of base and storage facilities in the Pacific, North Africa, and the Aleutians; by the widespread destruction of ports and railroads in Europe; and by long and unsatisfactory lines of communications in North Africa and Iran and in the China-Burma-India Theater. Its operations were also hampered by the tendency of overseas commands to use oceangoing vessels as floating warehouses, which, for example, created massive shipping tie-ups off the coast of Normandy and in the Pacific. In Europe the corps had to meet the crisis that arose from inadequate provision of heavy motor transport equipment and drivers in planning for the invasion of the Continent in 1944, a deficiency that had grave effects after the breakout at St. Lo when the rapidly advancing American armies outdistanced their supply.
Key topics:
1. Railways as bulk carriers in support of military operations in North
Africa, Sicily, and Italy (Chs. IV, V); in northwestern Europe (Chs. VI,
VII, VIII); in the Philippines (Ch. X); in Iran (Ch. IX); in Alaska and
western Canada (Ch. II); and in India and Burma (Ch. XII).
2. Use of inland waterways to augment available means of transport (Chs.
II, VIII, IX, XII).
3. Inter-Allied planning and coordination of movements in theaters, particularly
in connection with the buildup of U.S. forces in Britain (Ch. III); the
conduct of operations in the Mediterranean (Chs. IV, V); and the planning
and execution of the cross-Channel invasion (Chs. X, XI).
4. Utilization of indigenous manpower and facilities, especially in the
United
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Kingdom (Ch. III); the Mediterranean (Chs. IV, V); northwestern Europe
(Chs. VI, VII, VIII); Iran (Ch. IX); Australia (Ch. X); India and China
(Ch. XII).
5. Control of shipping in unified commands (SWPA and POA) dependent primarily
on water transportation (Chs. X, XI).
6. Over-the-beach operations of supply in the Aleutians (Ch. II); the Mediterra-nean
(Chs. IV, V); France (Ch. VI); and the Pacific (Chs. X, XI).
7. The role of motor transport in providing flexible support for advancing
armies (Chs. II, IV-X, XII).
8. Animal transport in Sicily and Italy (Ch. V).