ARMY IN ACTION: SLUMBERING GIANT AWAKENS

by winter 1942 1 year after Pearl Harbor our army fighting forces were building up fast and being deployed around the world fighting beside Australian troops in New Guinea on guad Canal where they had taken over from the long embattled Marines large scale amphibious Landings had been made successfully in North Africa joining up was the British and the fighting French other Army units were arriving in overseas staging areas in North Ireland England and Australia as our combat and support forces began to encircle the globe our lengthening supply lines were stretched to the utmost an army cannot fight without food clothing weapons ammunition medical supplies and services Transportation armor and aircraft that must be constantly supplied with fuel and as constantly serviced repaired or replaced during the fighting of the vast stretches of Arab desert lands in North Africa German general f ravenstein commander of the 21st Panther division remarked that North Africa is a tactician's paradise and a quartermaster's hell an American or Allied Commander could very well have made the same statement on the other side of the world in the Southwest Pacific support for the combat troops was even more difficult in an entirely different kind of War Warfare the problem of Supply is spoken of as Logistics more specifically it is the Transportation Supply and quartering of troops the procurement of all required military equipment and material shipping and distributing cargo to the right place to arrive at the right time in World War II our military planners successfully solved the most stupendous problems of logistics the world has ever known our lines of Supply fann out like a network around the world extending northward to Alaska and the ution to the Panama Canal Westward across the Pacific to a chain of islands onto China by way of India to Burma to Australia Eastward across the Atlantic to North Africa the length of the Mediterranean the Middle East and the southern route through the Persian Gulf To Russia to to Great Britain Iceland and to Russia by way of mamans in the far north and ultimately the entire continent of Europe under Lend Lease to our allies alone the services of Supply shipped approximately $25 billion worth of War material these included approximately 850,000 people pieces of heavy equipment tanks locomotives trucks free French forces in North Africa were supplied enough arms and material to equip 12 combat divisions millions of dollars worth of supplies went to China flown there from India to Russia alone over the submarine menist route to morans almost a half million pieces of heavy equipment railroad Rolling Stock and clothing vast stores of Munitions and Equipment went to England and her Commonwealth all of this while we were supplying our own widely deployed forces and building up mountains of supplies for the massive invasion of Europe Yet to Come the miracle of Supply achieved by the United un States Army in World War II was historic it represented the outpouring of a great nation's energies and resources not for Conquest but to win freedom for men who would be free everywhere Mighty America had come Fully Alive a revitalized agriculture reached the largest food production goals in the history of mankind food not only only for ourselves and our allies but for the hungry populations of the countries our armies would liberate and occupy a industrial output staggered the imagination brought renewed hope to our hardpressed allies dismay and consternation to the aggressors it Amaze even ourselves at long last the United States had come of age had found a Vitality a strength and a will to do that was phenomenal in all the animals of men and Nations great convoys of ships stretched out as far as the eye could see carrying the millions of tons of cargo we kept pouring overseas all of this in support of GI Joe and who was g Joe he was the oftimes grimy unshaven heart and soul Blood and Guts of America The Citizen Soldier The Immortal image of the American fighting man whose forefathers had starved and Frozen at Valley Forge to fight on and Triumph at Yorktown and again a few years later at the Battle of New Orleans he had been a raw recruit at Bull Ron but emerged the Victor at Gettysburg and the winner of a great and tragic Civil War at appadoo he was the man who drove the enemy to defeat at chat tii at San Mel and the Muse argon he was and is the American Soldier personified and who were his leaders Marshall Eisenhower MacArthur McNair Bradley de Pon Clark Hodes Krueger Eichelberger patch men like Maller men who Poss possessed the indomitable spirit and Genius of Washington when field Scott Andrew Jackson Grant Sherman Sheridan George gme Robert E Lee John J persing this was the heritage of American Military leadership in World War II a Heritage they could not and would not fail their one and only goal Victory from Buck privates to fourstar generals these were the Priceless outpouring of America's greatest resource the product of more than a century and a half of freedom of democracy in action of a great dream that their forefathers had fought for and made a reality and which these their sons were fighting to preserve but even amidst the tensions of War there were precious hours of respit in which battle weary men found rest and relaxation and brief moments of humor but when they fought they fought to win theirs was a Sublime dedication theirs was a glory the world would not soon forget while the fighting was continuing in North Africa president Roosevelt and prime minister Churchill met at Casablanca to determine further strategical moves they agreed on four major points invade Sicily and Italy at the first opportunity intensify counterattacks against Hitler's submarines and launch a combined bomber offensive on Germany begin preparing for a major offensive in the Pacific except nothing short of UNC render as a basis for ending the war this was the kind of positive top level determination the Free World had long awaited there was Swift response on all fighting fronts Tripoli fell to the British eth army in bitter fighting Nazi tanks hurled back Allied Forces to the Algerian border but then combined American British and French units stopped the German Italian drive at cerine and overran Tunisia in the Pacific on Bloody guad Canal fighting an entirely different kind of warfare United States troops overcame the last fanatical Japanese resistance and won complete control of the island and its airfields in the battle of the bismar sea Allied bombers sank eight transports and four destroyers of a Japanese Convoy of 16 ships 181 days after the Allied Landings in North Africa Tunis and bizer fell before the drive of American British and French horses the drive reached its full Fury with lightning speed in the air and on the ground the enemy was hit harder and harder crushed in Ace from which there was no Escape in 5 days all German resistance in Tunisia collapsed the axis forces surrendered the myth of Hitler's super race was beginning to crack in the far away uan Islands American troops had landed on ATU still farther away in New Guinea Australian troops drove back the stubborn and fanatical enemy in close fighting in malaria infested jungles among the battle casualties we had suffered while fighting in the bua area were three of our general officers shot in action within less than 100 yards of the Japanese lines from victories on the deserts of North Africa the fog bound illusions to the tropical island of guad canal and the New Guinea jungles where our troops were driving forward against desperate Japanese resistance we had indeed spread our forces around the world who was it that once said the United States wasn't capable of fighting a two-front war within less than 16 months the United States Navy had performed a miracle of Salvage of all the ships sunk or damaged on December 7th 1941 at Pearl Harbor all but three were back in service and in fighting trem by May 1943 an achievement on a scale unequaled in Naval History and run the Germans had taken virtually all of Stalingrad by late 1942 their Conquest was short live early in 1943 the Russians launched a massive C retook Stalingrad destroying a Nazi army of 330,000 capturing 17 of Hitler's generals the tide had started to turn in Russia in June of 1943 hundreds of Royal Air Force planes engaged in a Non-Stop aerial offensive over occupied Europe that continued unremittingly for 10 days why the tide was turning in the air over Hitler's Fortress Europe American Army Navy and Air Forces along with those of Australia and New Zealand launched a concerted offensive to drive the Japanese out of New Guinea and the northern Solomon Islands enemy forces on Renova Island were wiped out our troops drove for the Munda airfield on new Georgia Island with all of North Africa in Allied hands preparations for operation husky were begun immediately to attack the soft underbelly of Europe the immediate Target Sicily little time was lost only 60 days after the surrender of axis forces in North Africa Patton's seventh Army invaded Sicily simultaneously with British and Canadian troops under Montgomery some 3,000 craft were employed to land on initial force of 160,000 troops almost 14,000 Vehicles about 600 tanks nearly 2,000 guns but Sicily was held by more than 200,000 Italian and German troops strongly entrenched on rugged terrain it was to be a tough hard B campaign we invaded Sicily just 18 months after Pearl Harbor actually an incredibly short period of time for a peaceful and unprepared Nation to have accomplished so much to have come so far it was was a brilliant reflection of our military planning and the energy and Enterprise that implemented that planning it was America at its Dynamic best the forces of agriculture industry labor and management finance and Manpower coordinated with the military what the United States alone did in those first 18 months will live long in history yes we had come along long way but we still had far to go in Europe still farther in the Pacific it would be 11 months after the invasion of Sicily before we could build up and coordinate the massive ground air and sea forces for the invasion of Normandy 11 months of bitter fighting in Italy and the vast island chain in the Pacific a