Red Ball Express
Red Ball Express was the code name for one of the largest logistical operations of World War II . It consisted of a fleet of 5,958 trucks and trailers that delivered over 412,000 tons of ammunition , food and fuel to the Allied armies on the Western European front between August 25 and November 16, 1944 .
The drivers deployed, the Red Ball Truckers , loaded supplies, especially petrol and ammunition, into the Red Ball depots and drove them to depots behind the front.
About 75 percent of all drivers were African American . This resulted from the attitude of the commanding officers at the time that blacks had no attitude towards fighting. Therefore, they were used almost exclusively in supply and service units.
The name Red Ball goes back to the marking of express goods in rail transport in the USA.
background
World War II was the first truly motorized war. Quartermasters found themselves exposed to an unprecedented level of demand for fuel, oil and lubricants (English: Petroleum, Oils and Lubricants (POL) ) in all theaters of war worldwide . Operation Torch, a relatively small operation in North Africa, required no less than 10 million gallons of gasoline (approx. 38 million liters). The Allied logisticians transported the “red material” from the beaches across the desert in five-gallon “lightning” canisters (19 liters), tankers or newly designed mobile pipelines. The knowledge gained here and from the operations in Sicily and Italy benefited the much larger invasion of Normandy in June 1944.
The invasion of the English Channel known as Operation Overlord was preceded by months of intense preparation. Allied logisticians worked out a detailed plan to supply their own troops with POL on the European continent. All vehicles participating in the invasion should reach the beaches with full tanks and additional containers of five gallons of gasoline each. Further intensive care was planned for the initial phase up to the 41st day. Since the planners assumed a slow but steady advance of the Allied units to the east from this time on, their planning envisaged an equally calm but intensive construction of a basic supply platform with depots close to the front. After the capture of Cherbourg , planned for the 15th day of the invasion, the laying of three 6-inch pipelines (15.24 cm) was planned, which would then run to Paris .
Much depended on the success of this operation. The pipelines should be placed as close as possible to the advancing units so that about 90 percent of the required fuel could be delivered through them. The Overlord Advance should officially end after 90 days upon reaching the Seine . In the following period, up to a year after the landing, an advance to the Rhine was planned, where the final phase of the war was expected. For this purpose, strategically well-located locations for the placement of large service points were selected.
From the point of view of the logisticians, everything went according to plan from D-Day . The first vehicles rolled ashore and the crews immediately began to set up the petrol can depots in the designated places. This method of open camps made the class III supplies easily accessible to the combat groups. From the sixth day of the invasion, work began to move these deposits further inland.
Although the Germans tried hard to fight the Allies, they did not succeed in pushing back the bridgehead . By the end of June it had grown considerably. The Allied combat groups advanced around 40 kilometers through the difficult-to-access area of the Bocage inland. A quick breakout from the bridgehead was initially unsuccessful. This also had a direct positive and negative impact on the supply situation. By the 21st day after the start of the invasion, 177,000 vehicles and half a million tons of material had already been brought ashore, where they were accumulating in huge stores. The POL reserves exceeded 28 million liters. However, since Cherbourg could not be captured as planned, the plan to build the pipelines had to be dropped and the supply of POL had to take place from the camps for weeks.
In the last week of July, the outbreak finally succeeded ( Operation Cobra ). After a massive bombing of the German positions on July 25, the 1st US Army under General Omar Bradley managed to break through the German lines at Saint-Lô . The following day, three armored divisions quickly advanced more than 40 kilometers south to the base of the Cotentin Peninsula . This gave me the unique opportunity to confront and destroy the German units that were leaving with a quick pursuit. In view of this possibility, the Allies rejected many of the previously worked out plans. The 1st and 3rd US Armies were united on August 1 to form the 12th US Army Group, which immediately began the war of movement.
Due to the low resistance of the German defenders, the Allies succeeded in gaining success after success across northern France. While George S. Patton's 3rd Army rushed west into Brittany and south towards Le Mans , they used an average of more than 1.4 million liters of gasoline a day. A week after the army's activation, on August 7th, its reserves were practically exhausted. Patton was dependent on the supply of gas cans from the back room by truck. This enabled him to maintain the mobility of his units for another three weeks until they were stopped by the critical supply situation with gasoline.
The turning point came in the week of August 20-26, 1944. During this period, the 1st and 3rd US Armies were embroiled in a rapid chase after the Germans, during which they developed an insatiable thirst for fuel. During that one week the fuel consumption was higher than ever before. On average, well over 3 million liters of gasoline were used per day. The 3rd US Army alone consumed 2.95 million liters on August 24th. The next day the Allied troops reached the Seine and French and American units entered Paris without a fight .
The decision to cross the Seine and advance further east without waiting for the supply lines to be fully established meant a significant departure from the actual Overlord plan. Bradley said on August 27, "The armies will continue as far as is practical, and then wait until the supply system in their rear area allows another advance." After crossing the Seine, the armies not only stretched Their supply lines continued to expand, and the length of the front line to be supplied doubled. The lack of supply quickly became noticeable when the replenishment deliveries dwindled to a fraction. For several days the divisions had to live practically from hand to mouth and improvise. 90 to 95 percent of all supplies were still in the depots in Normandy. After the eruption, Allied troops had advanced more than 480 kilometers inland from the landing beaches in one month. There was an urgent need to set up an efficient supply system.
The Red Ball Express
The Red Ball Express was born
In order to close the gap between the troops and the camps in Normandy, a desperate action was taken to build a one-way loop, the Red Ball Express, stretching over a distance of around 250 kilometers . He started on August 25th with 67 truck companies on a fixed, cordoned off route between Saint-Lô and Chartres , southwest of Paris. Just four days later it reached a high of 132 truck companies with 5,958 vehicles.
The drivers came from all units that were not intended for direct use at the front. Anyone who had a truck driver's license was assigned and men who had never driven a truck were given about an hour's briefing.
To ensure that everything ran smoothly, pioneers were assigned to control the roads and bridges. Military police were stationed at the crossing points to instruct the vehicles in the correct direction and to record historical data. Brightly colored signs were placed along the streets, which kept the drivers on the right track and at the same time informed them about the achievements to be achieved. Repair posts and experts in fuel handling were spread across the entire route. Crashed vehicles were pulled from the lane and mostly repaired on the spot or towed to the nearest base.
Since the traffic was maintained around the clock, the drivers had to strictly adhere to a set of rules. For example, the vehicles had to drive in convoys , in front of and behind which a jeep drove to accompany them , and each had to maintain a distance of 55 meters. The specified speed of 40 km / h could not be exceeded and no other vehicle could be overtaken, as all trucks were numbered. After dark, the drivers were allowed to use normal driving lights as opposed to the reflectors otherwise used for safety . Each truck was marked with a round red sign 6 inches in diameter.
Bivouacs were set up about halfway along the individual routes so that the drivers could relax. There were camp beds and kitchens in which hot meals were prepared.
The vehicles were also used to transport prisoners, wounded and dead on the way back from the front lines. Since the trucks had to be ready for use again quickly, the service people mostly only cleaned the loading platforms superficially, so that they were often still stained red with blood.
Although the convoys were rarely attacked by German fighter planes, but there was a possibility, some drivers had a machine gun installed in the driver's cab. Many wagons were equipped with long steel brackets at the front to trigger detonation wires from mines at an early stage . In addition, the drivers had covered the floor of the driver's cab with sandbags to prevent splinters from entering. So that the pressure of a grenade explosion when German artillery fire did not lead to injuries, almost all trucks did not have a windshield .
Fuel for the front
At the end of August, Dwight D. Eisenhower decided to let most of the gasoline shipments go to the 1st US Army and the 21st British Army Group . This was done at the expense of the 3rd US Army from Patton. On August 31, its allocation dropped from 400,000 gallons (approx. 1.5 million liters) to just 31,000 (approx. 115,000 liters). This forced his army to halt, and Patton complained fiercely about Eisenhower's decision at a meeting on September 2.
But the crisis lasted only a short time. The hastily assembled Red Ball convoys quickly managed to get the fuel they needed to the front. At the end of the first week of September, the trucks unloaded the replenishment deliveries immediately after they arrived and transported them to the front lines, so that the consumption rates rose again quickly to 3 million liters per day. The US 3rd Army's fuel shortage ended as quickly as it came. In mid-September, delivery rates of around 3.7 million liters a day were achieved, so that the establishment of reserve depots could begin on site.
The Red Ball Express was originally only scheduled to run until September 5, but continued until mid-November. In total, it transported more than 500,000 t of supplies. The system brought the fuel - not always efficiently, but quickly - to the front-line units to ensure their progress. Very important was the time relief for the crews who repaired the railway lines in northern France and built the pipelines for the final advance to Germany.
The end of the Red Ball Express
Although the supply transports ran relatively smoothly over a distance of more than 650 kilometers and the quartermasters played their part, the end came due to the excessive price that had to be paid for them. The constant day-and-night operation put a strain on the drivers and their vehicles. As the same trucks were used over and over again without adequate maintenance, there was soon a shortage of spare parts and the number of driver failures increased. The need for replacement tires increased from around 30,000 before the Red Ball Express launched to 55,000 in September. The situation was exacerbated by the fact that the drivers exceeded the required maximum speed more and more often and the trucks were very often overloaded even though they had already been approved for double the load. In addition, there was frequent driving when tired and there were even cases of self-sabotage, in which drivers made their vehicles unfit to drive just to get a break from sleeping.
Another deficiency arose over time: the small canisters for transporting the fuel ran out. The canisters were refilled in their depots on the beaches, loaded and, after delivery and use, carelessly thrown into the ditches . In order to ensure a response, many quartermasters called on the local population by means of leaflets for help. The bottleneck could only be eliminated by the increased production numbers of small canisters in the USA.
In the end, the biggest problem became the increasingly distant front lines, which barely enabled the vehicles to be transported economically. In the end, the Red Ball Express needed around 1 million liters of fuel a day just to keep its own vehicles moving.
In early September 1944, the Allies captured the port of Antwerp , the largest port in Belgium and one of the largest North Sea ports. They were able to use this after Canadian forces in the Battle of the Scheldt estuary (October 2 to November 8, 1944) fought free the Walcheren peninsula , which is north of the port on the other side of the Scheldt estuary. The first convoy entered the port on November 28th. From then on, the supply flows and routes changed considerably.
Korean War
Also during the Korean War the Americans named the supply convoys on the road from Seoul to Pyongyang called Red Ball Express . More than 300 trucks were involved here.
reception
In 1952 the film Red Ball Express was made with actors like Jeff Chandler and Sidney Poitier (director: Budd Boetticher ).
In the computer game Company of Heroes there is a mission in which the player has to open a route for the Red Ball Express and then protect it.
literature
- Yves Lecouturier: Discovery Paths - The Beaches of the Allied Landing. Memorial de Caen, Morstadt 2003, ISBN 3-88571-287-3 .
- David Colley: The Road to Victory: The Untold Story of Race and World War II's Red Ball Express. Brassey's UK Ltd., 2001, ISBN 1-57488-302-X .
Web links
- THE RED BALL EXPRESS, 1944 on the side of the US Army Transportation Museum ( English )
- http://www.skylighters.org/redball/ ( English )
- http://www.fatherryan.org/blackmilitary/redball.htm ( English )
- http://www.defenselink.mil/news/Feb2002/n02152002_200202151.html ( English )
- "Highballing to Victory" - Documentary film of the US Department of Defense from 1944 ( English )
Individual evidence
- ↑ Red Ball Express in the Internet Movie Database (English)