GLOBAL LOGISTICS AND STRATEGY: 1940-1943. By Richard M. Leighton and Robert W. Coakley. (1955, 1984; 780 pages, 25 tables, 19 charts, 9 maps, 59 illustrations, 9 appendixes, bibliographical note, glossaries, index, CMH Pub 1-5.)

This volume covers U. S. Army logistics, primarily of ground forces, in its relation to global strategy during the period of American preparation for World War II and the first eighteen months of participation. It forms the capstone for the structure of histories dealing with logistical activities, of which such theater histories as Logistical Support of the Armies and The Persian Corridor and Aid to Russia, the War Department volumes on materiel procurement and industrial relations, and the technical service volumes provide the base. It is a companion piece to Strategic Planning for Coalition Warfare: 1941-1942 and Washington Command Post: The Operations Division, since it treats logistics on the same general plane as that on which these volumes treat strategy.

The point of view is that of the central administration in Washington-Joint and Combined Chiefs of Staff, the War Department General Staff, and the Services of Supply. The dramatic personae are the officials of these agencies and of their civilian counterparts such as the War Shipping Administration and War Production Board; theater commanders; the U.S. President and British Prime Minister and their advisers; and other officials of the Allied governments. The major areas with which the volume deals are those that most concerned the high command-global aspects of transportation, division of resources among theaters, allocation of materiel to Allied nations, coordination of logistical support of joint Army-Navy operations, development of effective planning techniques for anticipating requirements in both men and materiel, organizational and administrative difficulties in mobilizing and expanding the nation's military power, the delicate relationships between strategy and logistics, and the frictions of interagency and inter-Allied coordination in these fields. The most persistent theme is the chronic, pervasive competition for resources-between theaters, between services, and between nations engaged in a coalition war.

The story of logistical plans and operations is developed concurrently with that of the evolution of the central administration that carried them on. This evolution of administration involved the wartime reshaping of Army organization, the creation of new joint and combined agencies, and the definition of relationships between civilian and military authority in such fields as shipping and war production.

The emphasis is on materiel rather than personnel, though troop shipping and service troops are treated in some detail, and the general problem of military manpower is outlined. Requirements for munitions and their allocation and distribution provide the central thread; industrial mobilization and war production are discussed only insofar as they affected these processes. In the prewar period the focus is on materiel shortages and competing needs of the expanding U.S. Army and those nations to whom American aid was pledged under the Lend-Lease Act. This theme continues into the post-Pearl Harbor period, but the emphasis shifts to the shortage of shipping-the primary factor in shaping all strategic and logistical plans during 1942 and early 1943. The volume describes how the American effort at first centered on strengthening positions in the Pacific, then shifted to preparations for early invasions

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of Europe, then to invasion of North Africa. Subsidiary efforts were devoted to supporting the British in the Middle East, developing supply routes to the USSR, and securing the Allied base in India for support to China. The result was a dispersion of resources that American strategic planners vainly resisted.

Specific logistical problems in each area growing out of this dispersion are treated in the "operational" chapters (VI, VII, XIV-XXI); concurrent development of policies, procedures, and organization for the long pull in Chapters VIII-XIII. A final section (XXII-XXVI) brings all of these developments into focus in the period of the Casablanca Conference (January 1943) and after. Considerable emphasis is devoted to the complexities of administering military lend-lease aid-the establishment of an Anglo-American common pool of supplies, the machinery for allocating materiel from it in accordance with strategic need, and the peculiar problems arising in the delivery of supplies to the USSR, China, the Middle East, and French North Africa (III, IV, X, XI, XVIII-XXI). A concluding chapter surveys the problems of logistical planning and salient features of the Army's logistical effort through spring 1943.

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