During World War II, the Quartermaster Corps' policy was to train soldiers as individual specialists first, then teach them to work as teams within specialized units. Between 1939 and 1945, the Corps fielded more than 40 different types of divisional and nondivisional units to carry out various supply and service functions. TO&Es (tables of organization and equipment were constantly being revised throughout the war to make them more flexible and efficient -- and meet the needs of a global struggle.
Historical Background. From the Revolutionary War until the beginning of the 20th century, Quartermaster activities in the field were performed almost exclusively by civilian employees such as teamsters, stevedores, depot operators, blacksmiths and mechanics, with the aid of combat soldiers detailed from the line. Generally speaking, soldiers were required to cook their own meals, repair clothing and equipment as best they could, even bury their fallen comrades themselves when the need arose.
In 1912, the Quartermaster Department was reorganized and "militarized." It became the Quartermaster Corps much as we know it today: with trained specialists and separate units. There were only four types of units at the start of World War I (truck, bakery, pack, and wagon companies), but the number expanded to 28 by war's end. Their performance received fairly high marks. Because many of the service units were of the "fixed" variety, it was not uncommon for a doughboy at the front to have to walk 20 or 25 miles to the rear to get his "de-lousing" or to have his shoes repaired.
The bulky, cumbersome division supply trains of World War I were replaced by Quartermaster regiments in the mid-1930s, and these by QM battalions at the start of World War II. The newly designed, fast-moving, lighter "triangular" divisions required still smaller, more flexible support units. So, by 1943, a wide assortment of nondivisional Quartermaster companies were attached to armies, corps, divisions and other large tactical units as needed to provide them with supplies, transportation, petroleum support, repair and maintenance, and field services. What follows is a general description of some of those companies and their significance on the battlefield.
The fresh bread baked by the QM Bakery Companies was a necessity for the health and morale of the troops. Insufficient bread means hungry soldiers. Demand for bread in the front lines was constant, requiring most bakery companies to operate 24 hours daily. On the Anzio beachhead, 80 bakers turned out 27,000 pounds of bread every day while under fire. On crossing the Rhine, troops of the First Army, which had been subsisting on emergency rations, were issued fresh bread. Reports indicated that the morale of the troops strengthened considerably.
In the Pacific Theater, bread was considered so important that it was flown from rear areas to troops on the scattered forward islands. On an island in the South Pacific, a bakery company used breakfast cereal to bake whole wheat bread, which improved the menu and lifted the morale of the troops. Early in the war, a bakery company on Guadalcanal furnished 20 pounds of bread per 100 men to 75,000 troops, using World War I equipment.
In the African campaign, a Quartermaster bakery company produced 5,000,000 pounds of bread from June to October 1943. Five bakery companies of the Third Army roasted 800,000 pounds of coffee. Another Quartermaster bakery company baked 6,000,000 pounds of bread in 5 months.
The company was made up of 2 platoons, with 3 officers and 198 enlisted personnel. Each of the two platoons had a repair unit which could be set up independently for the repair of shoes, clothing and textiles. It was equipped with six van-type semitrailers: two for shoe repair, two for clothing repair, and two for textile repair. The equipment was portable and could be installed in tents or buildings as needed.
The QM Salvage Repair Company could do repair work for at least 50,000 troops under field conditions. It was estimated that in combat each company could save the U.S. Government $300,000 to $400,000 per month.
In Africa, Europe and the Pacific islands, salvage repair companies worked at top speed to keep GI feet marching toward the enemy. One company repaired 10,000 pairs of shoes in a single month. Over a period of 6 months, another unit repaired 56,000 pairs of shoes and approximately 400,000 other items.
Answering an emergency call from the Army Air Forces, one Quartermaster Salvage Repair Company improvised more than 300 safety belts for B-29 gunners, providing them with an effective item of equipment while they were engaged in the bombing of Tokyo.
QM Laundry Companies had 2 platoons of 2 sections each, with 265 enlisted soldiers and 5 officers. Their equipment consisted of commercial-type washers, extractors, and dryers mounted on 16 semitrailers. Each unit could pump its own water from a stream or lake, generate its own electricity, and could wash and dry about 125 pounds of laundry an hour.
By working two, eight-hour shifts a day, seven days a week, a QM Laundry Company could furnish laundry service for 48,000 troops a week. A single platoon could service 12,000, and a section could service 6,000 troops a week.
In all theaters, laundry companies supported troops in the field. For example, a laundry company in the Pacific washed 1,358,491 pieces in one month and 1,272,244 pieces in the next. In the Fifth Army (Italy), 50 tons of clothing were washed daily by laundry units working at bath-clothing exchange points.
Laundry companies inn the Ninth Army reduced trench foot (frostbite) among troops by a daily exchange of socks. Clean socks were issued as part of the ration, and soiled socks were returned for washing and later reissue. During the bitter winter fighting, laundry units exchanged wet, soggy blankets of combat troops for clean blankets washed by the mobile laundry units.
Organized in three platoons with three sections in each platoon, the QM Refrigeration Company could supply a field army of 150,000 men with its daily quota of fresh foods and other perishable supplies. Each of the company's 30 refrigerated semitrailers had a capacity of 10,000 pounds, giving the company a total capacity of 300,000 pounds. One platoon could supply a corps (about 50,000 men). A single section could serve a division.
Battle-weary GIs would cheer the sight of these huge vans in the combat areas, eager for the fresh food they carried -- always a welcome relief from the monotony of preserved rations. In Alaska and other theaters with below-freezing temperatures, the insulated vans of these versatile units were used to keep perishables from freezing.
The refrigerator vans also transported life-giving blood plasma, vaccines, and other perishable medical supplies to hospitals and aid stations.
The QM Base Petroleum Supply Company consisted of a headquarters, depot section, and three operating platoons. Each platoon had a platoon headquarters, a canning section, and a cleaning section. The company had four 100-gallon and four 30-gallon-per-minute dispensers, eight rotary-barrel pumps, and four engine-driven can washers to keep the gas containers in good condition.
Also, the company was provided with six 3,000-gallon capacity collapsible containers for storing petroleum products and had sufficient five-gallon gasoline to carry out its mission. The company's main organic transport consisted of eight 2 1/2-ton cargo trucks and nine one-ton cargo trailers. The company would attempt to maintain a reserve of 100,000 gallons of gasoline in five-gallon cans and approximately 15 tons of lubricants. It could clean and fill 20,000 five-gallon containers daily from its bulk gasoline supply.
During World War II, it would take over 159 gallons of gas to move an Infantry division one mile. An Armored division took 725 gallons of gas to move the same distance. A Field Army used well over 5 million gallons of gas a month.
QM Truck Companies provided motor transportation for Army personnel and supplies. In all areas of a theater of operations, from the ports of debarkation to the fighting fronts, Quartermaster trucks hauled troops, prisoners, food, gasoline, animals, weapons -- in fact, anything that had to be transported from Ammunition to Zippers.
"Light" truck companies were equipped with 48 2 1/2-ton general cargo trucks, while "Heavy" truck companies had 48 tractor-trucks or 96 10-ton stake and platform semitrailers. Both types of companies might also be supplied with tanker trucks for hauling gasoline products.
QM Truck Companies made victory possible. Over 45 truck companies were awarded the invasion arrowhead for participating in amphibious landings. Truck companies in of the Fifth Army, in addition to their other hauling, delivered 1,500 tons of food, 1,800 tons of gasoline, and 50 tons of clothing daily. A heavy truck company delivered 27 million gallons of gasoline to the Seventh Army in 38 days.
During the Battle of the Bulge, another company operated continuously for 36 hours to move troops and barely escaped as the Germans broke through. From November 1944 to February 1945, truck companies in the Ninth Army hauled 300,000 tons of supplies and 200,000 troops while driving 2.5 million miles. Twenty thousand drivers of 174 truck companies delivered 200,000 tons of supplies from Cherbourg to the lines beyond Paris during the 26-day life of the Red Ball Express.
The drivers often operated 24 hours a day, sleeping in their trucks and eating cold C-Rations for days on end. They earned the respect of combat troops and led General Patton to observe, late in the war: "The two-and-a-half-ton truck is our most valuable weapon."
The QM Service Company, which consisted of two platoons of four sections each, provided military personnel to perform a wide range of general labor. They were trained, for example, to pull guard duty, ice refrigerator cars, collect and bury the dead, recover salvage articles, handle gasoline and oil, load vehicles and equipment, operate materials handling equipment, load and unload ships -- and much more. Truly they were "jacks of all trades."
Throughout the world, wherever U.S. troops were fighting, men of the QM Service Company were at their heels with the supplies needed to sustain victory. High troop morale and efficiency were maintained because food, clothing, weapons, equipment and fuel were at the right place at the right time through the back-breaking effort and "know-how" of labor personnel.
In the North African campaign, the remarkable movement of the entire II Corps from the southern to the northern sector was accomplished in five days, complete with supply installations. It took the Germans completely by surprise. Credit for the success of this tactical move was due in large measure to the excellent support of QM labor troops.
The QM Fumigation and Bath (F and B) Company (Mobile) made sure that battle-weary troops near the front were free of disease-carrying lice and other parasites, and provided them with hot showers and clean clothes. Authorized equipment included 24 shower heads and 6 prefabricated fumigation chambers where methyl bromide gas was administered. The 85-man company could serve approximately 3,600 troops in a 12-hour day.
It was said that no other support unit contributed more to the physical well-being and morale of the combat troops. One QM F and B company took over the facilities of Germany's largest coal mine and operated a 200-head shower for 4,000 men per day. Another company operating with the Fifth Army in Italy gave 1,081,115 showers in a 194-day period.
In the European Theater, typhus cases reached an all-time low. For example, not a single case was reported in the Fifth Army up to 19 August 1944. No small share of the credit for this remarkable record goes to the men who organized and operated the QM F and B Companies.
The QM graves registration company supervised the collection and burial of the dead, marked and recorded the graves of each deceased person on the battlefield, and disposed of personal effects. The 260-man company had three platoons, with three sections each. The platoon was the basic working unit and was designed to serve a division. Each of the three sections of the platoon was divided into two squads: a collecting squad and an evacuation squad.
Immediate burial of the battle dead was important for sanitary and morale reasons. This work was often done under hazardous conditions. One outstanding example of such service is the record of a QM Graves Registration Company which scrambled ashore on D-Day with the First Army and gathered bodies from the beaches, in the water, and inland. Many bodies had to be cut from wrecked landing craft submerged in the shallow water. By the end of D-plus-2, one platoon alone had buried 457 Americans dead. By working day and night, the three platoons together were able to clear the beaches of all dead.
This company operated five cemeteries in Normandy and later opened five more in France, two in Belgium, and three in Germany. The company was at times in danger of encirclement, was often in the vicinity of enemy paratroops landings, and was strafed and bombed. Despite these hazards, the company headquarters was able to send on its reports and the personal effects of American casualties within 24 hours after burial. The unit was awarded the Meritorious Service Unit Plaque, and many of its personnel received individual awards and decorations.
The QM Gasoline Supply Company distributed gasoline and lubricants to units in the field. Its two platoons (122 enlisted personnel) broke down into five-gallon containers the bulk deliveries of gasoline received at the railheads, truck heads, and refilling points, and moved the fuel closer to the fighting zone. Then they issued POL (petroleum, oils and lubricants) to the using units by exchanging full cans for empty ones.
The company had a bulk-reduction capacity of 144,000 gallons daily. Its transport capacity, using 2 1/2-ton cargo trucks and one-ton trailers, was 3,000 five-gallon cans daily. Its personnel were also capable of operating one to four Class III distribution points.
On D-Day, four huge gasoline dumps made up of main storage areas and eight roadside points were operating in southern England. These dumps carried a stock of 1,000,000 gallons of gas and oil. From each of the four dumps a QM Gasoline Supply Company dispensed 100,000 gallons a day, in five-gallon containers.
In Normandy, gasoline supply trucks ran a gauntlet of fire to deliver gasoline to vehicles beyond the village of Canisy. The town was an inferno. Rafters and blazing timbers crashed across highway intersections and there was hardly room to get past. Yet tanks beyond the village needed fuel. A column of 30 trucks loaded with gas took the chance. Spaced 300 yards apart, the trucks roared through the town at 50 miles an hour. Luck held -- every man made it.
The job of the QM Salvage Collecting Company was to direct the collection of battlefield waste: to recover the clothing, the food, the trucks and other equipment; to sort and classify the recovered materiel and to send it on for study, reissue or repair. It had 4 officers and 200 enlisted men. Included were seven enlisted specialists attached from the Ordnance Department, and the same number from the Chemical Warfare Service and the Signal Corps, to provide technical direction in classifying and sorting equipment belonging to their respective services. A single company could locate, collect, classify and dispose of the salvage expectancy of 75,000 fighting troops -- a fair-sized army.
For collecting purposes, the salvage officer divided the battle area into sub-areas and allocated small groups of men to each. Every available means of transportation was used. Organizations bringing supplies forward would often carry salvage back with them on the return trip. Salvage collecting points were spotted at convenient locations throughout the area. Critical materials (such as rubber, gasoline, vehicles, ordnance, metals, shoes and clothing) were collected, classified and disposed of with the greatest possible speed.
On Guadalcanal, it was three months before the first shipment of clothing arrived. Without the QM Salvage Collecting Company, combat troops would have suffered severely. In the Philippines, guerrilla units were completely equipped with captured and recovered materiel. At Clark Field, Japanese heavy artillery shells were recovered and put back into action by U.S. troops within 24 hours, servicing two fast-firing batteries. Elsewhere in the South Pacific, 507,000 articles of clothing and equipage were recovered in one month. The salvaged materiel was valued at $605,000. Over 1,800 tons of shipping space would have been required to replace it.
In the Mediterranean Theater, recovered materials included 897 tons of aluminum, 219 tons of rubber, 312 tons of brass, 858 tons of scrap steel, 546 tons of light ferrous scrap, and 755 tons of heavy ferrous scrap, as well as 129 tons of shoes, clothing, copper, lead and batteries. In Italy, 1,162,681 separate pieces representing a total value of $4,000,000 were collected in two weeks.
The Headquarters and Headquarters Company, QM Base Depot Company, with its 34 officers and 118 enlisted men, provided the administrative support and technical expertise needed to establish large depots within the theater of operations. HHC usually administered depots supplying 100,000 men. However, depots in the European Theater often handled supplies for nearly twice that number.
When the Germans counterattacked in December 1944, Allied depots in northern Europe were faced with emergency demands for increased supplies and new supply points. The Third Army swung into an entirely new zone. Old supply lines had to be abandoned and new ones spotted in another area. A Quartermaster base depot was immediately on the job, and supplies moved forward without interruption -- 565 railway cars of food in a single day, 493,680 tons of supplies in a month. The battle was won, with no small part of the credit to the Quartermaster base depots.
Another QM Base Depot Company aided in the final push to victory.During the drive across the Rhine, three armies depended upon it for support: the First, the Third, and the Fifteenth. At the peak of its operations, the depot shipped over 3 1/3 million rations in a single day; handled 2 1/2 million tons of supplies over a period of 7 months; supervised 15 subdepots scattered over an area 75 miles wide; and supervised 255 officers, 5,750 enlisted men, 6,555 German prisoners of war, and 1,749 civilian employees.