American logistics in the Western Allied invasion of Germany

[a] By the end of January 1945, the American forces had recovered from the disruption to the supply system and the large losses of materiel inflicted by the German offensives in the Ardennes and Alsace.

Once across the Rhine, combat losses in terms of tanks, vehicles and equipment, and the expenditure of ammunition declined, while shortages of fuel and spare parts developed, as was to be expected in fast-moving mobile operations.

No less than twenty-six engineer general service regiments worked on the railways, and by late April rail had supplanted motor transport and was carrying the bulk of supplies across the Rhine.

[33] To relieve the congestion at the port caused by ships being unloaded without the ability to forward their contents, COMZ sought to acquire depot space around Antwerp.

[34] The tactical situation resulted in requests for large quantities of barbed wire, land mines, small arms ammunition, anti-tank rockets and demolition charges.

The First Army alone used 186,000 anti-tank mines and 745,830 pounds (338,300 kg) of explosives in late December and early January to establish a series of defenses between the Ardennes and Liège.

[46] During February, the First Army moved stores back across the Meuse to the sites used before the German Ardennes offensive, and established a new fuel decanting point at Stolberg, Germany.

[55] The advance across France in 1944 had absorbed much of the ETO's surplus manpower in augmenting truck companies to permit them to operate around the clock, and sixteen additional military police battalions had been activated to handle the large number of German POWs.

This was a difficult decision: these units would be needed if heavy German resistance developed, but there was a shortage of artillery ammunition, and it was thought that by the time they arrived the fighting would have moved into a mobile phase where truck drivers would be more valuable.

[65] SHAEF announced that all physically qualified men serving in noncombat units were eligible for retraining as infantry except for combat medics and those with highly specialized skills.

Partially retrained infantrymen were assigned to military police, anti-aircraft and heavy artillery units used to guard POWs and control displaced persons, and the War Department diverted 19,000 infantry replacements scheduled for shipment to Europe in May to the Pacific.

This was considered risky in Germany due to the danger of sabotage, but POL accounted for at least a third of the armies' tonnage requirements, and the consequent savings in traffic over the bridges would be substantial.

Given the poor autumn and winter flying weather and the large number of anti-aircraft guns defending the bridges, the air staff calculated that it would require too much time and bomb tonnage, and divert too many aircraft from the oil campaign.

[80] With the German offensives in the Ardennes and Alsace defeated, priority for ammunition, which was rationed due to recurrent shortages, switched to the Ninth Army, which was to make the main Rhine crossing effort.

About 30 percent of the automotive spare parts required for Operation Grenade were obtained from recovered salvage, allowing more signals and engineering stores to be brought forward.

On 2 March 1945, a task force from the Ninth Army's 83rd Infantry Division attempted to seize the bridge at Oberkassel, Germany, by using German-speaking Americans and tanks disguised as German ones.

[96] Two days later, the Ludendorff Bridge at Remagen, Germany, was captured intact, albeit badly damaged, by a task force from the First Army's 9th Armored Division after the German demolition charges failed to destroy it.

[113] The planners had intended to use the site of the existing bridge downstream from where the Lippe entered the Rhine, but the ADSEC engineers found that damage on the far side was so extensive that rehabilitation work would take too long.

The bridge was opened to traffic at 01:00 on 9 April, and was named after Major Robert A. Gouldin, one of three men of the 355th Engineer General Service Regiment who were drowned during construction when their DUKW overturned.

A trial was undertaken, which demonstrated that a hundred light aircraft could transport a battalion in two hours, but the appearance of the Luftwaffe over the crossing site caused the idea to be abandoned.

The German defense at Rhens was so fierce that the crossing there was abandoned and units were switched to Boppard, where the erection of a 1,044-foot (318 m) M2 treadway bridge began at 08:00 on 25 March and was completed by 09:30 the next day.

Work on a treadway bridge began at St. Goar at 18:00 on 27 March, but took 36 hours to complete owing to the swift 6 to 8 feet per second (1.8 to 2.4 m/s) current and a rocky bottom that made anchorage difficult.

He therefore chose to undertake a third river crossing operation at Mainz, which was more centrally located and possessed good road and rail networks, making it the preferred site for highway and railway bridges.

[145][146][147] The MTS placed emphasis on preventative maintenance, and managed to improve the average number of serviceable vehicles per company from 30 in November 1944 to 35 at the end of December, and attempted to raise it still further in 1945.

Some 1,800 semi-trailers and 690 truck-tractors were unloaded in Marseille, France, in November due to the limited reception capacity of the northern ports at the time, and thirty truck companies were sent there to be reequipped and retrained in their use.

[154] CONAD established "GI Joe Diners" at 50-mile (80 km) intervals where drivers could exchange their cold rations for a hot meal at any time, day or night.

On 5 April, the COMZ G-4, Brigadier General Morris W. Gilland, asked the NYPE to defer the sailings of May convoys by five days, except for ships carrying certain vehicles, ammunition, bombs, rail cars and locomotives, which would save the ports from having to handle 60,000 long tons (61,000 t) of cargo.

[118][156][157] In October 1944, the War Department had instituted a policy whereby all requisitions were marked STO (for stop) for those that were to be automatically canceled when hostilities ended or SHP (for ship) for those that would continue to be filled.

The Oise Intermediate Section built seventeen transit camps around Reims to hold up to 270,000 personnel awaiting repatriation to the United States for demobilization.

[174] The Deputy Chief Historian for the United States Army, Charles B. MacDonald, who participated in the campaigns as a company commander,[175] wrote that "the credit in general belonged to a sound logistical apparatus expertly administered".