British logistics in the Normandy campaign

The success of the 21st Army Group was in large part due to its logistics, which provided the operational commanders with enormous capacity and tremendous flexibility.

An important factor in the defeat was the failure of the logistical system of the British Expeditionary Force, which responded too slowly to the rapid German advance.

[8] Doctrine based on fighting in Europe where there was a temperate climate and well-developed road and rail infrastructure was set aside and new organisational and logistical structures such as the Field Maintenance Centre (FMC) were developed.

These were bags packed with a full set of soldier's equipment and clothing, which could be issued to individuals who had lost all their kit through the sinking of their ship or landing craft.

For the same reason on D+1 536 DUKW Company RASC commanded by Major Preston John Hurman was also established on Love Green, near La Riviere and an inland dump at Crepon, having landed early on D Day on King Red.

This was offset when the tiny port of Courseulles-sur-Mer was captured intact on D-Day, allowing 1,000 tonnes (1,000 long tons) per day to be unloaded there, but it proved unsuitable for coasters and was abandoned on 10 June.

There were some attacks by E-boats and a German air raid on 8 June struck the beach maintenance area, destroying 450,000 litres (100,000 imp gal) of petrol and 410 tonnes (400 long tons) of ammunition.

Operation Goodwood was launched on 18 July and to contain the British and Canadian forces, almost all the German armour was concentrated east of the Orne River, paving the way for a successful advance in the American sector.

2 Army Roadhead but the XXX Corps staff considered that it knew best, given its combat experience in the North African Campaign and the Allied invasion of Sicily.

[39] The FMA allowed a corps to train newly arrived administrative units, to control the usage of ammunition by the divisions and alleviate the traffic congestion around Bayeux.

The British Second Army gave tacit support for the practice, issuing an order that FMAs be called Field Maintenance Centres (FMCs), the original nomenclature in the Mediterranean.

Corps services such as the reinforcement centre, salvage unit, tank delivery squadron and ordnance field park tended to cluster around the FMC.

[46] While it seemed to the Germans that the British Army had an unlimited supply of ammunition, this was not the case and a reason why heavy bombers were used to augment the artillery in Operation Goodwood.

[50] When the Overlord plan was expanded in 1944, it was too late to enlarge the Mulberry harbours, so additional small craft shelters known as Gooseberries were provided, one for each invasion beach.

[57] In addition to the Mulberry, small ports were used; Courseulles, which was mainly used by fishing boats, had a draught of 2.9 metres (9 ft 6 in), making it suitable only for shallow-draught vessels, such as barges.

A control tower overlooking the port area used a loud hailer to direct the DUKWs to numbered platforms where a crane would remove the load.

The tonnage handled over the beaches greatly exceeded the expectations of the planners; but it is unlikely that the invasion would have been launched in the first place without the reassurance provided by the Mulberry.

[65] For Operation Totalize, the Canadians converted the surplus Priests into armoured personnel carriers, known as Kangaroos, by removing the guns and welding over the front apertures.

The problem was how to feed the troops in the first 48 hours, as the assault packs used in Madagascar and Operation Torch had been found to be too heavy and bulky proportional to their nutritional value.

There were also large unforeseen demands for tommy cookers, compact portable stoves fuelled by hexamine tablets that could provide men in a front line trench with a hot cup of tea.

[69] The main engineering tasks were the rehabilitation of the road network, the construction of airfields, the building of bridges, and the development of the bulk POL installation.

Five Canadian and two British forestry companies were in Normandy by the end of July, but the only sizeable source of timber in the lodgement area was the Cerisy Forest, where there was about 2,000 hectares (5,000 acres) of beech and oak.

By the end of July, they had established seventeen airfields in the lodgement area, of which eight were surfaced with square meshed steel and one with bitumised hessian runways.

This remained the case until General Dwight D. Eisenhower's Supreme Headquarters Allied Expeditionary Force (SHAEF) opened at Jullouville on 1 September.

A crucial decision was taken on 30 August to gamble on the early capture of Le Havre, Dieppe and Boulogne, and slash receipts from 16,300 to 7,100 tonnes (16,000 to 7,000 long tons) per day, to free transport, which would have been used to clear the beaches, for moving supplies forward of the RMA.

[77] The First Canadian Army converted a tank transporter trailer into a load carrier by welding on steel plank normally used for airfield construction to form a base and sides.

Apart from supplying the Polish 1st Armoured Division for a short time, little use had been made of this, with the RAF freight service accounting for less than 200 tonnes (200 long tons) per week.

Discipline regarding the return of containers was lax during the advance, resulting in the Second Army's path through France and Belgium becoming strewn with discarded cans, many of which were quickly appropriated by the civilian population.

[98] Only small numbers of prisoners, mostly medical personnel who were used to care for wounded POWs, were retained for labour by 21st Army Group until August, when HQ Line of Communications was authorised to employ up to 40,000 of them.

The supply system developed by the British Army in the desert had become standard procedure, and the staffs and units serving the line of communications "reached a high degree of efficiency in their own particular task".