Communications zone

Communications Zone is a US Army and NATO term which describes a part of the theater of war operations.

SOS commander Lieutenant General Brehon B. Somervell recommended Major General John C. H. Lee, then commanding the 2nd Infantry Division (United States), in Texas, to Army Chief of Staff General George C. Marshall, who gave the assignment to Lee; Somervell had served under Lee in the 89th Infantry Division (United States) in WWI.

Lee spent two weeks in Washington selecting key staff and planning the Operation Bolero buildup of men and materiel in Britain.

This work continued through the invasions of North Africa, Sicily, and Italy, and on 6 June 1944 the SOS-ETO was abolished, becoming the Communications Zone, ETO.

Logistics Matters and the U.S. Army in Occupied Germany, 1945-1949, By Lee Kruger, Springer Publishing, 2017

Chart 12.- Typical organization of a theater of operations as envisaged by War Department Doctrine, 1940