His research project was a collaboration with Rush B. Lincoln Jr. and two other West Point classmates under the supervision of Glennon Gilboy.

He is credited with the studies leading to the army's adoption of the Bailey bridge, used extensively in all theaters in World War II.

As Director of the Third Military Railway Service in Iran from 1944 to 1945, Besson ensured the flow of war materials to the Russian forces through the Persian Corridor.

During the first year of occupation, Besson directed the rehabilitation of the Japanese rail system, moving more than 200,000 troops and 150,000 tons of supplies in the first two months.

Subsequent assignments included a tour as Assistant Chief of Staff, Supreme Headquarters Allied Powers Europe (SHAPE), where Besson formulated logistics plans and overall programs to meet the complex requirements of the fifteen nations of the NATO alliance.

His efforts in instituting a system for "costing out" five-year programs, thereby bringing force goals into consonance with available resources, earned him the first Army Distinguished Service Medal to be awarded at SHAPE headquarters.

[6] In 1966, Besson asked the Military Sea Transportation Service to contract SeaLand to operate regular container ship routes between Oakland, California, and Okinawa, Japan.

The report was highly critical of the Johnson administration for not calling up reserve forces until 1968, which created "personnel shortages, especially in logistic skills".

[8] The report also pushed for the centralization of logistical operations, the widespread use of intermodal containers, and the phasing out of Conex boxes.

In 1971, he was nominated by Richard Nixon as one of the founding directors of the National Rail Passenger Corporation, which ran Amtrak.