Keep on Truckin'

Montevideo native Arnold Anderson recalls the effort to move millions of tons of supplies to keep the war effort moving in Europe during World War II.

Arnold Anderson, a funeral director from Montevideo, stands by his jeep. Though painted early in the invasion of France, the sign on the jeep proclaims the towns that Anderson and the others actually did pass through during the war: Cherbourg, Paris and Berlin. The Red Ball Express used two roads, one in each direction, to keep the convoys from bogging down.

At right: Anderson today.

By Al Zdon
Arnold Anderson was a funeral director in Montevideo when he got his notice from Uncle Sam in World War II.
After Army basic training, he was assigned to Ft. Warren in Cheyenne, Wyoming, where he found himself in a group with seven other funeral directors. They all wondered what the U.S. Army had in store for them, and how the military would use their special talents.
The Army made them truck drivers.
A graduate of the University of Minnesota, Anderson soon was accepted into Officer's Candidate School and was commissioned. His first job was to be the only Army person on a Liberty ship carrying material overseas. He was the security officer for the cargo.
On his first voyage, the Liberty ship was returning from England empty when it ran into a huge storm.
"They had put rock ballast between decks, and during the storm, we heaved over and all the ballast shifted to the port side. We were without power and dead in the water on our side."
The crew did its best to shift the fuel and other materials to the other side. "We had to shovel the ballast material uphill." The ship made it back to Boston with a 15 degree list.
"The only good thing was that all the regular food had been destroyed, and we could only eat what was in the freezers. So we had bread, milk, ice cream and steak for the rest of the trip."
That wasn't Anderson's most dangerous voyage, though. On his third trip over, he was assigned to an old World War I ship carrying 10,000 tons of ammunition. "You didn't want to use a good ship for ammunition. That crew wasn't the greatest because they basically all were Shanghaied. Nobody volunteered for that ship. The captain stayed drunk most of the time, and I didn't blame him."
In all, the ship broke down 17 times in its passage over, and spent much of its time either waiting for another convoy to come along or trying to catch up to a convoy that had left it behind.
At one point, as they were lagging behind a convoy, the crew suddenly noticed an American destroyer heading for them at full steam. "We had the black ball flying from the mast indicating we were loaded with explosives, and we were all standing there trying to wave him off."
The destroyer would not be deterred, though. It pulled alongside the ammo ship and began dropping depth charges, hoping to destroy a German U-boat.
"That was a real nail-biting time."
Anderson applied for a transfer from the security business and was assigned to the 3609th Truck Company. He was in charge of 48 1½ ton Chevy trucks and 48 three-ton trailers. He was back in trucking again.
Anderson joined the company in June 1944, and the next month the unit and its tractors and trailers were sent to Utah Beach in France. "We had our trailers loaded on this floating barges they called a Rhino. We missed the tide and had to wait overnight before we could land.
"The German planes started to bomb us. That's an awful feeling trying to dig a hole in a steel barge."
The company's first duties were to haul supplies from the beach to inland depots. Later the port at Cherbourg was opened, and supplies were hauled from there.
"In the early days we were supplying Patton's Third Army. As we drove down the roads the French people were so happy to see us, they would cheer as we went by. We had to watch out so the drivers didn't get too much cognac."
Americans had pretty good control of the skies, but now and then a German plane would get through. "We were strafed, but it was just that hit and run sort of stuff."
As the lines stretched further, Anderson's company shifted from supplying the Third Army to the Ninth Army. As one point as his truck convoy approached an intersection, Anderson was confronted by no less a personage than Gen. George Patton himself.
"I was only wearing a soft hat, and no necktie. The kind of work we were doing, we looked pretty ragged," Patton launched into the young officer for his lack of uniform discipline and threatened a court martial.
"I have to admit that he might have intimidated me a little bit. He asked me where I was going, and I said we were delivering the gasoline to the First Army. He looked at me and said, 'I think you're going this way,' pointing in the opposite direction.
"The Third Army got 40 semis of gas that day."
In late August, the Red Ball route was formed from the depots to the front lines, with one road for traffic going one way and another road set up for the return trip.
The convoys were in constant demand, and it was difficult keeping the trucks in good running order. Part of the problem was solved when the company acquired a unit of 20 German POWs, some of whom were excellent mechanics. "At first we guarded them well, but then we realized that they wouldn't go away even if we forced them."
Another part of the problem, getting parts, was alleviated by sending a GI with a three-quarter ton truck loaded with helmets, weapons, and other items that could be traded for engines, truck parts, tires, and so forth.
At one point, a tractor had probably made its last trip. "We had to make a midnight requisition. We brought the old tractor in, swapped hoods with a new one, and drove that one out."
As the armies advanced, so did the supply lines. At one point the drivers were going 16-20 hours per trip and fatigue was becoming a major factor.
When a driver could see that the truck ahead of him was weaving, he'd go up and give him a bump. And when the trucks couldn't make it up a steep grade, another truck behind would help push him over the hill. Sometimes four or five trucks would be bumper to bumper, all pushing each other up the hill."
The drivers took a ten minute break every two hours, but often the time was used to fix a flat tire or to shift the cargo from a truck that had broken down. "The guys worked together so well, it was just fabulous."
One trick the drivers had was to wire their C-rations to the manifold of the truck for a hot meal when they stopped. "You had to remember to punch a hole in the can or it would explode."
That phase of the trucking ended on Nov. 9, 1944, after the unit had convoyed 74 consecutive days, stopping only for servicing the trucks and unloading. "When it was all over, I sat down and just cried. I'm sure it was just fatigue."
The truck company was then assigned 48 5-ton Internationals with trailers and ended up in Belgium on the ABC route. Ships would be unloaded in Antwerp and the material was brought to Liege before going to the front. At point, the company was unloading a ship every day doing 12-hour round trips.
The operation was under constant threat from the German V-1 and V-2 rockets that were slamming into Antwerp regularly.
"We had many close calls. I was in a Quonset hut once when a rocket hit a stand of trees nearby. All I remember is rolling on the floor with the doorknob still in my hand.  
"The worst though was during the Battle of the Bulge when it was so foggy and you couldn't tell where the rockets were going. It was a great psychological weapon. You could hear those pulse jets coming, and you thought every one of them was going to land in your hip pocket. A couple of my men cracked."
The convoys carried every manner of military gear, but gasoline was the primary load. A convoy could take 200,000 gallons in five-gallon cans on one trip.
On one occasion, Anderson and his unit were loading up at an ammo dump when they were attacked by a German plane. On its first run, it hit the tire on Anderson's truck. "I got my carbine out of the cab, and when he came back for a second run, I got one round off."
Afterwards, he and his men went back into the ammunition depot to put out the fires that had started. "I got some of my men Soldier's Medals for that. I suppose it was a pretty fool hardy thing to do."
In March, 1945, Patton had pushed across the Rhine on a pontoon bridge and was in great need of gasoline. Anderson's unit, though working out of Holland, was sent south with a load of fuel.
"You could see the whole Third Army stacked up in fields. They were pretty happy to see us." Anderson said he would bring the gas forward as far as possible, including going over the pontoon bridge. Just to get through the city streets, was a challenge, though, and at one point the trucks were stopped by a sharp turn through a centuries' old Roman archway.
In the end, the company was able to put cement blocks on one side of the roadway -- enough, to tilt the trucks so they could edge through the archway. After that, it was the pontoon bridge.
"That's very strange driving. They had a lot of smoke to cover up what they were doing. When you drove on the bridge, it was like you were in a hole all the time. The bridge would rise up before you and after you."
In the end, the unit was able to deliver the gasoline to Patton right at the front line.
After the end of the war, Anderson was sent to Berlin to help run the transportation services there, and he was present when the Potsdam Conference was held. He was the transportation officer for the conference.
"President Truman wanted to tour around Berlin and look it over, and so we arranged for a seven-passenger Cadillac for him to drive around in." The Cadillac would be part of a motorcade that would include trucks loaded with military police. A convertible, driven by Anderson,  would ride in front of the President with Secret Service and more MPs.
"As I was getting our convertible into position, I could hear voices behind me. Somebody was saying, 'I'm not riding through Berlin in any G——n hearse.'" Anderson turned around to see it was the president.
Another convertible was arranged for, and the convoy toured Truman and his top officers around the German capital.
"It was great, on a regular basis everyday, I saw the leaders of the world, political and military."
In the end, Anderson was given a personally signed photograph of the president.
Anderson, after the service, joined the National Guard and was called up during the Korean War. He later advanced to Brigadier General with five battalions under his command.
(This story originated both from the World War II History Round Table at Ft. Snelling and through a later interview with Gen. Anderson.)
 

Trucks were loaded with five-gallon cans of gasoline waiting for a semi tractor to take them to the front. In the background is the English Channel.

For a division on the move, it took 800 tons of supplies each day.

It was one thing to put an army of 60 divisions into Europe in 1944 and 1945. It was another thing to keep those soldiers fed and armed, keep the tanks rolling, and to make sure there were enough chocolate bars for everyone.
"It takes about 500 tons of supplies a day to keep a division going, about 800 tons if the division is on the move," said Don Williams, a military historian. Williams was a featured speaker at the March World War II Round Table at the Ft. Snelling History Center.
The program was called "48 million tons to Eisenhower — Logistics Support."
"But they didn't call it logistics during the war," Williams said. "They called it Services of Supply."
Williams served in the war in the Quartermaster Corps, and his main job was sewing grommets onto tent flies.
America had a great ability during the war to produce huge quantities of supplies for the Army, Navy, Marines and Air Corps, but a major problem was getting the material overseas. "Shipping was critical."
Once the Allies began to have better success in dealing with the German submarine threat, the creation of the Liberty Ship helped solve the problem of getting it over the ocean. At one point, shipyards could make a new Liberty ship every five days.
The numbers needed to fight a world war were astronomical. By the first of January 1944, several months before D-Day, there were 749,000 troops in the United Kingdom. By June, there were 1.5 million. In the end, over 60 divisions or about 3 million men and women saw combat. Over 700,000 vehicles were used.
To meet this need, the Allies had 94 depots set up, many of them along the French and Belgian coasts where the goods were unloaded. The port of Cherbourg could handle 12-14 Liberty ships every day. Early in the invasion of Europe, supplies were landed directly on the beach, as much as 25,000 tons a day.
To get the material from the coast to the front lines, sometimes over 400 miles away, several huge trucking systems were organized including the Red Ball route, the White Ball, the ABC line and the XYZ line.
A special problem as the war headed into its final months was getting supplies over the Rhine River where there were few bridges left. By the end of the war, the Allies had built 46 bridges across the river.