21 Army Group Logistics

[Carl Schwamberger]

I am searching again for information on the supply to 21 Army Group from the start through the spring of 1945. Specifically how much tonnage the AG consumed, and what each port/beach took in while operational. The core of my question lies in the September-November period, but the other months are necessary for a complete understanding.

I have a fairly good source for the US 12th AG in Ruppenthals contribution to the Green Book, but not nearly enough on 21AG. Recomendations for both online & paper tomes are welcome as would and numbers posted here.

Thanks

[Aber]

Good option should probably be

Administrative History of 21st Army Group; ISBN 1905696868

if you can track it down.

I'm sure I've seen port volumes for the various channel ports somewhere in my liabrary but it will need some tracking down.

[Tom from Cornwall]

Carl,

As Aber says you should start here:

http://www.movcon.org.uk/History/Docume ... 200514.htm

A very kind chap called Rich posted this link here a couple of years ago

I have been closing in on some firm details of 21 Army Group supply and demand over this period and, when my research is complete will happily share with you.

Regards

Tom

[Carl Schwamberger]

Tom
thanks for that link. The bookmark I'd made of it had been producing error messages for well over a year. All better now. time allowing it will be interesting to compare that with Ruppenthals summary in the Green Book.

[Aber]

http://www.movcon.org.uk/History/Docume ... 200514.htm

Many thanks for the link. From a quick skim;

- the '1400 unservicable lorries' appears less significant when read in context, than as presented in Wilmott, as there are few other related problems noted, except possibly engine replacement work in September. The release of 1700 vehicles from reserves on 30 August (presumably to support the advance from the Seine) shows that 21st Army Group was not suffereing from a vehicle shortage
- the shortage of replacements was concentrated on the infantry divisions and in particular on infantry officers. It appears that it was mainly the shortage of officers, rather than men, that was triggering disbandment of units
- the struggle to get tanks units in Belgium up to strength in September, implying >25% failed on the advance from the Seine
- the extra supply of 500 tons/day requested from SHAEF for Market Garden appears to be linked to the 2 US airborne divisions (for non-common issue items) and petrol
- the urgent delivery of 351 Sherman 75mm tanks to the US during the Battle of the Bulge
- deploying mixed male-female heavy AA batteries to Belgium
- the impact of the Battle of the Bulge - loss of areas of the Ardennes prevented the production of pitprops which prevented coal mining which created a crisis in coal supply and powwer generation in Belgium
- the degree to which the British Army made Belgium a home base with 150,000 men employed at Antwerp (and hot meals during the working day being more important than pay), creation of local trained transport companies to replace army units, using civilian industry for repairs, uniforms and equipment manufacture (track extensions for tanks, variable headlight screens)
- the implication that after the crossing of the Rhine, SHAEF allocation of air transport went mostly to the US army
- the extremely low level of trench foot casulaties

Plus some lighter highlights
- a Belgian town being liberated by a lost Naafi party
- units in Normandy hijacking extra vehicles by sending men to volunteer to drive them off LSTs
- capturing stocks of 25 pdr shells which the Germans had stored from 1940
- losses of typewriters during the landings in Normandy being lower than expected

[Tom from Cornwall]

Carl,

I thought you might find these details interesting (taken from WO171/151 - 21 A Gp Transportation Directorate Report for September 1944:

The outstanding feature of the Port Working during September has been the very large reduction in the tonnage of stores discharged – namely a decrease of approx. 46% as compared with the previous month. In order to expedite the advance through France into Belgium a large proportion of the MT allocated to the RMA for port clearance and practically all the RASC DUKW Coys were withdrawn from the RMA in order to keep the FMA supplied by road. It was therefore necessary to reduce drastically the shipping programme. The beaches were closed down during the first week of September – earlier from a weather point of view than would otherwise have been necessary – and the discharge of stores was concentrated through ARROWMANCHES [sic] and CAEN with as large a proportion as possible through the latter port on account of rail clearance. The position was eased with the opening of DIEPPE for shipping on 8 Sept. 44. That port was opened most expeditiously and has proved invaluable in reducing the road haul.

The actual tonnage figures were 462,217 tons in August and 252,028 tons in September. Now we just need to work out what sort of tons we are talking about and then we can compare with the US sector.

BTW can anyone remind me if COMZ reduced intake in a similar way during September? I can't remember seeing it mentioned in Ruppenthal.

Regards

Tom

[Carl Schwamberger]

Tom...thanks for thinking of this thread. It is not a question I have abandonded. My first guess is the 'tons' would be the stanrdard of the moment.

BTW can anyone remind me if COMZ reduced intake in a similar way during September? I can't remember seeing it mentioned in Ruppenthal.

My notes from Ruppenthal show the intake onto the US beaches & Mulberry for June & July (to 25 July) but nothing for August. He also states the beach/Mulberry intake begain to drawn down in September, but does not give numbers, but he also states the decision was made to maintain the beach intake higher than planned for September. Numbers are given for the intake via the Cherbourg port group. (18,000+ tons avg. daily) Those docks were directly serviced by rail, so it is unlikely there was any reduction to accommadate changes in automotive transport. I also notice railway spurs were to be constructed to the Utah/Omaha beach dumps in August. How far that went I am unsure.

[Carl Schwamberger]

Ok. What you want is on page 57 of Ruppenthal Vol II. The chapter starts on page 53. Table I has weekly total for the two US beaches intake. Monthly in long tons is:

June...........246,000

July...........471,659

August........625,404

September...357,244

This does not include the intake from Cherbourg and the minor ports, which averaged approx 20,000 tons per day from late July.

Ruppenthal identifies three storms in August & September that interfered with operations.

[Tom from Cornwall]

Carl,

Thanks - somewhere I've got minutes of the meetings held by SHAEF CAO, General Gale, to discuss port and stores priority. I'll see what I can dig out.

Cheers

Tom

[Tom from Cornwall]

In the meantime, I thought this snippet might be of interest - it describes the extent to which 21 A Gp logistic support was achieved by rail at the end of September 1944:

The programmed objective for the end of the month was 4,900 net tons [from the RMA to SERQUEUX] and 1,400 tons to Railheads South of the SEINE for transfer by road.
In working up to this total, which has still to be attained, performance has so far lagged behind expectations to the tune of approximately 15% of programmed tonnage.

Regards

Tom

[Der Alte Fritz]

Is there any information about the repair of the railways and the size of trains that they were able to use to carry this load. Because a German military train was around 500t load , so 5,300t would be around 10 trains. A single track railway can carry 10-15 trains per day depending on the signalling so this is not a great load at all.

[Tom from Cornwall]

Dear 'DAF'

The only mention of train size I could find was:

50 20-ton wagon train.

But I'm not confident that this was a standard size at this point (hopefully the October report will tell me more ). I guess we have to factor in traffic going the other way (i.e. "empties" going back to the RMA as well).

Don't forget there was the rail route direct from RMA to forward depots across the SEINE, there were still some trains going from RMA to railheads south of SEINE, and other trains going from rail tails north of SEINE up to BELGIUM, plus there were trains coming into the NE France network via DIEPPE.

There is some evidence that the speed of the advance of 21 A Gp plus 1st US Army through NE France and Belgium was good news for the Railway Construction teams coming along behind:

Owing to the rapid advance of the Armies from the River SEINE to the ALBERT CANAL, the railway systems of N.E. FRANCE and BELGIUM fell into our hands less damaged than was anticipated. Every bridge across the SEINE had been completely destroyed by the Allied Air Forces, but on the main line from ROUEN to BRUSSELS, the enemy had time only for deliberate demolition of key bridges at two points on the River SOMME and over the SENNE CANAL at HAL.

So definitely not a "railway desert" in 21 Army Group's sector. In fact by the end of September 44, the situation was such that it was planned to supply coal to the train network from French mines north of the Seine to avoid having to move coal forward from CAEN.

Regards

Tom

[Tom from Cornwall]

Interestingly, on 22 Aug 44, Charles Richardson suggested in a planning memo addressed to the COS 21 AGp that:

9. Requirements of Ports
We require to open HAVRE, DIEPPE, BOULOGNE, CALAIS, DUNKIRK, ROTTERDAM, and possibly ANTWERP, although some of these will only be temporarily in use.

The enemy will no doubt continue his policy of locking up troops to hold the coastal fortresses to the end. We should, therefore, budget on two Canadian divisions being committed to the reduction of HAVRE for a period of up to three weeks, and a subsequent drain on our forces for BOULOGNE, CALAIS, DUNKIRK and ROTTERDAM. The latter would probably require a minimum of three divisions.

Sufficient forces must be allotted to the coastal belt to ensure that ports are captured as quickly as possible so that port capacity may be allotted early to the US forces to nourish their operations towards METZ. Slow progress up the coastal belt would tend to ham-string the operations of the whole Allied Expeditionary Force.

There is no indication on the document that it was sent on to 21 Tac HQ, but nonetheless it is of interest that Antwerp is given rather second billing!

Nice to see that the Brits were worried about "nourishing" the US forces...

Regards

Tom

[Carl Schwamberger]

That memo says nothing about the developing transportation problem. I'd want to recheck the previous plans for any bits about expectations in supplying US forces out of the ports identified.

I also see the writer is quite optimistic about Rotterdam. Perhaps he wrote in haste and really meant Antwerp?

[Tom from Cornwall]

Carl,

This memo was written on 22 Aug 44, before the transportation problem had really affected 21 Army Gp. Next time I go to Kew, I'll get the earlier plans in the file to see about expections of sharing port capacity north of the Seine, but I have never seen it mentioned before early Sep 44.

I also see the writer is quite optimistic about Rotterdam. Perhaps he wrote in haste and really meant Antwerp?

Well maybe, but I would be surprised. I'm not sure whether the thought was more that Rotterdam would be easier to open that Antwerp. I'm not sure about respective capacities though, that may have had an influence.

Regards

Tom