'Come hell, high water, or Nazis': The US Army Quartermaster Corps develops and implements the first motorized logistics system, 1919--1945

While the introduction of the internal combustion engine motor vehicle had the potential to revolutionize military transportation, the advance in technology had to be integrated into military operations through doctrine, organization, and training. In the United States Army, that mission fell to the Quartermaster Corps (QMC), which had long been tasked with transporting supplies.; After World War I, QMC officers examined the experience of motorized transport in that conflict and drew two doctrinal conclusions. First, control of motorized transport must be centralized to make maximum use of the vehicles. Second, careful attention to preventive maintenance prevented many mechanical breakdowns and effectively multiplied the number of trucks available.; With doctrinal points established, the QMC set about implementing training programs for officers and enlisted men to inculcate these key views. The small interwar army had no large units, so QMC planners had to design paper truck organizations to support theoretical divisions, corps, and armies. The training programs successfully indoctrinated soldiers with QMC doctrine, but the organizational planning became overly rigid and disconnected from practical field operations. With mobilization for World War II, the QMC had to greatly expand its training facilities, while reducing the time allowed for instruction in motor vehicle operations and posting many of its experienced instructors to operational units. Nevertheless, the QMC maintained its doctrinal focus and adequately indoctrinated new members.; Operational experience in first North Africa, then Sicily and Italy, demonstrated the correctness of QMC doctrine and the adequacy of its training, but also the excessive rigidity of its organization. The QMC issued new guidance which made a smaller unit, the company, the most important organizational level. This change gave QMC organization greater flexibility.; Trainers in the United States made efforts to obtain operational reports from the field and veterans to serve as instructors, intending to improve the training they offered. These efforts partially succeeded. The soldiers in the theater, however, facing bad roads, hostile fire, and growing maintenance difficulties, often lacked the time or motivation to report their successes and failures up the chain of command and back home.; Ultimately, the men in the field combined their training and operational experience to produce an efficient structure for organizing motor transportation in the Mediterranean, which resulted in the world's first completely motorized land logistics system. This arrangement made a significant contribution to Allied victory in that theater and in World War II.