The Challenges of America's First Motorized War

 

Lafayette, We Are Here!

The American Expeditionary Force (AEF) required a massive fleet of approximately 82,500 motor vehicles. About half the total were trucks including 8,000 the famous standardized "Liberty Trucks" (such as the FWD Model B) Other types of transport vehicles, ambulances, and approximately 2,000 Cadillac touring cars used for transporting military officers made up the rest.

The U.S. Army's only previous experience in deploying motorized transportation had been the recent Punitive expedition into Mexico, in which General Pershing had 731 vehicles. When the nation was called to war,  the trans-oceanic deployment of America's army, the 100-times increase in scale, the sped-up learning curves for transport units and personnel, guaranteed that it would be extremely challenging and problem-filled. And it was.

Vehicle Park at the Gièvres, France, Supply Depot

An interesting 2004 article "Grinding Gears: The AEF and Motor Transportation in the First World War" (Link) does a wonderful job cataloging the many difficulties Motor Transport Corps faced, "some of which were unavoidable; others were self-inflicted, and still others [that] could have been avoided. After digesting it, any reader would be left wondering how the AEF ever managed to get to a battlefield, let alone fight and win a battle. Here's a listing of some the issues the authors pointed out:

• The U.S. Army decided to rely more heavily on motor transportation than animals than any other army in the Great War. [However, the AEF still required over one million horses and mules to support the forces in the field.]

• Inexperienced and undisciplined truck drivers often caused delays, breakdowns, and massive traffic jams.

Classic AEF Traffic Jam at Esnes
(Note Mix of Motorized and Animal Transport)

• This in turn creates the need for proportionately larger mechanical maintenance and spare parts supply operations, as well as higher-level vehicle-friendly road maintenance.

• Mechanics? There were never enough mechanics.

• Failure to predetermine the level of control for the vehicles. Army, Corps, Division, Regimental? The AEF insisted on retaining divisional control of motor vehicles until nearly the war's end. This policy restricted the flexibility of the AEF's corps and army formations, because they could not count on having truck transportation at necessary times. 

• Lack of attention from the highest levels. Issues regarding motorized vehicles did not receive the same attention as the AEF's highly successful railroad operation. 

The author's of "Grinding Gears," however, do point out that there was one insurmountable issue for 1917–18: that the deployment of a huge expeditionary force to distance shores requires a commensurate amount of shipping space.  In the Great War, that factor was intensified by the Allies requests to give precedence to  live bodies over supplies and weapons.

Of even greater disappointment, the U.S. Army did not take to heart all the lessons learned during the war. The idea of a separate transportation branch died with America's postwar military cuts, and would not be resurrected until a new war demanded it in 1942. While the interwar army's small size forced such reductions, the military establishment also failed to heed the problems of operating many different vehicle models. When the army embarked on a major motorization program in 1926, it adopted 360 vehicle types. Not until 1939 did the army finally decide on just six models, greatly simplifying maintenance. The Army had, however,  organized a transcontinental test convoy of 65 trucks that taught it a lot of lessons on motorized transportation and its staff happened to include a certain officer who was destined to command Allied Forces in Europe in the next big war. [Article]