Military transport

“ Military vehicles, other than those of the medical service, however, may be captured with their teams; and the civilian personnel and the various means of transport obtained by requisition, including railway material and boats used for convoys, are subject to the general rules of International Law concerning war. ”

“ The basis upon which military railway transport has been organized alike in Germany, France and the United Kingdom, with a presentation of the vast importance of railway facilities in modern warfare and a thorough discussion of the subject from the standpoint of the American looking to his country’s needs. ”

“ In the case of the great Continental powers, with their system of compulsory military service and the State ownership of railways, immediately war is declared practically the whole of the efficient male population, including the railway staff, is ready to place itself under military discipline; the effect being that the transport or railway department, like the infantry or artillery, becomes an integral part of the armed forces of the country. But in England the transport arrangements must of necessity be largely carried out by the railway companies with the aid of their civilian employés. ”

“ Transport.—"The majority of the transport was ox-transport; for military operations, mule-transport is absolutely necessary.... Expense should not be considered in such an important matter. [307] ... The necessity of good conductors was apparent." Closer supervision should be exercised by O.C. units than was done to ensure that only the regulation weight per man is put on the waggons. "Pack transport is absolutely necessary in rough country, and the saddles should be carried on the waggons, so that they can be used when the country will not permit of waggons accompanying the troops." ”

“ Now, as in the present instance, it is possible after a war has begun to provide for a steady and considerable supply of transport motors to be handed over to the military authorities week by week, provided always that the process of manufacturing is not seriously interfered with either by the propinquity of military operations, or by the need of drafting men in excessive numbers from the works to the active forces. ”

“ In France and Germany every goods carriage is marked on the outside, showing the exact number of men or horses that it will accommodate for military transportation; every division of the railroad accounts each day to the Minister of War for the178 number of cars on the tracks that may be used for military purposes. ”

“ When plying on country roads never intended for such use, the transport motors themselves will soon break up the road surface. These considerations serve to show that the liability to breakdown is much greater in military than in civilian transport, and coupled with this is the certainty that the facilities for conveniently carrying out repairs and overhauls must necessarily be extremely limited. The transport columns are supported at their base by travelling workshops manned by skilled mechanics and containing small selections of those tools likely to be of the most general service. ”

“ The motor lorries of the Army Service Corps take the supplies up to selected points, where they are taken over by the first-line transport—that is, the regimental transport, which consists of horse or mule drawn general service or limber wagons. ”

“ The speed with which infantry can advance, and the distance which can be covered in one day, are the only limits to the striking power of well-trained infantry. In the Great War these limits were largely removed by the use of Mechanical Transport, and this means of transportation will be used increasingly in Modern Warfare, in order to bring fresh troops into or near the scene of action, or to expedite the removal of exhausted troops from the battlefield. ”

“ In France, also, there were those who, quite early in the days of the new means of transport, predicted the important service it was likely to render for the purposes of war no less than for those of peace. ”

“ It is the existence of such splendidly managed mercantile fleets, such as the Elder-Dempster Line, that enabled Great Britain to astonish the world by the rapid and safe transport of troops and munitions of war during the progress of the late War in South Africa. ”

“ Transport is rattling up and down the street—guns, limbers, G.S. wagons, water-carts, God knows what, and there are men marching along, mud-caked, weary, straggling, clinging fast to some German souvenir as they come one way ”

“ I believe that the real secret is that from want of training in the men, and total lack of waggons, horses and other means of transport, neither Government can move troops in any considerable numbers except by railroad. ”

“ First Line Transport forms an integral part of each fighting unit; the unit provides its own99 drivers and superintendence for its transport, which accompanies it at all times. The First Line Transport carries on wheels (or by pack) all that the unit requires for fighting—namely: guns, ammunition, entrenching tools—besides signalling, medical, veterinary, and other technical equipment.
Second Line Transport for all units is provided by the A.S.C., to carry the baggage, supplies, stores, and water which the unit requires to have with it when at rest. ”

“ Strategical considerations as applied to rail transport require, not only that troops shall be readily conveyed, when necessary, from one part of a country or one part of a continent to another, but that a mobilisation of the forces shall be followed by a mobilisation of railway rolling stock. ”

“ It was an army which knew no excitement in war except work. The problem of sea transport which faced our ports at home was no more trying than the problem of railroad transport from our ports in France; liaison between combat units in action no more trying than the liaison between our American railroad men with their American training and the French railroad system. We were used to long distances and long hauls; the French, in a country no larger than some of our states, were used to short distances and short hauls. ”

“ Control of a line of rail communication between the base and the strategic centre of operations, facilitating the enormous amount of transport in both directions which must be kept up in the rear of the army, and for which the elements of speed, safety and regularity may be of vital importance. ”

“ If the mission of the ground forces was the defense of the land frontier, and the mission of the seaborne forces was the defense of the sea frontier, then, logically, the mission of the air force must be the defense of the air frontier. The key to the problem was the advent of commercial air transport. ”

“ In addition to operating Army transport planes, the Air Transport Command contracted with the country’s major airlines to fly Army men and materials. Thus many of the transport planes which in peacetime flew over our countryside went into war service and began to fly over distant lands. ”

“ Our transportation system also contributes vitally to the security of the United States. From the early days of the merchant marine at the time of our Nation's founding, to the latest in 21st century aircraft, our diverse methods of transportation have moved troops and carried defense cargo quickly and efficiently both in peacetime and in war. ”

“ In one sense it is all highway, that is, it can be traversed in every direction by ships, wherever there is water enough for them to float. For military purposes land transit is confined to such highways as are suitable to the march of an army accompanied by artillery and heavy baggage and supply trains, or to such railways as can more expeditiously serve the same purpose. Hence an army advancing in an enemy's country cannot advance on a very broad front, nor can it outmarch its baggage and other supplies except for a very limited time and for some exceptional purpose. ”

“ A few signs have been authorised under peace-time conditions warning traffic of danger arising from the proximity of troops or aircraft. We do not consider it appropriate that signs should be erected for this purpose. It is our view that where there is potential danger from such a cause, the responsibility for ensuring that adequate steps (not involving the erection of signs) are taken to safeguard road users on public highways must rest with the Military Authorities or with the persons responsible for the operation of the aircraft. ”

“ In the case of mechanical transport the whole of the escort will be carried in motor vehicles, and except where parallel roads are in existence, little can be done to secure flank protection while on the move. ”

“ Just, also, as a commercial line remains a commercial line notwithstanding its use for military traffic, so, in turn, a strategical line remains a strategical line whatever the amount of civilian traffic it may carry in time of peace. ”

“ It is obvious that without a carefully worked out system of organization for its Transport, an army in the field will be helpless from want of ammunition and food, and slow and uncertain in its movements; the sick and wounded will lack attention; and the troops cannot fail to undergo hardships and privations, which will have a bad effect on their morale and fighting power.
Owing to the enormous amount of food required for an army, the main function of the Transport is to carry supplies, so that the connection between98 Transport and Supply is a very intimate one. ”

“ Ahead was the army's larder on wheels; a procession of big motor transport trucks keeping their intervals of distance with the precision of a battleship fleet at sea. We should have known that they belonged to the army by the deafness of the drivers to appeals to let us pass. All army transports are like that. What the deuced right has anybody to pass? They are the transport, and only fighting men belong in front of them. Our car in trying to go by to one side got stuck in a rut that an American car, built for bad roads, would have made nothing of ”

“ A more serious problem concerned transport of vehicles to shore. Because vehicles required deeper-draft landing craft than troops, sandbars that light troop-carrying boats overrode became obstacles to heavier tank and truck lighters. ”

“ Control of Industry and Transportation.—The establishment of huge war industries for making guns, munitions, clothing, and the varied supplies for a vast army put a great strain on the industry and transportation of the United States. The country was called upon to feed its own people, the army that was preparing to go abroad and, in considerable part, the Allied armies. ”

“ Without motor transport, the rate of movement of huge armies would be necessarily very slow, the radius of action from railhead would be small, and the daily movement of the troops would be strictly circumscribed for more reasons than one. ”

“ Still another illustration of the way in which civil engineers can make themselves extremely useful in military operations was the wonderful system of military railways, or railways operated for military purposes, that formed complete lines of transportation for the armies and their enormous quantities of supplies and munitions, more especially those in the West and Southwest. ”

“ They would all the time have a vast amount of military traffic to handle—the transference of troops, the carriage of munitions, the assembling of different sections of war material. Simultaneously with this great increase of work, they had a very serious reduction of staff. ”

“ Just as food, fuel, trade, industry, labor were each and all mobilized for war effort and all brought into harmonious and effective teamwork, so the transportation agencies were all bent, first of all, to the same purpose. Roads, motive power, freight and passenger equipment were devoted first to the necessities of carrying men from homes to cantonments and camps and thence to ports of embarkation and of moving food, munitions, supplies and raw materials to camps, to shipment points and to places of manufacture for war purposes. ”

“ The transport of large bodies of troops to a given point is an extremely complicated and comprehensive piece of work, to which continuous attention must be paid. Every fresh railway junction makes a difference, while, although we may not want to make use of every railway line that has been constructed, we may still want to make use of the whole of the rolling stock that is available. ”

“ Four thousand eight hundred trucks carried food, men and munitions into the lines. Miles of American railroads, both of standard and narrow gauge, carrying American-made equipment, assisted in the transportation of men and supplies. ”

“ The delivery of supplies, as it were in retail, to the troops must still be carried out by horse transport, since motor lorries are not suitable for continuous use where made roads do not exist. The comparatively slow movement of horsed vehicles even now affects the rate of progress of an army. When huge bodies of men are in motion, the depth from the front to the rear of the army is very considerable, and at the end of the day the supplies have to be brought up from the rear to the front in time to enable the whole force to be fed. ”

“ As every class A1 vessel in the merchant marine of Germany, especially the passenger boats of the big steamship lines, can be pressed into government service, so can all motor vehicles, taxis, and trucks owned either privately or by corporations be called upon if considered necessary. Through this vast and far-reaching system of transportation Germany is enabled to throw a million fully equipped men on to either of her frontiers within forty-eight hours. ”