SUPPLY MAN: THE ARMY LIFE OF LIEUTENANT GENERAL HENRY S. AURAND, 1915-1952 (WORLD WAR II, LOGISTICS, ETO).

摘要

Graduating twentieth in the fabled West Point Class of 1915, Henry S. Aurand turned down a commission in the Corps of Engineers in favor of the Coast Artillery and the chance to obtain a berth in the Ordnance Department. He got his Ordnance assignment, but his hopes for a career as a mechanical engineer were frustrated by a bad efficiency report and his resulting assignment to the Ordnance Field Service, the logistical arm of the department. He made the most of this banishment: by 1935 he had become the Army's recognized expert in field supply, written the Ordnance Field Manual, and was teaching his specialty at the Army War College. The World War II years provided a succession of assignments and promotions: Chief of the Planning and Equipment Section, G-4, War Department General Staff (WDGS); Defense Aid Director, Office of the Assistant Secretary of War; Chief of the International Division, Army Service Forces; Secretary of the Combined (U.S. and U.K. ) Production Board; Commanding General (CG), 6th Services Command; Assistant Chief Ordnance Officer, European Theater of Operations (ETO) and Communications Zone (COMZ); CG, Normandy Base Section, COMZ; CG, United States Services of Supply, China Theater; and CG, Africa-Middle East Theater. In the post-war years, he served as the War Department's last Director of Research and Development and as the new Department of the Army's first, and only, Director of Logistics. He retired in 1952, with the permanent rank of Lieutenant General, from his post as CG, U.S. Army Pacific.;General Aurand was one of a new type of Army officer, the military manager, who brought the progressive ideals of efficiency, expertise, and organization to the soldierly virtues of duty, honor, and country. Preaching these ideals with fervor, he added a principle of his own: the primacy of logistics in industrialized warfare. He played a major role in transforming America's industrial might into combat power on the battle-field while serving as a catalyst to merge the military and civilian worlds. In managing the vast enterprise that was the Army Service Forces in World War II, he contributed most to his service and nation.