The whole shenanigans...
Taken from an editorial by Chris Anderson, WWII Magazine
Early in 1945, General Dwight D. Eisenhower and the Supreme Headquarters Allied Expeditionary Forces staff had begun to work on plans to redeploy millions of soldiers to the Pacific.
It was a logistical challenge of the first order. By the spring of 1945, Eisenhower commanded some 4.5 million men. Three million of these were GIs. Moving them would be equivalent to packing up every man, woman and child living in Chicago today and transporting them, with their possessions, more than 5,000 miles around the globe. Once this mass migration was complete, all these souls would have to be trained and equipped for what promised to be among the most brutal amphibious landings in military history—Operation Olympic, the invasion of the Japanese Home Islands, which was scheduled to begin on November 1, 1945.
The War Department wanted to be fair to those soldiers who had served in combat or who had been overseas the longest. This desire, however, had to be balanced against the task of assembling a military force adequate for Operation Olympic and retaining sufficient strength in Europe to maintain order. Seeking a solution, the War Department polled some 20,000 soldiers and asked them what would be the fairest method of deciding who would go home, and when. Their answer seemed simple: a point system. Points would be awarded for time overseas, decorations, awards, number of dependents, etc. Chief of Staff George C. Marshall agreed.
If everything went as expected, troops with 85 points would be allowed to return to the States, veterans with between 80 and 84 points would be assigned to occupation duty in Europe while they waited for transport and the remainder would be sent along to the Pacific, where fighting was expected to last well into 1946.
To control such a mass movement of troops, all of the GIs would be sent from nine transit camps that had been established near the port of LeHavre. Named after popular brands of American cigarettes, the camps were miniature American cities that grew from nothing. The largest, Camp Lucky Strike, began as a temporary camp for troops being sent to the front. Conditions were basic at best. An engineer soldier recalled, “The area to which the 488th was assigned, designated B-19, was at first nothing but a snow-covered stretch of ground on which squad tents had been erected.â€
Such facilities were sufficient for troops simply passing through, but they were woefully inadequate for the task of providing war-weary GIs a place to wait for the ship that would finally take them home. By the spring of 1945, Lucky Strike had been expanded considerably. Dubbed “The Gateway to America,†the camp could now accommodate up to 60,000 men and included everything that one would find at the usual American military base. Eventually, even an ice cream factory was built.
Among the first to enjoy the improved facilities were POWs who had been liberated from various Stalags across Europe. The former prisoners were given medical treatment, new uniforms and back pay (see “In Enemy Hands,†P. 26). Eventually, the Army’s high-point men began making their way through the camp. At its peak, some 6,000 men a day were leaving from Lucky Strike and heading home.
With the sheer numbers involved, and the desire of all the men to get home, complaints were bound to be leveled at the camps and the point system. The criticism became acute when the atomic blasts in August 1945 abruptly brought the war to an end.
When the War Department implemented the point system, it had no idea the war would end a year earlier than expected. Under tremendous pressure to meet the deadline for the next mission, priority for transport had been given to those troops and units headed toward the Pacific. That left thousands of the most deserving soldiers cooling their heels in the cigarette camps. GIs who had been in combat since Normandy or even earlier were stuck, while others who had not even heard a shot fired in anger found themselves in the States.
Tempers flared. Congressional offices were bombarded with angry letters, and there were disturbances at some of the camps. Little could be done, however. The magnificent fighting force that had defeated Nazi Germany had taken years to build; its dismantling could not be accomplished overnight. It was not until well into 1946 that many of the Army’s combat veterans made it home.
Christopher J. Anderson, Editor
------------------------------------------
Proud Daughter of Walter (Monday) Poniedzialek
540th Engineer Combat Regiment, 2833rd Bn, H&S Co, 4th Platoon
There's "No Bridge Too Far"