Book Description

One of the cherished beliefs of those who do not know is that the logistical services of the Army lead a safe and boring life, even in the combat zone. The Combat Engineers and the Signal Corps began to cloud this belief in World War I. The Medical Corps, the Chemical Corps and the Bomb Disposal squads of the Ordnance Corps began to demand respect as dangerous assignments in World War II. In Korea all the services won the right to be shot at. War becomes increasingly a matter of logistics. The thin cutting edge of infantry, armor and artillery still contains the larger proportion of heroes, dead and alive, but these combat arms depend more and more on the services to provide them not only with the traditional beans and bullets, but with gasoline, transportation, medical service, concealing smoke, communications equipment, graves registration, potable water, laundry service—the list is endless. Here are some true accounts that tell how the services fulfilled their missions in a tough and dirty little war. There are tales of devotion to duty that match those of any combat arm. There are roles of technical proficiency combined with the foresight to seize opportunities as they arose. But because these are true stories, there are descriptions of actions whose only value is to indicate what should not be done, what lock of preparedness means in lives and dollars. Here is an honest book—one that had to be honest because it was conceived to tell the whole truth, for the education of our army. This is a book for every soldier, every youth who might become a soldier, every parent of every such youth. He succeeded, and the fruit of his labors is here.