Fascinating passage

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From http://www.history.army.mil/books/wwii/ ... terVI.html

Motor Vehicles

The assignment to Ordnance of responsibility for motor vehicles on 25 July 1942, effective 1 September, enormously increased the work of the General Supply Division. At the time it was hard for Ordnance officers in the European Theater of Operations to grasp the magnitude of the new job; compared to weapons, combat vehicles, and fire control instruments, soon to be referred to as "old Ordnance," the very much simpler mechanism of trucks did not at first seem to present much of a problem, especially since Ordnance men were already familiar with parts and maintenance considerations on combat vehicles. Later these officers learned that while general purpose vehicles involved comparatively simple technical problems, the great number of trucks as compared with the number of tanks and Ordnance special vehicles and the incomparably rougher usage automotive equipment received placed a very heavy drain on manpower. In terms of man-hours, automotive equipment was eventually estimated to constitute approximately 80 percent of the whole Ordnance job in the ETO.35

Most of the motor vehicles that had been coming in since late spring had been shipped partly disassembled and crated in order to save shipping space and had been turned over to the British Ministry of Supply for assembly because the theater had no American assembly plants and mechanics to do the work. Two methods of crating were used. The simplest was that which kept each vehicle in its own crate, with the wheels removed. These were called "boxed" vehicles. The crates could be easily stacked and bolted together, as uncrated wheeled vehicles could not. The second method required much more assembly work. It involved two kinds of packing, either one vehicle in one or two boxes, known as the single unit pack (SUP), or two vehicles in from one to five boxes (most commonly, one crate containing two chassis, the second two cabs, the third, axles), known as the twin unit pack (TUP). The SUP and TUP types were called "cased" vehicles.

The TUP method, which saved about two-thirds of the space required for an uncrated vehicle, was far more economical in space than the SUP method and came to be preferred, especially for the 3/4-ton, 1 1/2-ton, and 2 1/2-ton types. However, the TUP method of crating contributed to early confusion on how many vehicles there were in the theater, of what types, and where they were located. Often all three crates did not come on the same ship: one vessel would carry the cabs and chassis and another would carry the axles; and the two ships might dock at different ports. Sometimes the crates were not marked and had to be sent to an assembly plant and opened before their contents could be determined. Then they would have to be rerouted to the assembly plant designated to handle the particular type of vehicle.36

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The vehicles were assembled in British civilian plants under the direction of the British Ministry of Supply, an arrangement that had been made when vehicles were a Quartermaster responsibility. The code name for the assembly work was TILEFER. By 11 July 1942 the Ministry's TILEFER organization had two assembly plants in the Liverpool area, the Ford Motor Company at Wigan and Pearson's Garage in Liverpool, and plans for others were under way. After cased and boxed vehicles were assembled and the few wheeled vehicles that arrived (only about 20 percent of the total) were reconditioned, the British drove them to large parking lots, which they called vehicle parks, to form pools from which troops could be supplied. Two of these parks, Aintree Racecourse and Bellevue, were near Liverpool. A third was at Ashchurch (G-25).37

Ashchurch suddenly became important to Ordnance planners when they learned that motor vehicles were to be added to other Ordnance responsibilities. Quartermaster's Motor Transport Service had planned to make Ashchurch a primary overseas motor base, operated by three regiments—a depot regiment, a supply and evacuation regiment, and a base shop regiment. The first unit of this large organization, which had been recruited from automobile plants, steel mills, and machine shops in the United States, arrived on 19 August, but since its equipment did not arrive until December, the men were assigned various duties, the most important of which was operation of the vehicle park. A tire repair company, the first of its type to be organized, also arrived at Ashchurch during August without equipment. It was given the job of operating the three gas stations and grease racks.38

The vehicle parks already in existence at Ashchurch and in the Liverpool area were adequate in the early summer. Few vehicles were coming into the ports, and those that did arrive were likely to be held up in assembly plants that were not yet in full operation. Only 526 general purpose vehicles were assembled by the British in July. Yet more vehicle parks would soon be needed. General Eisenhower had informed General Lee that the War Department was contemplating shipping approximately 160,000 knocked-down vehicles in the early fall.39 While this figure was overoptimistic, the rate of arrival and assembly did rise sharply in late August and early September. By the end of 1942 the Ministry of Supply had assembled a total of 33,362 vehicles. Twelve vehicle parks with a total of 23,000 vehicles had been activated: in the Liverpool, Bristol, and Glasgow port areas as near TILEFER assembly plants as possible; in the east of England near air installations; and in the south of England where ground troops were concentrated. They were located on estates, on race tracks, and on other open areas that had enough space and adequate camouflage. Little or no construction was possible at any of the sites

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because neither the Engineer Corps nor local labor was available and for some time operations would depend almost solely on British personnel, military and civilian.40

The officers to command the vehicle parks were six men of Motor Transport Service's TILEFER Section, who were transferred to Ordnance on 1 September when a total of 14 motor transport officers and 27 enlisted men came into the Ordnance Service, SOS. These six men, particularly those who had been trained in the TUP program, were considered by the Ordnance Section to be some of the best officers in the theater. But they were few in number —three officers commanded two vehicle parks each. Four of the parks were for some time to come commanded by British officers.41 Besides the Quartermaster motor base and tire repair companies at Ashchurch, Ordnance received eleven Quartermaster companies and the large motor transport depot at Rushden, Northamptonshire, serving air installations. Rushden was designated O-646, becoming, with Ashchurch and Tidworth, one of the three primary Ordnance installations.42

At the time Ordnance received responsibility for motor vehicles in the theater, the shortage of commissioned officers, which had been a problem since SPOBS, was becoming acute. Ordnance officers were needed not only at depots, shops, and schools in the United Kingdom but also at ports and at three of the four base sections that were just being established: the Northern Ireland Base Section, which took over from the Northern Ireland Base Command; the Western Base Section, which included the ports of Glasgow and Liverpool; and the Southern Base Section, the concentration point for ground forces units in southern England. The Eastern Base Section, mainly concerned with services to the air forces, had no Ordnance section for some time.43