For every soldier overseas, the United States would ship sixty-seven pounds of matériel abroad per day. And unlike in the First World War, where the United States shipped to fourteen ports in one theater, now it serviced more than a hundred ports in eleven theaters. It’s telling that before the war started, logistics had been a specialist’s term, not much heard in general speech. The military academies exalted courage, leadership, and tactical acuity, not procurement and transportation. Yet, fairly soon into the Second World War, commanders grew accustomed to speaking of tonnage, inventory
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