“Throughout the brutal summer and fall of 1944, Lee kept the Allied troops fed, their guns loaded and their tanks gassed up” 

No invasion in history can match the mind-boggling scale of D-Day. The Allies’ June 6, 1944 amphibious and airborne assault on Hitler’s Fortress Europe involved no fewer than 185,000 troops, 20,000 vehicles and 2,400 aircraft. As many as 745 ships and 4,000 landing craft also took part in the operation. But once the Allied forces were ashore and fighting their way across France, an even larger struggle began: the epic campaign to keep supplies, fuel and ammunition flowing to the front lines. History has largely forgotten one of the architects of that Herculean effort: Brigadier General John C.H. Lee. A textbook example of an eccentric genius, the 56-year-old army engineer designed and maintained the logistical machine that would keep America’s massive army in Europe fed and equipped from the Normandy hedgerows through to the final Allied drive into Germany. But now, journalist and historian Hank H. Cox, author of the new book The General Who Wore Six Stars, aims to shine the spotlight on this unconventional unsung hero. Here he provides MilitaryHistoryNow.com a brief character study of one of the most important yet little-known contributors to the Allied victory.

By Hank H. Cox

WHEN PLANNING THE D-Day invasion, the U.S. Army realized that victory hinged on an uninterrupted flow of supplies to the Normandy beachheads. It also knew – or thought it knew – it would need a whole new system for controlling those supplies, especially if the sort of chaos that hampered the Allies in World War One were to be avoided in Operation Overlord. Thus, the Pentagon conceived an independent authority that would supply the various combat commands, leaving them free to concentrate on the fighting. To lead this new command, Washington appointed one of America’s best officers Brigadier General John C.H. Lee.

Lee, a Kansas native and First World War combat veteran, went to Great Britain in 1942 and began assembling the massive logistical network the U.S. forces would need when they invaded Europe. It was an epic undertaking, one that required countless supply dumps that scattered across the British countryside. To complicate the task, Lee’s crew also had to supply a major part of the U.S. operation in North Africa – a development which took him by surprise – and later the the entire European operation. His efforts, although largely forgotten today, were truly colossal in scope. In fact, by June 6, 1944, one out of every four U.S. soldiers in Europe was under Lee’s command.

Lee’s efforts paid off. He got the troops and supplies ashore at Normandy under heavy German fire. He shipped materiel across the beaches when the army failed to capture a viable port for unloading. Later, he created the celebrated Red Ball Express to supply Patton’s fast-moving armour spearhead when it outran its own supply lines. Throughout the brutal summer and fall of 1944, Lee kept the Allied troops fed, their guns loaded and their tanks gassed up. All in all, he and his command had more than three million discrete items in their inventory. And when the Germans counter-attacked through the Ardennes in the Battle of the Bulge, in December of 1944, Lee rushed stockpiles of gas an ammunition the Germans needed away from the enemy’s line of attack and blew up anything his troops couldn’t move. The German advance withered on the vine for lack of fuel and other supplies – thanks to Lee’s adroit handling of the crisis.

Unsung Hero

Amazingly, Lee received little credit for his decisive action beyond a routine commendation from General Eisenhower. In fact, by early 1945, Lee was ridiculed by just about everyone. To be sure, he had his quirks – several of them. Devoutly religious, he attended church every day and twice on Sunday. One joke making the rounds was that his initials – J.C.H. – stood for Jesus Christ Himself. More than a few noted how the general always dressed as if he was on the parade square when most of the troops around him were covered with mud. While stationed in Great Britain, he demanded – and got – his own private train to avoid the clogged roadways of southern England. When Paris was liberated, he moved his command into the city taking over hundreds of the city’s best hotels. He was the senior officer that everyone – including the other senior officers – loved to hate.

And it was more than his many eccentricities that drew the ire of his fellow officers. Many resented that Lee had much more authority than any other supply officer enjoyed. Most commanders were used to controlling their own supply chains. Omar Bradley in particular despised Lee and did all in his power to sabotage the general’s work. None of this reflected well on Bradley or helped the war effort. To the troops in the field, especially those freezing in the mud on the front lines, Lee was the embodiment of the detested rear-echelon officer who slept in a soft bed, ate hot meals and enjoyed the company of French women.

Ahead of His Time

But most of the scorn Lee suffered was for his broadminded and tolerant views, particularly when it came to racial segregation. In the age of Jim Crow, Lee was an outspoken advocate of equal opportunity for black soldiers. At the time, precious few African Americans were permitted to serve in combat units. Almost all blacks deployed in Europe – about 900,000 of them – were confined to service units, which meant that almost all of them were under Lee’s command. That was fine with him. He celebrated their many contributions and advocated more extensive use of them in combat.

Lee finally got the chance to advance his progressive ideas in December of 1944. With combat casualty rates, not to mention frostbite and trench foot, creating critical manpower shortages in frontline units, Lee permitted blacks under his command to volunteer for combat units — a radical move at that time. On the home front, blacks suffered open discrimination. Whites-only restaurants and movie theatres dotted the Southern states. Lynchings were still commonplace. Eisenhower’s chief of staff, Walter Bedell “Beetle” Smith, chastised Lee for his egalitarian outlook. Yet the maverick general refused to back down. In fact, because of Lee, thousands of black men would give up their safe supply jobs and warm beds to go into combat – and show the world they were men like any other.

By March 1945, when the end of the war was in sight, Lee’s enemies were still lobbying to have him relieved of command. Eisenhower refused to do it. And since then, a generation of military historians have had great fun making fun of Lee.

But he deserves better. In fact, after the war, the three defeated Axis nations needed administrators to oversee reconstruction. Douglas MacArthur was appointed governor general of Japan, General Lucius Clay oversaw Germany for the Allies and it was Lee who managed Italy’s rehabilitation. It was a tribute to his excellent leadership and (perhaps) a sort of atonement by the army for the shabby treatment he received during the war.

Hank H. Cox is author of The General Who Wore Six Stars. A veteran journalist, speech writer and public relations guru in Takoma Park, Maryland, his other titles include Lincoln and the Sioux Uprising of 1862, For Love Of A Dangerous Girl and Conversations With The Devil. You can follow him on Twitter @HankHCox