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Jeffrey Syken
�Reybold, this is an air and amphibian war; because of the nature of air and amphibian operations, it is distinctly an Engineers� war
Douglas MacArthur
When Gen. MacArthur informed Maj. Gen. Eugene Reybold � U.S. Army Chief of Engineers, at the outset of American involvement in WWII that the conflict would be an �Engineers� War,� it was with 20/20 foresight. From the wilderness of Alaska to the plains of North Africa to the shores of France to the coral jungles of the South Pacific, Gen. MacArthur�s hypothesis would be proven correct. Airfields, bridges, roads, ports, railroads, bases and the pipelines necessary to ensure victory were made manifest with a speed and efficiency that amazed even the enemy. Perhaps this was most evident with the creation of the B-29 bases in the Northern Marianas where on Saipan, Guam and Tinian runways (and all the infrastructure necessary to maintain on-going operations for the bombing of the Japanese home islands) were carved-out of the native coral and jungle in record time, hastening the victory over Japan. The maxim that �every battle is won before it�s fought� bears witness to the exemplary work of the military engineer who had their �Finest Hour� on the sixth day of the sixth month, 1944.
American ingenuity was at its best during WWII where in France, Army Engineers put into operation a road network of 4K-miles involving the construction of 145 major highway bridges. For the Ledo-Burma Road, nearly 700 bridges had to be strung over treacherous, snake-filled rivers. In Italy, engineers spanned the treacherous Volturno River with pontoon bridges while under enemy artillery fire. Seeking to deny the Allies a port from which to unload men, material and equipment, Cherbourg Harbor was systematically destroyed by the retreating Germans. Three months after D-Day, the reconstructed port was handling 20K-tons per-day, to the astonishment of the former German garrison commander. The failure of the Dieppe Raid, in August 1942, demonstrated the difficulties involved in securing a port for the invasion of Europe and gave Hitler confidence that, without securing a port, the Allies would be unsuccessful in their attempts to breach his �Atlantic Wall.� Albert Speer, Hitler�s architect and armaments minister, stated that the creation of the artificial harbors used by the Allies for the D-Day invasion was �Simple Genius,� blindsiding the Germans and making the two years, 13 million cubic-meters of concrete and 1.5 million tons of steel employed in Atlantic Wall defenses redundant.
The artificial �Mulberry� Harbours created for the D-Day invasion are, perhaps, the best known of the D-Day �Engineering Feats� and required the greatest effort concerning resources (i.e. design, construction, materials, manpower etc.). However, there are many lesser known aspects of �Engineering D-Day.� Some had been used elsewhere in the war prior to D-Day such as glider assaults and flail (a/k/a �Crab�) tanks for exploding mines and/or radar jamming and LSTs loaded with rockets to bombard shore defenses. Even so, there were many other unique examples of the engineers� art in the build-up to the Normandy invasion, some meeting with success while others failed miserably. An example of the latter is �The Great Panjandrum� � a rocket-powered wheel meant to destroy enemy shore defenses. Others, such as the �DD� swimming tanks met with mixed success on D-Day. One of British General Percy Hobart�s �Funnies,� such specialized tanks would play a key role on D-Day and thereafter. �Operation Pluto� would provide the Allies the fuel needed to maintain the breakout from Normandy via pipelines and �breathing bridges� would allow railway rolling stock to be off-loaded from LSTs directly onto the beach. Fortunately, �Operation Downfall� � the invasion of Japan, never took place. Had it been necessary, it would have dwarfed �The Longest Day.�
This course includes a multiple-choice quiz at the end, which is designed to enhance the understanding of the course materials.
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