 from Korea to Germany, from Alaska to Puerto Rico. All over the world, the United States Army is on the alert to defend our country, you, the American people, against aggression. This is the big picture. An official television report to the nation from the United States Army. Now, to show you part of the big picture, here is Captain Carl Zimmerman. When we have troops stationed all over the world as we have today, our army is faced with a tremendous task of keeping them supplied. This is the responsibility of one of the newest branches of the army, the Transportation Corps. Moving men and supplies with everything from a truck to a helicopter. Beaver 1, this is Beaver 3. Objective able taken. Ammo low, Reds are coming back. We don't get more ammunition fast, they'll knock us off this rock. Roger, out. Ammunition, consumed in battle. Chow, good hot chow, lots of it, right up here every day. It never tasted better. Food and water, consumed in battle. Baker Company's truck, sir. Red Mon around caught it, nobody heard. The driver was up at the CP. Vehicles and equipment lost in battle. Send me another case of plasma, Joe, the doc needs it quick. Blood lost in battle. The material of war, used up, consumed in the struggle with the enemy. Men and their equipment, the prerequisite to victory. A never ending river of supply, always flowing forward to the front. How it all gets there is the vital story of the Army's youngest service, the Transportation Corps. I can tell you part of that story. Before I wound up here in Korea, I was stationed at Fort Eustis, Virginia, the home of the Transportation Corps. It's a good post, lots of facilities for tough realistic training. But I'm getting ahead of myself. Transportation was important long before there was a Transportation Corps in the Army or of Fort Eustis. Who was it, General Forrest, I think, back in the Civil War days, whose formula for winning battles was get there fastest with the mostest. It was a good rule then, and it works just as well today. Here at Fort Eustis, men are trained to take those words to heart. A part of this big job of getting stuff from where it is to where it's needed is the handling of cargo for shipment overseas. The Transportation Corps must ensure that American troops around the world will have enough and on time. For that is the motto of the Transportation Corps. Here at the Third Port Training Area at Fort Eustis, men learn how to handle cargo, how to stow all the thousands of different sizes and shapes that make up the equipment necessary for a modern Army. Everything must be handled with care because some guy on the other end may be betting his life on that radio or that crate of spare machine gun parts that's being loaded now. But stevedoring heavy cargo, important though it is, is only part of the story. If guys around the world are going to get it, the stuff has got to move and people have got to get it going. Out of the sack, boy, up an atom, fall out on the double. I can hear that, Sergeant Still. I took this course myself. It was one of the best pieces of instruction I've ever received. After morning formation, these guys will be on their way to the B&O Railroad Yards in Baltimore, Maryland. After preliminary training on the Transportation Corps' own railroad at Fort Eustis, they're going to learn practical railroading on one of the country's biggest lines. It's important because both here and abroad railroads handle a huge amount of military supplies and it will be the job of these men to see that it is handled efficiently. Every soldier is assigned to a specific railroad employee for a 90-day period. At first, it's kind of tough. The old timer's got his regular job to do and you feel sort of like a third thumb. But you watch and there's plenty to see. Then he gives you a little job to do and you do it. Slowly the ice begins to break and after a while you begin to know a little bit about each other. All the time you're learning and pretty soon you're working as a team. Work at everything. The timer's letting you do a lot of it by now. Then just when you think you know everything about this railroad business, something new comes up and you start all over again. They're a great crew, these railroaders, and a lot of fast friendships grew up during our period of training here. Talk about cooperation. I've never seen a better example. The B&O is doing all this for just a dollar a year. The C&O is doing it too. The railroad brotherhoods are supporting the program. As for us, I can tell you we learned a lot. We learned by actually doing the job with equipment and facilities the Army could never hope to provide. Port Eustis trains men to move material. One of the biggest jobs of moving material takes place at the various ports of embarkation around the zone of interior. New York, Hampton Roads, New Orleans, San Francisco and Seattle, all our ports of embarkation operated by the Transportation Corps. I'm a sergeant here at New York PoE, Port of Embarkation. It is the largest of them all and handles most of the supplies going to the European command, the Mediterranean and North Atlantic bases. Right now we are out loading diesel locomotives for shipment to help speed up transportation in Korea. From what I hear, the railway service is doing a big job over there and they really need this equipment. You've got to be careful. Everything must be secure because a locomotive lost at sea is just as useless as one that's never loaded. And when a ship starts torsing, it's easy to have cargo shipped if it isn't tied down nice and tight. Here at New York, civilian contractors do most of the work, but overseas the Transportation Corps' own people will do the job. Everything's secure and on its way. From Port Eustis and the zone of the interior, men of the Transportation Corps move out to operations all around the world. Overseas, the Transportation Corps is responsible for all military rail and highway transportation. This includes operation of ports, railroads, trucks, barges and other small freight ships. Actual ocean shipping is handled by the Military Sea Transportation Service of the Navy. Along with a primary mission of supply, goes the secondary mission of training for possible future operations. If war should come to Europe, ports now being utilized might well be bombed and damaged beyond use. To prepare for such an emergency, the Transportation Corps practices supply over-the-beach operations. Since dawn yesterday, 13 ducks and 10 LCMs have been plowing back and forth through choppy waters between the old ice-carsh victory standing offshore and the beach. Down if it doesn't look like Normandy back in 44. This is a training operation though, and it's been going on once a month, regular as clockwork for some time now. I'm a cargo checker here, and I can tell you they really push the stuff to us. Down the shore a little, they've got a dozer working enlarge in the area. This is the first thing you do. You've got to prepare the beach. And believe me, a bulldozer does a beautiful job of carving a traffic pattern out of these dunes. Vehicles can bog down pretty easily in soft sand, so the boys lay down a platform of interlocking steel mesh. Over a road like this we can move the heaviest equipment without much trouble, about as easy as in a highway back home. While this is going on, the freighters drop anchor offshore. Gangs of soldier stevedores shuttle cargo into position down in the hold. Others sling steel lashes around the crates. While one man stands ready to signal the winch operator. You know, you get kind of a kick when that first load swings up free and clear and over the side. Here it's dropped into either a duck, the transportation caused amphibious truck, or into an LCM for the trip to shore. Ducks can carry a load right up the beach to discharge points, where it's sorted into various categories. LCMs have to be unloaded in the cargo placed in trucks for the trip over land. Supplies over the beach is a monthly training operation conducted along the western coast of France to ensure that the Transportation Corps will be able to move up men and material over the beach anywhere, anytime the need arises. At the discharge points, heavy-duty mobile cranes take over the job and unload the ducks and trucks. This cargo is part of the normal logistical support requirement of the European command. Over 6,000 long tons of cargo, all helping to supply our troops over here. We're getting so good at this supply over the beach operation that we're offloading ships in the stream faster than ever before, while at the same time we learn the know-how of new techniques and improved equipment. Now it's the forklifts that tackle the material. They sort and separate the various loads so that they can be documented and loaded into railcars or shipment to the various Army depots throughout Europe. As the Transportation Corps story unfolds, training gradually merges with actual operations, until you're not sure where one ends and the other begins. The school at Fort Eustis, working on the B&O, loading for overseas shipment at the New York Port of Embarkation, training operation supplies over the beach, and then, Korea. You know, it's pretty much the same story over here. The number one port is Busan. It's jammed to the hill all the time, so a lot of stuff has to be offloaded from ships in the stream. Here's where the ducks come in. For this sort of an operation, they're unnatural. They can tow as much as five tons across open water, right up on the beach and further. Once here in Korea, a duck company carried supplies more than 50 miles inland to where they were needed, because they were needed in a hurry, and there wasn't either the time or the trucks to trans-ship the stuff. Believe me, that unit was happy to see those ducks waddling down the road. They've been used in river crossings, too. The duck is a rugged little vehicle, but over here you're lucky to find a road, and when you do, it's either ice or dust or mud depending on the season. It's the railroad that has taken over the big job of supply, 75% of the UN load in some areas. This isn't the BNO, but a lot of the guys keeping this line going got their training from railroaders back home, and that experience is paying off right now. Although the highway system here is back in the horse and buggy days, the railroad is, or was before the invasion, pretty up to date. Track is standard gauge, road breads are well graded and ballasted, cuts and tunnels are reinforced, shops and yards are well equipped. It's the kind of line a railroad man likes to see. Funny thing about it all is that we've got the Japanese to thank for this road. They built it to provide a connecting rail service to their troops in China. Now it's on our side, and plenty important. The stuff comes in, and you move it up. Sounds easy, but it takes a pile of planning and coordination and sweat, and there's a lot of highly trained people working out this operation. It's a big job, almost as big as the fighting itself, because without this stuff, our guys couldn't fight. I remember when we were holed up down in the Pusan perimeter, we picked up an entire division and moved it 100 miles in less than 24 hours to meet a communist spearhead. And there's been lots of other times when this road has spelled a difference between defeat or victory. Its head of track is never very far from the front lines. Of course, all this big operation is not as easy as high ball on the main line from New York to Philly. Because it's so important to the UN battle effort, the Reds have given the old line a rough going over. Whenever the battle swept south, bridges got blown, yards, shops, and rolling stock got wrecked. And then guerrilla bands still raid sections of the track or ambush special trains. It's not so bad now, but there was a time when those Jap-built steam locomotives had to pull their load with wooden pegs patching the bullet holes in their boilers. Now, however, most of the pulling job is done by US-built diesel locomotives. Remember, we outloaded them at New York PoE. They are transportation-course dock run by TC men, sometimes with a Korean railroad are along in the cab to act as pilot. But trains can't get everywhere. And where the railhead ends, the truck company takes over. A modern army needs fuel, lots of it, diesel oil and gasoline to operate tanks and trucks and even the power generators that run communications equipment. Fuel is the lifeblood of battle, and it takes an ever-flowing river of it to keep this army in the field. It goes up in metal drums, thousands of them, and it's TC trucks and TC men that move it. It's rough going. Korea is a land of mountains. The roads are full of trick passes, blind curves, and washboard roadbeds. In the winter, they're ice and slush. In the spring and fall, mud. And in the summer, dust. Heavy, choking dust. You eat and breathe dust all along the hall from the loading point to the division dump. Sometimes the Reds drop in a few artillery rounds to keep you jumping. And sometimes the guerrillas pull an ambush. Anyway, you look at it. It's a tough, dirty, double-clutching job. You're mighty glad to see the old Oasis sign. The Oasis is a halfway rest point, usually on top of a mountain, where both men and machines can call a halt for a few minutes after the long climb. Believe me, a cup of coffee or a canteen of cool water is like a gift from heaven. And then you're off again, delivering the goods to the guys who'll know how to use them best. And so it goes in Korea, up and down the peninsula back and forth between the front lines and the port, the men of the transportation corps move the river of supplies forward, the river that must never stop or even falter once, for without it, the battle effort of our army withers up and dies. Military transportation is as old as human history, but there are always new wrinkles. We tried out one of the newest methods in infantry maneuver at Ford Bragg, North Carolina. Remember the battalion moved out of dawn against light aggressor resistance? We thought it was going to be a picnic. But by 11 o'clock, the umpires ruled that we were pinned down good. It seems that we needed light artillery and replacements to finish the maneuver. I wasn't very happy because I knew the kind of terrain we'd been over. Nothing but a foot soldier could make it. And it had taken us six hours to get here. I watched the old man put in a call and seemed like I'd been waiting there for days. Actually, I guess it was under an hour when I heard the sound of angels overhead. What do you know, helicopters? Lots of them floating in over our rear. What I want most in the world right now is maybe some jets coming in for a simulated airstrike or that beautiful rustle of artillery on the wing. Aggressor battle. I'd even settle for a few fresh faces coming out of the woods behind me. Anything to get this maneuver over. And what do I get? Egg beaters. What can a guy get from egg beaters? And then I found out. People. Our guys. A whole company of them. They moved in fast right behind us. They kept on coming. It was good to have them. But then the big surprise came. 75-millimeter howitzers. A whole battery. We were a fighting force again. The 75s opened up. It was music. We moved out and the aggressor fell back before our increased firepower. It wasn't long before the objective was taken thanks to fast, close helicopter support. Another training exercise was over. Another training exercise, yes. But the first to ever employ the TC's new transportation helicopter company in simulated action. A new dimension has been added to the problem of front-line support to fighting troops. The transportation helicopter company, the predecessor of many yet to come, had proven its value to the army and to the fighting soldier in particular. But if your transportation core is to stay on top in this big business of supplying a worldwide army, there must be constant research and development. That wheel is almost 10 feet high. It is one of four that drive the transportation core's new amphibious vehicle. The bark, 60 tons of versatile cargo transportation on land or in the water. I'm one of the assistant project officers from the transportation core's research and development station. And I've been working on the development of this vehicle since its conception. We started out with a box. Not just any box, mind you, but a box just the right size. Big enough to accommodate more than 600 items of the type normally brought ashore in any amphibious operation. Equipment and supplies which the duck cannot carry, such as tanks, trucks, and cranes. Then we got ourselves four tires, the biggest we could find. And we got four diesel engines, one to drive each wheel, enough to apply 30 tons of turning force to each of the four wheels. It takes a lot to bog down this baby. Then we wrap the whole thing up in a steel shell with enough buoyancy to float 100 tons of equipment. That means the bark can load its heavy cargo from a ship-off shore, cross a prepared beach, and land at points well inland at the enemy's front door. And nobody gets their feet wet. We're pretty pleased with it. Of course, all this wasn't so easy. A lot of skilled people, both military and civilian, spent a lot of time figuring out all the complex problems created by the construction of such a huge vehicle. But thanks to them, the bark is expected to be one of the most useful pieces of equipment ever made. Here it prepares to make a landing on Puget Sound. It is carrying a medium tank, 35 tons, and a mobile crane, 35 tons, 70 tons in all. A nice normal load for the bark. And over she goes. Tires are deflated some for better traction and soft sand. Up and over inland, look at her maneuver. The tank is in place. From his perch in the cab, the driver picks his spot. Seconds later, the tank is earthbound and heading for a fight. In just minutes, the 35 ton all-purpose crane is on its way, and we're in business. What a vehicle that bark. You bet. It's quite a vehicle. It's the most recent chapter in the story of your army's transportation corps. The whole story is one of the front may never lack the stuff with which to do battle. That's the transportation corps whose men merit the reputation for accomplishment as the army's versatile mover of men and materiel. Wherever you find American troops today, you find a man of a T.C. The Transportation Corps. Next week, we'll take you to Fort Bragg, North Carolina to meet the troopers of the all-American division, the 82nd Airborne. This is Captain Carl Zimmerman and parting you to be with us then. The Big Picture is a weekly television report to the nation on the activities of the army at home and overseas. Produced by the Signal Corps Pictorial Center. Presented by the U.S. Army in cooperation with this station. You can be an important part of the Big Picture. You can proudly serve with the best equipped, the best trained, the best fighting team in the world today, the United States Army.