 This is the Big Picture, an official television report of the United States Army, produced for the armed forces and the American people. Now, to show you part of the Big Picture, here is Master Sergeant Stuart Quinn. Today, when science is presenting the American Fighting Man with an increasingly broad array of new and mighty weapons, we sometimes are inclined to forget the contributions to victory, made by the basic tools of defense in the past. The subject of today's Big Picture is rarely thought of as a weapon, but in a very real sense it is. In many roads to glory, we will see just how large a role the Army truck has played in preserving the freedom of the United States in the 20th century. The United States Department of Defense today handles the greatest volume of freight and passenger traffic of any organization in the world. The Army, under the new single manager concept, has the responsibility for all the military traffic management on land in the country. Moving millions of passengers and millions of tons of cargo every year is the job of the Army Transportation Corps. Its personnel and equipment today perform unparalleled peacetime services and are ready to undertake the added supply burden in the event of war. By its very nature, the atomic and missile army of today calls for great mobility and dispersion. Rapid delivery of men and supplies to the combat zone is essential. The Army Transportation Corps is gearing itself today to the fullest support of these highly mobile, widely dispersed combat forces. Under the sweeping reorganization of our airborne divisions, with its five battle groups, is the first divisional-sized unit to be developed that is entirely air transportable with current equipment. With fighting men hitting the battlefield with unmatched speed, our supply forces work with equal swiftness, giving infantry and armor the weapons and machines where and when they are needed. Since World War II, airborne troops have been a hard hitting, high priority part of the Army's defense forces. Through new techniques, greater experience and the will to improve, the Transportation Corps and the Quartermaster Corps have made the parachuting of bigger and heavier equipment possible. Today, multi-ton trucks are dropped to earth to strengthen the fighting power of the all-important foot soldier. Other vehicles too large to move except by ship a few years ago can be flown to any part of the world today. This means better supply and greater mobility to the infantrymen gives him more fighting punch. Airborne vehicles, large and small, parachuted or delivered by cargo planes, help give our modern Army its new look. This is a dynamic fighting force which bears but little resemblance to the Army's America fielded in the past to preserve our freedom. In the days of World War I, the truck is a relatively new machine, its potentialities little explored. The foot soldier is just that and the workhorse of the Army is the horse or mule. As a nation, America was taking its first steps in the automotive age. By war's end, greater mechanization has been achieved. The truck's role in battle is growing. Then all too soon, blitzkrieg. September 1, 1939, the face of war has changed as the Nazi forces slashed into Poland. Nazi shock troops riding in tanks and trucks raced through and around the stunned Polish Army. This is but a dress rehearsal for conquest to come. Tanks and trucks, as shock world perceives, are the backbone of the fast-striking mechanized Wehrmacht. Realization of the meaning of blitzkrieg is felt when the Netherlands and Belgium are invaded. Never have fighting men moved so fast to take objective after objective. Never have armies moved so fast to swallow whole countries. In the wake of the planes, the Panzer Division strike out, driving between the converging armies of the Allies. All the deep dug, heavily armed defenses of the French are bypassed by the swift moving columns. The rolling army is the winning army. The fall of France causes Americans to look to their own defenses. We are short on weapons, long on manpower and know-how. Their mocked success with military trucks and vehicles has been noted by American leaders. Once we have toughened ourselves for battle, we too shall be a mechanized fighting machine. In 1942, we and the British have the power to strike back. Great sands swept North Africa. Here our forces will score their first victories over the Vaunted Wehrmacht. The station corps will play a decisive role. So the sole means of supply and they perform heroically. One motorized unit consisting of 166 vehicles goes through 32 days of continuous combat with only 12 minor mechanical failures. With trucks bringing up the fighting hardware, the Allies are able to face the Wehrmacht on equal terms for the first time. With guns and ammunition in plentiful supply, American and British forces give the Nazis a taste of their own medicine. Meets defeat, no longer master of mechanized warfare. Half a world away in Southeast Asia, one of the greatest sagas in the history of military supply is being written. With the fall of Burma to the Japanese army, we have been cut off from our allies in China except by air over the Himalayas. Across the rice fields and the towering mountains beyond, a road would have to be built. At the little village of Lido in northeast India where the rail line ends, army engineers set to work to create a supply highway between inland China and the port of India. Thousands upon thousands of native laborers are recruited to help with the job. For centuries, nothing better than aux trails had been carved through this rugged and hostile countryside. But bulldozers of the clearing and grubbing gang set about carving a trail through the jungle. Trees are felled, lumber hewed, and bridges built across streams never span before. The advanced parties battle their way relentlessly eastward, blazing the trail. This will be a road designed for trucks. Despite jungle and swamps, poisonous insects and snakes, over trails and mountains, despite the flooding rains of the summertime monsoon, the road is pushed forward. Following the cats and cans and sheep's foot tampers, graders shape the road and bank. Thanks to a monumental combination of brains and courage, devotion, and sweat, the road is built and the first convoy sets out from Lido for the Chinese border nearly 500 miles away. The truck convoy rolls over a road which at best is a truck driver's nightmare. The highway itself dips and climbs, twists, and turns back on itself in a series of dizzying turns. The trucks and drivers are exposed to enemy fire often before China comes into view. But they get through now and thousands of times again in the months ahead. It is possible that only American engineering genius could have built this road. It is certain that only American trucks and drivers could have utilized it. The multi-drive vehicles developed by American peacetime industry easily adapt themselves to meet the almost impossible demands of the Lido road. They turn a jungle and mountain highway into a life-saving line of supply at this critical juncture in history. But the transportation corps' biggest test is yet to come. On the 6th of June, D-Day, more than 250,000 Allied soldiers charge ashore in Normandy. If this fingerhold on the coast is to be held expanded, the troops will need thousands of additional combat items, millions of tons of supply. They will need them first on the beach head, then a mile inland, then hundreds of miles inland. To direct and handle the flood of supplies are the quartermaster and transportation corps. The loaded trucks surge ashore. By radio, the vital supplied trucks and tanks are directed. For every five men put ashore, one invasion vehicle is lent. The massive supply problems mount ammunition for the rifles and tank guns, food for the men, gasoline for the lumbering vehicle. A gap from the beaches to the front lines must be breached. A job only trucks can do here. The ships and landing craft have done their part well. After the initial landing, the world waits anxiously for the answer to the basic questions. Can the Allies break from their tiny perimeter? Can the supplies be moved fast enough in sufficient quantities to expand the bridgehead? The responsibility rests with the transportation corps. Highs continue their swift advance. Truck convoys continue with their mammoth supply operation, driving day and night to set a logistical record on paralleled in history. Rain and mud combine to slow the pace to create added problems, but never for long. With the Allied breakthrough, it is no longer a question of reaching the front lines a short distance from the beach. The front lines are far inland and moving fast. The caravans of the Green Diamond, XYZ, White Ball and others now make supply history. Among the most memorable is the remarkable Red Ball Express. It is organized to supply General Patton's armored columns 400 miles away with urgently needed supplies. Experience drivers are ready to drive day and night. The trucks will travel a one-way speedway. Only vehicles displaying the Red Ball may pass. Thousands of American lives depend on the success of their supply mission. During the crucial stages of the operation, more than 400 trucks an hour rumble along this route. 7,000 tons of ammunition and hardware are delivered to the front in a single day. The Red Ball Express rolls on around the clock on under withering enemy fire. The night after night, despite the enemy, press rolls on until its mission is successfully completed. While the Allies advance in Europe, more American soldiers fight another kind of war on the scattered islands of the Pacific. Here, if possible, the supply problem is even greater, for the battlefields are even farther from the production centers and most of the islands offer no network of roads. Island after island falls to our army. Once again, bring up the vital supplies. Tow the artillery from position to position to drive the enemy deeper and deeper into his jungle layer. On most of the islands, roads or no roads, trucks provide the sole means of supply and transportation. Make it possible to hit the enemy fast before he can recover from the initial shock of invasion. Important vehicles in the Pacific is the common place dump truck. As well as being pressed into service as a troop carrier, they combine with other construction equipment to repair airfields and to build new bases from which American planes can strike at the Japanese homeland. To make homes for the increasing number of new bombers arriving from the United States, on island after island, building airfield after airfield, the construction men of the CBs and the Army Corps of Engineers work unflaggingly, sending more and more planes along. Planes carrying greater payloads than ever before until victory is complete. Men of the United States Army find themselves serving once more in Asia, fighting another even more implacable foe. Highway system as such is non-existent. Except for a few main roads, the country through which our supplies must be carried is linked by primitive cart trails. In conjunction with the Transportation Corps' military railway service, the truck drivers are called upon to carry a large share of the supply load. Said an American soldier writing in Pacific Stars and Stripes in 1952, the story of the truckers of the Army Transportation Corps is the portrayal of men, wheels and guts, braving the most perilous roads in the world to expeditiously deliver the vital supplies and men of war to the forward most outposts of the Eighth Army in Korea. Failure site of a standard six by six heading north with no regard for the unseen guerrilla dangers or incoming enemy artillery exemplifies the courage of the men behind the wheel of these world famous vehicles, the trucks of the Army Transportation Corps. But these trucks bring more than package death to the stubborn enemy. To the civilian population of the Republic of South Korea, they bring the stuff of life itself. The bags of rice which mean the difference between survival and death for helpless and homeless, the aged, the women and the children. The road to glory is a two-way street leading to victory in battle and to charity among the stricken. Wherever the emergency at home or abroad, the trucks of the Army do human service. Called repeatedly in time of national disaster, the trucks and drivers are quick to respond. They are constantly ready to perform relief tasks that only they are suited for. To fight the floodwaters, they bring the equipment for sandbags and the men to build the dykes. A flexible, highly mobile emergency task force, the fleets of the Army trucks not only supply men and material for preventive work at the scene, but also help the stricken population directly. Watergoing vehicles developed to Army specifications to meet Army requirements cruise the flooded streets, searching out those trapped in their inundated homes. Such scenes of rescue have been witnessed scores of times throughout the country in recent years, and the men of our Army take great pride in their mercy work. To help the shattered community get back on its feet again, the Army trucks bring in emergency rations to feed the tired and hungry, provide the materials for emergency shelters for the homeless. To the Aberdeen proving ground in Maryland are sent continually the new trucks developed for the Transportation Corps by Army Ordnance. No new truck model is accepted as standard equipment until it is undergone extensive testing. When a new vehicle arrives at Aberdeen, it is carefully examined by experienced engineering personnel to make sure that it conforms in every detail to the military characteristics and specifications drawn up earlier by the Army trucking experience. The new model is now ready for long exhaustive tests under the most rugged conditions a truck is liable to meet in the field. The vehicles designed by Ordnance are rugged and durable. They are built not only to stand abuse and to keep on working, but to reduce maintenance problems. If the axles and frames stand up under the twistings given by this uneven rolling roadbed, chances are the truck will hold up on any road it may have to travel. New trucks tested here are designed with maximum safety and maximum performance constantly in mind. All are pre-tested before battle to prevent American lives from being lost as a result of faulty ordinance. Equally important, these new models are designed to be adaptable. They are expected to perform without mechanical failure under a wide variety of conditions. These trucks are built with a minimum of gadgets, thereby cutting the possibility of breakdowns and eliminating many extra maintenance problems. And as far as possible, they have interchangeable parts, which also speed maintenance and cut the problems of supply parts. Small or large, transportation vehicles are designed to help win battles by making each piece as light as possible, as fast and as maneuverable as possible, both on the way to action and while under fire. Whether for transporting men in supplies or for use in testing other army weapons, the trucks are conceived and built as members of a family of vehicles. Each is designed for either a specific task or for performing several tasks well, thereby giving an overlapping line of vehicles for every type of work on every type of terrain. The Transportation Corps is interested in developing new and better amphibious vehicles as well as roadbound trucks. These vehicles, half boat and half truck, are designed to carry troops and cargo from ship to shore and then to move men in supplies to locations inland from the beachhead. Always the accent is on greater and greater versatility and mobility. On the drafting boards today is a revolutionary new vehicle for the men of our army. Under study is a special logistical carrier utilizing nuclear power. This concept of nuclear powered cargo trains for overland operations would be ideal for operations in remote areas like the Arctic. The carrier will probably be on the order of a freight train with huge rubber-tired wheels for travel over rough terrain. A nuclear-powered electrical generator would be carried in the rearmost element of the train. Each wheel would have an electric motor built in so power could be applied to the different sections of the train. The driver and other operating personnel would be stationed in the foremost element of the train. One factor dictating the train concept is to separate the operating crew and nuclear reactor by as much distance as possible, thereby reducing the amount of radiological shielding equipment necessary. From atomic energy powered transport vehicles to lighter weight airborne trucks and combat carriers, the Army Transportation Corps today moves relentlessly forward. Better methods of supply and support for our dynamic army are the planners and tacticians of the Army Transportation Corps. They are keeping well abreast of the tide of modern army developments. The roads to glory followed by the Army Transportation Corps have been many in every part of the world, in every kind of countryside and in the face of bitter enemy attack. Today, if need be, the Corps is ready to set out on still other roads to win as in the past the same glorious successes to roll once again in the defense of our American heritage. Few people would argue that the Army truck is as powerful as an atom bomb or as swift as a guided missile. But today, as in the past, the truck remains the workhorse of the Army. It is a lifesaver in time of civil disaster and is always ready to move our fighting men and to supply them with the tools for attack or with the weapons of defense at home and abroad. Now, this is Sergeant Stuart Queen, your host for the Big Picture. The Big Picture is an official television report for the armed forces and the American people produced by the Army Pictorial Center, presented by the United States Army in cooperation with this station.