• Military Menu                       

• Introduction
• Systems
• Facilities
• Agencies
• Industry
• Operations
• Countries
• Hot Documents
• News
• Reports
• Policy
• Budget
• Congress
• Links

• WMD
• Intelligence
• Homeland Security
• Space

The United Nations To-Day and To-Morrow

CHAPTER FOUR: How the United Nations Co-operate in War

0N JUNE 6 1944 "An immense armada of upwards of 4,000 ships together with several thousand smaller craft "including 1,000 merchant ships manned by 50,000 seamen brought the forces of the United Nations to the assault of Hitler's European fortress. American, British, Canadian and French troops, later to be joined by Belgians, Dutch and Poles, landed from ships manned by sailors from Belgium, Britain, Canada, Denmark, France, Greece, the Netherlands, Norway, Poland and the United States, while their operations were protected by ships and naval units from Australia, Britain, Canada, France, Greece, the Netherlands, Norway, Poland, South Africa and the United States, and by air force units of America, Australia, Belgium, Britain, Canada, Czechoslovakia, France, the Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway and Poland.

This vast operation, characterized by Mr. Churchill as "undoubtedly the most complicated and difficult that has ever occurred," was to be followed by other combined attacks. Its way had been prepared by the campaigns in North Africa, where the British Eighth Army, including, besides the United Kingdom troops, Australian, Czechoslovak, French, Greek, Indian, New Zealand and Yugoslav troops, had driven the German Afrika Korps of Field Marshal Rommel westward from Egypt towards Tunisia ; while at the same time, a Free French Force under General Leclerc drove north from Central Africa, across the almost impassable Sahara Desert, to strike at the retreating Germans from the south. And finally, an immense force of American and British soldiers, later to be joined by considerable French forces, was landed in Tunisia from ships of eight nations, supported by the surface ships, submarines, supply ships and air forces of the United Nations, operating under a Combined Command.

The North African campaign, which in May, 1943, ended with the total destruction of all the Axis forces on the African Continent, cleared the way for the ultimate freeing of the whole Mediterranean, and made possible the Sicilian and Italian campaigns forcing the surrender of Italy ; while soldiers from Britain. Canada, France, Greece, India, New Zealand, Poland, South Africa, East Africa and the United States and, more recently, Brazil, combined to drive the Germans northwards towards their own country.

In its turn the Italian campaign made possible the Allied landings in the south .of France. Thus, Allied forces, moving from the north and from the south of France, combined with the French Forces of the Interior under General Koenig, which, acting under the supreme command of General Eisenhower, had already liberated large areas from German control. And the first country to be freed from German domination owed its freedom to the concerted action of the United Nations.

In the liberation of Western Europe, the United Nations have carried out extensive air raids on German defenses and German industries. Those air attacks have constituted a joint effort of British and American bomber fleets stationed in Britain and Southern Italy, with the assistance of Australian, Canadian, Czechoslovak, Dutch, French, New Zealand, Norwegian, Polish, and South African squadrons. The British generally have attacked at night, using the experience which they had gained in their four years of attacks on the enemy, the Americans during the day. " I am confident," wrote Mr. Churchill in October, 1943, to General Devers, then in command of the United States Army in the European Theatre of Operations, " that with the ever growing power of the Eighth Air Force, striking alternate blows with the Royal Air Force Bomber Command, we shall together inexorably beat the life out of industrial Germany, and thus hasten the day of final victory."

Allied Air Attacks Help the Russians

These widespread air attacks have served not only the obvious purpose of weakening German resistance to the invasion, but have also reduced the number of men and the amount of equipment which Germany could send to the Eastern Front to oppose the Russians. Furthermore, these efforts from outside the Continent have been continuously and effectively aided by underground forces of the United Nations scattered throughout the German occupied areas.

Guerrillas and other patriots have cut railway lines and highways behind the German lines, blown up bridges and set fire to factories in a steady underground campaign that has made it even more difficult for the Nazis to maintain production and to supply their fronts. The Forces of Resistance especially those of France, Greece, Poland and Yugoslavia have tied down several dozen German divisions which could otherwise have been used elsewhere, and thus actively participated in the liberation of their home territories.

Examples of such common action towards victory by the United Nations may be found in the news almost daily. In general, they are of five kinds: joint action in the planning of over all strategy, joint action in providing the supplies and weapons, joint commands in the theatres of war, joint operations and, finally, joint action with forces behind the enemy lines.

Conferences to Plan World Strategy

Military co operation between the United Nations has been planned in a series of conferences between the United Nations leaders particularly between Mr. Churchill, President Roosevelt, Marshal Stalin and Generalissimo Chiang Kai shek and their staff's. Building on a preliminary conference in December, 1941, the conference in Washington in June, 1942, between President Roosevelt and Mr. Churchill decided on the invasion of French North Africa, examined plans for a landing in France and laid down the general lines of future strategy. In August Mr. Churchill examined with Marshal Stalin in Moscow the further plans to help Russia in her gigantic task and also the Allied plan for Africa and the Mediterranean. This was followed by the Casablanca Conference between Mr. Churchill and President Roosevelt in January, 1943, at which the invasions of Sicily and Italy were planned. This important conference decided further measures against the U boat menace ; more help to Russia, including the drawing away of as many German divisions as possible from the Russian front ; a Burma offensive by British and Imperial forces in India, and finally, "unconditional surrender of all enemies."

In the summer of 1943, occurred further important conferences between Mr. Churchill, President Roosevelt and a representative .of China at Quebec to consider questions of global strategy. After preliminary meetings of foreign ministers in Moscow, the next and most important strategy meetings occurred at Cairo and Teheran at the beginning of December, 1943.

At Cairo Mr. Churchill, President Roosevelt and Generalissimo Chiang Kai shek coordinated strategy in the Far Eastern theatre, and at Teheran, President Roosevelt, Mr. Churchill and Marshal Stalin agreed upon a joint strategy for the European theatre. Joint strategy for the Pacific theatre was agreed at the Quebec Conference in September, 1944.

Under the direction of the heads of the United Nations the Combined Chiefs of Staff collaborate in the formulation and execution of the policies and plans decided on by those leaders at these conferences. The establishment of the Combined Chiefs of Staff Committee was announced by Mr. Churchill in the House of Commons on January 27, 1942. The work of this board concerns the strategic conduct of the war ; the broad program of war requirements, based on approved strategic policy ; the allocation of munition resources, based on strategic needs and the availability of means of transportation ; and finally the requirements for overseas transportation for the fighting services of the United Nations based on approved strategic priority.

Integral parts of the Combined Chiefs of Staff organization are sub committees composed of military and civil experts, who gather the facts upon which the Combined Chiefs of Staff must base their decisions.. There are, for instance, combined sub committees for Staff Planning, for Intelligence, for Military Transport, for Communications and a Combined Meteorological Committee. Once decisions have been reached, the sub committees assist in carrying them out, each with regard to its specialized field.

Again, supplementing the activities of the strategy planning groups, are the Combined Boards, set up in 1942 to co ordinate further the prosecution of the war effort of the United Nations and to promote the best use of all their available resources, considered as a single pool.

"From quarter to quarter, "said Mr. William L. Batt, U.S. Member of the Combined Raw Materials Board, in March, 1943, " we know how much we have, and we make allocations to those countries which can use the materials most advantageously. All facts in the picture are brought out, and from these facts a solution emerges. It is a good example of democracy at work."

The Combined Boards are: the Combined Munitions Assignment Boards, the Combined Shipping Adjustment Boards, the Combined Raw Materials Board, the Combined Production and Resources Board, and the Combined Food Board. They are composed of representatives of the United Kingdom and the United States and, in the case of the Combined Production and Resources Board and the Combined Food Board, include also representatives of Canada. Provision is made for concerted action with other United Nations where matters affecting them are concerned.

Combined Boards Control Supplies

The Combined Munitions Assignment Boards advise the Combined Chiefs of Staff on the munition resources of the United Kingdom and the United States, and where these munitions shall be assigned, according to strategic needs. The Combined Shipping Adjustment Boards aim at concerting in one policy the work of the Ministry of War Transport and the U.S. War Shipping Administration, and collaborate with other United Nations in providing for the best use of their joint shipping resources. The Combined Raw Materials Board plans the best development and use of raw material resources ; and the Combined Production and Resources Board is designed to combine production programs and assure their adjustment to meet changing military requirements. These two Boards have various committees, including some joint ones. The purpose of the Combined Food Board is to obtain a planned and swift use of the United Nations food resources, and various committees cover different commodities.

Mr. Claude Wickard, the U.S. Secretary of Agriculture and the U.S. Member of the Food Board, defining its terms, said "Essentially the Combined Food Board has one big job to do. That is to make plans that will cut down the tonnage used to transport food across the seas. Even in wartime food takes up 40 to 50 per cent of the tonnage used in transporting goods to the United Nations. The ,job of the Combined Food Board is to shrink that percentage. Every point we can shrink it means just that more tonnage for troops and munitions and raw materials for munitions." Much has been done to save shipping, and thereby outwit the U boat, by using food in the areas where it is grown. For instance, United States troops in the South West Pacific are supplied with food from Australia and New Zealand.

The Boards have been able to save shipping in other ways also. Under the arrangement whereby the United States was to supply uniforms to British troops in the Middle East and Britain to supply uniforms to United States troops in Britain, Mr. Oliver Lyttleton, the Minister of Production, calculated that "the equivalent saving in shipping represents one voyage from here to the Middle East for every ship engaged in this traffic."

The work of the Boards is geared to the strategic planning of the Combined Chiefs of Staff, who in turn are kept informed by the Boards of production, supply and shipping possibilities.

Mr. Churchill, speaking in June 1944, summed up the rewards of such a planned policy: " Time has passed, and after the initial attack launched by an enemy after a long scheme of rearmament and of aggressive plans with well prepared armies, and the natural suffering at the outset, we have moved on from that to a band of brother states all over the globe, all gathered against this enemy and showing that peaceful peoples, if they have time, can with their industries and their heart produce all the weapons and equipment of war necessary for this fight. Here we are now, free peoples who have shown to the world that they can put into the field men well trained and equipped with all the necessary weapons of war."

Finally, in this connection, should be mentioned certain special regional organizations such as the Middle East Supply Centre, the Eastern Group Supply Council and the Anglo-American Caribbean Commission. The Middle East Supply Centre has helped to make the Middle East as self supporting as possible in war time and thus effect economy of shipping space, and its activities have developed to include consideration of such questions .as irrigation and coordinated campaigns drawn from that area, and to improve the organization of war supplies to the Middle East thus more than 1,500.000 tons of stores were sent from India to the Middle East during the North African campaigns. The Anglo American Caribbean Commission has also assisted in schemes to save shipping space in the Caribbean area.

Regional Councils Consider Strategy

Among councils concerned with regional strategy should be indicated the Pacific War Councils, one in London and one in Washington. Another regional council of a similar nature is the Inter American Defence Board, concerned with the defence of North, Central and South America against outside aggression. It was set up with headquarters in Washington in January, 1942, and has as its member's army, naval and air officers of the 21 American republics.

The Permanent Joint Board on Defence of Canada and the United States is concerned with the safety of the United States .rod Canada. Its formation was agreed on in a conference between President Roosevelt and Mr. Mackenzie King, Prime Minister of Canada, at Ogdensburg, New York, on August 17, 1940, even before the United. States was at war, and before the United Nations came formally into being.

This Board considers military matters of special interest to the United States and Canada, and has made recommendations to the Governments of both countries regarding such matters as the distribution of Canadian and American troops in Iceland and Newfoundland, the construction of the "Alcan" highway from the United States to Alaska through Canadian territory, and the construction of air bases for use by both countries on Canadian soil.

The Joint Mexican-United States and Brazil-United States Defense Commissions are further examples of regional councils. They are similar to the Joint Board on Defence, but have Mexico and Brazil as their second members in place of Canada.

Joint Commands Unify War Effort

Responsible to the strategy boards are the joint commands in the theatres of war. These joint commands cover air, land and sea forces each under individual commanders. They are created to take charge of specific campaigns, and frequently change with the changing tides of war. It is therefore not possible to give a complete list of the joint commands of the United Nations. The following, however, are a few outstanding illustrations of joint commands, with the campaigns for which they were created. One of the first to be created was that of the United Nations forces in the South West Pacific under General MacArthur on March 17, 1942. Under his command were placed the combined air, land and sea forces of all Australian, American, British, Dutch and New Zealand forces fighting the Japanese in that area.

A second well known example was the creation of a joint Allied Command in North Africa under General Dwight D. Eisenhower. Under him and his joint staff were placed all American, British, French and other Allied air, land and sea forces in North Africa, during the invasion of Sicily and Italy. This task completed, he was transferred to Britain and put in command of the largest of the combined United Nations forces for the invasion of Western Europe. His successor in Italy was General Maitland Wilson, whose command was extended to cover the entire Mediterranean area and included troops of eight nations.

Under the larger joint commands are specific armies, but these also are very often joint United Nations commands in themselves. For example, the British Eighth Army, at the time of the North African campaign when it was under General Montgomery's leadership, included Australians, Czechoslovaks, French, Greeks, Indians, Poles and South Africans, although 76 per cent of the troops were from the United Kingdom itself.

Another example was the army under General Joseph Stilwell (now succeeded by Major General Wedemeyer) who acted also as Generalissimo Chiang Kai shek's Chief of Staff. He was put in command of a Chinese American force to which later were added British, Indian and West African "chindits" fighting the Japanese in North Burma. General Stilwell's command, together with British and Indian amphibious forces, became part of the joint Allied Command of Admiral Mountbatten.

Such is a brief account of the general United Nations machinery for joint action. One important theatre of war has not, however, been mentioned, namely Eastern Europe, where, in Mr. Churchill's words, "Russia is holding and beating far larger hostile forces than those which face the Allies in the West and has through long years, at enormous loss, borne the brunt of the struggle on land."

Over all Planning Aids Russian Front

Here, though it is the vast Soviet Armies and their brilliant stab' which bear the burden, there has been valuable co operation by the other United Nations. For example, all the maritime nations, under British Admiralty command, co ordinated their efforts to maintain constant supplies through the northern route to Murmansk via the Arctic Ocean. Then again, American and British forces in co operation with the U.S.S.R. and Iran, developed and re organised an eastern supply route to Russia through Iran. Furthermore, with the Soviet forces themselves are a small number of Allied units such as the Czechoslovak brigades, the French Normandie Air Squadron and some Polish Divisions.

Finally, the bombing of Germany, the resistance within the occupied territories and the opening of the Italian front all played their parts in relieving pressure on the Eastern Front. In this connection mention should be made of an outstanding example of coordinated military activities the tactical bombing of the key Balkan communications centers and oil fields by Allied air forces from the south and west in support of the Soviet southern armies advancing from the east.

The greatest example of United Nations teamwork, however, is the carrying out of the grand invasion of the west, north and south of Europe coordinated with the Soviet attacks from the east. This is the climax of the European War, which must be followed by a similar climax in the Pacific War.

In those ultimate tests all the lessons learned from five years of war, all the methods of military co operation and co ordination worked out in a dozen fields of battle, all the plans and experience of United Nations boards and agencies, civilian and military, have to be brought together and woven into a pattern for the final defeat of the aggressors.

But the question remains, can all this experience in United Nations co operation, serving the terrible plans of total war, also teach us teamwork for plans of total peace?