Some things never change

I recall during OIF/OIF the endless container wars.  Logisticians sent containers into Iraq loaded, and often the empty ones never came back out.  After 30 days, the carriers started levying detention charges, and with the number of the containers on the loose it added up fast.

Logisticians were tearing their hair out, and the budget folks were bouncing off walls.  The media even got involved:  every few years a story would hit the front page of USA Today, bemoaning the waste.

The case of the disappearing containers wasn’t that much of a mystery.  Load ‘em up with dirt, and containers made great berms.  Set them down in a Forward Operating base, and they became mini-warehouses.  Surround them with sandbags, and they became guard posts.  Cut a couple of windows, put in a door and hook up a generator and the container became a hooch.

Heck, I lived in one.

Turns out that there was a similar problem in the fall of 1944 in Europe.  The Allies had a terrible problem with port capacity before Antwerp opened, and cargo ships were stacking up at the ports.  Since they couldn’t fully unload them, SHAEF started using them as floating warehouses, just unloaded what they needed.

Eventually, hundreds or cargo ships were bouncing at anchor of the coast of France, while stateside they were screaming for the return of those same cargo ships.  Think the OIF/OEF container problem on a grand scale.

Finally, SHAEF was handed an ultimatum:  send back ships, or the US would stop sending supplies.  It took the involvement of General Eisenhower to break the logjam, and ships started weighing anchor and heading west.  The threat was taken so seriously by Eisenhower that some of the returning ships still had cargo on board.

Evidently coordinating the left hand and the right hand has long been a problem in the land of military logistics.  Some things never change.