Early history Civil War During the
American Civil War, transportation proved to be an integral part of military logistics through the organization of railroads as a viable and efficient means of military transportation. The US Army centralized the management of rail into the
United States Military Railroad (USMRR). The Army Quartermaster purchased eight
City-class ironclads on the Mississippi River in February 1862, a full month before the
USS Monitor and
CSS Virginia set sail. City Point, Virginia in 1864 would become the largest port operation in the Western Hemisphere in 1864. By 1864, five of the nine divisions in the
Quartermaster Department dealt exclusively with transportation. The
Army Transport Service was one of the divisions that was responsible for land and water transport. A substantial number of battles were won because of the field commander's ability to swiftly and effectively move troops and supplies. Most wounded soldiers were carried away in a banana-shaped cart called a gondola.
Spanish–American War During the
Spanish–American War, the task of mobilizing and deploying a largely volunteer force to
Cuba and the
Philippines magnified the need for a separate transportation service within the Quartermaster Department. Army transporters worked with both the civilian railroads and the maritime industry to pull together a successful intermodal operation. and the Transportation Corps of the AEF was abolished after the war, By the end of the war the Transportation Corps had moved more than 30 million soldiers within the continental United States; and 7 million soldiers plus 126 million tons of supplies overseas. As allied forces rapidly advanced across France in the summer of 1944, a special transportation operation nicknamed the
Red Ball Express was carried out from 25 August to 16 November. The Red Ball Express provided around the clock truck convoys from allied held ports to supply troops on the front in a giant, one-way loop. There were other lesser known truck-route express operations: the Green Diamond Express operated out of Cherbourg due south, to serve the forces advancing on Brittany and Brest. Later the White Ball Highway Express operated out of Le Havre to the same depots served by the Red Ball. Later still, the A B C Highway moved men and supplies from the Belgian port of Antwerp to the front. The story of the Red Ball Express was told in the 1950s movie
Red Ball Express. There was a short lived television series in the early 1970s named
Roll Out which focused on the experiences of a fictional African American motor transportation unit involved with the Red Ball Express.
Cold War The Cold War between the United States and the
Soviet Union extended from 1945 into 1991, spanning the Gulf War. When the Soviet Union cordoned off the city of Berlin in 1948, the Transportation Corps played a vital role in sustaining the city. Two years later, on 28 June 1950, President
Harry S. Truman established the Transportation Corps as a permanent branch of the Army.
Korean War During the
Korean War, the Transportation Corps kept the UN Forces supplied through three winters. By the time the
armistice was signed, the Transportation Corps had moved more than 3 million soldiers and 7 million tons of cargo.
Vietnam War The
Vietnam War saw the most diversified assortment of transportation units ever assembled. For over a decade the Transportation Corps provided continuous support for American and allied forces through an unimproved tropical environment using watercraft, amphibians, motor trucks and Transportation Corps aircraft. The enemy threat to convoys required a unique solution -
gun trucks. On 31 July 1986, the Transportation Corps was inducted into the
U.S. Army Regimental System.
Gulf War In 1990 the Transportation Corps faced one of its greatest challenges with the onset of the
Gulf War. During
Operation Desert Shield and
Operation Desert Storm, the Transportation Corps working out of ports on three continents demonstrating its ability to deploy and sustain massive forces.
Post Cold War Operations in
Somalia, Rwanda,
Haiti,
Bosnia, and
Iraq have also seen the deployment of large numbers of transportation units.
Operation Enduring Freedom When the coalition forces invaded Afghanistan, the Transportation Corps opened up the air line of communication into the country and until 2008, a single movement control battalion managed all logistics in Regional Command-East. As the number of brigade combat teams increased in Afghanistan in 2006, the Transportation Corps began ground convoy operations.
Operation Iraqi Freedom The 143rd Transportation Command opened the port and supported the push to Baghdad in March 2003. After Baghdad fell in April, the maneuver operation matured into a sustainment operation with a hub and spoke supply line. Once the enemy began attacking convoys, the truck drivers responded with an age old solution of hardening trucks with steel and adding machine guns thus making gun trucks and convoy security a permanent part of Transportation doctrine. No matter how great the threat, the Transportation Corps delivered the goods. During Operation New Dawn, the Transportation Corps was responsible for retrograding all the equipment out of Iraq by the December 2012 deadline. ==Bases of operations==