“Logistics and communications,” writes historian, Carlo D’Este,
“are the vital supporting cast of waging successful war; to lack for either is
to court failure.” This quote is taken
from D’Este’s telling of the story of the Allied forces’ stall at the tail end
of the Normandy Campaign in World War II.
Contributing to the sputtering advance of the four Allied armies was
General Eisenhower’s (and others’) neglect of his logistics and his
communications.[1]
“Eisenhower’s hands were tied by both. His logisticians
determined how far his armies could advance, and his signals officers, who
controlled the flow of communications into and out of SHAEF, determined how
well and how fast he could communicate with his subordinates.”[2] Pretty straightforward stuff.
When Ike moved his forward headquarters in early September
1944 from “Shellburst,” just inland of the Normandy beaches, to Granville, at
the base of the Cotentin Peninsula, he was, for a crucial time, cut off from
the forces under his command. “In
effect,” explains D’Este, “he was incommunicado, a serious problem for any
commander but a potentially fatal flaw for the one exercising supreme command.”[3]
At the end of his story D’Este makes the doctrinal application,
“A headquarters that is uninformed and unable to communicate cannot exercise command
and control over operations, and is essentially useless.”[4]
This is exactly the kind of historical anecdote that, if applied to,
say, an emerging doctrinal publication on signal support to operations, would make it
more readable, understandable, and militarily useful. Some would resist merely on account that the
story is from World War II, and is almost 70 years old. But a fundamental principle is a fundamental
principle, is it not? And an illustration of a fundamental principle teaches like nothing else
can.
I mean, for what other reason do we write doctrine?
