Archive Blog

It has been a little while since my last blog, but I have been cramming for the GRE; I take it tomorrow.

Early on the morning of July 7^th 1919 the largest convoy of military vehicles yet assembled in history, the Army Transcontinental Army Convoy left Washington D.C. bound for San Francisco. Twenty-four officers, 15 War Department staff observers, and 258 enlisted men were part of the convoy. The Trans-Continental Truck Train was composed of various types of light and heavy motor trucks, touring cars, special makes of observation cars, motorcycles, ambulances, trailers, tractor and machine shop unit. In conducting this trip, two scouts were mounted on motorcycles that reconnoitered roads and placarded same for guidance of train. The engineer unit was charged with making bridges, culverts, etc., passable.

One of the Army's observers was Lieutenant Colonel Dwight Eisenhower, who joined the convoy on its first stop in Frederick, Maryland; Eisenhower at the time was assigned to nearby Fort George G. Meade. Eisenhower wrote a report on the convoy, noting the overall poor condition of many of the roads, especially in the west. Eisenhower noted that each of the various kinds of touring cars, trucks, tractors, and other vehicles in the convoy had its own best speed, which made maintaining the convoy's formation difficult. Eisenhower found the convoy's officers "poor" and its troops badly disciplined due to lack of training

Because of the number of men include in the convoy there should be hundreds of photos available. The Dwight D. Eisenhower Presidential Library and Museum archive should be an excellent resource for these photos, but they have less than ten available at any given time on line. The other resource would be the National Archive, but even there access is inadequate. You have to visit the library to reach the photos archive. I would like to see this expanded to make research of this event open to more people.