--- title: "‘The Red Ball Express’ kept the Allies supplied and armed after the D-Day breakout" description: "In July of 1944, the Allies needed a way to keep pressure on the Germans without outrunning their supply lines. Enter the \"Red Ball Express.\"" date: "2022-06-06" modified: "2022-06-06" authors: - name: "Team Mighty" job_title: "Author" link: "https://www.wearethemighty.com/authors/teammighty/" url: "https://www.wearethemighty.com/articles/the-red-ball-express-kept-the-allies-supplied-and-armed-after-the-d-day-breakout/" categories: - "Army" - "History" - "War History" - "World War II" --- # ‘The Red Ball Express’ kept the Allies supplied and armed after the D-Day breakout ![A military police officer stands next to a large roadside sign that reads "RED BALL HIGHWAY" with a cartoon truck and a character pointing to a tonnage target scale. The sign encourages, "STAY ON THE BALL KEEP 'EM ROLLING!" The tonnage target scale ranges from 1,000 to 20,000 tons, with an arrow pointing at 11,000 tons. The scene appears to be in a village or small town with buildings and a dirt road.]() After storming the beaches of Normandy and fighting through the hedgerows of the French countryside, the Allied forces invading Nazi-occupied Europe came across one problem they hadn’t anticipated: outrunning their own supply lines. By July 1944, the Allied advance nearly ground to a halt. Every operation was decided by one major factor, which was how much supply it required versus how much could be delivered. It would be almost three months before French railways could be repaired and portable gas pipelines could be installed. To move the necessary supplies and keep the pressure on the German army, Allied war planners created a massive, truck-based supply convoy run primarily by Black soldiers. It became known as the “Red Ball Express.” The Allies need a continuous supply of necessary fuel, ammunition, ordnance and food to keep running to the front. After breaking out of the Normandy area, the infrastructure the Allies damaged to hamper the German response needed repair to be used for the German defeat. ![Six soldiers wearing helmets and military uniforms are handling wooden crates. Three soldiers are standing on the ground, two are sitting on the back of a truck filled with crates, and one soldier is handing a crate to another. The scene appears to be a supply or logistics operation, with a large tarp and more crates stacked in the background. The image is in black and white.]() *Soldiers from the 4185th Quartermaster Service Company (*left to right*), Pvt. Harold Hendricks, Staff Sgt. Carl Haines, Sgt. Theodore Cutright, Pvt. Lawrence Buckhalter, Pfc. Horace Deahl, and Pvt. David N. Hatcher, load trucks with rations bound for frontline troops September 1944 in Liege, Belgium. (Photo courtesy of the U.S. Army)* There had to be a way to move 750 tons of supplies from the port of Antwerp to multiple locations across the front every day. Just one armored division alone required 350 tons of gasoline. After brainstorming for 36 hours straight, planners came up with a solution: a convoy of thousands and thousands of trucks, constantly streaming to and from the front lines. No truck could travel alone, they had to travel in a convoy of at least five total trucks and each was marked with a number indicating its position in the line of trucks. To mitigate the risks of high speed driving or of a truck pile up in an accident, trucks were ordered to drive just 35 miles per hour and maintain a specific clear distance from each other. The order to drive slower was rarely followed, many drove at twice that speed. When they implemented the plan, there weren’t enough trucks and there weren’t enough drivers. The Army began vulturing trucks from units who weren’t using them and began taking people with non-combat functions and training them to be truck drivers. The vast majority of these men were Black soldiers. ![red ball express]() *(National Archives)* Without these soldiers at the wheel, World War II in Europe might have dragged on for another full year. Gen. Dwight D. Eisenhower saw the Red Ball Express as the most critical lifeline to the advancing armies, just as important as the combat units themselves. Of course, these early trucks got stuck in traffic, both civilian and military. So the Allies created two priority roads just for the supply trucks, which became known as the Red Ball Line, named for the red spots marking the trucks and the routes that were closed to civilians. At its height, the Red Ball Express was operating almost 6,000 trucks per day to move 12,500 tons of various supplies, fuel, and ammunition. Since the German Luftwaffe was almost nonexistent by this point in the war, the biggest problems facing the convoys were maintenance of the trucks and the overworked drivers. Eventually, the rail lines were repaired and the Red Ball Express was no longer necessary. After more than 80 days of continuous operation, the convoy drivers had delivered more than 400,000 tons of supplies to the Allies in combat. https://youtu.be/T6WCFwUrKrA ## Author Team Mighty's experience encompasses intel, special ops, military history, tactical expertise, aviation, gear, and weapons. Authors on Team Mighty include veterans, spouses, and active and reserve service members from every branch of the military, as well as former CIA employees.