Chapter Fifty-Eight: Infighting in the General Staff
Today's Klabebo barracks is much more lively than when John first came at the beginning of the month. Pen, fun, pavilion www. biquge。 infoThe arrival of 16,000 recruits has finally made this place no longer look like a large construction site.
These recruits brought not only popularity to the 82nd Division, but also a large amount of logistics and supply work. Weapons and equipment aside, just maintaining the daily consumption of food, clothing, and materials for the whole division is enough for John and them to be busy.
No, John had just gone to Alexandria Railway Station as a representative of the General Staff to make a circle of soy sauce, and as soon as he came back, he was blocked by Major Steve at the entrance of the division department.
"John, you're back." Steve sweated profusely and said, "The last batch of 75 trucks has arrived, you hurry up and sign it, Colonel Martin rushed it yesterday." ”
"He's in a hurry, and if he doesn't need it in the past two days, he'll be looking for trouble." John grumbled, but took the slip from Steve's hand and signed.
John knew in his heart that Colonel Martin was unbalanced when he saw that the trucks of the other two regiments were in place. He also didn't want to think that the 505th regiment was stationed closest to the division's logistics warehouse, not even 1.5 kilometers. Large supplies are transported by the car company of the logistics and transportation center, and small items are taken care of by jeeps. Those trucks were used for them as artillery tractors, and they were not used for the last two days. Anyway, each regiment is equipped with 75 trucks and 139 jeeps as standard, and John can still shorten his failure.
"This batch of trucks is finished, it should be all together." John's main focus for the past two days has been on the "House of America" project, and Major Steve is mainly in charge of the logistics, which is the last checkpoint and signing.
"Except for the surgical equipment of the medical camp, everything else is complete." Steve is really tired enough these days. If it weren't for the good performance of the logistics officers and quartermaster sergeants who had undergone Leith's 10-day assault training, he wouldn't have been able to keep himself busy.
For John's newly established 82nd Division's logistics supply system, this new recruit's entry is a big test. At present, the three logistics centers of storage, statistical dispatch and transportation are operating fairly normally, and the adaptation of the companies to the new supply process is not bad. Except for one company in the 505th Regiment who forgot to apply for the accessory package, and as a result, the whole company did not have a paper to go to the toilet, and there were no major mistakes.
If the overall performance of the logistics team of the 82nd Division this time is qualified, Major Steve's work evaluation is completely excellent. This former logistics instructor at Fort Benning's Infantry School, who has a very good foundation in mathematics and co-ordination, has taken over the FedEx set very quickly. Even Leith had offered to suggest to John that in the future, when Steve retired, he could consider recruiting him to FedEx.
But this will have to wait at least until the end of the war. Now, John is thinking about how to find an opportunity to promote Steve to a level and let him take over his position as the logistics staff officer of the 82nd Division. This allowed him to take a break from the heavy logistics and devote himself to the "Home of America" program.
In the long run, though, logistical reform is even more important than the "National House" program. However, at this stage, the "All-American House" plan is the top priority of the 82nd Division's work.
Marshall personally ordered a team to be sent to follow the whole process, and General McNair and General Wald made a phone call almost a day. The "All-American House" program has only just begun, and it has aroused great concern within the Army. Even Eisenhower, who was far away in Fort Lewis, heard about it and called to inquire about it in detail.
At such times, if John was tied up in logistics and could not participate in it, wouldn't he have made a wedding dress for someone else. And if it's cheaper, others will forget it, but if it's cheaper for Pope, a dead fat man, John is even more reluctant.
Now when he thinks of Pop, the top boss, John is angry. I don't know if it's because he made a big splash on Pop's first day in office, which made him suffer from pink eye. Or did he see that John was not a Marshallist, and he was weak in the 82nd Division, and he felt that it was easy to bully. In short, as soon as this guy took office, he regarded John as the object of his prestige, and always wanted to establish his leadership position in the staff by suppressing him.
John wasn't going to get along with Pope. After all, he is only the deputy chief of staff, and he is a subordinate of others, so it is not appropriate to be too strong. So in the face of Popper's "provocation", John initially adopted a back-and-forth attitude, trying to avoid intensifying the conflict.
I didn't expect him to be generous and not care about it, and Pope even intensified. It's only been two weeks, and he has been looking for John several times in succession, and he has secretly made moves on the list of logistics supplies, trying to set up John. If it weren't for the strict logistics management system that Leith had designed for him, the statistics and dispatch center would soon find out that the data on the list was wrong, and maybe Pope would have succeeded.
This annoyed John. There are so many Marshallites in the staff, Pope took the wrong medicine, don't go to those people's troubles, just stare at him alone, this is too bullying. If he hadn't caught the evidence that Pope was manipulating the list, he would have to give this guy a good look.
At this time, it is enough for John to bear not to turn his face openly with Pope to take care of the overall situation, and then let him give up all his credit to the other party, there is no door.
As a result, John devoted almost most of his energy to the "Home All Americans" project. Anyway, Chief of Staff Marshall knew that he had proposed this plan, and he was more familiar with the situation of the 82nd Division than Pope, and the position of deputy chief of staff also gave him the authority to participate in the overall work of the 82nd Division. He just wants to not let go of the dominance of the "National House" project, and Pope can still grab it.
Now in the General Staff, the atmosphere is a little weird. Chief of Staff Pope was nominally in charge of the work of the General Staff, but one of the most important tasks was in John's hands. Among the several chief staff officers, except for intelligence staff officer Lynch Jr., who remained neutral, several others were also pulled into the "National House" program by John.
These people are not stupid, and of course they can see that Pop and John are not dealing with each other. But they were either Bradley's men or Ridgway's men, and it was impossible for them to be on Pope's side. Now John not only helped them attract Pop's firepower, but also took the initiative to share the credit with them, so there was no reason not to take it.
Bradley, Ridgway, and Swain certainly knew that something was wrong with the atmosphere at the Staff, but none of them wanted to meddle. In the eyes of the "Big Three", it is not a bad thing to have a little conflict between Pop and John.
Anyway, the divisional staff is right under their noses, and there will be no big problems if they stare at it more. On the contrary, they were more worried about Pop colluding with the conservative officers of the former Ninth Division in the regiments below.
Now that Pope is focused on John, it's great. They just had their hands free and took advantage of the opportunity of this new recruit to carry out a post adjustment (purge) of those officers of the former Ninth Division. When they completely break up the foundation of the conservatives in the grassroots units of the 82nd Division, Pope will still be able to play a trick with a chief of staff.
So, apart from Bradley's slight hint that there was a staff working group to be aware of the implications, no one had commented on the conflict between John and Pope. Judging by the meaning, it is intended to be laissez-faire, and let John and Pop solve it by themselves by their own strength.