|
Service
point for rations, Normandy, 7
August 1944. |
| Photo
by Donald I. Grant. Department
of National Defence / National
Archives of Canada, PA-132903. |
|
"An army cannot fight unless it is fed,
regularly." This self-evident concept
is usually taken for granted but the provision
of "food, ammunition, and other essential
supplies to an army at the times and places,
and in the quantities required" is an
essential pre-condition for any military campaign.
Supplying Canada's army in the field during
the Second World War was the joint responsibility
of the Royal Canadian Ordnance Corps (RCOC),
essentially the Canadian Army's stores warehouse,
and the Royal Canadian Army Service Corps
(RCASC), which transported and issued all
material goods from rear areas such as RCOC
depots to troops at the front. It had become
an established principle that to function
adequately in wartime these related services
must be brought under military command, for
even the best staff work would be rendered
useless without "the same control over
the services of transport and supply that
[a commander] has over his fighting forces"
(Arnold Warren, Wait for the Waggon: the
Story of the Royal Canadian Army Service
Corps, 1961, pp. 3-4).
Other auxiliary corps were established to
carry out the essential services of communications,
police, mail delivery and lumber supply, to
name only a few. |
Canada in WWII
