|
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. |
