Originally posted by SunTracker
Watched a History Channel program about the German invasion of Russia. On the show, they said there were more German deaths in the winter from freezing to death and frost-bite (gangrene I assume) than from enemy action.
My question is- Did U.S. troops in Europe have adequate clothing during the winter? Seems like I remember the U.S. having a big problem with frost-bite also. Also, which army had the best winter clothing?
It's been covered in a few books, but one of the biggest problems contributing to the front line troops not getting adequate winter gear was the rear echelon and black market. The 'pencil pushers' got the winter stuff first as it came through them. Other stuff was siphoned off into the black market and many of the front line guys went without until well into January-February
There's a lot more too it then that, but read Ambrose's "Citizen Soldiers", Toland "Battle-Story of the Bulge" or John Eisenhowers "The Bitter Woods" for starters. Ambrose in particular takes the head of supply, a certain General Lee to task bigtime.
The quality of US winter gear was very good, but as mentioned didn't get to the guys that needed it fast enough
Dan/Slack
