Red Ball Express Put Allied Troops on Road to Victory

Benjamin Layton (TT Photo)

KENSINGTON, Md. — Though well into his 80s, Benjamin Layton still remembers the trucking experiences of his youth — no matter how hard he tries to forget them.

Those memories are tied intangibly not only to diesel fumes and long hours on the road, but also to the screams of artillery shells, the whine of bullets and the roar of low-flying German planes over the roads that crisscrossed the battlefields of Europe during World War II.

“I have such dreadful flashbacks,” the retired Army lieutenant colonel said in recalling some of the action that earned him the Bronze Star for bravery under fire as a platoon leader in the 3496th Quartermaster Truck Company.

Layton’s unit was one link in a chain of 6,000 or so trucks and trailers that made up the Red Ball Express, the code name for a mammoth logistics operation that supplied 412,193 tons of food, fuel, ammunition and much more to Allied forces in Europe from Aug. 25 to Nov. 16, 1944.

Layton especially remembers running supplies to the Ninth Army, fighting around Aachen, a Germany city that is a stone’s throw from the Belgian border.

“It was under siege, being bombarded night and day, and we had a hell of a time trying to sleep for several days,” he said. “But it got so that it mattered not how much noise the bombardment made; we could sleep through it.”

Then the German colonel in command at Aachen surrendered, and things became too quiet, Layton said.

“We had a hard time sleeping again,” he said. “I’d wake up inthe middle of the night, swearing that someone was getting ready to cut my throat. Others were the same way.”

Layton’s truckers served on the front lines, too. They suffered through bitter cold during the Battle of the Bulge, fighting near Bastogne in the Ardennes forest during the last German offensive of World War II.

“The Battle of the Bulge started about Dec. 16, 1944, but really didn’t end until Jan. 25, 1945,” Layton said. “That’s the reason we called it a ‘holy battle,’ because it lasted exactly 40 days and 40 nights.

“So many men were getting killed,” he added; memories that still bring tears to his eyes today. “The damn mortars were falling all over us. We brought too many men back in body bags — the cream of the crop of our generation.”

For the full story, see the April 26 print edition of Transport Topics. Subscribe today.