8. Operation Rollup: The U.S. Army's Rebuild Program during the Korean War

Field: Social Sciences (Social Sciences)

MILLIONS OF AMERICAN SOLDIERS and sailors had cause to celebrate on August 14, 1945. Japan had accepted the Allied terms of surrender, bringing World War II to an end. The surrender also brought sighs of relief, because a costly invasion of the Japanese islands would not be necessary. The millions of tons of equipment and supplies being stockpiled on islands in the Philippines, the Marianas, the Bonins, and the Ryukyus for that invasion would not be needed. The plan to dispose of that materiel, dubbed Operation Rollup, would initially founder for a lack of shipping and personnel, be revitalized in 1948 as a way to provide equipment for U.S. forces occupying Japan, and finally serve as a major source of materiel, following rebuild and renovation, for fighting the Korean War.1 Operation Rollup actually began even before war's end as rollup teams began assessing materiel for disposition in areas of the Pacific, such as New Guinea and the Solomons that by 1945 were backwaters in the war effort.2 Some materiel could be sold to allies. The Foreign Liquidation Commission (FLC) was established to dispose of surplus property. Countries in the region, notably China, Korea, the Philippines, and former enemy Japan, needed that materiel to rebuild devastated infrastructure. By the end of 1946, the FLC had sold 306,900 long tons of supplies to these and other countries for $190 million.3 The FLC disposed of only a relatively small amount of materiel, however, as much of the stockpiled military equipment was not especially useful for economic rehabilitation. Some of this remaining materiel would be needed by U.S. occupation forces earmarked for Japan and Korea. When the war in the Pacific ended unexpectedly, hundreds of ships carrying invasion supplies were en route to Pacific staging areas from the continental United States (also known as the Zone of the Interior). Many of these ships were diverted to Japan on the assumption that their cargoes could be used by arriving occupation forces. The ships arrived to find that few intact piers or storage areas and little cargo-handling equipment remained in devastated Japan to handle the cargo discharge. Supplies were literally dumped pier side or on beaches to free up the holds for other missions.4 And there was no lack of other missions for shipping. While the decision to divert ships to Japan was not well thought out, Operation Rollup was otherwise a well-conceived plan to concentrate war materiel and then dispose of it, with the understanding that most stocks would have to be returned to the United States. Other missions requiring shipping, however, quickly overwhelmed this plan, although in early 1946 some supplies did reach the United States. At the Port of San Francisco, for example, 289 vessels returned vehicles, equipment, and supplies in the first five months of 1946.5 This retrograde began to slacken, however, as ships were diverted to other missions. One largely unanticipated mission, at least in scope, was the requirement to relocate five million or more Japanese to their islands from regions in the Pacific that they had occupied and in some cases colonized. Conversely, a million Chinese, Koreans, and other nationals sent to work in Japan during the war had to be repatriated. A number of U.S. Navy landing ships and a fleet of 106 Liberty ships spent most of 1946 accomplishing this mission.6 The main diversion of shipping from Operation Rollup, however, was caused by the need to return demobilizing troops to the United States. Pressure from the front, not to mention from the troops themselves, to bring the boys home at war's end did not go unheeded.7 Army strength on September 1, 1945, the day before Japan's formal surrender, was just over eight million. This strength was reduced by more than six million over the next nine months. By the end of June 1947, the army's effective strength was 925,000.8 That a great deal of shipping was needed to transport these demobilizing troops is obvious, but related factors also conspired to disrupt Operation Rollup. …