#3-345
To Major General Charles H. Bonesteel
September 30, 1942 [Washington, D.C.]
Confidential
My dear Bonesteel:
As you go into the winter in Iceland I wonder if there is anything that I might do to improve your situation. I am deeply concerned regarding you people in isolated posts, particularly so when the garrisons have already been in position for some time. I have wondered whether it might not be a good thing to have you make a trip to the States to talk things over here, get your bearings on the general situation and then return to Iceland. I wish you would write me very frankly regarding the foregoing.1
We are in a very critical stage now in our deployments. There are more than 800,000 men on foreign service and more soon to go. It has been a long and complicated business building up these what might be called preliminary deployments, with always the tonnage and escort problem limiting the rapidity of our deployments.
The organization of the Army here at home is on a firm foundation and has passed the period of growing pains, though we are constantly on the increase. Our greatest difficulty has been in the provision of sufficient special troops for which our program has never provided a large enough number. There have been too many unexpected requirements, new island garrisons, Air Corps concentration of ground troops, extensions and duplications of the ferry command across Africa and to the Far East. However I think we have now made the necessary adjustments to prevent a repetition of this dilemma but I can never hope to pass the period when the demands will not be greater than the available resources at the time.
With my warm regards,
Faithfully yours,
Document Copy Text Source: George C. Marshall Papers, Pentagon Office Collection, Selected Materials, George C. Marshall Research Library, Lexington, Virginia.
Document Format: Typed letter.
1. The commander of the Iceland Base Command replied that his deputy had recently returned from the United States fully briefed, and he listed other reasons for not leaving his post for an extended trip at this time. He described some projects his command had undertaken, suggested that he receive additional ground troops and air forces, described the most recent German activities in the area, and discussed his relations with Icelandic authorities and labor unions. (Bonesteel to Marshall, October 31, 1942, NA/RG 165 [OCS, Project Decimal File 1941–43, 381 Iceland].)
Recommended Citation: ThePapers of George Catlett Marshall, ed.Larry I. Bland and Sharon Ritenour Stevens (Lexington, Va.: The George C. Marshall Foundation, 1981– ). Electronic version based on The Papers of George Catlett Marshall, vol. 3, “The Right Man for the Job,” December 7, 1941-May 31, 1943 (Baltimore and London: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 1991), pp. 373–374.