The Birth of the First Logistics Functions in the U.S. Army During World War II

The ancient etymology of the concept of logistics

The term “logistics” comes from the Greek logistikos, which means “the art of practical calculation” (Leighton & Coakley, 1955a; Tixier et al., 1983). In fact, the concept of logistics was developed within the Greek army, where the term designated the calculation of the operations necessary for military art. More precisely, for Perjès (1970, pp. 25–26), “it comprised the material supply, and – generally speaking – all operations based on quantitative calculation in connection with the movements, equipment, organisation and fighting of an army”. Etymological works also mention the Greek logisteuo, which means “to be a steward, to administer” (Lièvre, 2007). As Dubreuil (2013) notes, the terms logistikos and logisteuo share the same root in the Greek logistês. The latter term refers both to the master of mathematics, and, in Athens, to an auditing magistrate to whom other elected magistrates would be accountable. While historical research must be conducted to clarify the extent of the uses of these words, sources agree that the term “logistics” would gradually fall into disuse in the armies. For Perjès (1970, p. 26), although Leo the Wise still used the term in the 10th century, “after his time it vanished together with strategy and tactics from military terminology not to emerge again until the second half of the 18th century”.

The reinvention of Jomini’s 19th century concept

As the majority of sources highlight (e.g., Leighton & Coakley, 1955a; Tixier et al., 1983; Colin, 1996; Klaus & Müller, 2012), the term was to be revived by armies in the 19th century under the impetus of the Swiss military theorist Antoine-Henri Jomini. In his Précis de l’art de la guerre (1838), Jomini, who served on Napoleon’s General Staff before joining the Russian Army, defended logistics as an element of the art of war equivalent to strategy and tactics. To forge the term logistics, however, Jomini drew his inspiration not from the Greek term mentioned above, but from a function strongly developed in the French Army in the 16th and 17th centuries, that of Maréchal Général des logis. As the name indicates, the Maréchal was responsible for housing the soldiers and organizing marches (Rouquet, 2021). From this function, Jomini introduced the idea that logistics could be defined generally as “the practical art of moving armies”, constituting a “general science”.

Although the term made its reappearance under Jomini’s pen, it was far from becoming established in armies around the world. Searches on the databases of the Bibliothèque Nationale de France including the word “logistics” for the period 1838 to 1950 turn up no work on the subject. In the English language, the same search in the U.S. Library of Congress yields only a few results from the years 1917 onwards, including a work by Thorpe published in 1917 entitled Pure Logistics. As Eccles (1954) noted, this work, based on Jomini’s definition, attracted almost no attention in the Army until five copies were found in 1945 in the U.S. Naval War College Library.

The turning point of WWII and the emergence of business logistics

The use of the term flourished during WWII (Néré, 1957), when U.S. forces seem to have returned it relevance. In his war memoirs, Eisenhower (2013) mentioned how much he was preoccupied with logistical issues, while in his memoirs, General de Gaulle confirmed that it was by “respecting logistics that General Eisenhower led the complicated and passionate machinery of the armies of the free world to victory” (de Gaulle, 1956, p. 118). This was an unmistakeable turning point: by the end of the war, several research programmes mentioning logistics were in development within the ecosystem of the U.S. armed forces. The Rand Corporation set up a Logistics System Laboratory, which in the 1950s was to be the source of numerous planning simulations for the U.S. Air Force (Quet, 2022). Under the impetus of the U.S. Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara, the Logistics Management Institute was created in 1961 (Cowen, 2014) with the aim of advising the Army on logistics. Books on military logistics multiplied, like those developed by the U.S. Army Historical Service (see below), or that by Eccles on the Navy (1959). At the same time, U.S. researchers in transport and management began to take an interest in logistics and adopted this military term in a business context (Heskett, 1960).

How did the first logistics function emerge in the U.S. forces during WWII?

Though WWII was a turning point in the field of logistics, culminating in Operation Overlord, studies are not clear as to how these logistical concerns would formally translate within the command of the U.S. forces. However, it is likely, given the importance accorded explicitly to logistics in the discourse, that U.S. forces included functions bearing the name in their formal structure. Indeed, analysis of the development of logistics in companies from the 1970s and 1980s onwards shows that the creation of logistics functions in their structures to be crucial (Heskett, 1960; Smykay et al., 1961). Such a process of institutionalization (Meyer and Rowan, 1977) is a commonly established feature of the recent history of organizations and evident for many other functions. This article aims to verify the intuition that a function officially described as logistics did indeed emerge in the formal structure of the U.S. forces during WWII and to document this emergence with precision.

Research design: a genealogical approach

Foucaldian approaches emphasize “the historicity of ways of thinking about and problematising new objects and seek to question the development of concepts and theories by analysing their filiations, placing them in the theoretical, institutional, and practical debates in which they were conceived and disseminated” (Acquier & Aggeri, 2007, p. 132). Thus, our project was not to write a history of ideas, relying solely on the analysis of theoretical publications on logistics in the manner of Langley (1986) or Kent and Flint (1997). Instead, like Thibault Le Texier (2022) in his recent critical history of marketing, we turn to a genealogical approach with the intention of making space for a broad examination of the institutional context of the U.S. forces, from where we believe logistics functions emerged during WWII.

Data collection: archives from the U.S. forces

Due to the impossibility of conducting interviews, we turned to archival research. Here, the U.S. forces itself constituted an accessible and valuable source. In 1943, the Army created the U.S. Army Center of Military History, an institution affording access to the Army’s archives, including historical documents and military records, and which has produced a large body of books and reports since WWII. Available online, these address all aspects of the war from the perspective of the U.S. Army. The U.S. Navy has also produced numerous documents on the war through its dedicated department, the Naval History and Heritage Command. We systematically searched the reports of U.S. forces for the use of the term “logistics”, eventually identifying five reports that specifically addressed the creation of such functions. These reports comprises 3,618 pages in total (Table 1). In addition, we collected, read, and cited in the bibliography many other documents on WWII.

Data Analysis

From an analytical point of view, our approach consisted of reading this material and trying to extract from it an understanding of the major stages that led the U.S. forces to acquire logistical functions. To carry out this content analysis (Bardin, 1977), we opted for a manual and inductive approach. This is an approach encouraging multiple readings (Thomas, 2006), allowing a deep immersion in the data. Our reading allowed us to gradually determine the emergence of four logistical functions in different parts of the U.S. forces: a Logistics Group structured within the War Plan Divisions of the War Department of the U.S. Army; a Strategic Logistic Division in the Army Service Forces, the entity whose principal mission was to supply the Army; a Chief of Naval Operations for Logistic Plans in the naval operations division of the Navy; and a Joint Logistics Committee in the Joint Chiefs of Staff, the joint Army-Navy structure in charge of war management.

In this article, we do not discuss the debates surrounding the creation of the logistics entity within the Navy. Indeed, most of the elements present in the Army can also be found in the Navy, and the Army case appears richer because two logistical entities would emerge and find themselves in conflict. Similarly, we do not show the emergence of logistics functions within the U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff (JCS). This emergence occurs after the creation of logistics functions within the Army and leads to debates similar to those that took place within the Army, thereby adding nothing new to the analysis.

After giving an overview of the organization of the U.S. forces at the beginning of the WWII, we present our results, showing chronologically how the two aforementioned entities developed. Figure 1 below sumarizes where these two first logistical functions emerged within the U.S. army in 1942.

Figure 1

An army and a navy: two separate entities

The first element to take into account is the non-integrated nature of the U.S. forces. At the end of 1941, there was no unified command between the Army and the Navy, which appeared as two relatively autonomous entities. The Army was directed by General George C. Marshall, who held the position of Chief of Staff until 1945. He was administratively dependent on the Secretary of War, a ministry headed by Henry Stimson until 1945. The Navy was directed by Admiral Stark, who was replaced in 1942 by Admiral King. Administratively, it depended on the Secretary of the Navy, a post held by Frank Knox until 1944. Politically, it was only in 1949 that the command of these two forces was unified into a Secretariat of Defense. In this organization, the Air Force, which developed with the progress of aviation and played a predominant role in the war, was a component of the Army. Moreover, in the military decisions, the Secretary of State, a position that would be occupied by Cordell until the end of 1944, played an active role, especially because of the importance of political and military cooperation with the British.

An army headquarters with several divisions, including a transverse division

At the end of 1941, the Army was supported by a War Department General Staff (WDGS). Within this department, there were four divisions, G1, G2, G3 and G4, responsible for personnel (G1), intelligence (G2), mobilization and training (G3), and supply (G4). In addition, there existed a transversal War Plans Division (renamed “Operations Division” in 1942), which played a key role in the emergence of logistics. This division, directed by General Marshall in 1938, was given “broad responsibilities for strategic planning” (Cline, 1951, p. 20) and developed various plans that the Army was supposed to implement to defend itself from attack. Theoretically, in the event of war, this division would make it possible to “provide a nucleus for the general headquarters in the field in the event of mobilisation” (Cline, 1951, p. 20). The structure is “concerned mainly with affairs in the Theater of Operations”, while “the other Divisions of the WDGS are concerned mainly with affairs in the Zone of Interior” (Cline, 1951, p. 30). It would experience strong growth with the entry into the war. Thus, “about one hundred officers were serving on the General Staff in mid-1939 and more than twice that many by mid-1941” (Cline, 1951, p. 23).

The creation of the Combined Chiefs of Staff system with the British

The United States, of course, would not be the only ones to fight the war, eventually joining with the Allies, mainly the British. In 1940, America was not officially at war, there was not yet a formal command structure, and Anglo-American cooperation was realized through the lend-lease system. This system allowed the United States to provide the British with weapons and support for the war effort without entering it. Following Pearl Harbor and the official entry of the United States into the war, the question arose of how U.S. and British forces would be commanded. To answer this question, the Arcadia Conference was held in Washington in December 1941. The conference led to the decision that in order to win the war, the primary objective must be to defeat Germany (“Europe First”). On an organizational level, the conference led to the creation of the Combined Chiefs of Staff (CCS) system, following the proposal set out by Britain. The CCS was to be the organizational superstructure that would steer the allied war effort. Its role was the “formulation of policies and plans” for “the strategic conduct of the war” (Leighton & Coakley, 1955a, p. 214). At its creation, it was composed of the Combined Munitions Board, Combined Staff Planners, Combined Raw Materials Board, Combined Shipping Adjustment Board, Combined Production and Resources Board, and the Combined Food Board.

The creation by the U.S. Forces of the Joint Chiefs of Staff (JCS) system

While the U.S. forces were not integrated, the creation of the CCS raised the question of how the U.S. could participate in a united fashion in the CCS. How could it be possible to speak with one voice in the CCS when there was no unified command for U.S. forces, unlike those of the British? In response to this question, a new organizational structure was set up in February 1942 with the aim of ensuring common command of the U.S. forces: the Joint Chiefs of Staff (JCS). The JCS brought together around President Roosevelt the four most important chiefs of the U.S. forces: two from the Army (General Marshall, who led the Army, and General Arnold, who led the Air Force), and two from the Navy (Admiral Leahy and Admiral King). The JCS set up a number of Joint Committees on various subjects, which were intended to organize the dialogue between the Army and the Navy and to speak with one voice in the CCS. At the end of 1942, the JCS included varied committees concerning transport, intelligence, planning, strategy, etc.

The reorganization of the Army command in March 1942

As America entered the war, Marshall became aware that the way his WDGS was organized was not adapted to direct a conflict such as that of WWII, which had numerous and distant theatres of operation. The organization of the WDGS, inherited from World War I, was supposed to provide the germ of the “General Headquarters” to direct operations in the field. In the context of WWII and its multiple theatres, this idea became inapplicable. In addition, there were too many entities within the WDGS, which complicated the chain of command. At the beginning of 1942, General McNarney submitted a report to Marshall proposing to free the WDGS “from all activities except strategic direction and control of operations, determination of overall military requirements, and determination of basic policies affecting the zone of interior” (Cline, 1951, p. 91). He also suggested simplifying the line of command by regrouping the existing entities into three divisions: the Army Air Forces, Army Ground Forces, and Services of Supply, to which the WDGS “could delegate operating duties connected with administration, supply, organisation, and training” (Cline, 1951, p. 91).

Implemented in 1942, the reform suppressed certain entities such as General Headquarters and made it possible to clarify the division of work. First, the “War Plans Division, WDGS, is the headquarters General Staff through which the Chief of Staff, plans, supervises and directs operations” (Cline, 1951, p. 95). Second, its decisions are implemented “the Air Forces and Ground Forces who provide the trained forces, by the Service of Supply¹ which provides supplies and moves them to theaters of operations, and by the commanders of the various theaters of operations” (Cline, 1951, p. 95). With this reform, the War Plan Division, which was renamed the Operations Division (OPD) in 1942, became “the most important single unit” of the WDGS: “the command post of the Chief of Staff during WWII” (Millett, 1954, p. 112). Initially directed by Eisenhower until his departure for Europe, Generals Thomas T. Handy and John E. Hull subsequently took over. The OPD gradually became “twice as large as the total staffs of G-1, G-2, G-3, and G-4 combined” (Millett, 1954, p. 112). From May 1942, it included a group in charge of logistics, resulting from the merger of two pre-existing sections, one named “Resources and Requirements”, the other, “Current Section”.

A Logistics Group comprising a resources and requirements unit

The purpose of the resources and requirements section was “to acquire and draw on special logistic information in a systematic way” (Cline, 1951, p. 128). It was supported by two subsections. The mission of the “Material Section” was clarified thus:

The Troop Section had the following missions:

In addition to monitoring the resources and needs in men and material for the OPD, the section produced several key periodic documents in the management of the war. The first was the Weekly Status Map, published from 1942 to 1944, specifying “current and projected numerical strengths in each theater” (Leighton and Coakley, 1955a, p. 296). This document was completed in 1942 by “an overseas troop basis showing Army units overseas by location and destination, and lists of units earmarked for movement overseas” (Leighton and Coakley, 1955a, p. 296). These two reports were intended for the Army Service Forces to calculate supply requirements: while the projections “were highly unstable” (Leighton and Coakley, 1955a, p. 296), they provided General Marshall and the WDGS with “its most reliable summary records of Army deployment” (Cline, 1951, p. 130).

The other key document was the Victory Program Troop Basis, the first copy of which dates from late 1941. It sought to translate “Army strategic and operational plans into terms of troop units so that munitions and supply production could be scheduled in conformity with ultimate Army needs” (Cline, 1951, p. 130). Starting from the “victory estimate of requirements drafted in September 1941 by Major Wedemeyer” (Cline, 1951, p. 130), the document was revised every six months until the end of 1943.

As Cline points out, the members of this section were not expected to pilot all the operational activities supported by the Army Air Forces, the Army Ground Forces, or the Army Service Forces. However, the officers of the section

During conferences and committees “dealing with technical problems of organising, training, equipping, transporting, and supplying troops”, officers had to be able to speak “the language of specialists and, in addition bring to bear on these problems the knowledge of probable requirements and the operational orientation of the Chief of Staff’s command post” (Cline, 1951, p. 130).

A Logistics Group that also included a Current Section

In addition to this section, the Logistics Group was assigned another section, including specialists in charge of “collecting and disseminating the latest information available in OPD pertaining to operations, both the high-level decisions and War Department actions directly bearing on overseas operations and operational reports from overseas commands” (Cline, 1951, p. 130). The section, established before the attack on Pearl Harbor, had the strange name of Current Section. The OPD found it necessary to create this section “to deal with miscellaneous staff problems so general or so unusual in nature that they did not fall within the province of any other unit” (Cline, 1951, pp. 130–131). As the OPD became more structured, these non-divisional problems diminished and the section was abolished before reappearing in 1942. It is described in a negative way, taking on aspects “that are not pertaining to any other part of OPD” (Cline, 1951, p. 131).

The Current Section was obviously only responsible for recovering and circulating “a small part of the immense quantity of operational information received from overseas” (Cline, 1951, p. 131). Specifically, its role was to “report new items which deserved circulation on high levels in the War Department, and paying special attention to combat action” (Cline, 1951, p. 131). It operated quite independently of the other section. Colonel Thomas D. Davis, Logistics Group chief, notes that the Current Section was “appended as an administrative fiction and actually operated with complete independence” (Cline, 1951, p. 131). The only task it performed continuously throughout its existence was “assigning code names for the security of military operations” (Cline, 1951, p. 131).

The rise of the ASF following the reorganization of the Army in 1942

As mentioned, a reorganization of the Army was decided in 1942 to clarify the role of the WDGS and simplify the chain of command. This led to the creation of three entities within the Army: the Ground Forces, the Air Forces, and the Services of Supply, which was renamed Army Service Forces in 1943. The responsibility of this service was entrusted in 1942 to General Somervell, a colourful and charismatic character. When the ASF was created, Millett (1954, p. 1) explained it as “a hodgepodge of agencies with many and varied functions”, bringing together some 60 agencies with disparate functions. Throughout its history, this entity, which disappeared after the war, “struggled constantly to build a common unity of purpose and organisation” (Millett, 1954, p. 1). The various responsibilities entrusted to the ASF included the monitoring and management of men who made up the Army, the establishment of communication lines to circulate mail, and the construction of hospitals and camps to house and care for soldiers. However, its central mission was to ensure “the provision of military equipment for combat operations overseas” (Millett, 1954, p. 54) – a vastly complex task if ever there were one.

This complexity was a question of the sheer variety and quantity of elements to be supplied to sustain the war. It was, first, a matter of providing U.S. troops with “training equipment, clothing, ammunition, and many other kinds of supplies” (Millett, 1954, p. 55). Once on operations, meanwhile, the troops “constantly had to be supplied with fresh stocks of replacement equipment and all types of expendable items” (Millett, 1954, p. 55). With the losses associated with transportation and battles, it is estimated that, in 1944, half of the Business Support Office’s supplies aimed to replace existing stocks. And the task was complex because the proper supply of these items required the ASF to establish “an unbroken chain of activity extending back to the design and development of individual items of equipment and supplies” and “the close interrelation among all the links of this chain presented constant organisational difficulties” (Millett, 1954, p. 54).

The task was all the more arduous because, despite the war effort, U.S. resources were limited. Whether the U.S. Army should be favoured in the distribution of supplies at the risk of creating product shortages in the U.S. – and endangering civilian acceptance of the war – was an continuing political question. What share should be reserved for the British Army and British civilians to preserve the morale of the ally and avert its collapse, something catastrophic on the strategic level?

The creation of the Strategic Logistics Division: a response to the OPD Logistics Group

In August 1942, General Somervell created a Strategic Logistics Division within the ASF he now commanded to carry out “long-range studies showing the impact of almost any kind of physical limitation upon strategy and operations” (Millett, 1954, p. 53). This entity was placed “under General Lutes as Assistant Chief of Staff for Operations” and took its place alongside two other pre-existing divisions: one dedicated to planning, and the other to distribution (Millett, 1954, p. 345). The sources are not very explicit on the tasks that this logistical division was to conduct apart from the fact that it was a matter of “prepared long-range operational studies” (Millett, 1954, p. 123). Notably, it was placed under the responsibility of Lutes, who turned out to be Somervell’s main assistant and trusted man. The sources evidence that the creation of this entity resulted from a conflict in the Army over who should be in charge of logistics.

The existence of this conflict stems from the fact that, although this was not the purpose of the 1942 reorganization, “the work of Army Service Forces Headquarters, of OPD, and of G-1, G-3, and G-4 overlapped” (Cline, 1951, p. 258). The relationships between the ASF and the G-1 (personnel), G-3 (mobilisation and training), and G-4 (supply) services that still exist within the WDGS were not problematic. In theory, the heads of these entities were supposed to be the ultimate decision-makers in their areas. But in practice, these services were to fade into the background and play only a minor role compared to the ASF, “which had the information necessary to provide advice, as well as the staff and the command authority to carry out directives” (Cline, 1951, p. 258). As Millett (1954, p. 138) noted, “General Marshall continually looked to General Somervell rather than to the Assistant Chief of Staff, G-4, for advice and guidance on logistical matters”. With the OPD, a department supplied with officers and supposed to be the command post of the Army, the relationship was to prove more conflictual, each wanting to have control over logistics.

In this context, the creation within the OPD and the ASF of two logistics functions illustrates the difficulty of the Army’s need to position logistics in relation to strategy. Thus, “OPD looked upon a strategic logistics planning unit in ASF as a threat to its top position in strategic planning, so ASF regarded a logistics unit in OPD as a thorn in its side” (Millett, 1954, p. 139). Basically, this conflict is explained by the fact that “OPD could not determine strategy in a vacuum, while the ASF in working out logistical possibilities was also, in effect, imposing limitations on strategy” (Millett, 1954, p. 123). There was, that is to say, a disagreement between these two entities about the scope of logistics. For its part, the ASF would gradually consider “logistics as embracing virtually all the activities of the ASF” (Millett, 1954, p. 54). This was a vision of logistics, that is, that encompassed the supply of material to the armies from America to theatres of operations.

But this vision did not correspond with that of the OPD, which developed a broader conception. First, it included both the equipment and also the men. As General Handy explained (Cline, 1951, p. 272), the goal of the Logistics Group was “to let our theater and planning people know what forces and material are available for operations.” Thus, the information compiled by the group concerned “many other things besides supply; for example, readiness of troops, organisation, troop bases, etc.” (Cline, 1951, p. 272). Second, the conception of the OPD integrated not only what happened in America, but also and especially, what happened in theatres. This broader vision can be explained by the fact that, unlike the ASF, the Logistics Group was organisationally close to the “OPD theater sections, which dealt with logistic factors as they affected operations in their individual areas”, and to the “Strategy & Policy planners, whose strategic calculations both determined and were influenced by the Army’s logistic resources” (Cline, 1951, p. 129).

Logistics tensions between the OPD and the ASF

As a result of this conflict where the “OPD was unhappy about the role played by the ASF in matters of strategy, and the ASF was equally unhappy about the role of OPD in logistics” (Millett, 1954, p. 123), tensions would emerge. The OPD sought to “cut down the influence of the ASF”. For example, an OPD colonel “pleaded that certain information be with held from ASF” because the ASF had been “notorious for its meddling in strategic planning”. Inversely, General Somervell would also seek to reduce the influence of OPD logistics by proposing in 1943 that the entity should simply be abolished, along with the G1, G3, and G4 departments. This obviously led to strong feelings of hostility toward the ASF within the OPD – a conflict that explains why, after the war, the OPD became one of the most important advocates for the dismantling of the ASF.

In his reform proposal, specifically, Somervell noted the existence of “some duplication of effort between the Logistics Section in the OPD of the WDGS and the staff of the ASF”. He then proposed to abolish the G1 and G4 divisions of the WDGS, to eliminate the logistics group of the OPD, and to give the Deputy Chief of Staff of the Army “the function of deciding ‘controversial questions’ which might arise between the three commands”. Following his proposal, the “ASF would absorb the personnel thus released in appropriate assignments” (Millett, 1954, p. 141). This proposal was not accepted, however, and was contested by General Handy, Director of the OPD. As mentioned above, Handy defended the idea that it was essential to have an entity going beyond supplies and the fact that the Army needed an agency to “keep up-to-date data on availability of troops, supplies and equipment that this group was organised”. Interestingly, he acknowledged confusion, noting “probably the use of the term ‘Logistics Group’ is unfortunate” (Cline, 1951, p. 272).

Understanding the institutionalization of logistics within organizations

First, this research has sought to contribute by accounting for the emergence of the first logistics function within the formal structure of an organization. While such processes are largely understood for other major functions such as the methods office (Taylor, 1911), the management function (Fayol, 1918), or the marketing function (Cochoy, 1999), this has not been the case for logistics. This is no small matter. The logistics function, now increasingly referred to as SCM, plays a role in most organizations and is today strategically important: first, the current globalization of supply chains brings with it issues of sovereignty; second, the carbon impact of logistics – accounting for more than 10% of the planet’s carbon footprint (McKinnon, 2018) calls for attention; and, third, logistics plays an increasingly crucial role in the response to crises such as Covid-19 and the war in Ukraine.

The debates that took place within the U.S. army corroborate that logistics serve as an interface function (Fabbe-Costes & Paché, 2013) whose purpose is to ensure the overall coordination of operations with distinct statuses (Heskett, 1960; Smykay et al., 1961). This interface function is evident from the fact that logistics are responsible for the operational drafting of global plans within the OPD. The research also confirms the systemic nature of the function (Kolb, 1972; Mentzer et al., 2001). Indeed, the challenge for these logistics entities in the Army was to provide the broadest and most holistic overview possible, taking into account and compiling existing disparate data on equipment and troops. Finally, the research confirms logistics to be an essential link between operations and strategy (Heskett, 1977). In the Army, logistics emerges as a crucial interface because the operational aspects are decisive for the strategies being pursued. In this context, it is clear that questions of how such logistical aspects should be integrated into the strategic plan and how this strategy-logistics coupling should be achieved arise.

Compared to other functions, the case of logistics presents specificities. Unlike management, a concept that initially developed in the domestic sphere (Le Texier, 2016), or marketing, born in agriculture (Cochoy, 1999), logistics find their origin in the military. This confirms the capacity of companies to seize upon and assimilate functions developed in other organizational contexts into their formal structures. In terms of genesis, the case of logistics recalls the predominant role of the U.S. in the emergence of management (De Vaujany, 2022) while highlighting the importance of the international circulation of ideas. It is thus from a French word (logis) that the ancient Greek concept of logistics was reworked by a Swiss (Jomini, 1838) in his Précis de l’art de la guerre written for the military education of the Tsar’s son (Rouquet, 2018). Translated into English very early on, Jomini’s work led the United States to seize on the concept during WWII to describe problems they encountered as “logistics”, which led to the emergence of “business logistics” after the war.

From troops to goods: the epistemic break of WWII

This article’s second contribution is to shed light on the transformation of the concept of logistics that occurred between the original vision of the 19th century and the one to develop from the 1960s onwards by way of the tenets of business logistics. When, as mentioned above, Jomini coined the term “logistics” in the 19th century, he did so starting from the function of the Marshal General of the Logis, which existed in the French Army and which was responsible for organizing marches and the lodgings of troops in the field. In this context, Jomini defines logistics as the art of “moving armies” (Jomini, 1838). Thus, the movement of soldiers is at the heart of his conception of logistics rather than the furnishing of material supplies, for him a mere side issue. Such a vision can also be found in Thorpe’s Pure Logistics of 1917.

In the 1960s, when the first U.S. researchers proposed using logistics in the context of companies and forged the idea of business logistics, another definition was proposed. In his PhD dissertation, Heskett (1960) defined industrial logistics as “the management of all activities of movement and title transfer which facilitates the procurement, manufacture or sale of products by the industrial firm by the creation of time, place and possession utility” (p. 11). For Heskett,

A similar vision is promoted in Smykay, Bowersox, and Mossman’s Physical Distribution Management: Logistics Problem of the Firm (1961), the first publication to include “logistics” in its title.

Returning to the birth of the logistics function within the U.S. Army allows us to understand how such a conceptual shift would take place. Within the U.S. Army, these two conceptions of logistics would develop in simultaneous juxtaposition (see Table 2). Thus, the Logistics Group of the OPD had a Jominian vision of logistics, considering it the art of moving troops and the equipment that went with them. That the ASF would adopt a more constrained vision with a focus on the material supply of armies is consistent with the vision of the first business logistics scholars: clearly, it is this second conception, centred on material aspects, that would prevail at the end of WWII. The ASF literally appropriated the term logistics, titling its final report Logistics in World War II (ASF, 1947). At the same time, General Handy, head of the OPD, recognized that the confusion over who should have control over logistics was due to the fact that “the use of the term ‘Logistics Group’ is unfortunate” (Cline, 1951, p. 272). WWII was the moment these two perspectives came into confrontation; the perspective then prevailing gave rise to business logistics.