PROFESSIONAL DEVELOPMENT MEETING

Wednesday, November 11, 2015

APICS Members that are Veterans Eat for Free!

SPEAKER: Flint Whitlock

 "THE RED BALL EXPRESS"

     The Red Ball Express was a famed truck convoy system that supplied Allied forces moving quickly through Europe after breaking out from the D-Day beaches in Normandy in 1944. In order to expedite cargo to the front, trucks emblazoned with red balls followed a similarly marked route that had been closed to civilian traffic. These trucks were also given priority on regular roads. America’s combat forces required vast amounts of supplies to enable them to continue to pressure their enemies on the battlefield. The U.S. Army relied upon a unique military organization known as “The Red Ball Express” The system originated in an urgent 36-hour meeting and began operating on August 25, 1944. The unit consisted of 6,000 trucks and over 10,000 drivers, 75% of whom were African-American.  Without the heroic efforts of The Red Ball Express, the Allied drive to defeat Nazi Germany might not have ended in quite the way we know it today.

     Flint Whitlock is the editor-in-chief of World War II Quarterly, a national magazine which is published in Virginia.  He is also the award-winning author of a dozen books, nine of which deal with World War II.

     After graduating in 1964 with an art degree from the University of Illinois, Flint received a commission through the R.O.T.C. and served as a U.S. Army officer for five years, from 1965 to 1970.  Flint earned his parachutist’s badge and served in Germany and Vietnam, where he was a logistics officer.  He has appeared several times on the History Channel, in two episodes of the Fox News Channel’s “War Stories with Oliver North,” as well as in several other World War 2 documentaries.  Flint has also led several D-Day battlefield tours to England and France for the National Geographic Society and the Smithsonian Institution.