Operation Bolero was the commonly used reference for the code name of the United States military troop buildup in the United Kingdom during World War II in preparation for the initial cross-channel invasion plan known as Operation Roundup, to be implemented in mid-1943, or for its lesser contingency alternative, Operation Sledgehammer, to be executed in the fall of 1942 in the event of German setbacks or to ease Axis pressure on the Eastern Front. What later became the Bolero plan – the buildup of a strategic air force in the United Kingdom, in preparation for Roundup – was first submitted by Commanding General of the U.S. Army Air Forces, Henry H. Arnold, to General George Marshall, the U.S. Army Chief of Staff, on April 12, 1942, and set in motion a huge movement of men and material that laid the groundwork for Operation Overlord.
Major General Henry H. Arnold.
John Clifford Hodges Lee was a career US Army engineer, who rose to the rank of lieutenant general and commanded the Communications Zone (ComZ) in the European Theater of Operations during World War II.
John Clifford Hodges Lee
The Great Mississippi Flood of 1927
The General Depot at Ashchurch stocked with supplies for Operation Overlord
The Communications Zone improvised the Red Ball Express, which used trucks to deliver supplies to the forward area until the railroad system could be rehabilitated.
