Rapid Deployment Logistics: Lebanon, 1958

This detailed, comprehensive study of the logistical planning and in-country support of the U.S. military intervention in Lebanon in 1958 is of imminent value to the U.S. Army today. Many of the issues faced by the logisticians in Beirut in 1958 are identical to those facing force developers of the light division today, such as the questions of diverting line soldiers to support duties, securing materiel in a potentially hostile lodgment, synchronizing sealift with airlift, and establishing priorities for deliveries. The study has particular value as well for its analysis of tailoring logistical units for contingency operations and for its investigation into the unique problems of the noncombat phase of operations. Not surprisingly, a good number of the logistical problems encountered in Lebanon in 1958 recurred in the U.S. intervention in Grenada twenty-five years later.