Little Man in a Big Room

Newsmen, reporting the front in Normandy, wrote about themselves, the fighting generals and their soldiers. But the generals had some time, and recurring need, to think of supply officers back in Washington--the men who polish chairs to win a war. This week a desk man with high priority in their thoughts was an officer upon whose planning their whole battle depends: a pale little staff officer in Washington who speaks with a soft voice and is a demon for getting things done. His name: Major General LeRoy Lutes.

Overall boss of the Army Service Forces and of the greatest military-supply job in history is tough, kinetic Lieut. General Brehon Somervell. Lutes is his director of plans and operations, the man who blueprints the ASF's myriad functions.

This week the Army went to work on an operation which the forehanded Lutes and his staff began plotting in August 1943. They had listed cement, steel, tools, machinery needed to rebuild the port of Cherbourg. All the stuff was loaded onto a small fleet of ships, some of which were complete machine shops, and held in readiness in U.S. ports. Before D-day the little fleet started for France, was on hand to move into Cherbourg the day the port fell.

Lutes planned the South Atlantic supply route. Lutes planned the Army's supply route across the Pacific. Lutes went to Egypt for the Cairo conference, learned to like tea and Groppi pastry. In a littered Cairo hotel room, surrounded by tea cups, pastry crumbs and the Army's most secret documents, he began working out supply plans for the vast new offensives which had been decided upon.

Lutes before the Leap. Lutes's genius lies in being able to move into a field, take a quick look around and organize the supply job on the spot. After Cairo he swung rapidly through North Africa, India, China. He traveled across the Pacific, made several trips to England for fast, involved checkups.

At each stop Lutes had to assemble the combat staffs' meticulous descriptions of all objectives to be attacked, translate them into orders for the correct types of pontoons, structural metal, fabricated units, ammunition, thousands of other items of supply.

In the invasion fleet were some 300 private boats of from 275 to 3,500-ton capacity which had to be loaded long before Dday, tagged for specific landing areas and kept ready to sail. There had to be a loading-priority plan so that supplies could be unloaded as needed in those first critical and tumultuous hours.

Lutes went back to Washington when his plans were complete, but before General Eisenhower took his final leap he asked General Somervell to send Lutes to London again for a last-minute check. Lutes went and checked. Eisenhower leaped.

What's Cooking? Wiry, nervous Lutes works at a white-hot pace, never stops. On his last trip to England he found himself one day with every single job done. Characteristically, with the heat left over he cooked up a sizable stew of new ideas, handed them to his aides, cracked: "It isn't good for me to be idle for a day. I think up too many things for other people to do."

Lutes's office in the Pentagon Building would be an imposing background even for a trumpet-voiced, four-star general. Lutes, with his two stars and barely audible voice, mumbles: "I didn't want the damn thing. They built it for Admiral King and when the Navy decided not to move into the Pentagon Building I fell heir to it."

In these unnatural surroundings he works long furiously busy hours. He has had to give up horseback riding, which he loves. To keep in shape, the precise, 54-year-old General tumbles--a strenuous precise gymnastic sport at which he shines.

Lutes got into the Army through Wentworth Military Academy and the Illinois National Guard. His son, now a lieutenant colonel, went to West Point.

Recently several generals flew thousands of miles around the world just to confer a half day with him. They wanted to launch an offensive, needed Lutes to tell them how soon it could be done. Lutes had the answers ready in a few hours. The generals flew off. Before their plane left the ground, General Lutes's well-oiled supply machine was busy on the battle to come.

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