US WWII LATE WAR SHIPPING ADDRESS CODES 1/35 Researched by Cookie Sewell

In order to facilitate pinpoint deliveries of high priority war goods, in 1944 the US instituted a coding system that was used to send goods that supported US forces deployed overseas. These were made complex due to the number of customers needing support, as well as the detail required for pinpoint shipments. Note: we have provided a number of complete valid codes which have been taken from actual vehicles. By mixing and matching the components, you can produce a good set of codes for nearly any late war replacement vehicle. There were five parts to each of these coded addresses (example given): BOBO - a four letter code name indicating the port of discharge or general destination A- a single or later double letter indicator of which half of a month the shipment was sent (A - 1st half of January, B- 2nd half, C - 1st half of February, etc, through Z - 2nd half of December; no I or II or O or OO to avoid confusion with numbers) ORD- the shipping service (ORD - Ordnance, QM, Quartermaster, etc.) II- Roman numeral indicating the class of supply (per standard US Army codes: Class I - Rations and Subsistence; II - General Supplies; III - Fuel; IV - Engineer materiel; V - Ammunition; VI - Personal Demand Items (PX, spirits, etc.); VII - Major End Items; VIII - Medical Supplies; IX - Miscellaneous GT3 - group indicating the components or supplied needed to complete a specific order or mission (optional) A302RA3 - combination of letters and digits which identify the shipment against a requisition, show the depot from where it was sent, and indicated the number of the shipment when several shipments were made on separate documents against a single requisition. This would read: FOR SHIPMENT ONLY BOBO-A-ORDII-GT3-A302RA3 When transferred as a stencil on a crate or complete object (such as a tank or vehicle). Additionally, crates would have color swatches used to identify them This also permitted longshoremen to sort them out when they could not read English, or could not immediately identify the item (such as a crate, rather than a vehicle). Items so shipped also needed dimensional data covering weight, size, and volume on one or two sides of a crate and on both sides of a vehicle. Most of the items which bore these codes included replacement or upgraded armored vehicles, such as 76mm armed Sherman tanks or the first 40 Pershing tanks shipped from the US in 1945. These were stenciled in 1" or 2" high stenciling. Colors appear to be both white and yellow. AVID Supplies to Guadacanal, 1945 GLUE-B-ORDII SO318 CP 8M4 with T1E3 "Aunt Jemima" Mine Roller, France 1945 HAIL-AA-ORDII-STD-SH300LD12 T26E3 Pershing - Antwerp, Belgium 1945 HAIL-AA-ORDII-STD-SH300LD43 T26E3 Pershing -- Germany 1945 HAIL-AA-ORDII-STD-SH300LD51 T26E3 Pershing - Germany 1945 HAIL-AA-ORDII-STD-SH300LD53 T26E3 Pershing - Germany 1945 HAIL-AA-ORDII-STD-SH300LD56 T26E3 Pershing - Germany 1945 HAIL-ZZ-ORDII-STD-SG390LG24G M4A1 76mm Sherman - France 1945 IRON-JJ-ORDII-DD314LD 5 T26E3 Pershing - Okinawa 1945 IRON-JJ-ORDII-DD314LD 9 T26E3 Pershing - Okinawa 1945 MITE-47-ORDII-L-338-LD2 M36 90mm GMC - Austria 1945 MITE-GG-ORDII-S-384LD.. M4A3 76mm Sherman - Italy 1945 MOOR-ORDII-SF361CP47 M4A3E2 Sherman Jumbo - Bastogne 1944 Information found in "The US Army in WWII - The Technical Services - Transportation Corps: Movements, Training, and Supply" pp.397-398, Wardlow, US GPO 1956; also, TM 38-414 and updates covered specific codes  Archer Fine Transfers, Multi-Medium Transfer System, HighFlex, HighRes, PhotoFlex, Precision Model Transfers, WetMedia Transfer Paper, Surface Details, MultiMedia Transfer Set, Nose Art Upgrades, and the Archer logo are Trademarks of Woody Vondracek. All other trade names are the properties of their respective owners and all other logos and business names are assumed to be the property of others.