In November, Major General Harold R. Bull, Eisenhower's G-3, had traveled to Washington at the head of a special mission to present the European Theater's emergency appeal for action to ease the persistent ammunition shortage. … Though Washington had remained consistently skeptical of Eisenhower's and his subordinates' laments, Moses's statistics were so compelling and unassailable, and Bull was a sufficiently prestigious and persuasive negotiator, that General Somervell and the War Department substantially conceded at last that a predicament existed. Having already admitted past mistakes to the extent of moving to create new production capacity, the War Department now agreed to all the expedients it could think of to replenish Eisenhower's arsenal until the increased production began to issue forth. …. Every feasible shortcut would be used to hasten the assembly of all components of ammunition on hand, to step up the December and January output. Similar shortcuts and special handling would hurry the delivery both of old stocks and new production to Europe.

General Moses's autumn assessment had concluded that existing rates of fire would exhaust ammunition reserves by December 15 and force severe rationing thereafter.

So wrote Russell Weigley in his book, Eisenhower’s Lieutenants.

Weigley’s comments on Major General Harold Bull are surprising when contrasted to Carlo d’Este’s assessment in his biography of Eisenhower – Eisenhower: A Soldier’s Life:

Not all of Smith and Eisenhower's choices were inspired. An example was the SHAEF G-3, Maj. Gen. Harold R. "Pinky" Bull, a humorless, unimaginative bureaucrat who was disliked with equal intensity by the Americans and the British.

15 December was an auspicious date for General Moses to estimate that the Americans would exhaust their ammunition reserves because at dawn the next day, 16th December 1944, the Germans would launch their most powerful counter-offensive in World War II on the Western Front – the Battle of the Bulge.

Tag words: Major General Harold R Bull; General Moses; Russell Weigley; Eisenhower’s Lieutenants; Carlo d’Este; Carlo d’Este; General Dwight D Eisenhower; Battle of the Bulge; American First Army; Nigel Hamilton; The Battles of Field Marshal Montgomery; Ralph Ingersoll; Monty; Field Marshal Montgomery; SHAEF; Hansen; Tom Bigland; General Omar N Bradley; Dominick Graham; Shelford Bidwell; Coalitions, Politicians and Generals; David Irving; The War Between the Generals; Brehon Somervell; Major-General William Kean; Karl Heinz Freiser; The Blitzkrieg Legend; Clausewitz; Karl Marx; Bedell Smith; General Spaatz; Hank H Cox; The General Who Wore Six Stars; ComZ; General JCH Lee;