Allied fighting men have achieved in Europe since June 6th one of the remarkable military victories of all time. They have eliminated more than a million German soldiers.

In the great breakthrough in Normandy in late July, and in the sweeping exploitation that carried them all the way to the German frontier, the tactical pattern was always the same: sudden and devastating air attack, followed by intensive artillery bombardment, and then the forward surge of infantry and tanks to break defenses, capture towns and hurry forward once again. In their relentless advance, they liberated France, Belgium and Luxembourg.

This achievement of your sons, brothers and husbands and their gallant allies was possible only through great expenditure of bombs and ammunition. The huge stocks that we had accumulated in England before the beginning of the invasion were rushed by day and night, to the front, so that our fighting men would not be handicapped. All the way from the North Sea to the Mediterranean, tactical victories followed swiftly upon earlier ones, each worthy of its own chapter in our military history, but each adding to the inevitable drain upon the stocks of ammunition that you produced. Your toil and skill share with the courage and stamina of the front line soldiers the credit for the stunning successes of the summer and fall.

But today we are firing ammunition that we would not have used until next February or March if we had been content with slower advance, with less crushing victories, or if we had been ready to sacrifice soldiers to save materials.

Now we are hammering at the massive crust of armor surrounding the German fortress. Appalling conditions of rain, fog, snow and mud make difficult the employment of our Air Forces and the maneuver of our tanks, even of our foot soldiers.

But wretched weather can not stop artillery shells. More than ever before we need ammunition. In the capture of Aachen the First Army used 300,000 rounds of 105 mm ammunition in a two weeks’ period, and, even so, the reduction of that place was delayed because of scarcity of ammunition.

In spite of all, we continue to attack. 5000 pounds of ammunition are being poured every minute against the German defenses. Each month our guns are hurling six million rounds against the hostile trenches, forts and pill boxes, while our mortars add two million additional rounds to this figure. Expenditures have raced ahead of our receipts from home but I know that you do not want us to give the enemy one second’s rest. You do not want the leaders of American soldiers to substitute additional cost in lives for the ammunition that could so surely save those lives. I owe it to every G-I American soldier in this greatest fighting force that America has ever put into the field, to urge upon you increased production of ammunition, signal equipment, winter clothing, engineering materials, vital medical instruments - and again, ammunition, always ammunition.

We are well aware that this calls for superhuman effort on your part. But you have already accomplished miracles in war production. We know that when you understand that your increased work will shorten the war and save thousands of lives, you will perform this new and even greater miracle.