Surface Deployment and Distribution Command - History - Organizational Development - Military Traffic Management and Terminal Service

Military Traffic Management and Terminal Service

To execute this centralized management concept, a joint service planning staff formed up to establish and agency, the Military Traffic Management and Terminal Service (MTMTS). DOD then formally activated MTMTS as a jointly staffed Army major command on 15 February 1965. MTMTS assumed all responsibilities assigned to the Defense Traffic Management Service and the terminal operations functions of the U.S. Army Supply and Maintenance Command (a component of the Army Materiel Command). With the approval and publication of its single-manager charter on 24 June 1965, MTMTS joined the Military Air Transport Service (now Air Mobility Command) and the Military Sea Transport Service (now Military Sealift Command) in providing complete transportation services to the Department of Defense.

The formation of the Military Traffic Management and Terminal Service resulted in tremendous change in the command's organization. Since MTMTS now operated military ocean terminals, it focused its area command structure on ports. Upon the command's formation the former eastern traffic region headquarters moved to Brooklyn, NY, and became Eastern Area. Western Area (formerly a traffic region) headquarters remained at Oakland, CA. MTMTS abolished the southwestern and southeastern field offices. For two years, however, MTMTS retained its central area command in St. Louis, MO.

To streamline operations further, the command then disestablished that headquarters in early 1967 and transferred its functions to Eastern Area. MTMS maintained its Eastern Area Headquarters at Brooklyn, N.Y. until September 1975 when it moved Bayonne N.J.

In 1966 the Transportation Engineering Agency, Fort Eustis, VA, the Army's only activity with traffic and transportability engineering expertise became a major component of MTMTS.

MTMTS provided support for the Vietnam War through cargo operations at its Military Ocean Terminals at Oakland CA, (MOTBA), Bayonne, New Jersey (MOTBY) and Sunny Point, NC (MOTSU) as well as commercial ports. In the earlier years of the war MTMTS shipped soldiers by surface from its Western Area (primarily Oakland). By 1967 as troops rotated to Vietnam in small groups or individually, fewer soldiers went by surface; most were airlifted to the theater.

As a means of easing serious congestion and ship delay, MTMTS in 1966 initiated a practice of sending full shiploads to single ports of debarkation in theater whenever possible. It continued this practice throughout the war. Between 1965 and 1969 MTMS in conjunction with the Military Sealift Command transported over 22,000,000 short tons (20,000,000 t) of dry cargo and over 14,000,000 short tons (13,000,000 t) of bulk petroleum to Vietnam.