POMCUS (Prepositioning Of Materiel Configured in Unit Sets) was a system that kept large amounts of pre-positioned U.S. military equipment in

West Germany West Germany was the common English name for the Federal Republic of Germany (FRG) from its formation on 23 May 1949 until German reunification, its reunification with East Germany on 3 October 1990. It is sometimes known as the Bonn Republi ...

during the

Cold War The Cold War was a period of global Geopolitics, geopolitical rivalry between the United States (US) and the Soviet Union (USSR) and their respective allies, the capitalist Western Bloc and communist Eastern Bloc, which lasted from 1947 unt ...

Reforger 90 Fedex B747 Luxembourg DF-ST-91-00041

The program was started in 1961. In the event of war with the

Soviet Union The Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR), commonly known as the Soviet Union, was a List of former transcontinental countries#Since 1700, transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 until Dissolution of the Soviet ...

, American soldiers could be flown with their "to-accompany-troops" (TAT) gear on Civil Reserve Air Fleet commercial airliners to use this pre-positioned equipment. The equipment was set up in unit configurations to aid in force building and movement to support the US Army's general defensive plan (GDP). In the early 1980s, most of the equipment for POMCUS came from US Army units in the US and had to be upgraded to meet specifications for pre-positioning in

Europe Europe is a continent located entirely in the Northern Hemisphere and mostly in the Eastern Hemisphere. It is bordered by the Arctic Ocean to the north, the Atlantic Ocean to the west, the Mediterranean Sea to the south, and Asia to the east ...

. By the late 1980s, the plan had evolved to pre-position Six Divisions of equipment in the

Netherlands , Terminology of the Low Countries, informally Holland, is a country in Northwestern Europe, with Caribbean Netherlands, overseas territories in the Caribbean. It is the largest of the four constituent countries of the Kingdom of the Nether ...

Belgium Belgium, officially the Kingdom of Belgium, is a country in Northwestern Europe. Situated in a coastal lowland region known as the Low Countries, it is bordered by the Netherlands to the north, Germany to the east, Luxembourg to the southeas ...

and Germany. Three Divisions were pre-positioned, with other sites being considered for the other three divisions. When the

Berlin Wall The Berlin Wall (, ) was a guarded concrete Separation barrier, barrier that encircled West Berlin from 1961 to 1989, separating it from East Berlin and the East Germany, German Democratic Republic (GDR; East Germany). Construction of the B ...

fell, and the Soviet Union no longer existed, plans were then cut back severely and sites that were considered in the

Benelux The Benelux Union (; ; ; ) or Benelux is a politico-economic union, alliance and formal international intergovernmental cooperation of three neighbouring states in Western Europe: Belgium, the Netherlands, and Luxembourg. The name is a portma ...

were cancelled. POMCUS was considered to be so important that a "Warm-Base" Hospital was completed in the Netherlands, in 1988. The hospital was completely equipped, so that in the event of war, doctors could be flown in and immediately take care of injured military personnel. The hospital had the latest equipment available at that time, and was kept in operating condition by local Dutch personnel. Originally, POMCUS sites were primarily simply guarded, fenced-in lots of pre-loaded, maintained vehicles and weapons systems ready to roll, although the precursor to POMCUS sites was a series of underground storage areas taken from the Germans in

Pirmasens Pirmasens (; (also ''Bermesens'' or ''Bärmasens'')) is an independent town in Rhineland-Palatinate, Germany, near the border with France. It was famous for the manufacture of shoes. The surrounding rural district was called ''Landkreis Pirmasens ...

and the outlying areas

Husterhoeh Kaserne Husterhoeh Kaserne was a military facility in Pirmasens, Rhineland-Palatinate, Germany. Kaserne is a German language, German loanword that means "barracks." It was a United States military base 1945–1994. Since then it is a Bundeswehr, German ...

utilised to store combat-readied armour. During the late 1960s-1980s, the above-ground POMCUS facilities were updated into large

aluminium Aluminium (or aluminum in North American English) is a chemical element; it has chemical symbol, symbol Al and atomic number 13. It has a density lower than that of other common metals, about one-third that of steel. Aluminium has ...

-over-steel warehouses, which provided the benefits of less weathering and lower maintenance requirements for the systems stored in them, as well as providing first-line defence against EMP radiation which could affect the electronics in both the communications systems and the recently implemented solid-state ignition systems on some vehicles. POMCUS sites were one of the first Army installations that used Bar Codes on equipment, so that whenever a piece of equipment left a warehouse the bar code registered that the equipment had left its storage area.

References

POMCUS at Defense Technical Information Center

External links

POMCUS at Everything²
Military logistics of the United States {{US-mil-stub