British ports to handle the volume of cargo. The War Shipping Administration agreed to provide 70 to 100 sailings in June, July and August 1942 to take advantage of the long Summer daylight hours in the UK. Somervell also approached Lord Leathers, the British Minister of War Transport, for a loan of fifty British ships. Often the equipment most needed in the UK was not available, but ASF shipped what was. To maximize the usilization of shipping space, ships were loaded "full and down", using up all cargo space and weighing them down to the Plimsoll line. By July, British setbacks in the Middle East caused shipping and supplies to be sent there instead. That month, ASF shipped of equipment to the British forces in Egypt. Sinkings by German U-boats reduced the ships available for Bolero still further, and by the end of August only a fraction of the required cargo had been shipped. The ability of the United States to conduct Sledgehammer and Roundup was hampered by a shortage of landing craft and crews. In May 1942, the SOS was directed to train Army landing craft crews, and the Engineer Amphibian Command was established for this purpose on 10 June. The Navy agreed to provide the crews for the larger ocean-going landing ships. By July, it was apparent that there would not be sufficient landing craft to conduct Sledgehammer. Sledgehammer had been abandoned in favor of an invasion of French Northwest Africa (Operation Torch), a ship-to-shore operation, and plans for the 1943 cross-Channel invasion operation were scaled back. The Navy then announced that it would take over the operation of all landing craft. Given the additional time, the Navy now believed that it could train all boat crews. Training was restricted to the three engineer special brigades that had already been created, which were sent to the Southwest Pacific Area. Bolero Chaos had resulted during World War I because the organization of the SOS in France was different from that of the War Department, and an important lesson of that war was the need for the theater SOS organization to parallel the one the United States. Marshall and Somervell wanted it led by someone familiar with the SOS organization, and selected Major General John C. H. Lee, who had previously commanded the Pacific Ports of Embarkation in the United States. Each branch head in SOS headquarters was asked to