Aircraft even offered a new means of quickly deploying troops over long distances. On D-Day, the Allies dropped 31,300 paratroopers into Normandy. The USAAF had demonstrated how effective the airlift of supplies could be as it transported hundreds of thousands of tons to the war effort in China.

But in the fight for logistical dominance, the railway was still essential for continental transport of supplies and personnel — and enabling the Reich’s atrocities. The German railroad was responsible for enabling the full industrial-scale horrors of the Holocaust, as some four of six million victims traveled to concentration camps aboard the Reich’s railway network.

At the same time, railroads were partly responsible for ending the war. Britain’s railways delivered the pipelines to transport fuel across the Channel, the floating concrete harbors to carry armor to the beaches and the millions of troops needed to end the German occupation of Europe.

There is still nothing like the railway for continental logistics. Even today in the age of heavy lifting aircraft, trains supply arms to Russian troops in Ukraine and NATO forces in Afghanistan. The rails may no longer carry the massive weapons of war, but they still play a crucial logistical role that’s often overlooked.