THE A. E. F. EMBARKS
The American Expeditionary Forces, on November 11, 1918, were
ill prepared to conduct the manifold activities leading to their
demobilization. Up to that day the expedition had been too busy going
ahead to think much about how it was to get home. But now had come the
armistice, the end. The great adventure was over. The _guerre_ was
_fini_.
At once a great wave of homesickness spread over the A. E. F. That song
of careless valor, “Where do we go from here?” to the swinging beat of
which a million men had marched forward over the French roads, became
a querulous “When do we go home?” When indeed? It had taken nearly a
year and a half to transport the A. E. F. to France. Disregarding the
fact that the Army overseas had at its disposal less than half as many
troopships as had supported it up to November 11, before the men could
start home in great numbers there had first to be created in France
an embarkation system with a capacious equipment of camps and port
buildings, if the expedition were to return in good order and not as a
disorganized mob.
Never was a daily journal scanned with such emotion as was the _Stars
and Stripes_ by its readers during this period of waiting. The _Stars
and Stripes_ was the official newspaper of the enlisted men of the
A. E. F. After the armistice anything pertaining to the return of the
troops to America was the most important news which the publication
could possibly print. The _Stars and Stripes_ published the monthly
schedules of transport sailings, told of the extraordinary expansion
of the Yankee transport fleet, noted the continual improvement in
the shipping efficiency of that fleet, rejoiced in black-face type
when some ocean flyer broke the record for the turn-around, as the
round trip to America and back was called, and in general kept the
_personnel_ of the expedition informed of the movement homeward. But,
although the return of the A. E. F. was a transportation feat actually
more astonishing than that which had placed the forces in Europe, yet
to the hundreds of thousands of homesick boys who watched the brown
fields of France turn green in the spring of 1919, the pace of the
snail and the turtle seemed speed itself in comparison to the progress
made by the demobilization machine.
The A. E. F. in November, 1918, possessed no port equipment capable
of quick conversion into a plant for embarking the expedition. There
had been no need of large port installations in France for the use of
debarking troops. The A. E. F. had crossed to France under a scheme of
identification that was a marvel of system and organization. Once the
system was perfected, every military unit bore as part of its name a
so-called item number that told the debarkation officers (by reference
to the shipping schedules) exactly where each unit should go upon
arrival. So it was with individuals and small detachments traveling
as casuals. Their item numbers placed them instantly in the great
structure of the A. E. F. No need for vast port rest camps in which
thousands must wait until G. H. Q. disposed of them. They were placed
before they sailed from America. Expense and confusion saved by the art
of management!
The armistice changed all about. Our military ports in France had
to become ports for the embarkation of troops with an equipment
vastly expanded. America had sent to France an Army perfectly
clothed and accoutered. For the sake of uniformity the home ports of
embarkation had prepared the 2,000,000 troops for the voyage, and
this meant issuing smaller or larger quantities of clothing and other
personal articles to practically every man who sailed. The A. E. F.
proposed to return its men to their homes well dressed, clean, and
self-respecting, and it was logical, too, to accomplish this purpose in
France in the process of embarking the troops. To carry out the plan,
however, required an extensive plant, something not to be materialized
by a wave of the hand. France after the armistice was to witness an
extensive military construction carried on by the Americans at their
ports.
Brest, Bordeaux, and St. Nazaire had been the three principal landing
places for our troops sent to France directly from the United States.
Brest, near the northeasternmost extremity of France, possessed a
harbor with water that could accommodate the largest ships afloat, but
the water near shore was too shallow for docks at which large ships
could berth. Consequently the troops rode in lighters between ships and
shore. This was Brest’s chief disadvantage as a military port, but it
was not a serious disadvantage.
Next southward came St. Nazaire, on the Loire River a few miles inland.
The first of the expeditionary troops landed at St. Nazaire, in July,
1917. The port boasted of docks with berths for troopships, but the
waters of the river were too shallow for the largest transports.
Still farther south was Bordeaux, fifty-two miles from the ocean on
the Gironde River. What few troops landed at Bordeaux were incidental,
for the port construction at Bordeaux and other great developments
at Bassens and Pauillac nearer the mouth of the river were conducted
by the A. E. F. with the view of making the Gironde the chief ocean
terminal for the reception of army supplies shipped from the United
States. Troopships could tie up to the docks at Bordeaux, but the
Gironde was so narrow and its tidal currents were so swift that the
military administration of the port had to manage the stream on a
schedule as it might operate a single-track railroad. There were
several places in the river where vessels could not pass each other.
After November 11 followed a few days of indecision and bewilderment
in the A. E. F. No one in Europe knew precisely what the armistice
meant or what the victorious armies could expect. Quickly, however,
it transpired that the armistice was permanent; it was peace itself
for all practical purposes, and the only forces we should need to
maintain in France would be those chosen to conduct the measured
advance into Germany and to garrison the occupied territory. Within a
week General Pershing designated the troops for the Army of Occupation
and released the rest of the American Expeditionary Forces (more than
half its total numerical strength) for return to the United States
as soon as transportation facilities were available. He charged the
Chief Quartermaster of the expedition with the duty of embarking the
returning forces.[1]
The Chief Quartermaster of the A. E. F. at once designated Brest, St.
Nazaire, and Bordeaux as the ports of embarkation. The early plan was
to send 20 per cent of the expedition home _via_ Bordeaux and the rest
in equal numbers through St. Nazaire and Brest. As it worked out,
practically all the overseas soldiers returned through these three
ports, although a few sailed from Marseilles, Le Havre, and La Pallice.
The division of work, however, did not materialize as planned. Bordeaux
handled less than its fifth of the forces, and the embarkations at St.
Nazaire were not much larger than those at Bordeaux. The great mass of
the A. E. F. came back _via_ Brest, and at Brest was set up the largest
installation for the embarkation of passengers the world had ever seen.
[Illustration:
_Photo by Signal Corps_
CAMP STREET IN LE MANS AREA]
[Illustration:
_Photo by Signal Corps_
BATH HOUSE AT BREST]
The troops of the A. E. F. were of two general sorts--those of the line
organized by divisions, corps, and armies, also known as combat troops,
and those of supply, who conducted the thousand and one enterprises
necessary to the maintenance of a force as large as the A. E. F. three
thousand miles away from home. The two sorts of troops were not evenly
balanced in number, the combat troops being considerably the more
numerous. It was evident that their embarkation offered separate
problems.
[Illustration:
_Photo by Howard E. Coffin_
IN CAMP PONTANEZEN]
[Illustration:
_Photo by Signal Corps_
COMPANY STREET IN PONTANEZEN]
With the combat troops mass travel could be conducted at its
greatest efficiency. The divisional troops were homogeneous, their
transportation needs were essentially alike, and a single order could
control the movements of tens of thousands of them at once. The supply
troops, on the other hand, were heterogeneous. They were organized
in thousands of units of varying sizes and kinds. Many of them,
particularly officers, were serving in the organization as individuals
attached to no particular units. The travel problems of these various
elements differed widely. Therefore it was decided to handle the
embarkation of divisional troops and supply troops separately. The
general demobilization plan adopted about the middle of December,
1918, provided for the establishment of a great embarkation center
for the divisional troops--an area which should be convenient to all
three ports of embarkation, in which area the combat troops in their
large units could be prepared for the overseas voyage, and from which
they could go directly to the ships without pausing in the embarkation
cities. The installations at the ports themselves were to be used
especially in the embarkation of supply troops.
At Le Mans, a spot about midway between Paris and the Biscay coast,
the A. E. F. possessed a plant that might be expanded quickly to serve
as the divisional embarkation center. When the great flood of American
troops began debouching upon French soil in the early summer of 1918 it
became evident to the command of the expedition that it needed an area
in which the incoming divisions might assemble as their units debarked
from the transports and where they might rest while their ranks were
being built up to prescribed strength by the addition of replacements.
By this time, too, the system of supplying replacement troops to the
A. E. F. had become automatic. The replacements were the only American
soldiers who crossed to France without definite objective. They were to
be used in France as the A. E. F. needed them to fill up its divisional
ranks. It was necessary, therefore, to provide a reservoir upon which
the depleted combat divisions could draw for replacements. Le Mans was
selected as the site of this reservoir and also as the assembling point
for the debarking organized divisions. The Le Mans area before the
armistice was known as the A. E. F.’s classification and replacement
camp.
The reasons which brought about the selection of Le Mans as the site
for the replacement and divisional depot served also to make the place
the ideal location for the expedition’s embarkation center. Le Mans was
at the junction of trunk-line railroads leading to Brest, St. Nazaire,
and Bordeaux. It also possessed good railroad connections with Paris
and with the front, which in the summer of 1918 had been advanced by
the Germans until it was close to the metropolitan limits of Paris
and was therefore not far from Le Mans. The depot was established in
July, 1918, when the Eighty-third Division occupied the area as its
depot division. At that time the depot as projected contemplated the
construction of eight divisional camps, each to accommodate 26,000
men, and two forwarding camps, one with accommodations for 25,000 men
and the other for 15,000. In other words, the camp eventually was to
accommodate a quarter of a million troops. No military center in the
United States compared in size with this project.
At the time of the armistice the development of Le Mans had made good
progress. It could then maintain about 120,000 troops. On December 14,
when Le Mans was officially designated as the embarkation center, its
capacity had been increased to 200,000. Shortly after the armistice
began, its transient population jumped to 100,000, and it never fell
below this mark until the late spring of 1919, when the greater part of
the combat divisions of the A. E. F. had embarked for the United States.
The Le Mans center had the duty of completely preparing for embarkation
all troops received in the area. Theoretically every man who passed
through Le Mans was prepared to go directly to a transport. This meant
bathing and delousing for every man who came to the camp, inspecting
his equipment and supplying new clothing and other personal articles
if he needed them, and perfecting his service records so that he might
encounter no difficulty in securing his final pay and discharge in
the United States. To do this important work quickly and well, it was
necessary to operate an institution of impressive size.
The dimensions of the whole camp were tremendous. There was nothing
like it in the United States. A man could walk briskly for an hour in a
single direction at Le Mans and see nothing but tents, barracks, drill
fields, and troops lined up for preliminary or final inspections. The
task of feeding this city full of guests was so great that the camp
administration found it economical to build a narrow-gauge railroad
system connecting the kitchens with the warehouses. Food moved up
to the camp cookstoves by the trainload, and the same locomotives
that brought the supplies hauled away the refuse. A whole adjacent
forest was cut down to supply firewood. When the Americans occupied
the section there were no adequate switching facilities, nor were
there storage accommodations. The Quartermaster Corps, which operated
the storage project, cleared a field in the midst of a wood and used
the clearing for an open storage space (the surrounding trees giving
a degree of shelter), connecting the place with the railroad by
constructing a spur track. Thereafter, even after great warehouses had
been built in the clearing and it had become the supply depot for the
entire camp, requiring the services of 6,000 troops in its operation,
the place was known to the camp as “The Spur.” As an addition to this
storage, smaller covered warehouses were provided at all the divisional
sub-depots. At one time the corrals of the camp contained 10,000 horses
and mules. In one week in February, 1919, nearly 32,000 troops arrived
in camp, a fact indicating the rate at which troops passed through
to embarkation. The Quartermaster Corps opened two great central
commissaries that were in effect department stores. The camp operated a
large laundry, a shoe repair shop, a clothing repair shop, and numerous
other industrial plants.
The equipment installed at Le Mans was duplicated in smaller scale at
the three embarkation ports. Yet even these port installations could
not be called small. Camp Pontanezen at Brest could give accommodations
to 80,000 men at once. The largest embarkation camps in the United
States were smaller than this. There were thirteen smaller camps and
military posts at Brest. The two embarkation camps at Bordeaux could
house 22,000 men, but there were billeting accommodations in the
district for thousands of others. The construction at St. Nazaire was
considerably larger than that at Bordeaux, but not so extensive as that
at Brest.
Most of these camps were built after the armistice, and the engineer
constructors and the embarking troops elbowed each other as embarkation
and construction proceeded simultaneously. Some of the camps had served
as rest camps prior to the armistice, but these had to be greatly
enlarged and improved in equipment before they could give adequate
service as embarkation camps. The weather along the northwestern coast
of France is intensely uncomfortable and disagreeable to Americans.
In the winter and spring especially, the rains and mists are almost
incessant. It was not always possible to choose ideal sites for the
embarkation camps in France. The sites had to be near the ports, and in
the thickly inhabited countryside the American authorities were forced
to accept whatsoever areas they could get, without being too insistent
upon such fine points as natural drainage and pleasant surroundings.
This statement is particularly applicable to Pontanezen, which was
pitched on high but poorly drained ground. Ordinarily the Army would
not have occupied such a location without first making permanent
improvements. The continual rains, the lack of strong drainage, and
the heavy traffic of men, animals, and trucks combined to make the
Pontanezen site in 1919 a morass of quaking mud. Only the strongest of
emergencies justified its use. Because of the daily cost of maintaining
the A. E. F. and because the expeditionary soldiers themselves wished
to return home as soon as possible, regardless of the conditions of
their travel, it was decided to make use of these port camps even
while they were being constructed, instead of holding up the whole
movement until the camp arrangements could be made perfect.
Tales of suffering among our soldiers at Pontanezen came to the
United States and were even aired on the floors of Congress, but
the suffering alleged was more apparent than real. Those who went
through the experience of residence in Pontanezen, even at its worst,
were not injured in health. Despite appearances, the camp’s sanitary
arrangements were of high merit. The medical records of Camp Pontanezen
show that its sickness and death rates, leaving the domestic epidemic
of influenza altogether out of the comparison, were as low as those of
the best camps in the United States.
In the spring of 1919 most of the construction work at the embarkation
camps was complete, and they became more comfortable. The camps
consisted of miles of one-story, tar-papered, rough-board buildings
connected with wooden sidewalks of duck-boards. Pontanezen was a
complete American city set down amid the quaint roads of old Brittany.
It had newspapers, banks, theatres, stores, public libraries,
restaurants, hospitals, churches, telephones, and electric lights,
and even a narrow-gauge railway for freighting about its supplies.
The entire American military population in the camps at Brest quite
outnumbered the French inhabitants of the region. The water system
installed by the Engineers to serve all the American establishments
at the port was sufficient for the city of 150,000 people. There
was a special camp for casual officers. A section of this camp was
set aside for the French, English, Belgian, and Italian wives that
American soldiers had married abroad. There was a hospital camp, a
camp for the white troops on permanent duty at the port, and another
for colored troops so assigned. There were numerous small camps for
labor battalions, and a special camp for engineer and motor transport
organizations. Not far away was a large German prison camp.
In one important respect embarkation in France differed from what it
had been in the United States. It was extremely necessary to rid the
home-coming troops of body vermin before placing them on the ships.
The delousing process at our French ports of embarkation was the most
thorough experienced by the doughboy during his foreign service, and
this process chiefly distinguished embarkation abroad from that which
the soldier had known at Hoboken and Newport News.
Our forebears shared none of the modern aversion to discussion of the
louse. One of the great monarchs of France set the stamp of his royal
approval upon scratching publicly when one itched, and Robert Burns
once addressed a poem to a louse. The louse, however, cannot survive
American habits of personal cleanliness; and, justly enough, the
insect has become associated with filth and has dropped out of polite
conversation. The war revived the fame of this parasite. An inspection
at one time revealed the fact that 90 per cent of the American troops
at the front were infested. These men naturally wrote home about it,
and then the louse, euphemized as “cootie,” became a national figure.
There was a serious aspect to the situation, however, that the military
authorities could not overlook. Besides being a source of discomfort,
the louse is the sole carrier of one of the most dread diseases that
afflict mankind--typhus fever. In bygone times typhus was known
variously as army fever, camp fever, or jail fever. It was particularly
prevalent in this country at the time of the Revolution, and it existed
to some extent here during the Civil War--an indication of what must
have been the condition of individual American soldiers in those days.
Typhus exists to-day practically as an endemic on the central plateau
of Mexico, the range of the disease touching the border of the United
States. The disease cannot invade this country, however, because of the
lack of carriers. But if the A. E. F. had returned to the United States
with its 2,000,000 men lice-infested, the demobilized soldiers might
have distributed typhus carriers from one end of the country to the
other and exposed the nation to a terrible menace.
The sanitary regulations of the A. E. F. kept typhus away from the
troops by controlling the lice. The Quartermaster Corps operated a
number of mobile delousing plants just behind the front lines and in
the billeting areas to the rear. It is interesting to note that these
plants had to be camouflaged because the airmen of the enemy sometimes
mistook them for batteries of artillery and directed gunfire upon them.
As these plants increased in number and efficiency they reduced the
lousiness of the combat troops to a scant 3 per cent.
As long as our troops remained in France largely billeted on the French
population, it was unlikely that the field sanitary measures could
extinguish the louse altogether; but the command of the expedition
determined that at the ports of embarkation the American doughboy
should bid good-bye to _P. vestimenti_ forever. The importance of
completely delousing the troops was emphasized in the same G. H. Q.
memorandum that had set up the embarkation system.
In pursuance of this policy every embarkation camp in France was
established in two isolated sections. One section was known as the
“dirty” camp and the other as the “clean” camp. Upon arrival from the
front the troops first took quarters in the “dirty” camp. Between
the two sections lay the buildings in which the camp administration
conducted all the various processes of preparing soldiers for
embarkation for the United States. One of the most important of these
activities was bathing and delousing the troops. As far as scientific
measures could prevent it, not a louse was permitted to cross from the
“dirty” camp to the “clean” camp. The measures were highly effective.
Only a few men were found to be infested upon arrival in America. For
these there were final delousing facilities at all our debarkation
camps. When the overseas veterans took trains for home at the Atlantic
ports they were completely verminless. The medical officers at the
demobilization centers in this country failed to discover a single
exception.
The embarkation plant at Bordeaux was known to returning soldiers as
“The Mill.” Its processes were typical of those at all the embarkation
camps in France. The Bordeaux mill ground swiftly, yet ground exceeding
fine. To it came the raw material--dirty, ragged, weary humanity.
It reached out for this material, whirled it into its machinery,
and a little while later delivered from the other end its finished
product--clean, well-clothed, deloused, and comfortable American
soldiers, their service records compiled up to the minute, American
money in their pockets, and a mighty self-respect swelling their chests.
To France America sent the best clothed and best equipped army that had
ever stepped on European soil. The two million men arrived in France
outfitted almost completely in new clothing and equipment which they
had received in the American embarkation camps just before they boarded
the transports. In 1919 we brought home the first American army that
had ever fought in a great war and returned in anything but rags. By
special act Congress gave permission to each discharged soldier to keep
his uniform and certain other equipment when he returned to civilian
life. Even though, for most of the men coming up into the embarkation
ports in France, their final discharge was only a few weeks away,
nevertheless the military organization there saw to it that every man
was decently clad before he began the return voyage, and this often
meant the issue of entirely new articles. The Quartermaster Corps
abroad wanted to win from the folks at home the verdict, when they had
looked over their restored boys--“Guess they took pretty good care of
you over there, after all.”
The “mill” at Bordeaux was housed in a long, low hut with separate
departments for the chief operations necessary to the preparation of
troops for embarkation, the steps being arranged progressively. At the
entrance end were the executive offices. Here the soldier, as he passed
through, received his service records, withdrawn from his company’s
files, and also a Red Cross bag in which to carry his personal trinkets
and his record cards and papers on the journey through the “mill.” Next
he came to the records inspection section, where officers perfected
the entries in his record. Here he also received a copy of the orders
under which his unit was traveling, his pay card, and a card known as
the individual equipment record. On the equipment card appeared the
printed names of all articles which a completely outfitted American
soldier should wear or carry wherever he went. Next the soldier stood
before an inspector who examined the worn equipment, noted wherein it
was incomplete, labeled any damaged or worn-out articles for discard
and salvage, and checked on the equipment card such new articles as
should be issued to the soldier later on. The standard equipment of
each returning soldier was as follows:
1 Barrack Bag
2 Undershirts
2 Pairs of Drawers
2 Pairs of Socks
1 Pair of O. D. Gloves
2 O. D. Shirts
1 Pair of Shoes
1 Pair of Laces
1 Pair of Breeches
1 O. D. Coat
1 Overseas Cap
1 Pair of Leggins
1 Chevron (for noncommissioned officers)
1 Shelter Half
3 Blankets
1 Overcoat
1 Slicker
1 Shaving Brush
1 Toothbrush
1 Tube Tooth Paste
1 Comb
1 Piece of Shaving Soap
1 Towel
1 Cake of Soap
2 Identification Tags
1 Belt
1 Razor
1 Ammunition Belt
1 Pack Carrier
1 Haversack
1 Canteen
1 Canteen Cover
1 Condiment Can
1 Meat Can
1 Cup
1 Knife
1 Fork
1 Spoon
1 First Aid Pouch
1 First Aid Packet
The soldier next went to the disrobing room, where he divested himself
of all clothing except his shoes, which he was to carry through with
him. The cootie would not cling to leather. Then he passed on to a
medical examination for infectious disease. If he passed this safely,
he proceeded to the bathing department, where, under the watchful eyes
of a sergeant, he soaped and scrubbed himself thoroughly, first in
a hot shower bath and then in a cold one. Experience had taught that
the greatest enemy of the louse was plain soap and water and plenty of
it. Meanwhile certain of his discarded garments, if they were in good
condition or if they could be repaired for future wear, had been sent
from the disrobing room to the steam sterilizer in another part of the
building. The sterilization process took thirty minutes, which was just
about the time it took the soldier to go through the “mill.”
Scrubbed and clean, the soldier went from the bath into another room
where doctors examined him for diseases of the throat, lungs, and skin.
After that, the barber shop and a hair cut. The barber shop at the
“mill” was equipped with fifty chairs.
At last the object of these official attentions reached his goal, the
equipment room. What he had feared in the process were the two medical
inspections, either of which might stop his progress instanter and
send him scurrying to a camp hospital for observation or treatment. In
either circumstance, his embarkation would be deferred indefinitely.
But if he were allowed to reach the equipment room, he knew he was
safe. Here he found great bins containing large quantities of the
articles named on the equipment card. As he passed the bins every
soldier received clean socks and underclothing, new tape for his
identification tags and a clean shelter half in which to carry his
equipment. He also received such new articles as were checked on his
equipment card.
[Illustration:
_Photo by Signal Corps_
1. ENTERING “MILL” AT BORDEAUX]
[Illustration:
_Photo by Signal Corps_
2. RECEIVING CLEAN CLOTHING IN “MILL”]
In the dressing room beyond, he found waiting for him a uniform and
the serviceable portions of the outfit he had brought with him to
the “mill,” all the textile articles having been thoroughly deloused
and sterilized. He found his old uniform, if that had been in good
condition; otherwise, a new one or a respectable one from the repair
factory. Sometimes his old uniform came back shrunken and faded by the
hot steam of the delousing plant. In that event a serviceable uniform
was substituted for it.
The final station in the “mill” was the pay office. It sometimes
happened that troops came up for embarkation with their pay months in
arrears. Now, with his records perfected, the soldier received all his
back pay. Thanks to the exchange system set up by the A. E. F. in the
embarkation camps, he received his pay in American money, perhaps the
first he had seen in many months. The “feel” of the familiar bills
and the jingle of the silver were like a taste of home. Clean, neatly
clothed, restored once more to man’s estate, the soldier emerged from
the “mill” and made his way to quarters in the “clean” camp, his heart
light because he knew now that he was going home “toot sweet.” The
sense of well-being moved one soldier-poet to praise of the “mill” as
follows:
“Ye go in one end dirty, broke,
So dog tired ye can’t see a joke.
Ye come out paid, an’ plum’ remade,
A self-respectin’ soldier.”
The embarkation plant at Bordeaux, if pressed, could cleanse, delouse,
equip, and otherwise prepare for the home voyage 180,000 men in a
month. During the busy times in 1919 a continuous column of men filed
through the departments. They went through in blocks of twelve. In each
of the various departments were ten booths, each accommodating twelve
men.
[Illustration:
_Photo by Signal Corps_
3. THE “MILL” BARBERSHOP]
[Illustration:
_Photo by Signal Corps_
4. THROUGH “MILL” AND READY FOR HOME]
The processes at the other embarkation camps were essentially the
same. In each of the Le Mans divisional camps was installed a bathing
and delousing plant with a capacity of 1,200 men an hour. For the
sterilization of clothing in the area there were three large central
“disinfesting” plants, five smaller stationary steam sterilizers, and
more than a dozen mobile sterilizers.
The two port camps at Bordeaux were known as Camp Neuve and Camp
Genicart. After the armistice these two camps were reorganized
and enlarged. Camp Neuve became the “dirty” or entrance camp. It
accommodated 5,400 men. Camp Genicart was designated as the “clean”
or evacuation camp, and its barracks could house nearly 17,000 men.
The busiest day for Bordeaux was Sunday, May 11, 1919, when 6,399 men
passed through the “mill” and made ready to embark. St. Nazaire handled
15,306 embarkations on June 17, 1919, its record day.
Salvage was an important operation at all the embarkation points in
France. Thousands of articles of apparel discarded by the returning
troops were not so worn but that they could be made serviceable again.
The salvage plant at Le Mans could repair 1,700 pairs of shoes,
dry-clean, sterilize, and repair 4,000 pieces of clothing, wash 10,000
garments in the laundry, and disinfect 10,000 blankets every day. The
plant occupied eight buildings, and the average value of clothing
repaired monthly was over $150,000. There were salvage plants also at
Brest, St. Nazaire, and Bordeaux, the one at Brest being of great size.
The task of feeding men at the embarkation camps gave the Quartermaster
Corps one of its chief problems. Each divisional sub-depot at Le Mans
carried at all times sufficient food to supply the appetites of 25,000
men for fifteen days, and in addition the central warehouses contained
500,000 emergency rations to substitute for the garrison rations if
anything went wrong with the food supply. In December, 1918, the
subsistence services in the area had been built up to the capacity of
500,000 rations cooked and served each day.
At Brest also the feeding arrangements were laid out on an immense
scale. The men ate food prepared in standard kitchens, each capable of
providing subsistence for thousands. The cold-storage and other storage
spaces of one of the standard kitchens were large enough to hold such
items as 10,000 pounds of beef and 6,000 pounds of bread. The kitchen
facilities included a meat cutting room, a tool room, a scullery, a
garbage incinerator, a great mess hall, and finally the galleys, each
of which contained four large hotel ranges with work-tables, serving
tables, and all necessary cooking utensils. Ten men did the cooking in
each galley. Each mess hall was 280 feet long. End to end, its metal
topped tables measured 495 feet in length. Galleys, storage rooms,
and mess halls had cement floors. The whole plant was illuminated by
electricity.
Each mess hall at Brest was operated on the cafeteria plan. Each was
equipped to feed 20,000 soldiers. The men entered the hall marching
in column of squads. They passed through the galleys, filling their
kits with hot food, then secured places at the tables, ate, and left
the hall at the opposite end, where there were refuse cans in which
to scrape off their dishes and also tanks of boiling, soapy water and
hot rinsing water. Here they cleaned their equipment. The facilities
were such that each kitchen could serve a brigade of troops entering
the building at the ordinary marching pace. Frequent inspections kept
the food up to standard. The camps at Brest also maintained night soup
stands at which any soldier could get bread and hot soup between the
hours of 8:30 p.m. and 2:30 a.m. The force that operated the messing
facilities at Brest numbered 1,600 officers and men.
At Bordeaux the troops temporarily occupying the embarkation camps
cooked their own meals at the mess halls, drawing their supplies
from the camp organization. At St. Nazaire the messes were similar
to those at Brest. The old army transport _McClellan_, which had
crossed to France in the first American convoy in 1917, was stationed
at St. Nazaire, where it served the subsistence organization as a
floating refrigerator with capacity for 3,000,000 pounds of food. The
_McClellan_ was too old to stand the buffeting of the North Atlantic,
and the Embarkation Service, unwilling to risk bringing her home,
turned the ship over to the A. E. F. After the expedition had returned
to the United States the Government sold the _McClellan_ to France.
To the individual soldier, quite the most important branch of the
embarkation organization was that one which paid the money due him
from the Government. It paid him his money in francs, either in the
currency itself or by check, and then saw to it that he exchanged his
French money for its equivalent in American currency. Both of these
enterprises in finance--disbursement and exchange--were in the hands
of the A. E. F. Quartermaster Corps. The disbursement offered little
difficulty, although the monthly pay roll at Brest sometimes contained
as many as 100,000 names, while those at St. Nazaire and Bordeaux were
proportionately large. The question of foreign exchange presented more
of a problem.
Soon after the van of the A. E. F. reached France the Treasury
Department at Washington requested the War Department to pay all
its troops on foreign soil in the money of the country in which
they chanced to be stationed. This meant that most of the men of
the expedition received their pay in francs. Before the armistice,
questions of currency exchange were of slight concern to the overseas
soldier. After the Government had deducted his allotment to his
dependents, his monthly premium payment for war risk insurance, and
his partial payment for any Liberty Bonds he might have purchased
through the Army, there was not much left for him, anyhow. When francs
were cheaper he received more of them from the pay officer than he had
expected, but as long as he stayed in France and spent his money there
the rate of exchange made little difference to him.
French exchange continually strengthened during the sojourn of the
expedition in France--until after the armistice began. The normal value
of francs is 5.18 to the dollar. In July, 1917, the rate was 5.70. This
rate gradually improved until at its strongest point it stood at 5.45.
The few wounded men and casuals returning to the United States during
this period were thus able to benefit financially by exchanging their
French savings for American currency.
After the armistice, however, and during the very time the
expeditionary troops were returning to the United States in greatest
numbers, the exchange value of the franc slumped badly. Shortly after
November 11, 1918, the rate was 5.80 to 1. It continued to fall
steadily until in the autumn of 1919 it took 9.70 francs to purchase
one dollar. It follows that the provident soldier who had saved the
francs paid to him on a basis of less than six to the dollar lost
heavily when he was forced to convert his savings back into dollars
again on a basis of nearly ten francs to the dollar. The loss was
particularly heavy upon officers who maintained drawing and savings
accounts in French banks or who had not cashed their pay checks.
Sometimes, too, officers lost their checks. Later they obtained
duplicates, which the declining exchange had made less valuable. The
War Department considered itself bound to protect soldiers from losses
on this account. Congress is now considering a war department bill
which, if enacted into law, will provide for the reimbursement of
losses incurred by soldiers because of variations in foreign exchange.
It was good financial policy for the A. E. F. to leave all its French
currency behind as it embarked for the United States, and to bring
home only American money. Yet it would have resulted in confusion in
the A. E. F. finances to have changed the pay system at the ports
of embarkation. Therefore the Quartermaster Corps did the next best
thing: it paid off the embarking troops in francs as usual and then
immediately converted their francs into American currency. Since both
payment and exchange were at the same rate of exchange, there was no
loss to the troops in this transaction.
In order to provide the American money for this exchange it was
necessary for the Treasury to ship to France great quantities of
currency. It took the A. E. F. some time to convince the Treasury
Department of the necessity for such shipments. The day after the
armistice began, the command of the A. E. F. cabled to the Treasury
requesting the immediate shipment of $500,000 in currency, an order
afterwards increased to $2,000,000. This money did not actually
reach the A. E. F. until the last day of January, 1919. By that
date the expedition was beginning to embark rapidly. There was not
enough American currency in Europe to buy all the French money of the
expeditionary troops, and only by the most strenuous efforts could
the Quartermaster Corps provide money for exchange until the first
shipment of currency arrived from the United States. Finance officers
were stationed in Paris, London, and at the principal seaports with
orders to buy all the American money they could secure. By combing the
banks and the countingrooms of brokers and by maintaining in Paris a
fund from which shipments were rushed by motor convoys to the ports as
these exhausted their supplies of currency, the Corps managed to keep
the exchange system running. After the January shipment of $2,000,000
the Treasury Department arranged for an automatic supply of $10,000,000
every month.
Meanwhile, at the ports the Corps had built up the exchange
plan. Booths were set up on all docks, and a force of disbursing
quartermasters was organized to go on board all transports and exchange
the money of soldiers who had failed to make the exchange on shore.
The A. E. F. passed an order making it compulsory for all soldiers to
exchange their cash before sailing. Notices to this effect were posted
conspicuously in all the embarkation camps. In the larger units the
officers attended to the matter, collecting the French money from their
men, receiving American money for it from the exchange officers, and
then distributing the familiar currency among the troops. Individuals
and men traveling in small units attended to their own exchange. The
quartermasters at Brest distributed as much as $400,000 in American
currency in a single day. Up to July 1 Brest had paid out $60,000,000
in American money to troops boarding ship there.
By the late spring of 1919 most of the combat divisions, except those
on active duty with the Army of Occupation, had crossed the ocean or
had started for home. By that time the facilities at the base ports had
been developed to a capacity that enabled them to handle all further
embarkations, and the command of the expedition closed and abandoned
the embarkation center at Le Mans. All of the physical equipment there
went to the French Government under the terms of the general sale
consummated in August of that year. On June 30 Bordeaux was closed as
a port of embarkation. It had embarked 258,000 troops. St. Nazaire
officially ceased to exist as a port of embarkation on July 26,
although thereafter it embarked a few casuals. Approximately 500,000
American soldiers said farewell to France at St. Nazaire.
A million and a quarter American expeditionary soldiers departed from
Brest for the United States. Brest was the last of the ports to close.
The embarkation of the millionth American at Brest seemed almost as
momentous as the arrival of the millionth American in France a year
earlier. In August General Pershing and the historic First Division
sailed from Brest, and the last of the combat troops had gone. On
October 1 American troops were stationed in France only at Brest and
in Paris, but Brest continued in operation as the port of embarkation
until the last American had departed. On October 1 there were a few
thousand men still to sail, but the A. E. F. no longer existed in
France. Its headquarters had moved to Washington. The great task was
done.