MISCELLANEOUS ORDNANCE EQUIPMENT.
The miscellaneous ordnance equipment of the American soldier in the
recent war--that is, articles which he carried with him and which added
to his comfort, his safety, or his efficiency as a fighter--while in
many respects identical with the equipment used by our troops for many
years, at the same time contained several novelties.
In the novelty class were helmets and armor. There is a widespread
impression that helmets and body armor passed away with the invention
of gunpowder and because of that invention. This impression is not
at all true. Body armor came to its highest development long after
gunpowder was in common use in war. The sixteenth century witnessed the
most extensive use of armor; yet at that time guns and pistols formed
an important part of the equipment of every army, and even a weapon
which is generally fancied to be ultramodern, the revolver, had been
invented.
The fact is that not gunpowder but tactics caused the decline of armor.
Not that armor was unable to stop many types of projectiles shot from
guns, but that its weight hampered swift maneuvering, caused it to be
laid aside by the soldier. The decline of armor may be said to date
from the Thirty Years' War. The armies in that period, and particularly
that of the Swedes, began making long marches for surprise attacks,
and the body armor of the troops was found to be a hindrance in such
tactics. Thereafter armor went out of fashion.
Yet it never completely disappeared in warfare. Gen. Rochambeau is said
to have worn body armor at the siege of Yorktown. Great numbers of
corselets and headpieces were worn in the Napoleonic wars. The corselet
which John Paul Jones wore in his fight with the Serapis is preserved
at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York. The Japanese army was
mailed with good armor as late as 1870. Breastplates were worn to some
extent in the Civil War in the United States, and an armor factory was
actually established at New Haven, Conn., about 1862. In the museum
at Richmond, Va., is an equipment of armor taken from a dead soldier
in one of the trenches at the siege of that city. There was a limited
use of armor in the Franco-Prussian War. Some of the Japanese troops
carried shields at Port Arthur. Helmets were worn in the Boer War. A
notorious Australian bandit in the eighties for a long time defied
armed posses to capture him because he wore armor and could stand off
entire squads of policemen firing at him with Martini rifles at close
range.
Thus it can not be said that armor, in coming into use again in the
great war, was resurrected; it was merely revived. In its static
condition during most of the four-year period, the war against Germany
was one in which armor might profitably be used. This opportunity could
scarcely be overlooked, and indeed it was not. Everybody knows of the
helmets that were in general use; yet body armor itself was coming into
favor again, and only the welcome but unexpected end of hostilities
prevented it, in all probability, from becoming again an important part
of the equipment of a soldier.
As a consequence of the attenuated but persistent use of armor by
soldiers during the past two centuries and of the demand of the
aristocratic for helmets and armor as ornaments, the armorer's trade
had been kept alive from the days of Gustavus Adolphus to the present.
The war efforts of the United States in 1917 and 1918 demanded a wide
range of human talents and special callings; but surely the strange and
unusual seemed to be reached when in the early days of our undertaking
the Engineering Division of the Ordnance Department sought the services
of expert armorers.
Through the advice of the National Research Council, which had
established a committee of armor experts, the Ordnance Department
commissioned in its service Maj. Bashford Dean, a life-long specialist
in armor, curator in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, an institution
which, learning of the Government's need, at once placed at its
disposal its wonderful specimens of authentic armor, its armor repair
shop where models could at once be made, and the services of Maj.
Dean's assistant there whom he had brought from France, Daniel Tachaux,
one of the few surviving armorers, who had inherited lineally the
technical side of the ancient craft.
It may be said that there were but two nations in the great war which
went to the Middle Ages for ideas as to protective armor--ourselves
and Germany. The Germans, who applied science to almost every phase of
warfare, did not neglect it here. Germany at the start consulted her
experts on ancient armor and worked along lines which they suggested.
The German helmet used in the trenches was undoubtedly superior to any
other helmet given a practical use.
The first helmets to be used in the great war were of French
manufacture. They were designed by Gen. Adrien, and 2,000,000 of them
were manufactured and issued to the French Army. These helmets were the
product of hasty pioneer work, but the fact that they saved from 2 to 5
per cent of the normal casualties of such a war as was being fought at
once impelled the other belligerents to adopt the idea. Great Britain,
spurred by the necessity of producing quickly a helmet in quantity,
designed the most simple helmet to manufacture, which could be pressed
out of cold metal.
[Illustration: INTERIOR AND EXTERIOR VIEWS OF THE STEEL HELMET WORN BY
OUR TROOPS.]
[Illustration: AVIATOR'S HELMET.]
[Illustration: VISOR HELMET FOR SNIPERS AND MACHINE GUNNERS.]
When America entered the war she had, naturally, no distinctive helmet;
and the English type, being easiest to make, was adopted to fill the
gap until we could design a more efficient one ourselves. Consequently
400,000 British helmets were bought in England and issued to the
vanguard of the American Expeditionary Forces. Our men wore them,
became accustomed to them, and came to feel that they were the badge of
English-speaking troops. The British helmet thus became a habit with
our men, one difficult to change, a fact which mitigated against the
popularity of the more advanced and scientific models which we were to
bring out.
Now, the British helmet possessed some notable defects. It did
not afford a maximum of protective area. The center of gravity
was not so placed as to keep the helmet from wobbling. The lining
was uncomfortable and disregarded the anatomy of the head. It was
vulnerable at the concave surface where bowl and brim joined.
It is not an astonishing circumstance that some of the earlier helmets
worn by the men-at-arms of the days of knighthood possessed certain
of these same defects, notably, that they were apt to be top-heavy
and uncomfortable. Only by centuries of constant application and
improvement were the armorers of the Middle Ages able to produce
helmets which overcame these defects and which embodied all of the
principles of defense and strength which science could put into them.
The best medieval helmets stand at the summit of the art. It was the
constant aim of the modern specialist, aided by the facilities of the
twentieth century industries, to produce helmets as perfect technically
as those rare models which are the pride of museums and collectors.
Certainly in one respect we had the advantage of the ancients in that
we have nowadays at our disposal the modern alloy-steels of great
resistance. An alloy of this kind having a thickness of 0.036 of an
inch is able to stop at a distance of 10 feet a jacketed, automatic
pistol ball, .45 caliber, traveling at the rate of 600 feet a second.
This was important not only from the standpoint of helmet production,
but from the further inference that body armor of such steel might
still be profitably used. The records of the hospitals in France show
that 7 or 8 of every 10 wounded soldiers were wounded by fragments of
shell and other missiles which even thin armor plate would have kept
out. The German troops used body armor in large numbers, each set
weighing from 19 to 24 pounds. In this country we believed it possible
to produce body armor which would not be difficult to carry and which
would resist the impact of a machine-gun bullet at fairly close range.
The production of helmets, however, was our first concern; and in order
to be sure of a sufficient quantity of these protective headpieces,
we adopted the British model for production in the United States and
went ahead with it on a large scale. For the metal we adopted after
much experimentation a steel alloy with a high percentage of manganese.
This was practically the same as the steel of the British helmet. Its
chief advantage was that it was easy to work in the metal presses
in existence and it required no further tempering after leaving the
stamping presses. Its hardness, however, wore away the stamping tools
much more quickly than ordinary steel sheets would do.
While we adopted the British helmet in design and substantially in
metal used, we originated our own helmet lining. The lining was woven
of cotton twine in meshes three-eighths of an inch square. This web,
fitting tightly upon the wearer's head, evenly distributed the weight
of the two-pound helmet, and in the same way distributed the force of
any blow upon the helmet. The netting, together with small pieces of
rubber around the edge of the lining, kept the helmet away from the
head, so that even a relatively large dent could not reach the wearer's
skull.
It is an interesting fact that the linings for the American helmets
were produced by concerns whose ordinary business was the manufacture
of shoes. There were 10 of these companies taking such contracts. Steel
for the helmet was rolled by the American Sheet & Tin Plate Co. The
helmets were pressed and stamped into shape by seven companies which
had done similar work before the war. These concerns were:
Contractor. Delivered.
Edward G. Budd Manufacturing Co., Philadelphia 1,150,775
Sparks, Withington Co., Jackson, Mich. 473,469
Crosby Co., Buffalo, N. Y. 469,968
Bossett Corporation, Utica, N. Y. 116,735
Columbian Enameling & Stamping Co., Terre Haute, Ind. 268,850
Worcester Pressed Steel Co., Worcester, Mass. 193,840
Benjamin Electric Co., Des Plaines, Ill. 33,600
---------
Total 2,707,237
The metal helmets and the woven linings were delivered to the plant
of the Ford Motor Co. at Philadelphia, where they were painted and
assembled. The helmets were painted in the olive-drab shade for
protective coloring. While on dull days such objects could not be
discerned at a great distance, in bright weather their rounded surfaces
might catch and reflect sunbeams, thus betraying the positions of their
wearers. To guard against this, as soon as the helmets were treated to
a first coat of paint fine sawdust was blown upon the wet surface. When
this had dried, another coat of paint was applied, and a nonreflective,
gritty surface was thus produced.
[Illustration: AMERICAN EXPERIMENTAL MODELS OF HELMETS, LIGHT
BREASTPLATES, AND ARM GUARDS.]
[Illustration: American Helmet. Experimental Model No. 2.]
[Illustration: American Helmet No. 8. (Visor up.)]
[Illustration: AMERICAN LIGHT BACK PLATE. EXPERIMENTAL MODEL.]
[Illustration:
AMERICAN HEAVY ARMOR FOR MACHINE GUNNERS. EXPERIMENTAL MODEL
1917.]
We began receiving substantial quantities of finished helmets by the
end of November of the first year of the war. On February 17, 1918,
practically 700,000 had been shipped abroad or were ready for shipment
at the ports of embarkation. Later in the spring of 1918, when we began
sending men to France much beyond our earlier expectations, the orders
for helmets were greatly expanded. In July the total orders reached
3,000,000, in August 6,000,000, and in September 7,000,000. This would
give us enough to meet all requirements until June, 1919.
When the armistice was signed the factories were producing more than
100,000 helmets every four days, and were rapidly approaching the time
when their daily output would be 60,000. The Government canceled all
helmet contracts as soon as the fighting ceased, having received up to
that time a total of 2,700,000 of them.
While this manufacture was going on we were developing helmets of our
own. Major Dean went to France to collect information dealing with
the actual needs of the service and to present numerous experimental
models of helmets for the comment and criticism of the General Staff.
In numerous cases these models were accepted for manufacture here in
experimental lots.
In all we developed four models which seemed to have merits
recommending their adoption. The first distinctive American helmet was
known as model No. 2. The Ford Co. at Detroit pressed about 1,200 of
these helmets. The helmet, however, was similar in appearance to the
German helmet, and for that reason was disapproved by the American
Expeditionary Forces.
Helmet model No. 3 was of a deep-bowl type, but it was rejected
when the Hale & Kilburn Co., of Philadelphia, after a great deal of
experimentation, found that the helmet was too deep for successful
manufacture by pressing.
Model No. 4 was designed by the master armorer of the Metropolitan
Museum of Art. It was also found too difficult to manufacture.
Helmet No. 5 was strongly recommended by American experts, but was not
accepted by the General Staff. It was designed by the armor committee
at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in conjunction with the Engineering
Division of the Ordnance Department. Hale & Kilburn undertook to
manufacture these helmets, which were to be painted, assembled, and
packed by the Ford Motor Co. at its Philadelphia plant. Various
component parts of the helmet were sublet in experimental quantities to
numerous manufacturers.
The No. 5 helmet, complete, weighed 2 pounds, 6½ ounces. It combined
the virtues of several types of helmets. It gave a maximum of
protection for its weight. It was comparatively easy to produce. This
helmet, with slight variations, was later adopted as the standard
helmet of the Swiss Army. The latest German helmet, it is interesting
to note, was approaching similar lines.
We also produced helmets for special services--one with a visor to
protect machine gunners and snipers, and another, known as model 14,
for aviators, it being little heavier than the leather helmet which
airmen wore in the war and twenty times as strong a defense for the
head. A third special helmet, known as model 15, was for operators
of tanks. It was provided with a neck guard of padded silk to stop
the lead splash which penetrated the turret of the tank. The Ordnance
Department turned out 25 of these in 10 days and sent them by courier
to France for a test.
The Germans issued body armor only to troops holding exposed positions
under heavy machine-gun and rifle fire; but such use was distinctly
valuable, as was shown by captured German reports.
The Engineering Division of the Ordnance Department developed a body
defense including a light front and body plate, these together weighing
9½ pounds. One lot of 5,000 sets was manufactured by the Hale & Kilburn
Corporation. The linings of these plates were of sponge rubber, and
they were made by the Miller Rubber Co., of Akron, Ohio. All of these
sets were shipped abroad for testing; but the report was not favorable,
as the American soldier did not wish to be hampered with armor. He
had learned to wear his helmet, but he had yet to be convinced of the
practical value of body armor.
We developed a heavy breast plate with thigh guards, weighing 27
pounds, which stopped machine gun bullets at 150 yards. An experimental
lot of these were completed in 26 days by the Mullins Manufacturing
Co., of Salem, Ohio. These were also shipped abroad for test.
A few defenses for arms and legs were prepared which, although light in
weight, would protect the wearer from an automatic-pistol ball at 10
feet. About 70 per cent of the hospital cases in France were casualties
caused by wounds in the arms and legs. These defenses, however, were
rejected on account of their impeding to a certain degree the movements
of the wearer.
Our development in armor also produced an aviator's chair weighing 60
pounds. It would protect the pilot from injury from below and from the
back, withstanding armor-piercing bullets fired at a distance of 50
yards. Since the piercing of the gas mask canister by a bullet might
result in the death of the soldier by admitting gas directly into the
breathing system of his mask, the Ordnance Department designed an
armored haversack for the gas mask and its canister, this haversack
incidentally serving as a breast defense.
BAYONETS AND TRENCH KNIVES.
Another large ordnance operation was the production of bayonets for
the service rifles. The British bayonet had proved to be highly
satisfactory in the war; and, since it was already designed to fit the
Enfield rifle, which we had adopted for our own, we took the British
bayonet as it was and, with only one slight alteration, set out to
produce it in this country.
The Government found both the Remington Arms-Union Metallic Cartridge
Co. at its Bridgeport, Conn., works, and the Winchester Repeating Arms
Co. building these bayonets for the English Government. The latter's
bayonet needs by 1917 were being well supplied by home manufacture,
and this permitted us to buy approximately 545,500 bayonets which had
already been manufactured for the British.
The Ordnance Department at once started out these two concerns on
contracts for bayonets for the American Government, Remington with
total orders for 2,820,803 bayonets and Winchester with orders for
672,500. Remington delivered in all 1,565,644 bayonets and Winchester
395,894. This was a total of 1,961,500 bayonets.
The total production of 1917 rifles was about 2,520,000. These
figures indicate that we were short over 500,000 bayonets at the time
hostilities ceased; and as a matter of fact this shortage had already
become acute, especially in the training camps.
The bayonets had not come as rapidly as we had expected, because to
produce them at the rate originally planned would have interfered
with the more essential production of rifles by these same companies.
Accordingly in 1918 additional contracts for bayonets were made.
Landers, Frary & Clark, of New Britain, Conn., engaged to manufacture
500,000 bayonets, and the National Motor Vehicle Co., 255,000. These
latter contracts, however, were suspended after the armistice was
signed. The additional orders had made it certain that there would be
no bayonet shortage by the spring of 1919.
While this production was under way we were also manufacturing bayonets
for the model 1903 Springfield rifle. The Springfield Armory produced
347,533 of these and the Rock Island Arsenal 36,800. In addition the
Springfield Armory delivered 50,000 bayonet blades as spare parts.
We not only had to provide bayonets but also the scabbards to hold
them in. The scabbard of the 1917 bayonet was of simple manufacture
and there were no difficulties in securing sufficient quantities. The
Jewell Belt Co. delivered 1,810,675 of them; Graton & Knight delivered
1,669,581; while the Rock Island Arsenal produced 3,000. This gave us
a total of 3,480,000 scabbards, a quantity greatly in excess of the
production of either bayonets or rifles.
A new weapon which had come into use during the great war as part of
the soldier's individual equipment was the trench knife. The question
of making such knives was taken up by the Government with various
manufacturers throughout the country and they were given a general
idea of what was required and, in conjunction with the Ordnance
Department, were requested to develop details. The design submitted
by Henry Disston & Sons, of Philadelphia, received the most favorable
consideration. This knife was manufactured and known as model 1917. It
was a triangular blade 9 inches long. The triangular blade was deemed
the most efficient because of the ease with which it would pierce
clothing and even leather. This knife was slightly changed as regards
handle and given a different guard to protect the man's knuckles,
and was known as model 1918. These knives were sent abroad in large
quantities to be used by the American Expeditionary Forces. Landers,
Frary & Clark produced 113,000 of these knives and the Oneida Community
(Ltd.), Oneida, N. Y., 10,000.
On June 1, 1918, the American Expeditionary Forces made an exhaustive
test, comparing the various trench knives used abroad. The four knives
tested were as follows; United States, model 1917; Hughes; French; and
British knuckle knife. These tests were made to determine the merits of
the different knives as to the following points:
(_a_) Serviceability--ability to carry in hand and function other
arms.
(_b_) Quickness in action.
(_c_) If the soldier were knocked unconscious, would knife drop
from hand?
(_d_) Suitability to carry in hand when crawling.
(_e_) Probability of being knocked out of hand.
(_f_) Weight, length, shape of blade.
(_g_) Shape of handle.
It was found that the model 1917, although a satisfactory knife, could
be improved. Therefore the trench knife known as Mark I was developed
partially by the American Expeditionary Forces and partially by the
Engineering Division of Ordnance. This knife was entirely different
from the model 1917, having a flat blade, metal scabbard, and a
cast-bronze handle. It was a combination of all the good points of all
the knives used by the foreign armies.
The Government placed orders for 1,232,780 of the new knives.
Deliveries were to have begun in December, but before that time peace
had come and the orders had been reduced to 119,424. The new model
knives were to have been manufactured by A. A. Simons & Son, Dayton,
Ohio; Henry Disston & Son, Philadelphia; Landers, Frary & Clark, and
the Oneida Community (Ltd.). All contracts were canceled except the one
with Landers, Frary & Clark.
[Illustration: 1917 MODEL OF TRENCH KNIFE AND SCABBARD.]
[Illustration: MARK I TRENCH KNIFE WITH FLAT BLADE, DESIGNED BY A. E.
F.]
[Illustration: WIRE CUTTER (ONE HAND).]
[Illustration: FRENCH WIRE CUTTERS.]
[Illustration:
WIRE CUTTER, MODEL 1918, SHOWING SPECIAL RUBBER HANDLES. TESTED
AT 10,000 VOLTS.]
PERISCOPES, BELTS, ETC.
Another new article in the equipment of our soldiers was the trench
periscope, a device enabling a man to look over the edge of the trench
without exposing himself to fire. The ordinary periscope was merely
a wooden box 2 inches square and 15 inches long, with an inclined
mirror set at each end. Production was commenced in October, 1917, by
two companies, and 81,000 were delivered by the middle of January.
In August, 1918, an additional lot of 60,000 was ordered, but the
deliveries of these were slow.
An even simpler periscope was merely a mirror about three inches long
and an inch and a half wide which could be placed on a bayonet or a
stick and set up over the trench so that it gave a view of the ground
in front. A total of 100,000 of these was delivered before the end of
July, 1918, and 50,000 additional ones before November. Further facts
about periscopes are set down in the chapter in this report relating to
sights and fire-control apparatus.
At the beginning of the war all textile equipment, such as cartridge
belts, bandoleers to carry ammunition, haversacks, pack carriers,
pistol holsters, canteen covers and similar material were supplied in
woven material. Only two concerns in this country could manufacture
articles of this quality. They were the Mills Woven Cartridge Belt
Co., Worcester, Mass., and the Russell Manufacturing Co., Middletown,
Conn. Although these two concerns practically doubled their output and
worked day and night to supply the material, the demand was too great,
and belts and carriers were designed to be stitched and sewn and not
woven. Equipment made in this manner is inferior to the woven article.
However, the Mills Woven Cartridge Belt Co. produced approximately
3,200,000 of these articles and the Russell Manufacturing Co.,
1,500,000. Large producers of the stitched and sewn material were the
Plant Brothers Co., Boston, Mass.; R. H. Long Co., Framingham, Mass.;
L. C. Chase Co., Watertown, Mass.
For the Browning automatic rifle and the Browning machine gun there
were specially designed belts and bandoleers. The rifleman had his
own special belt, and his first and second assistants had their own
individual belts, and the assistants also had two bandoleers each, one
right and one left, which were carried across their shoulders. These
were manufactured in quantities by the following manufacturers:
R. H. Long Co., Framingham, Mass. 175,000
Plant Bros., Boston, Mass. 75,000
L. C. Chase Co., Watertown, Mass. 20,000
Many small articles of textile equipment were produced in immense
quantities. There were approximately four and a half million canteen
covers produced prior to November 1. Large contracts were placed with
the following concerns: Perkins-Campbell Co., Cincinnati, Ohio; Brauer
Bros., St. Louis, Mo.; L. C. Chase Co., Watertown, Mass.; Miller-Hexter
Co., Cleveland, Ohio; Powers Manufacturing Co., Waterloo, Iowa; R. H.
Long Co., Framingham, Mass.; Bradford Co., St. Joseph, Mich.; Galvin
Bros., Cleveland, Ohio; Progressive Knitting Works, Brooklyn, N. Y.
Approximately four and a half million haversacks were produced and
delivered prior to November 1, 1918. Large manufacturers producing
these were as follows: Canvas Products Co., St. Louis, Mo.; Rock
Island Arsenal, Rock Island, Ill.; Plant Bros., Boston, Mass.; Simmons
Hardware Co., St. Louis, Mo.; R. H. Long Co., Framingham, Mass.;
Liberty, Durgin (Inc.), Haverhill, Mass.; Wiley, Bickford & Sweet,
Hartford, Conn.
It is impossible here to enumerate the entire range of ordnance
munitions produced, outside of the development of guns and their
ammunition; but their manufacture, in orders that ordinarily amounted
to the millions of individual pieces, engaged the activities of a large
number of manufacturers of the United States.
The Government ordered about 1,200,000 axes to be used in trench
operations, of which 661,690 were delivered. Bags of all sorts for
horse feed, grain, rations, and supplies totaled in their deliveries
about 2,250,000. The Government received 809,541 saddle blankets;
about 3,750,000 carriers for entrenching shovels, axes, and picks;
nearly 4,450,000 covers for the breech locks of rifles; over 1,000,000
currycombs; 76,230 lariats; 727,000 entrenching picks; nearly 4,750,000
first-aid pouches, and over 2,000,000 pouches for small articles;
234,689 Cavalry saddles; 134,092 Field Artillery saddles; 15,287 mule
saddles; 482,459 saddle bags; nearly 1,800,000 entrenching shovels;
2,843,092 spur straps; 70,556 steel measuring tapes each 5 feet long.
These figures selected at random from thousands of miscellaneous items
indicate to some extent the scale on which America went into the war.
The old model 1910 American wire cutter, although efficient in times
past, was not capable of cutting specially constructed manganese wire
which the Germans used. Therefore it became necessary for this country
to develop a better cutter. A meeting of the plier manufacturers of the
country was called and the question was put before them. The spirit of
cooperation of the American manufacturers was evident, inasmuch as over
90 per cent of the manufacturers attended the meeting.
[Illustration: _CARTRIDGE BELT, CAL.30, MODEL OF 1910 (DISMOUNTED)_
_CARTRIDGE BELT, CAL.30, MODEL OF 1910 (MOUNTED)_
_GARRISON BELT, MODEL OF 1910, FOR ENLISTED MEN._
_GARRISON BELT, MODEL OF 1910, FOR NON COM STAFF OFFICERS AND FIRST
SERGEANTS._
_MAGAZINE POCKET, WEB, DOUBLE._
_WIRE CUTTER CARRIER, MODEL OF 1910._]
[Illustration: _GARRISON BELT, MODEL OF 1910, FOR MOUNTED ORDERLIES,
MOUNTED SCOUTS AND MEMBERS OF MACHINE GUN PLATOONS._
_GARRISON BELT, MODEL OF 1910, TRUMPETER SERGEANT AND MUSICIANS._
_POUCH MODEL OF 1910, FOR FIRST AID PACKET._
_SLIDE WEB._
_SHOVEL CARRIER, MODEL OF 1919._
_CANTEEN COVER, MODEL OF 1910._
_HAND AX CARRIER, MODEL OF 1910._
_PICK MATTOCK CARRIER, MODEL OF 1910._]
[Illustration: MEAT CAN, MODEL 1918.]
[Illustration: CANTEEN, MODEL 1910.]
[Illustration: _PACK CARRIER, MODEL OF 1910._
_HAVERSACK, MODEL OF 1910._
_MEAT CAN POUCH._]
[Illustration: CONDIMENT CAN, MODEL 1910.]
[Illustration: KNIFE, MODEL 1910.]
[Illustration: FORK, MODEL 1910.]
The model submitted by Kraeuter & Co., Newark, N. J., was adopted and
5,000 were manufactured and sent to France. Although this was the best
cutter developed in this short time, it was evident that it was not
the right article, and the Engineering Division of Ordnance continued
experimenting to make a more satisfactory one. In this connection a
one-hand wire cutter was developed by the William Schollhorn Co., of
New Haven, Conn. This cutter was a very efficient and satisfactory
article, and, although it was never adopted by the American Army during
the war, it is worthy of consideration. The American Expeditionary
Forces eventually sent back drawings and sample of the French wire
cutter, which was developed abroad and known as model 1918. This was a
large, two-handed cutter. Production was started. The article was found
difficult to manufacture, but the manufacturers undertook it with a
will and production was well under way when the armistice was signed.
The mess equipment of the soldier included the following items: meat
can, condiment can, canteen and cup, knife, fork, and spoon. These
articles were practically the same as the Army had always used, with
one exception--the meat can. Advice was received from the American
Expeditionary Forces that the meat cans in which the soldiers' food
was placed by the cooks of the various organizations were not large
enough to hold the portions that the American doughboys needed when
they were fighting at the front. Although production was well under way
with various American manufacturers on the old model, a new model can
was designed which was half an inch deeper. The American manufacturers
immediately, with a great deal of trouble to themselves, changed their
dies and tools and manufactured a new meat can which was larger than
the old. Thousands of cans were turned out daily.
_Production data._
CONDIMENT CANS.
---------------------------------------------+------------+-----------
Contractor. | Contract. | Completed
| | and
| | delivered.
---------------------------------------------+------------+-----------
American Can Co., New York City | 3,553,940 | 3,553,940
Tin Decorating Co., Baltimore, Md. | 2,003,640 | 2,003,640
Gotham Can Co., Brooklyn, N. Y. | 500,000 | 500,000
|------------+-----------
Total | 6,057,580 | 6,057,580
---------------------------------------------+------------+-----------
BACON CANS.
---------------------------------------------+------------+-----------
Sturgis & Burns, Chicago | 2,303,800 | 1,731,000
Landers, Frary & Clark, New Britain, Conn. | 534,360 | 534,360
Rock Island Arsenal, Rock Island, Ill. | 1,658,000 | 1,358,570
Wisconsin Metal Products Co., Racine, Wis. | 50,000 | 50,000
Acklin Steel Co., Toledo, Ohio | 250,000 | 250,000
Cleveland Metal Products Co., Cleveland, Ohio| 300,000 | 21,750
Whittaker, Glessner Co., Wheeling, W. Va. | 500,000 | 131,880
|------------+-----------
Total | 5,596,160 | 4,077,560
---------------------------------------------+------------+-----------
MEAT CANS.
---------------------------------------------+------------+-----------
Aluminum Co. of America, Pittsburgh | 3,385,955 | 3,385,955
Landers, Frary & Clark, New Britain, Conn. | 3,000,000 | 3,000,000
J. W. Brown & Co., Columbus, Ohio | 641,945 | 641,945
Wheeling Stamping Co., Wheeling, W. Va. | 940,812 | 940,812
Edmunds & Jones Co., Detroit, Mich. | 138,360 | 138,360
Rock Island Arsenal | 138,862 | 138,862
|------------+-----------
Total | 8,245,934 | 8,245,934
---------------------------------------------+------------+-----------
CANTEENS.
---------------------------------------------+------------+-----------
Aluminum Co. of America, New York | 3,470,000 | 3,470,000
Landers, Frary & Clark | 2,862,150 | 2,862,150
Aluminum Goods Co., Manitowoc, Wis. | 2,370,000 | 2,370,000
J. W. Brown Co. | 861,471 | 861,471
Buckeye Aluminum Co., Wooster, Ohio | 776,014 | 776,014
Rock Island Arsenal | 361,000 | 361,000
|------------+-----------
Total | 10,700,635 | 10,700,635
---------------------------------------------+------------+-----------
KNIVES.
---------------------------------------------+------------+-----------
American Cutlery Co., Chicago | 2,865,910 | 2,865,910
Landers, Frary & Clark | 7,286,550 | 7,286,550
Rock Island Arsenal | 527,600 | 527,600
International Silverware Co. | 473,000 | 473,000
Hinckley Manufacturing Co. | 130,000 | 130,000
|------------+-----------
Total | 11,283,060 | 11,283,060
---------------------------------------------+------------+-----------
FORKS.
---------------------------------------------+------------+-----------
R. Wallace & Co. | 8,585,000 | 8,585,000
Wallace Bros. | 367,810 | 367,810
Rock Island Arsenal | 200,000 | 200,000
Charles Parker Co., Meriden, Conn. | 810,000 | 810,000
Wm. B. Durgin Co., Concord, N. H. | 500,000 | 500,000
|------------+-----------
Total | 10,462,810 | 10,462,810
---------------------------------------------+------------+-----------
SPOONS.
---------------------------------------------+------------+-----------
R. Wallace & Co. | 8,037,600 | 8,037,600
National Enameling & Stamping Co. | 906,400 | 906,400
Wm. B. Durgin Co. | 500,000 | 500,000
Charles Parker Co. | 902,000 | 902,000
|------------+-----------
Total | 10,346,000 | 10,346,000
---------------------------------------------+------------+-----------
BOOK II.
THE AIR SERVICE.
CHAPTER I.
THE AIRCRAFT PROBLEM.
When the United States entered the war against Germany in 1917 there
was no phase of her forthcoming industrial effort from which so much
was expected as from the building of airplanes and equipment for aerial
warfare; yet there was no phase of the immense undertaking in which
the United States was so utterly unprepared. In many other branches of
the work of providing matériel for a modern army, however inadequately
acquainted America might be with the developments which had gone on
in Europe since 1914, yet she had splendid resources of skill and
equipment which could quickly turn from the pursuits of peace to the
arts attending warfare. But there was no large existing industry in the
United States which could turn easily to the production of airplanes,
since such airplanes as were known in Europe in 1917 had never been
built in the United States.
It seems difficult now for us to realize how utterly unlearned we were,
both in official and technical quarters, in the design, the production,
or the use of aeronautical equipment in those early days of 1917. Here
in America mechanical flight had been born; but we had lived to see
other nations develop the invention into an industry and a science
that was a closed book to our people. In the three years of warfare
before American participation, the airplane had been forced through a
whole generation of normal mechanical evolution. Of this progress we
were aware only as nontechnical and distant observers. Such military
study of the progress as we had conducted was casual. It had, in fact,
brought to America scarcely a single basic fact on which we could build
our contemplated industry.
When the United States became a belligerent no American-built airplane
had ever mounted a machine gun or carried any other than the simplest
of necessary instruments. Such things as oxygen apparatus, electrically
heated clothing for aviators, radio-communication with airplanes,
landing and bombing flares, electric lighting systems for planes,
bomb-dropping devices, suitable compasses, instruments for measuring
height and speed, and the like--in short, all the modern paraphernalia
that completes the efficiency of combat airplanes--these were almost
entirely unknown to us.
The best of the prewar activities of America in this line had produced
some useful airplane engines and a few planes which the countries then
at war were willing to use only in training of aviators.
Within the Army itself there was small nucleus of skill around which
could be built an organization expert and sophisticated. We had in
the official files no adequate information as to sizes, capacities,
and types of planes or engines, or character of ordnance, armament,
or aeronautical appliances demanded by the exacting service in which
our young birdmen were soon to engage. Even the airplanes on order
in April, 1917 (over 350 of them), proved to be of such antiquated
design that the manufacturers of them, in the light of their increased
knowledge of war requirements a few months later, asked to be released
from their contracts.
Nor was there in the United States any industry so closely allied to
airplane manufacture that its engineers and designers could turn from
one to the other and take their places at once abreast of the progress
in Europe. There was little or no engineering talent in the United
States competent to design fully equipped military aircraft which could
compete with Europe. Our aircraft producers must first go to France
and England and Italy, and ground themselves in the principles of a
new science before they could attempt to produce their own designs
or even before they could be safe in selecting European designs for
reproduction in this country.
The first consideration of the whole program by the Joint Army and
Navy Technical Board indicated a figure of 22,000 as the number of
airplanes, including both training and battle types, which should be
furnished for the use of the Army during the 12 months following July
1, 1917. This figure represented the determination of America to play
a major part in aerial warfare. It was not possible for the board to
realize at that time all of the problems which would be encountered,
and the figures indicated confidence in the ability of the industrial
organizations of the United States to meet a difficult situation,
rather than an exact plan under which such production might be
developed.
It is probable that it was not fully realized that the production of
this program, with the proper proportion of spare parts required for
military operations, meant the manufacture of the equivalent of about
40,000 airplanes.
Without an industry then, and with little knowledge or understanding
of the problems of military aerial equipment, we faced the task
of securing the equivalent of 40,000 airplanes in 12 brief months
beginning July, 1917.
In one respect we were in a degree prepared in professional skill
and mechanical equipment to go ahead on broad lines. This was in the
matter of producing engines. The production of aviation engines in
America had, indeed, been comparatively slight, but in the automobile
industry had been developed a vast engine-building capacity. The detail
equipment of automobile shops was not entirely suited to aviation
engines, but, nevertheless, it furnished the basis for the future
successful production of the Liberty engine and the other engines
called for by the air program.
[Illustration: 250 AIRPLANES IN THE AIR AT ONE TIME OVER SAN DIEGO,
CALIF.]
[Illustration: TWO ROWS OF AIRPLANES LINED UP AT A TEXAS FLYING FIELD.]
America succeeded, once the requirements were known, in producing the
various accessories of aerial warfare. It was necessary first to learn
from foreign sources what these accessories were and how they should
be built; but as a rule it was possible to adapt American production
resources to the problem, and the difficulties experienced were rather
those of determining requirements and the exact adaptation of the
various articles to specific airplanes.
The achievements of America in aircraft production during the war
period may be summarized as follows:
In our 19 months of warfare we outdid any one of the belligerent
nations in Europe in the production of airplanes in its first 19 months
of intensive production. In our second year of war we nearly equaled
the record of England in her third.
At the end of the effort, after our designers had saturated themselves
in the science and were abreast of the developments of Europe, they
produced several typical American airplanes which gave promise of being
superior to any that Europe was turning out.
We created one of the three or four best airplane engines, if not
the best of all, that the world had seen, and produced it in great
quantities. We took a standard but complicated aero-engine from Europe
and not only duplicated it in quantity here but turned out a finer
product than the original French makers had been able to obtain with
their careful and more leisurely methods.
In the steel cylinders of all the aero-engines we built was a capacity
for producing some seven or eight million horsepower, an energy
equivalent to one-fifth of the commercially practicable water power of
the United States. The Liberty engines built could alone do the work of
the entire flood of Niagara and have a million horsepower to spare.
In three years of warfare the allies had been able to develop only a
single machine gun that could be successfully synchronized to fire
through a revolving airplane propeller. In 12 months of actual effort
America produced two others as good, both susceptible of factory
quantity production.
We developed new airplane cameras. We carried to new stages the science
of clothing aviators. We developed in quantity the wireless airplane
telephone that stilled in the ears of the pilot the bedlam of wind and
machine guns and engine exhaust and placed him within easy speaking
radius of his ground station and his commander in the air.
We built balloons at a rate to supply more than our own needs.
When the shortage of linen threatened the entire airplane output of
the nations opposing Germany, we developed cotton wing fabric that not
only substituted for linen, but proved to be better; and in producing a
liquid filler to make this fabric wind-tight we established on a large
scale an entirely new chemical industry in the United States.
Such were the high points in the history of America's aircraft
production for war. The details of the developments which led to these
results are set forth on the following pages.
[Illustration: VIEW OF AIRPLANE IN FLIGHT TAKEN FROM ANOTHER MACHINE.]
[Illustration: PARACHUTE JUMP FROM AN ALTITUDE OF 7,900 FEET, NOVEMBER
12, 1918.
Picture taken at Love Field, Tex., from an airplane.]
CHAPTER II.
AIRPLANE PRODUCTION.
Sketchy and incomplete as was our knowledge of airplane construction in
the early days of 1917, it was no more hazy than our notion of how many
planes to build. What would constitute overwhelming superiority in the
air?
As an indication of the rapidity with which history has moved, it
may be stated that in January and February of 1917 the Signal Corps
discussed the feasibility of building 1,000 planes in a year of
construction. This seems now to us a ridiculously low figure to propose
as representative of American resources, but in the early weeks of 1917
the construction of a thousand airplanes appeared to be a formidable
undertaking. In March, when war was inevitable, we raised this number
to 2,500 planes within 12 months; in April, when war was declared, we
raised it again to 3,700.
But once we were in the war, through the exchange of military missions
our designers were taken into the confidence of the aviation branches
of the French, British, and Italian Armies and shown then for the
first time a comprehensive view of the development of the war plane,
both what had been done in the past and what might be expected in the
future. As a result our Joint Army and Navy Technical Board in the
last week of May and the early part of June, 1917, recommended to the
Secretaries of War and the Navy that a building program be started at
once to produce the stupendous total of 19,775 planes for our own use
and 3,000 additional ones, if we were to train foreign aviators, or
approximately 22,000 in all. This was a program worthy of America's
industrial greatness. Of these proposed planes, 7,050 were for training
our flyers, 725 for the defense of the United States and insular
possessions, and 12,000 for active service in France.
Such was the task assigned to an industry that in the previous 12
months had manufactured less than 800 airplanes, and those consisting
principally of training planes for foreign governments.
The expanding national ambition for an aircraft industry was also shown
by the mounting money grants. On May 12 Congress voted $10,800,000 for
military aeronautics. On June 15 an appropriation of $43,450,000 was
voted for the same purpose. Finally on July 24, 1917, the President
signed the bill appropriating $640,000,000 for aircraft. This was the
largest appropriation ever made by Congress for one specific purpose,
and this bill was put through both Houses within the period of a little
more than a week.
The figure 22,000, however, scarcely indicates the size of this
undertaking, as we were to realize before long. We little understood
the infinite complications of fully equipping battle planes. Lacking
that invaluable experience which Europe had attained in three years of
production, we had no practical realization of the fact that for each
100 airplanes an equivalent of 80 additional airplanes must be provided
in spare parts. In other words, an effective fighting plane delivered
in France is not one plane, but it is one plane and eight-tenths of
another; which means that the program adopted in June, 1917, called
for the production in 12 months of not 22,000 airplanes but rather the
equivalent of 40,000 airplanes.
Let us set down the inventory of the Government's own resources for
handling this project.
The American Air Service, which was then part of the Signal Corps, had
had a struggling and meager existence, working with the old pusher
type of planes until in 1914 an appropriation of $250,000 was made
available for the purchase of new airplanes and equipment. Shortly
after this appropriation was granted, five officers were sent to the
Massachusetts Institute of Technology for a course in aeronautics. When
the war broke out in Europe in August, 1914, these men constituted the
entire technically trained personnel of the Air Service of the United
States. By April 6, 1917, we had 65 officers in the Air Service, an
enlisted and civilian personnel of 1,330, two flying fields, and a few
serviceable planes of the training type.
This equipment may be compared with that of Germany, France, and
England at the time they went to war. Germany is believed to have had
nearly 1,000 airplanes in August, 1914; France had about 300; and
England barely 250. America's 224, delivered up to April 6, 1917, were
nearly all obsolete in type when compared with the machines then in
effective service in France.
No sooner had the United States embarked upon the war than the agents
of the European manufacturers of airplanes descended upon the Aircraft
Board in swarms. France and Italy had both adopted the policy of
depending upon the private development of designs for their supplies
of airplanes, with the result that the builders of each country had
produced a number of successful types of flying machines and an even
greater number of types of engines. On the assumption that the United
States would adopt certain of these types and build them here, the
agents for the Sopwiths, the Capronis, the Handley-Pages, and many
others proceeded to demonstrate the particular excellences of their
various articles. Out of this confusion of counsel stood one pertinent
fact in relief--the United States would have to pay considerable
royalties for the use of any of these European devices.
As to the relative merits of types and designs, it was soon apparent
that no intelligent decision could be reached in Washington or anywhere
but in Europe. Because of our distance from the front and the length
of time required to put the American industrial machine into operation
on a large scale, it was necessary that in advance we understand types
and tendencies in aircraft construction, so that we might anticipate
aircraft development in such special designs as we might adopt.
Otherwise, if we accepted the types of equipment then in use in Europe,
by the time we had begun producing on a large scale a year or so later
we would find our output obsolete and out of date, so rapidly was the
aircraft art moving.
Consequently, in June the United States sent to Europe a commission of
six civilian and military experts, headed by Maj. R. C. Bolling, part
of whose duties was to advise the American War Department as to what
types of planes and engines and other air equipment we should prepare
to manufacture. Also, in April the Chief of the Signal Corps had cables
sent to England, France, and Italy, requesting that aviation experts be
sent at once to this country; and shortly after this we dispatched to
Europe more than 100 skilled mechanics to work in the foreign engine
and airplane plants and acquire the training that would make them the
nucleus of a large mechanical force for aircraft production in this
country.
But while these early educational activities were in progress, much
could be done at home that need not await the forthcoming reports
from the Bolling mission. We had, for instance, in this country
several types of planes and engines that would be suitable for the
training fields which were even then being established. The Signal
Corps, therefore, bent its energies upon the manufacture of training
equipment, leaving the development of battle aircraft to come after we
should know more about that subject.
It was evident that we could not equip an airplane industry and furnish
machines to our fliers abroad before the summer of 1918; and so we
arranged with France for this equipment by placing orders with French
factories for 5,875 planes of regular French design. These were all to
be delivered by July 1, 1918.
In the arrangement with the French factories we agreed to supply
from the United States a great deal of the raw materials for these
machines, and the contract for furnishing these supplies was given to
J. G. White & Co. of New York City. This concern did a creditable job,
shipping about 5,000,000 feet of lumber, much necessary machinery, and
a multitude of items required in the fabrication of airplanes, all to
the value of $10,000,000.
The total weight of the shipments on this contract was something like
23,000 tons, this figure including 7,500 tons of lumber. The other
tonnage consisted of tubing of steel, brass, copper and aluminum;
sheets of steel, copper, lead, and aluminum; as well as bar steel, tool
steel, structural steel, ball bearings, crank shafts, turnbuckles,
radiator tubes, wire, cable, bolts, nuts, screws, nails, fiber cloth,
felt, and rubber. All of this was in addition to approximately 1,000
machine tools, such as motors, lathes, and grinders.
The orders for French planes were divided as follows: 725 Nieuport
training planes, 150 Spad training planes, 1,500 Breguet service
planes; 2,000 Spad service planes; and 1,500 New Spad or Nieuport
service planes. The decision between the New Spad or Nieuport service
planes was to be made as soon as the New Spad could be tested. These
planes were to be delivered in specified monthly quantities increasing
in number until the total of 1,360 planes should be placed in our
hands during the month of March, 1918, alone. The contracts were to be
concluded in June with the delivery of the final 1,115 planes. We also
contracted for the manufacture of 8,500 service engines of the Renault,
Hispano and Gnome makes, all of these to be delivered by the end of
June.
When the armistice ended the fighting, we had produced a total of
11,754 airplanes in America, together with most of the necessary spare
parts for about one-third of them.
While a large part of the American airplanes built in the war period
were of the training type rather than the service, or battle, type,
nevertheless it was necessary that we have a large equipment of
training planes in order to prepare the swiftly expanding personnel
of the Air Service for its future activity at the front. The nations
associated with us in the war, however, had produced their training
equipment prior to our participation as a belligerent, and at the time
we entered the war the French, British, and Italians were producing
only enough training planes to maintain their training equipment and
were going in heavily with the rest of their airplane industries for
the production of service planes.
With these considerations in mind, the reader may make an interesting
comparison of British and American plane production, the British
figures being for both the British Army and the British Navy, whereas
the American figures are for the American Army alone. In the following
table of comparison the British figures are based on the Lockhart
Report of November 1, 1918:
_Comparative rate of airplane production--British and United
States Army._
-------------------------+-----------+----------
| British | United
Calendar year. | Army and | States
| Navy. | Army.
-------------------------+-----------+----------
1915, Jan. 1 to Dec. 31 | 2,040 | 20
1916, Jan. 1 to Dec. 31 | 6,000 | [26]83
1917, Jan. 1 to Dec. 31 | 14,400 | [27]1,807
1918, Jan. 1 to Dec. 31 | 30,000 |[28]11,950
-------------------------+-----------+----------
[26] Experimental.
[27] 1,476 built in last seven months only.
[28] Inclusive of 135 secured by Engineering Department. American
total 12,837 if October production had continued through November and
December.
Broadly stated, and without reference to types of planes produced,
these figures mean that the United States in her second year of the war
produced for the American Army alone almost as many airplanes as Great
Britain in her third year of the war built for both her army and navy.
In October, 1918, factories in this country turned out 1,651 planes,
which, without allowing for the monthly expansion in the production,
was at the rate of 20,000 planes per year. Assuming no increase in the
October rate of production, we would have attained the 22,000 airplanes
in 23 months after July 1, 1917, the date on which the production
effort may be said to have started. Our production of fighting planes
in the war period was 3,328.
On the day the armistice was signed we had received from all sources
16,952 planes. Of these 5,198 had been produced for us by the allies.
We had 48 flying fields, 20,568 Air Service officers, and 174,456
enlisted men and civilian personnel. These figures do not mean that we
had more than 17,000 planes on hand at that time, because the mortality
in airplanes is high from accidents and ordinary wear and tear.
THE PROBLEM OF MATERIAL.
Once we had started out on this enterprise we soon discovered that the
production of airplanes was something more than a mere manufacturing
job. With almost any other article we might have made our designs,
given orders to the factories, and rested in the security that in
due time the articles would be forthcoming. But with airplanes we
had to create the industry; and this meant not only the equipping of
factories, but the procurement and sometimes the actual production of
the raw materials.
For instance, the ideal lubricant for the airplane motor is castor
oil. When we discovered that the supply of castor oil was not nearly
sufficient for our future needs, the Government itself secured from
Asia a large quantity of castor beans, enough to seed more than 100,000
acres in this country and thus to provide for the future lubrication
for our motors. This actual creation of raw materials was conducted on
a much larger scale in the cases of certain other commodities used in
airplane construction, particularly in the production of lumber and
cotton and in the manufacture of the chemicals for the "dope" with
which the airplane wings are covered and made air-tight.
An airplane must have wings and an engine with a propeller to make it
go; and, like a bird, it must have a tail to make it fly straight and
a body (fuselage) to hold all together. Part of the tail (the rudder)
moves sideways and steers the airplane from left to right; part moves
up and down (the elevators) and makes the airplane go up or down,
and parts of the wings (the ailerons) move up and down and make the
airplane tip from side to side. All of these things must be connected
to the controls in the hands of the pilot. The front edges of the
wings are raised above the line of flight; and when the propeller
driven by the engine forces the wings through the air, the airplane is
lifted and flies.
All of the airplanes built for the United States during the war were
tractor biplanes. In a plane of the tractor type the propeller is in
front and pulls the machine. The biplane is so called because it has
two planes or wings, one above the other. The biplane has been the most
largely used of all types in war for two reasons: first, the struts
and wires between the planes form a truss structure, and this gives
the needed strength; and second, there is less danger of enemy bullets
wrecking a biplane in the air because its wing support is greater than
that of the monoplane or single-winged machine.
Since the airplane can lift only a limited weight, every part of the
mechanism must be as light as possible. An airplane engine weighs from
2 to 3 pounds per horsepower, whereas an automobile motor weighs from
8 to 10 pounds per horsepower. The skeleton of the airplane is made of
wood, mostly spruce, with sheet-steel fittings to join the wood parts
together, and steel wires and rods to make every part a truss. This
skeleton is covered with cloth, and the cloth is stretched and made
smooth by dope.
Wood, sheet steel, wire, cloth, varnish--these are the principal
components of an airplane. As raw materials they all seem easy to
obtain in America. And so they are in peace times and for ordinary
purposes. But never before had quality been so essential in an American
industry, from the raw material up to the finished product--quality
in the materials used, and quality in the workmanship which fashions
the parts. But combined with this quality we were forced to produce in
quantities, bounded only by our own physical limitations, and these
quantities must include not only the materials for our own air program
but also some of the principal raw materials used by the airplane
builders in France and England, specifically, all of the spruce which
the allies would require and, later, much of the wing fabric and dope
for their machines.
Quite early it was apparent to us that we had on our hands a problem
in spruce production which the Government itself must solve, if the
airplane undertaking were not to fail at the outset. When we entered
the war linen was exclusively used for the covering of wings; and it
developed almost immediately that the United Kingdom was practically
the sole source of linen. But the Irish looms could not begin to
furnish us with our needs for this commodity. Later on came up the
question of supplying dope and castor oil. Finally, during the last
months of the war, it became necessary for us to follow up the
production of all classes of our raw material, particularly in working
out a suitable supply of steel tubing. But our great creative efforts
in raw materials were confined to spruce, fabric, and dope.
The lumber problem involved vast questions of an industrial and
technical character. We had to conduct a campaign of education in
the knowledge of aircraft requirements that reached from the loggers
themselves in the woods to the sawmill men, to the cut-up plants, and
then followed through the processes of drying and sawing to the proper
utilization of the lumber in the aircraft factories.
In working out these problems, while we drew heavily upon the
experience in Europe, yet we ourselves added our own technical skill
to the solution. The Signal Corps was assisted by the forest products
laboratory at Madison, Wis., and by the wood section of the inspection
department of the Bureau of Aircraft Production. The United States
Forest Service contributed its share of technical knowledge. At the end
of the war we considered that our practice in the handling of aircraft
lumber was superior to that of either France or England.
THE SPRUCE PROBLEM.
Each airplane uses two distinct sorts of wood--first, the spruce or
similar lumber for the wing beams or other plane parts; and second,
mahogany, walnut, or other hardwoods for propellers. In each case the
Army production authorities were involved both in securing the lumber
and in educating manufacturers to handle it properly.
In an ordinary biplane there are two beams for each lateral wing,
eight beams to the plane. These form the basis of strength for the
wings. Because of the heavy stresses put upon the airplanes by battle
conditions, only the most perfect and straight-grained wood is suitable
for these beams. All cross-grained or spiral-grained material, or
material too coarse in its structure, is useless.
Spruce is the best of all woods for wing beams. Our problem was to
supply lumber enough for the wing beams, disregarding the other parts,
as all other wood used in the manufacture of planes could be secured
from cuttings from the wing-beam stock. At the beginning we built each
beam out of one piece of wood; and this meant that the lumber must be
extra long, thick, and perfect. Until we learned how to cut the spruce
economically we found that only a small portion of the lumber actually
logged was satisfactory for airplanes. An average sized biplane uses
less than 500 feet of lumber. In the hands of skilled cutters this
quantity can be worked out of 1,000 feet of rough lumber. But in the
earlier days of the undertaking as high as 5,000 feet of spruce per
plane were actually used because of imperfections in the lumber, lack
of proper inspection at the mills, and faulty handling in transit and
in the factories.
We also used certain species of fir in building training planes. This
wood is, like spruce, light, tough, and strong. The only great source
of supply of these woods was in the Pacific Northwest, although there
was a modest quantity of suitable timber in West Virginia, North
Carolina, and New England.
While at first we expected to rely upon the unaided efforts of the
lumber producers, labor difficulties almost immediately arose in the
Northwest to hinder the production of lumber. The effort, too, was
beset with difficulties of a physical nature, since the large virgin
stands of spruce occurred only at intervals and often at long distances
from the existing railroads. By the middle of October, 1917, it became
evident that the northwestern lumber industry unaided could not
deliver the spruce and fir; and the Chief of Staff of the Army formed
a military organization to handle the situation. On November 6, 1917,
Col. Brice P. Disque took command of the Spruce Production Division
of the Signal Corps, this organization later being transferred to the
Bureau of Aircraft Production.
When Col. Disque went into the Northwest he found the industry in
chaotic condition. The I. W. W. was demoralizing the labor forces. The
mills did not have the machinery to cut the straight-grained lumber
needed and their timber experts were not sufficiently skilled in the
selection and judging of logs to secure the maximum footage. The whole
industry was organized along lines of quantity production and desired
to avoid all high quality requirements insisted upon by the Government.
One of the first acts of the military organization was to organize a
society called the Loyal Legion of Loggers and Lumbermen, the "L. L. L.
L.," to offset the I. W. W. propaganda, its platform being, no strikes,
fair wages, and the conscientious production of the Government's
requirements. On March 1, 1918, 75,000 lumbermen and operators agreed
without reservation to give Col. Disque power to decide all labor
disputes. The specifications for logs were then standardized and
modified as far as practicable to meet the manufacturers' needs. We
arranged financial assistance that they might equip their mills with
the proper machinery. We instituted a system of instruction for the
personnel. Finally, the Government fixed a price for aircraft spruce
that stabilized the industry and provided against delays from labor
disputes.
While these basic reforms were being instituted our organization had
energetically taken up the physical problems relating to the work.
We surveyed the existing stands of spruce timber, built railroads
connecting them with the mills, and projected other railroads far
into the future. We began and encouraged logging by farmers in small
operations. By these and other methods employed, the efficiency of this
production effort gradually increased.
In all, we took 180,000,000 feet of aircraft lumber out of the
northwestern forests. To the allies went 120,000,000 feet; to the
United States Army and Navy, 60,000,000 feet.
[Illustration: ASSEMBLING DE HAVILAND-4 WINGS AT THE DAYTON-WRIGHT
PLANT.]
[Illustration: SEWING FABRIC ON AIRPLANE WINGS.]
[Illustration: APPLYING THE DOPE TO AIRPLANE WINGS.]
Yet when we had resolved the difficulties in the forests only part of
the problem had been met. Next came the intricate industrial question
of how to prepare this lumber for aircraft use. We possessed little
knowledge as to the proper methods of seasoning this timber. The vast
majority of woodworking plants in this country, such as furniture and
piano makers, had always dried lumber to the end that it might keep its
shape. We now were faced with the technical question of drying lumber
so as to preserve its strength. The forest products laboratory worked
out a scientific method for this sort of seasoning. Incidentally they
discovered that ordinary commercial drying had seldom been carried on
scientifically. The country will receive a lasting benefit from this
instruction carried broadcast over the industry.
In the progress of our wood studies we discovered a method of splicing
short lengths of spruce to make wing beams and in the later months of
the production used these spliced beams exclusively at a great saving
in raw materials. The use of laminated beams would probably have become
universal in another year of warfare.
COTTON FABRIC AND DOPE.
The flying surfaces of an airplane are made by stretching cloth over
the frames. When we came into war it was supposed that linen was the
only common fabric with sufficient strength for this use, and linen
was almost exclusively used by the airplane builders, although Italian
manufacturers were trying to develop a cotton fabric. Of the three
principal sources of flax, Belgium had been cut off from the allies,
Russia was isolated entirely after the revolution there, and Ireland
was left as the sole available land from which flax for airplane linen
could be obtained.
As late as August, 1917, England assured us that she could supply all
of the linen that would be needed. It rapidly became evident that
England had underestimated our requirements. An average airplane
requires 250 yards of fabric, while some of the large machines
need more than 500 yards. And these requirements do not take into
consideration the spare wings which must be supplied with each
airplane. This meant a demand for millions of yards put upon the Irish
supply, which had no such surplus above allied needs.
For some time prior to April 6, 1917, the Bureau of Standards at
Washington had been experimenting with cotton airplane cloths. Out of
the large variety of fabrics tested several promising experimental
cloths were produced. The chief objection to cotton was that the dope
which gave satisfactory results on linen failed to work with uniformity
on cotton. Therefore, it became apparent that if we were to use cotton
fabric, we should have to invent a new dope.
Two grades of cotton airplane cloth were finally evolved--A, which
had a minimum strength of 80 pounds per inch, and B, with a minimum
strength of 75 pounds per inch. Grade A was later universally adopted.
This cloth weighed four and one-half ounces per square yard.
We placed our first orders for cotton airplane fabric in September,
1917--orders for 20,000 yards--and from that time on the use of linen
decreased. By March of 1918 the production of cotton airplane cloth
had reached 400,000 yards per month. In May the production was about
900,000 yards; and when the war ended this material was being turned
out at the rate of 1,200,000 yards per month. Starting with a few
machines, our cotton mills had gradually brought 2,600 looms into the
enterprise, each loom turning out about 120 yards of cloth in a week.
A total of 10,248,355 yards of cotton fabric was woven and delivered
to the Government--over 5,800 miles of it, nearly enough to reach from
California to France. The use of cotton fabric so expanded that in
August, 1918, we discontinued the importations of linen altogether.
There was, however, danger that we would be limited in our output
of cotton fabric if there were any curtailment in the supply of the
long-staple sea-island and Egyptian cotton of which this cloth is
made. To make sure that there would be no shortage of this material
the Signal Corps in November, 1917, went into the market and purchased
15,000 bales of sea-island cotton. This at all times gave us an
adequate reserve of raw material for the new fabric.
Cotton proved to be not only an admirable substitute for linen but even
a better fabric than the original cloth which had been used. No matter
how abundant the supply of flax may be, it is unlikely that linen will
ever again be used in large quantities for the manufacture of airplane
wings.
Thus, as the airplane situation was saved by the prompt action of
the Signal Corps in organizing and training the spruce industry, so
again its decision to produce cotton fabric and its prompt action in
cornering the necessary cotton supply made possible the uninterrupted
expansion of the allied aviation program.
The wings of an airplane must not only be covered with fabric, but
the fabric must be filled with dope, which is a sort of varnish. The
function of the dope is to stretch the cloth tight and to create on
it a smooth surface. After the dope is on the fabric the surface is
protected further by a coat of ordinary spar varnish.
We found in the market two sorts of dope which were being furnished
to airplane builders of all countries by various chemical and varnish
manufacturers. One of these dopes was nitrate in character and was
made from nitrocellulose and certain wood-chemical solvents including
alcohol. This produced a surface similar to that of a photographic
film. The other kind of dope had an acetate base and was made from
cellulose-acetate and such wood chemical solvents as acetone.
The nitrate dope burned rapidly when ignited but the acetate type was
slow burning. Thus in training planes not subject to attack by enemy
incendiary bullets the nitrate dope would be fairly satisfactory,
but in the fighting planes the slow-burning acetate dope was a vital
necessity. Up to our participation in the war the dopes produced in the
United States were principally nitrate in character.
It was evident that we should make our new dope acetate in character
to avoid the danger of fire. But for this we would require great
quantities of acetone and acetate chemicals, and a careful canvass of
the supply of such ingredients showed that it would be impossible for
us to obtain these in anything like the quantities we should require
without developing absolutely new sources of production.
Already acetone and its kindred products were being absorbed in large
quantities by the war production of the allies. The British Army was
absolutely dependent upon cordite as a high explosive. Acetone is the
chemical basis of cordite; and therefore the British Army looked with
great concern upon the added demand which the American aviation program
proposed to put upon the acetone supply.
We estimated that in 1918 we would require 25,000 tons of acetone in
our dope production. The British war mission in this country submitted
figures showing that the war demands of the allies, together with their
necessary domestic requirements, would in themselves be greater than
the total world production of acetone.
There was nothing then for us to do but to increase the source of
supply of these necessary acetate compounds; and this was done by
encouraging, financially and otherwise, the establishment of 10 large
chemical plants. These were located in as many towns and cities,
as follows: Collinwood, Tenn.; Tyrone, Pa.; Mechanicsville, N. Y.;
Shawinigan Falls, Canada; Kingsport, Tenn.; Lyle, Tenn.; Freemont, Mo.;
Sutton, W. Va.; Shelby, Ala.; and Terre Haute, Ind.
But it was evident that before these plants could be completed the
airplane builders would be needing dope; and therefore steps were taken
to keep things going in all the principal countries fighting Germany
until the acetate shortage could be relieved. In December, 1917, we
commandeered all the existing American supply of acetate of lime, the
base from which acetone and kindred products are made. Then we entered
into a pool with the allied governments to ration these supplies of
chemicals, pending the era of plenty. Our agency in this pool was the
wood-chemical section of the War Industries Board, whereas the allies
placed their demands in the hands of the British war mission. These two
boards allocated the acetate chemicals among the different countries
according to the urgency of their demands. Since it was evident there
might be financial losses incurred as the result of the commandeering
order or in the project of the new Government chemical plants, the
British war mission agreed that any deficit should be shared equally
by the American and British Governments. It was also agreed we should
not have any advantage in prices paid for acetates of American origin.
Under this arrangement we were able to produce 1,324,356 gallons of
fabric dope during the period of hostilities, without upsetting any of
the European war-production projects. Had the war continued, the output
from the 10 chemical plants in which the Government was a partner
would have cared for all American and allied requirements, allowing
the production of private plants to go exclusively for the ordinary
commercial purposes.
THE TRAINING PLANES.
The actual building of the airplanes gave a striking example of the
value of previous experience, either direct or of a kindred nature, in
the quantity production of an article. What airplanes we had built in
the United States--and the number was small, being less than 800 in
the 12 months prior to April, 1917--had been entirely of the training
type. These had been produced principally for foreign governments.
But this slight manufacture gave us a nucleus of skill and equipment
that we were able to expand to meet our own training needs almost as
rapidly as fields could be equipped and student aviators enlisted. The
training-plane program can be called a success, as the final production
figures show. Of the 11,754 airplanes actually turned out by American
factories, 8,567 were training machines. This was close to the 10,000
mark set as our ambition in June, 1917.
There are two types of training planes--those used in the primary
instruction of students and those in the advanced teaching, the latter
approaching the service planes in type. The primary plane carries
the student and the instructor. Each occupant of the fuselage has
before him a full set of controls which are interconnected so that the
instructor at will can do the flying himself, or correct the student's
false moves, or allow the student to take complete charge of the
machine. These primary planes fly at the relatively slow speed of 75
miles per hour on the average and require engines so reliable that they
need little attention.
For our training planes we adopted the Curtiss JN-4, with the Curtiss
OX-5 engine, and as a supplementary equipment the Standard Aero
Corporation's J-1 plane, with the Hall-Scott A-7-A engine. Both of
these planes and both engines had been previously manufactured here.
The Curtiss equipment, which was the standard at our training camps,
gave complete satisfaction. The J-1 plane was later withdrawn from use,
partly because the plane itself was not liked, partly because of the
vibration resulting from this Hall-Scott engine, it having only four
cylinders, and partly because of the uncertainty of the engine in cold
weather.
[Illustration: CURTISS JN4-D, USED AS A PRIMARY TRAINING MACHINE.
ENGINE, CURTISS OX-5.
This machine has a dual control and is used solely for training
purposes.]
[Illustration: V. E. 7. EQUIPPED WITH 180-HORSEPOWER HISPANO-SUIZA
ENGINE.
An American designed training plane.]
It was evident that at the start we must turn our entire manufacturing
capacity to the production of training planes, since we would need
these first in any event, and we were not yet equipped with the
knowledge to enable us to make intelligent selections of service types.
In taking up the manufacturing problem the first step was to divide
the existing responsible airplane plants between the Army and Navy,
following the general rule that a single plant should confine its work
to the needs of one Government department only. There were, of course,
exceptions to this rule. This division gave to the Army the plants of
the--
Curtiss Aeroplane & Motor Corporation, Buffalo, N. Y.
Standard Aircraft Corporation, Elizabeth, N. J.
Thomas-Morse Aircraft Corporation, Ithaca, N. Y.
Wright-Martin Aircraft Corporation, Los Angeles, Calif.
Sturtevant Aeroplane Co., Boston, Mass.
The factories which fell to the Navy were those of the--
Curtiss Aeroplane & Motor Corporation, Buffalo, N. Y.
The Burgess Co., Marblehead, Mass.
L. W. F. (Lowe, Willard & Fowler) Engineering Co., College
Point, Long Island.
Aeromarine Engineering & Sales Co., New York.
Gallaudet Aircraft Corporation, New York.
Boeing Airplane Co., Seattle, Wash.
Of these concerns, Curtiss, Standard, Burgess, L. W. F., Thomas-Morse,
and Wright-Martin were the only ones which had ever built more than 10
machines.
These factories were quite insufficient in themselves to carry out the
enterprise. Therefore it became necessary to create other airplane
plants. Two new factories thereupon sprang into existence under
Government encouragement. The largest producer of automobile bodies was
the Fisher Body Co., at Detroit, Mich. The manufacture of automobile
bodies is akin to the manufacture of airplanes to the extent that each
is a fabrication of accurate, interchangeable wood and sheet-steel
parts. The Fisher organization brought into the enterprise not only
machinery and buildings but a skilled organization trained in such
production on a large scale.
At Dayton, Ohio, the Dayton-Wright Airplane Corporation was created.
With this company was associated Orville Wright, and its engineering
force was built up around the old Wright organization. A number of
immense buildings which had been recently erected for other purposes
were at once utilized in this new undertaking.
As an addition to these two large sources of supply, J. G. White &
Co. and J. G. Brill & Co., the well-known builders of street cars,
formed the Springfield Aircraft Corporation at Springfield, Mass. Also
certain forward-looking men on the Pacific coast created in California
several airplane plants, some of which ultimately became satisfactory
producers of training planes.
At this point in the development we were not aware of the great
production of spare parts that would be necessary. Yet we did
understand that there must be a considerable production of spares;
and in order to take the burden of this manufacture from the regular
airplane plants, and also to educate other factories up to the point
where they might undertake the construction of complete airplanes, we
placed many contracts for spare parts with widely scattered concerns.
Among the principal producers of spares were the following:
The Metz Co., Waltham, Mass.
Sturtevant Aeroplane Co., Jamaica Plains, Mass.
Wilson Body Co., Bay City, Mich.
West Virginia Aircraft Corporation, Wheeling, W. Va.
The Rubay Co., Cleveland, Ohio.
Engel Aircraft Co., Niles, Ohio.
Hayes-Ionia Co., Grand Rapids, Mich.
For a long time the supply of spare parts was insufficient for the
needs of the training fields. This was only partly due to the early
lack of a proper realization of the quantity of spares that would be
required. The production of spares on an adequate scale was hampered
by numerous manufacturing difficulties incident to new industry of
any sort in shops unacquainted with the work, and by a lack of proper
drawings for the parts.
As to the training planes themselves, with all factories in the
country devoting themselves to this type exclusively at the start, the
production soon attained great momentum. The Curtiss Co. particularly
produced training planes at a pace far beyond anything previously
obtained. The maximum production of JN-4 machines was reached in March,
1918, when 756 were turned out.
Advanced training machines are faster, traveling at about 105 miles per
hour; and they carry various types of equipment to train observers,
gunners, photographers, and radio men. For this machine we adopted the
Curtiss JN-4H, which was substantially the same as the primary training
plane, except that it carried a 150-horsepower Hispano-Suiza engine. We
also built a few "penguins," a kind of half airplane that never leaves
the ground; but this French method of training with penguins we never
really adopted.
The finishing school for our aviators was in France, where the training
was conducted in Nieuports and other fighting machines.
In July, 1918, we reached the maximum production of the advanced
training machines, the output being 427. As the supply of primary
training planes met the demands of the fields, the production was
reduced, since the original equipment, kept up by only enough
manufacture to produce spares and replacement machines, would suffice
to train all of the aviators that we would need.
The actual production of training planes by months was as follows:
-----------+---------+-----------
| Primary | Advanced
| training| training
| planes, | planes,
| SJ-1, | JN-4 and
| JN-4D, | 6H, S-4B
| Penguin.|and C, E-1,
| | SE-5.
-----------+---------+-----------
1917 | |
April | |
May | |
June | 9 |
July | 56 |
August | 103 |
September | 193 |
October | 340 |
November | 331 | 1
December | 423 | 20
| |
1918 | |
January | 700 | 29
February | 526 | 199
March | 756 | 178
April | 645 | 81
May | 419 | 166
June | 126 | 313
July | 236 | 427
August | 296 | 193
September | 233 | 132
October | 212 | 320
November | 186 | 297
December | 162 | 259
|---------+-----------
Total | 5,952 | 2,615
-----------+---------+-----------
THE SERVICE PLANES.
It was not until we took up the production of fighting, or service,
airplanes that we came into a full realization of the magnitude of the
engineering and manufacturing problems involved.
We had perhaps a dozen men in the United States who knew something
about the designing of flying machines, but not one in touch with
the development of the art in Europe or who was competent to design
a complete fighting airplane. We had the necessary talent to produce
designs and conduct the manufacture of training planes; but at the
outset, at least, we were unwilling to attempt designs for service
planes on our own initiative. At the beginning we were entirely guided
by the Bolling mission in France as to types of fighting machines.
In approaching this, the more difficult phase of the airplane problem,
our first act was to take an inventory of the engineering plants in
the United States available for our purposes. With the Curtiss Co.
was Glenn Curtiss, a leader of airplane design, and several competent
engineers. The Curtiss Co. had been the largest producers in the United
States of training machines for the British and had had the benefit
of assistance from British engineers, and so possessed more knowledge
and experience to apply to the service-plane problem than any other
company. For this reason we selected this plant to duplicate the French
Spad plane, the story of which undertaking will be told further on.
Orville Wright, the pioneer of flying, was not in the best of health,
but was devoting his entire time to experimental work in Dayton.
Willard, who had designed the L. W. F. airplane and was then with the
Aeromarine Co.; Chas. Day, formerly with the Sloane Manufacturing
Co., and then with the Standard Aero Corporation; Starling Burgess,
with the Burgess Co., of Marblehead, Mass.; Grover C. Loening, of the
Sturtevant Co.; and D. D. Thomas, with the Thomas-Morse Co., were all
aviation engineers on whom we could call. One of the best experts of
this sort in the country was Lieut. Commander Hunsaker, of the Navy. In
the Signal Corps we had Capt. V. E. Clark, who was also an expert in
aviation construction, and he had several able assistants under him.
The Burgess factory at Marblehead, the Aeromarine plants at Nutley
and Keyport, N. J., and the Boeing Airplane Co. at Seattle were to
work exclusively for the Navy, according to the mutual agreement,
taking their aeronautical engineers with them. This gave the Army the
engineering resources of the Curtiss, Dayton-Wright, and Thomas-Morse
companies.
Quite early we decided to give precedence in this country to the
observation type of service plane, eliminating the single-place fighter
altogether and following the observation planes as soon as possible
with production of two-place fighting machines. This decision was based
on the fact, not always generally remembered, that the primary purpose
of war flying is observation. The duels in the air that occurred in
large numbers, especially during the earlier stages of the war, were
primarily to protect the observation machines or to prevent observation
by enemy machines.
The first service plane which we put into production and which proved
to be the main reliance of our service-plane program was the De
Haviland-4, which is an observation two-place airplane propelled by a
Liberty 12-cylinder engine. As soon as the Bolling mission began to
recommend types of service machines, it sent samples of the planes thus
recommended. The sample De Haviland was received in New York on July
18, 1917. After it had been studied by various officers it was sent
to Dayton. It had reached us without engine, guns, armament, or many
other accessories later recommended as essential to a fighting machine.
Before we could begin any duplication the plane had to be redesigned to
take our machine guns, our instruments, and our other accessories, as
well as our Liberty engine.
The preliminary designing was complete, and the first American-built De
Haviland model was ready to fly on October 29, 1917.
Figure 11 does not tell quite the complete story of De Haviland
production, since in August and September, 204 De Haviland planes which
had been built were shipped to France without engines and were there
knocked down to provide spare parts for other De Havilands in service.
These 204 machines, therefore, do not appear in the production total.
Adding them to the figures above, we find that the total output of De
Haviland airplanes up to the end of December, 1918, was in number 4,587.
[Illustration: DE HAVILAND-4. USED FOR OBSERVATION, RECONNAISSANCE,
COMBAT, DAY BOMBING, AND DEFENSIVE FIGHTING.
Engine, Liberty 12-cylinder, 400-horsepower. Weight, empty,
2,391 pounds. Weight, full load, 3,582 pounds. Ground speed
is 124.7 miles per hour. Speed at 10,000 feet, 117 miles per
hour. Speed at 15,000 feet, 113 miles per hour. 10,000 feet is
reached in 14 minutes with full load. Ceiling, 19,500 feet.]
[Illustration: UNITED STATES DE HAVILAND 9-A.
This is the American development of the British DH-4.]
[Illustration:
FIGURE 11.
DE HAVILAND-4 AIRPLANES PRODUCED EACH MONTH DURING 1918.
Jan. 0
Feb. 9
Mar. 4
Apr. 15
May. ===== 153
June. =========== 336
July. ================ 480
Aug. ==== 128
Sept. ===================== 653
Oct. ==================================== 1097
Nov. ================================== 1036
Dec. =============== 472]
The production of the model machine only served to show us some of
the problems which must be overcome before we could secure a standard
design that could go into quantity production. Experimental work on the
De Haviland continued during December, 1917, and January and February,
1918. The struggle, for it was a struggle, to secure harmony between
this English design and the American equipment which it must contain
ended triumphantly on the 8th day of April, 1918, when the machine
known as No. 31 was completely finished and established as the model
for the future De Havilands. The characteristics of the standard
American De Haviland-4 were as follows:
Endurance at 6,500 feet full throttle, 2 hours 13 minutes.
Endurance at 6,500 feet half throttle, 3 hours 3 minutes.
Ceiling, 19,500 feet.
Climb to 10,000 feet (loaded) 14 minutes.
Speed at ground level, 124.7 miles per hour.
Speed at 6,500 feet, 120 miles per hour.
Speed at 10,000 feet, 117 miles per hour.
Speed at 15,000 feet, 113 miles per hour.
Weight, bare plane, 2,391 pounds.
Weight, loaded, 3,582 pounds.
Endurance here means the length of time the fuel supply will last. The
ceiling is the maximum altitude at which the plane can be maneuvered in
actual service. Ground level means only far enough above the ground to
be clear of obstructions.
The first De Havilands arriving in France were immediately put
together, such remediable imperfections as existed were corrected
then and there, and the machines were flown to the training fields.
The changing and increasing demands of the service indicated the
advisability of certain changes of design. The foreign manufacturers
had brought out a covering for the gasoline tanks, making them nearly
leak-proof, even when perforated by a bullet. In the first De Havilands
the location of the principal gas tanks between the pilot and the
observer was not the best arrangement in that the men were too far
apart from each other so that, if the machine went down, the pilot
would be crushed by the gas tank. Also the radius of action was not
considered to be great enough, even though the later machines of this
type carried 88 gallons of gasoline.
As a result the American aircraft designers brought out an improved De
Haviland known as the 9-A. This carried a Liberty-12 engine; and the
main differences between it and the De Haviland-4 were new locations
for pilot and tanks, their positions being changed about, increased
gasoline capacity, and increased wing surface. The machine was a
cleaner, more finished design, showed slightly more speed, and had a
greater radius of action than the De Haviland-4 which it was planned to
succeed. We ordered 4,000 of these new machines from the Curtiss Co.,
but the armistice cut short this production.
The difficulties in the way of producing new service planes on a great
scale without previous experience in such construction is clearly shown
in the attempts we made to duplicate other successful foreign planes.
On September 12, 1917, we received from the aviation experts abroad a
sample of the French Spad. We had previously been advised to go into
a heavy production of this model and had made arrangements for the
Curtiss Co. at Buffalo to undertake the work. This development was well
under way when in December a cablegram was received from Gen. Pershing
advising us to leave the production of all single-place fighters to
Europe. As a result we canceled the Spad order, and after that we
attempted to build no single-place pursuit planes.
[Illustration: THE LEPERE CORPS OBSERVATION PLANE.]
[Illustration: THE LEPERE (CAMOUFLAGED). THE ENGINE IS A LIBERTY
12-CYLINDER, 400-HORSEPOWER.
This plane was developed in the United States.]
At the time this course seemed to be justified. The day of the single
seater seemed to be over. The lone occupant of the single seater can
not keep his attention on all directions at once; and as the planes
grew thicker in the air, the casualties among flyers increased.
But the development of formation flying restored the single-place
machine to favor. The formation had no blind spot, thus removing the
principal objection to the single seater. The end of the war found the
one-man airplane more useful than ever.
Our concentration here, however, was upon two-place fighters. On August
25, 1917, we received from abroad a sample of the Bristol fighting
plane, a two-seat machine. The Government engineers at once began
redesigning this machine to take the Liberty-12 engine and the American
ordnance and accessories. The engine which had been used in the Bristol
plane developed 275 horsepower. We proposed to equip it with an engine
developing 400 horsepower.
The Bristol undertaking was not successful. The fact that later in the
airplane program American designers successfully developed two-seater
pursuit planes around the Liberty-12 engine shows that the engine
decision was not the fault in the Bristol failure. There were repeated
changes in the engineering management of the Bristol job. First the
Government engineers alone undertook it; then the Government engineers
combined with the drafting force of the airplane factory; finally the
Government placed on the factory the entire responsibility for the job,
without, however, permitting the manufacturer to correct any of the
basic principles involved. All in all, the development of an American
Bristol was most unsatisfactory, and the whole project was definitely
abandoned in June, 1918.
The fundamental difficulty in all of these attempts was that we
were trying to fit an American engine to a foreign airplane instead
of building an American airplane around an American engine. It was
inevitable that this difficulty should arise. We had skill to produce a
great engine and did so, but for our earliest models of planes for this
engine we relied upon the foreign models until we were sufficiently
advanced in the art to design for ourselves. We were successful in
making the adaptation only in the case of the De Haviland and then only
after great delay.
But eventually we were to see some brilliantly successful efforts to
design a two-place fighter around the Liberty-12. We had need of such
a mechanism to supplement the De Haviland observation-plane production
and make a complete service-plane program.
On January 4, 1918, Capt. Lepere, a French aeronautical engineer,
who had formerly been with the French Government at St. Cyr, began
experimental work on a new plane at the factory of the Packard
Motor Car Co. By May 18 his work had advanced to a stage where the
Government felt justified in entering into a contract with the Packard
Co. to provide shop facilities for the production of 25 experimental
planes under Capt. Lepere's direction. The result of these efforts
was a two-place fighting machine built around a Liberty engine. From
the start this design met with the approval of the manufacturer and
engineers because of its clean-cut perfection.
The performance of the Lepere plane in the air is indicated by the
following figures:
---------------------------+--------------------+------------------
R. P. M. = revolutions made| Climb. | Speed.
by propellers in a minute.| |
---------------------------+-----------+--------+---------+--------
Altitude. | Time. |R. P. M.| Miles |R. P. M.
| | | an hour.|
---------------------------+-----------+--------+---------+--------
|_min. sec._| | |
Ground | 0 0 | 1,500 | 136 | 1,800
10,000 feet | 10 35 | 1,520 | 132 | 1,740
15,000 feet | 19 15 | 1,500 | 118 | 1,620
20,000 feet | 41 | 1,480 | 102 | 1,550
---------------------------+-----------+--------+---------+--------
Here at last was a machine that performed brilliantly in the air and
contained great possibilities for quantity production, because it
was designed from the start to fit American manufacturing methods.
We placed orders for 3,525 Lepere machines. None of the factories,
however, had come into production with the Lepere on November 11, 1918.
Seven sample machines had been turned out and put through every test.
It was the belief of those in authority that at last the training
and technique of the best aeronautical engineers of France had been
combined with the Liberty, probably the best of all aerial engines; and
it was believed that the spring of 1919 would see the Yankee fliers
equipped with American fighting machines that would be superior to
anything they would be required to meet.
Nor were these expectations without justification. The weeks and months
following the declaration of the armistice and extending through to
the spring of 1919 were to witness the birth of a whole brood of new
typically American designs of airplanes of which the Lepere was the
forerunner. In short, when the armistice brought the great aviation
enterprise to an abrupt end, the American industry had fairly caught
that of Europe, and America designers were ready to match their skill
against that of the master builders of France, Great Britain, Italy,
and the central powers.
The Lepere 2-seated fighter was quickly followed by two other Lepere
models--one of them, known as the Lepere C-21, being armored, and
driven by a Bugatti engine, and the other a triplane driven by two
Liberty engines and designed to be a day bomber. Then the first
American designed single-seat pursuit planes began making their
appearance--the Thomas-Morse pursuit plane, its 164 miles an hour
at ground level, making it the fastest airplane ever tested by our
Government, if it were not the speediest plane ever built; the
Ordnance Engineering Corporation's Scout, an advanced training plane;
and several others. In two-seater fighting planes there was the Loening
monoplane, an extremely swift and advanced type. There were several
other new two-seaters designed experimentally in some instances and
some of them giving brilliant promise.
[Illustration: THE LOENING MONOPLANE.
This is one of the new distinctively American planes.]
[Illustration: THE LOENING TWO-PLACE PURSUIT PLANE.]
Perhaps the severest and most exacting critic of aviation material is
the aviator who has to fly the plane and fight with the equipment at
the front. Brig. Gen. William Mitchell, then a colonel, was sent to
France in 1917. He became in succession chief of the air service of
the First Army Corps, chief of the air service of the First Army, and
finally chief of the air service of the American group of armies in
France. He commanded the aerial operations at the reduction of the St.
Mihiel salient, where he gained the distinction of having commanded
more airplanes in action than were ever assembled before under a single
command. At St. Mihiel there were 1,200 allied planes in action,
including, with our own, French, English, and Italian planes.
Gen. Mitchell, therefore, is a high authority as to the relative merits
of air equipment from the airman's standpoint. In the spring of 1919,
after a thorough investigation of the latest types of American planes
and aerial equipment at the Wilbur Wright Field at Dayton, he sent to
the Director of Air Service, Washington, D. C., the following telegram
under date of April 20, 1919:
I recommend the following airplanes in the numbers given be
purchased at once: 100 Lepere 2-place corps observation, 50
Loening 2-place pursuit, 100 Ordnance Engineering Corporation
1-place pursuit, 100 Thomas-Morse 1-place pursuit, 50 USD9-A
day bombardment, 700 additional Hispano-Suiza 300-horsepower
engines, 2,000 parachutes. All of the above types are the equal
of or better than anything in Europe.
MITCHELL.
Now, let us see some of the specifications and performances of these
new models. The USD9-A, being the redesigned and improved De Haviland
4, may be given a place as a latest model. It is a two-place bombing
plane of the tractor biplane type, equipped with a Liberty 12 engine
and weighing 4,872 pounds, loaded with fuel, oil, guns, and bombs, and
with its crew aboard. With this weight its performance record in the
official tests at Wilbur Wright Field in Dayton was as follows:
Speed (miles per hour):
At ground 121.5.
At 6,500 feet 118.5.
At 10,000 feet 115.5.
At 15,000 feet 95.5.
Climb:
To 6,500 feet, time 11 minutes 40 seconds.
To 10,000 feet, time 19 minutes 30 seconds.
To 15,000 feet, time 49 minutes.
Service ceilings (feet) 14,400.
The Lepere C-11, a tractor biplane equipped with a Liberty 12 engine,
Packard make, weighing with its load aboard 3,655 pounds, performed as
follows in the tests at the Wilbur Wright Field:
Speed (miles per hour):
At ground 136.
At 6,500 feet 130.
At 10,000 feet 127.
At 16,000 feet 118.
Climb:
To 6,500 feet, time 6 minutes.
To 10,000 feet, time 10 minutes 35 seconds.
To 15,000 feet, time 19 minutes 15 seconds.
Service ceiling (feet) 21,000.
Endurance at full speed at ground (hours) 2.5.
The Lepere carries two Marlin guns synchronized with the propeller and
operated by the pilot and two Lewis guns operated by the observer. A
total of 1,720 rounds of ammunition is carried.
The Loening monoplane, a tractor airplane equipped with an
Hispano-Suiza 300-horsepower engine and representing, loaded, a gross
weight of 2,680 pounds, its military load including two Marlin and two
Lewis machine guns, performed as follows at the Wilbur Wright Field:
Speed (miles per hour):
At ground 143.5.
At 6,500 feet 138.2.
At 10,000 feet 135.
At 15,000 feet 127.6.
Climb:
To 6,500 feet, time 5 minutes 12 seconds.
To 10,000 feet, time 9 minutes 12 seconds.
To 15,000 feet, time 18 minutes 24 seconds.
Service ceiling (feet) 18,500.
The Ordnance Scout with a Le Rhone 80-horsepower engine, weighing,
loaded, 1,117 pounds, is an advanced training plane. In its official
test at Wilbur Wright Field it performed as follows:
Speed (miles per hour):
At 6,500 feet 90.
At 10,000 feet 83.7.
At 15,000 feet 69.8.
Climb:
To 6,000 feet, time 8 minutes 30 seconds.
To 10,000 feet, time 17 minutes 40 seconds.
To 14,000 feet, time 43 minutes 20 seconds.
The Thomas-Morse MB-3 pursuit plane, a tractor biplane equipped with
an Hispano-Suiza 300-horsepower engine, weighing, including its crew
but without military load, 1,880 pounds, in unofficial tests at Wilbur
Wright Field, performed as follows:
Speed, at ground level (miles per hour) 163.68.
Climb, to 10,000 feet 4 minutes 52 seconds.
[Illustration: THE THOMAS-MORSE PURSUIT PLANE.]
[Illustration: S. E. 5. EQUIPPED WITH 180-HORSEPOWER HISPANO-SUIZA
ENGINE.]
The Thomas-Morse pursuit plane is armed with two Browning machine guns
synchronized with the propeller and carries 1,500 rounds of ammunition.
Uncertain as we were originally as to types of pursuit and observation
planes to produce in this country, we were still more uncertain
as to designs of night-bombing machines. These relatively slow
weight-carrying planes were big and required the motive power of two or
three engines, with the complications attendant upon double or triple
power plants. They really presented the most difficult manufacturing
problem which we encountered. Until the summer of 1918 there were only
two machines of this type which we could adopt, the Handley-Page and
the Caproni. We put the Handley-Page into production, not because it
was necessarily as perfect as the Caproni, but because we could get
the drawings for this machine and could not get the drawings for the
Caproni, owing to complications in the negotiations for the right to
construct the Italian airplane.
We were not entirely satisfied with the decision to build
Handley-Pages, because the ceiling, or maximum working altitude which
could be attained by this machine, was low; and, 12 months later, when
we were in production, we might find the Handley-Pages of doubtful
value because of the ever-increasing ranges of antiaircraft guns.
We secured a set of drawings, supposed to be complete, for the
Handley-Page in August, 1917; but twice during the following winter
new sets of drawings were sent from England, and few, if any, of
the parts as designed in the original drawings escaped alteration.
The Handley-Page has a wing spread of over 100 feet. Therefore, it
was evident from the start that such machines could not have the
fuselage, wings, and other large parts assembled in this country for
shipment complete to Europe. We decided to manufacture the parts in
this country and assemble the machines in England, the British air
ministry in London having entered into a contract for the creation of
an assembling factory at Oldham, England, in the Lancashire district.
When it is realized that each Handley-Page involves 100,000 separate
parts, the magnitude of the manufacturing job alone may be somewhat
understood. But after they were manufactured, these parts, particularly
the delicate members made of wood, had to be carefully packed so as to
reach England in good condition. The packing of the parts was in itself
a problem.
We proposed to drive the American Handley-Pages with two Liberty 12
engines in each machine. The fittings, which were extremely intricate
pieces of pressed steel work, were practically all to be produced by
the Mullins Steel Boat Co. at Salem, Ohio. Contracts for the other
parts were placed with the Grand Rapids Airplane Co., a concern which
had been organized by a group of furniture makers at Grand Rapids, Mich.