| Produced to--
Firm. +--------------+-------------
|Nov. 11, 1918.| Mar. 1,
| | 1919.
------------------------------------------------+--------------+-------------
McKeen Motor Car Co., Omaha, Nebr. | 23 | 35
Chris D. Schramm & Son, Philadelphia, Pa. | 20 | 20
Jas. Cunningham & Sons Co., Rochester, N. Y. | 5 | 35
N. C. L. Engineering Corporation, Providence, R.| 1 | 37
I. | |
Deloies Hoisting Co., New York | 1 | 1
+--------------+-------------
Total manufactured | 50 | 128
Total shipped to camps and depots | | 124
Total shipped to ports | |
------------------------------------------------+--------------+-------------
CABLE.
------------------------------------------------+--------------+-------------
| _Feet._ | _Feet._
John A. Roeblings Sons Co., Trenton, N. J. | 476,700 | 860,700
American Steel & Wire Co., Worcester, Mass. | 744,882 |
------------------------------------------------+--------------+-------------
Total manufactured | 1,221,582 | 860,700
Total shipped to ports | 486,000 |
Total shipped to camps and depots | | 1,119,582
------------------------------------------------+--------------+-------------
HYDROGEN GAS.
------------------------------------------------+--------------+-------------
|_Cubic feet._ |_Cubic feet._
| |
Oxygen Gas Co., Kansas City, Mo. | 2,715,845 | 3,568,600
Southern Oxygen Co., South Washington, Va. | 945,412 | 1,608,778
International Oxygen Co., New York | 2,166,668 | 2,166,668
Walker Refining Co., Austin, Tex. | 496,000 | 595,783
Tarrifville Oxygen & Chemical Co., | |
Tarrifville, Con. | 1,072,590 | 1,072,590
Louisiana Oxygen Co., New Orleans | 477,500 | 904,576
Kentucky Oxygen Co., Louisville, Ky. | 276,779 | 540,752
Burdett Oxygen Co., Chicago | 9,532,559 | 11,347,999
+--------------+-------------
Total produced | 17,683,353 | 21,805,746
Total shipped overseas | 7,349,578 |
Total shipped to camps | | 14,456,168
------------------------------------------------+--------------+-------------
HYDROGEN CYLINDERS.
------------------------------------------------+--------------+-------------
National Tube Co., McKeesport, Pa. | 35,800 | 43,300
Harrisburg Pipe & Pipe Bending Co., | |
Harrisburg, Pa. | 38,425 | 65,500
Tindel-Morris Co., North Eddystone, Pa. | 15,000 | 15,000
+--------------+-------------
Total manufactured | 80,225 | 123,800
Total to ports | 30,000 |
Total to camps and warehouses | | 95,800
------------------------------------------------+--------------+-------------
BOOK III.
THE ENGINEER CORPS.
CHAPTER I.
THE ENGINEERS IN FRANCE.
In describing the activities of the Engineers, we are carried to the
front itself, into the zone beaten by enemy fire, where machine-gun
bullet, bursting shell, and deadly gases have brought sudden death
and painful wounds to many members of the technical services. A large
proportion of the Engineers are combatant troops, constituting in the
American Expeditionary Forces about 8 per cent of the total combatant
troops engaged. These troops, trained and equipped to march and fight
as Infantry, demonstrated their fighting qualities during the war
on numerous occasions, both when used as Infantry to increase the
rifle strength of that arm and when fighting as Engineers to obtain
possession of terrain as a preliminary to the exercise of their
technical art in its organization.
From the day the first sector was taken over by American troops in
November, 1917, until the Meuse River was passed and the enemy, in
flight, sought an armistice to save his armies from destruction, the
combatant Engineers--the "sappeurs" of French soldier lore and song---
fought and bled in a manner never to be forgotten. Railroad engineers,
nominally considered noncombatant, at Cambrai dropped their tools
to take arms and stand stubbornly shoulder to shoulder with their
British brothers with whom they were learning to work under the special
conditions of the front. From Cantigny to Chateau Thierry, Engineer
troops fought as well as worked, and often not only advanced with the
Infantry under or through the barrage, but actually led the first
wave, to demolish or remove the obstacles placed in its path. Through
the days when from March 21, 1918, until July 18, 1918, the German
army made its rapid plunges toward Paris until checked and thrown back
across the Marne at Chateau Thierry, the sapper troops fought and
worked with the Infantry of their divisions, enduring the same dangers,
privations, and hardships, and winning equal honors and commendation.
In the drive at St. Mihiel and through the Argonne, the combatant
Engineers played a conspicuous part. Advancing with the tanks, they
made possible the passage of many difficult points for these lumbering
monsters, against which was directed a particularly destructive
fire. Using elongated torpedoes of high explosive, known as Bangalore
torpedoes, they prepared passages for the Infantry through the broad
barbed-wire entanglements, echeloned in depth by numerous separate
lines, each to be breached and passed before the objective could be
gained. In this work the Engineers reduced the machine-gun nests that
hindered their operation, cleaned up the strong points that delayed
the advance of the tanks they were assisting, and threw extemporized
footbridges across the streams which barred the further advance of the
Infantry.
The combatant Engineers did their part in the winning of the
reconquered ground as well as the lion's share of its organization for
the defense and the maintenance of the communications behind it. In
this last respect alone, the Engineers, as combatant troops, opened
across No Man's Land the first communications practicable for the light
field artillery, which pressed forward immediately behind the Infantry
troops to their support and protection.
Filling in trenches, removing wire entanglements, building trestles
across wide mine craters, searching for and rendering inoperative
treacherous mines and traps of extreme ingenuity and destructiveness,
the sapper found a wide field for the exercise of his functions.
Shattered and obliterated by four years of shelling and mining,
trenching, and countermining, the "roads" across No Man's Land existed
only on the map; and as they retreated the Germans demolished and
obstructed the highways behind the old front from which they had been
driven, with the thoroughness and attention to detail for which they
are noted. As our Infantry advanced, upon their heels, literally
speaking, came our Engineers, to attack the problem of providing
for the Artillery and supply trains a means of following. From the
standpoint of the road builder in civil life, their methods were crude
in the extreme, but for the military purpose and the pressing immediate
needs, their road building achievement was adequate. The Engineers
sometimes reopened abandoned quarries, and sometimes started them where
none had existed before, to obtain a supply of road metal, which supply
was sometimes supplemented and in some cases replaced by the use of
debris from ruined villages and shattered farmhouses. From demolished
structures many useful materials were extracted and adapted to the
military purpose by the Engineers. Where bridge and trestle timbers
were lacking, deserted buildings--in one case the tower of a ruined
church--filled the need. Where shell hole or crater yawned a remnant of
a stable wall might be pulled down by ropes and man power, and broken
up to fill the void.
Through the dense woods the soft forest floor offered no support even
to the light artillery, and miles of corduroy and brush path were
built to permit the guns to advance to the reinforcement of the attack.
In many places the tactical situation admitted of insufficient time
to build even the crudest paths, and then the Engineers fell to and
assisted artillery and supply wagons to get through and over the bad
spots, replacing guns on the road where they had run into the ditch,
righting and reloading combat wagons when they had turned over in shell
holes or deep ruts.
While thus engaged the sapper troops were subjected to the fire of
enemy artillery seeking to prevent the advance of the supporting guns,
and, further, they were working within the zone of combat of enemy
aviators, the rattle of whose deadly machine guns, as they plunged at
low altitude toward a busy working party, was as much to be dreaded as
the high-explosive bombs which they dropped.
Behind the combatant Engineer troops, extending through the service of
supply to the base ports and across the ocean to the United States was
an organization of technical noncombatant supply and administration.
The work of these production, construction, and supply departments
of the Engineer service in France was organized in the American
Expeditionary Forces under the administration of three divisions of
the office of the Chief Engineer. These were the division of military
engineering and engineering supplies, the division of construction and
forestry, and the division of light railways and roads.
ENGINEERING SUPPLIES.
The division of military engineering and engineering supplies was
charged with the procurement, standardization, and distribution of
all classes of supplies used by Engineer troops. During the 19 months
of warfare this division handled 3,225,121 tons of supplies, storing
them and distributing them from immense depots aggregating 25 acres of
covered storage and over 756 acres of open storage. This service was
further charged with the current investigations into new developments
of the art of military engineering, and with the development,
operation, and administration of certain technical branches of the
American Expeditionary Forces, such as electrical and mechanical
troops, water-supply troops, searchlight regiments, etc.
At its seven storage depots in the base, intermediate, and advance
sections, this division had in service 23 locomotive cranes, mostly of
15 tons capacity and capable of handling an enormous amount of freight
and material at warehouses and cars. The following table of principal
items of engineer material shows the kinds and quantities of supplies
which were received in France for issue through this division up to
December 15, 1918:
_Table of engineer supplies received in France._
FROM THE UNITED STATES.
--------------------------------------+----------
Item. | Tonnage.
--------------------------------------+----------
General machinery | 45,454
Iron and steel products | 242,226
Hardware and hand tools | 26,780
Railway rolling stock | 343,888
Railway motive power | 144,066
Lumber | 39,086
Track materials and fastenings | 488,793
Automotive transportation, etc. | 22,127
Horse-drawn transportation | 7,967
Building materials and supplies | 98,671
Liquids | 7,067
Explosives and accessories | 952
Unit accountability | 7
Engineer supplies | 52,106
Miscellaneous office supplies | 2,239
Floating equipment and accessories | 10,093
Material and tools for locomotive and |
car repair and erection shops | 10,407
+----------
Total United States | 1,541,929
--------------------------------------+----------
FROM EUROPEAN SOURCES.
--------------------------------------+----------
Tools and equipment | 462,027
Machinery | 13,146
Office supplies and equipment | 1,781
Auto and track supplies | 464
Track and ties | 115,438
Locomotives and cars | 8,649
Water supply, machinery | 6,210
Water supply, supplies | 48,416
Electric service, machinery | 2,342
Electric service, supplies | 4,083
Construction materials | 188,830
Boats and barges | 5,940
Motorcycles and bicycles | 12
General engineer supplies | 581,149
Cement from American |
Expeditionary Forces mills | 54,860
Barracks | 263,590
Bunks | 9,892
Latrines | 2,143
Miscellaneous | 49,200
+----------
Total European sources | 1,818,172
+==========
Total United States and |
European sources | 3,360,101
--------------------------------------+----------
To facilitate the procurement of supplies in the existing world
markets, this division established in Paris a purchasing board, having
branches in England, Switzerland, and Spain. When the war ended this
board had accomplished the tremendous task of buying over 1,800,000
tons of engineer supplies, with a total value of $205,242,728. In
addition to this material, our own country furnished over 1,500,000
tons, with a value of $248,993,322. France sold to us through this
board 1,234,968 tons, valued at $134,393,870, and England 396,000 tons,
valued at $56,145,818. In Switzerland, purchases consisting principally
of sectional barracks and technical equipment, totaled 96,867 tons,
with a value of $14,643,410. Purchases from Spain amounted to only 797
tons, with a value of $59,630.
Much work was done in standardizing supplies of all classes, so that
quantity-production methods could be used in their fabrication, thus
promoting economy and stimulating the rapidity of supply.
In the procurement of cement for the use of the American Expeditionary
Forces, the Engineers dealt successfully with a problem of large
magnitude and importance. By contract with English and French mills,
by direct purchase for specific jobs from local mills, and by their
own manufacturing operations, the Engineers secured enough cement to
supply the demands for construction both at the front and in the S. O.
S., as the service of supply was generally known. Three large cement
mills were leased from the French owners and operated by special
troops organized in the United States. To certain other French mills
the Engineers furnished labor and materials in return for a certain
proportion of their output. It is estimated that about 215,000 tons
of cement were thus procured, representing a total cost of about
$7,000,000.
[Illustration: ENGINEERS, ASSISTED BY INFANTRY, BUILDING A ROAD OVER
WHAT WAS NO MAN'S LAND ONE WEEK BEFORE.
The stones from tottering walls of buildings are broken into small
pieces and laid on the road bed, making a good military road. Fay on
Haye, France.]
[Illustration: WAREHOUSES AND DOCKS FROM THE RIVER. BASSENS DOCKS,
BORDEAUX, FRANCE.]
[Illustration: NORTHERN VIEW OF THE AMERICAN DOCKS AT OLD BASSENS,
BORDEAUX, FRANCE.]
The Engineers operated shops at various points near the front in which
were manufactured standard material for dugout, trench, and emplacement
construction, such as concrete beams, concrete slabs for overhead
protection against high-angle shell fire, trench frames, revetment
material, trench duck boards, mine and gallery timbers, knockdown bunk
sets, etc.
CONSTRUCTION AND FORESTRY.
The division of construction and forestry was charged with all
construction work in the service of supply, and also with the procuring
of forest products for the American Expeditionary Forces. At the
signing of the armistice its organization totaled 150,823 men, of
whom about 127,000 were constantly engaged in production work. Using
standardized building plans, this force performed a huge amount of
construction work in France.
It was assumed that one-third of the American troops in France
would have to be housed in new buildings erected specially for the
purpose. Thus accommodations for about 750,000 men had to be built
at the rate of 16 barracks, each 20 by 100 feet in size, for every
1,000 men. Contracts were let to British and French contractors for
23,000 demountable barracks, this order being based on the ultimate
probable size of the Expeditionary Forces. During August, September,
and October, 1918, these barracks were being received at the rate of
1,000 per month. To supplement a supply of even such magnitude, our own
type of barrack was developed to be built with lumber furnished by the
American forestry forces in France. One cantonment project involved
the construction of 500 barracks, accommodating 55,000 men. A total
of 11,862 barracks were erected for the American Expeditionary Forces
in France, representing 225 miles of length, if all the barracks were
placed singly end to end.
It was the policy of the American Expeditionary Forces to provide
hospital room sufficient to give beds, if necessary, to 15 of every
100 American soldiers in France. On this basis the Engineers set out
to provide hospitals with a total of 280,000 beds. Of these, 139,000
beds were in hospitals taken over from the French, 25,000 beds being
added to this capacity by new construction. In entirely new base, camp,
evacuation, and convalescent hospitals, 116,000 beds were ultimately
made available for the casualties of the American Expeditionary Forces,
requiring the erection of 7,700 hospital barracks of special type, all
of which would have totaled 127 miles in length if placed singly end
to end. As to the progress of this construction, on November 14, 1918,
there were 190,356 beds occupied in American hospitals in France, but
all 280,000 beds originally specified were ready and available.
The base hospital plants were complete municipalities in themselves,
and had capacities varying from 1,000 to 6,000 beds. These units
were built where nothing had existed before but little French rural
communities, devoid of the improvements and modern conveniences with
which we in this country are so familiar. To establish a modern
military hospital, capable of caring for the varied casualties and
illness arising from action and abnormal living conditions, it required
the construction of roads, sidings, unloading platforms, sorting
and classification buildings, operating rooms, surgical and medical
wards, dormitories, morgues, cemeteries, complete water supplies, fire
protection systems, sewage and garbage disposal plants, recreation
buildings, electric light plants, and all that goes to make complete
a modern installation for the care of the wounded and sick. Many of
the camp and evacuation hospitals required construction of the same
character, but differing in magnitude.
The Engineers developed port faculties at St. Nazaire, Bordeaux, La
Pallice, Marseilles, Brest, and at less important harbors. In general,
at these places the existing facilities were expanded to meet the
needs for the debarkation of troops and the unloading and shipment of
supplies. Originally 23 ship berths were placed at our disposal by the
French. The Engineers expanded this equipment to a total of 89 berths,
with authorized projects for 160 berths by June, 1919. Our overseas
shipments grew from 20,000 tons in July, 1917, to 1,000,000 tons in
October, 1918, but the port expansion kept abreast of this development.
Fifty-eight 300-ton lighters were built by Engineer troops with French
timber, and twenty-six 500-ton lighters with American timber. The
Engineers constructed seven derrick barges with lifting capacities
ranging from 30 to 100 tons.
The existing French railroads running from the base ports to the
advanced zone were quite inadequate, so that it was necessary to
supplement their facilities with many miles of new track and other
construction, including important storage, classification, arrival, and
departure yards, warehouse tracks, engine terminals, water points, and
repair shops. At Bassens, St. Sulpice, Miramas, and Montoir, enormous
storage depots were constructed to handle the supplies entering France
for our forces. The American-built railroad yards at these points
were comparable in magnitude and completeness to the important yard
developments undertaken in this country in recent years by the large
railroad systems, the yards at St. Sulpice having a trackage totaling
147 miles of single track. Those at Bassens and St. Sulpice were
virtually completed during the war, while the construction at Miramas
was well under way at the signing of the armistice. At St. Sulpice the
project was designed on the basis of receiving, storing, and forwarding
the supplies for 1,000,000 men for 30 days. The others were of like
magnitude.
[Illustration: INTERIOR OF SUBSISTENCE WAREHOUSE AT NEVERS, FRANCE,
MARCH, 1918 SHOWING FRENCH WOMEN TRUCKING RATIONS.]
[Illustration: INTERIOR VIEW OF ONE OF THE LARGE WAREHOUSES AT BASSENS
DOCKS, BORDEAUX, FRANCE.
Picture taken in April, 1918.]
[Illustration: ICE PLANT, BUILT FOR THE AMERICAN EXPEDITIONARY FORCES
AT GIEVRES, FRANCE. IT IS THE THIRD LARGEST PLANT IN THE WORLD.]
[Illustration: INTERIOR OF FREEZING ROOM OF ICE PLANT AT GIEVRES.]
At Nevers, in the intermediate section, a condition existed requiring
the construction of six miles of new double-track line, with a bridge
over the Loire River 2,190 feet long. This piece of construction is
known as the "Nevers Cut Off." It relieved the railroad congestion at
this important point.
At Is-sur-Tille, in the advance section, was built a regulating station
at which train loads of supplies and troops were dispatched to points
where needed. Still farther toward the front, at Liffol-le-Grand, was
another and smaller regulating station, controlling troop movements and
the distribution of munitions and subsistence. Both of these projects
were entirely new and were in useful operation when the war terminated.
In addition to the above projects, many storage yards, hospital tracks,
ordnance depot yards, aviation center tracks, and construction tracks
were laid out and built. In all 937 miles of single track were laid,
thus fulfilling in the equivalent the prediction that to supply an
American Army at the front we should have to build a double-track
railroad from the French coast to the trenches.
Storage depots, remount depots, and veterinary hospitals erected by
the Engineers proved entirely adequate for the needs of the American
Expeditionary Forces at all times. A grand total of 536 acres of
covered storage was built or acquired, of which about 482 acres was
new construction. Space was provided in remount depots for 29,000
animals, and it was projected to accommodate 48,700 animals had it
been necessary. Veterinary hospital space was provided for 17,250 sick
animals. Each veterinary hospital required much special construction,
such as concrete dipping tanks for the treatment of mange, operating
rooms, exercising paddocks, hay sheds, living quarters for attendants
and veterinary surgeons, and administration buildings.
At Gievres, in connection with the important storage depot built there,
was constructed the third largest refrigerating plant in the world.
This plant, built by the Engineers from plans prepared by experts, was
capable of caring for 5,200 tons of meat at once, and of producing 250
tons of ice per day. Another similar plant at Bassens had a capacity
for 4,000 tons of meat.
Miscellaneous construction work in France covered many fields of
activity. The question of adequate water supply was ever present, and
in most places where hospitals, depots, shops, or warehousing plants
were built, a water supply development was incidentally necessary. Many
systems were installed complete from the collection of the water at
its source to its distribution to the points of consumption, while in
some other cases only extensions and ameliorations of existing systems
were undertaken. Water supply in the service of supply was placed
under as fine and complete a system of bacteriological inspection and
examination as is customary under more normal conditions. At Tours,
Vierzon, St. Nazaire, and Dijon, where unfavorable bacteriological
conditions existed, arrangements were entered into with these
municipalities whereby the existing water supplies were chlorinated by
the American water supply service.
At Is-sur-Tille was built a mechanical bakery at which 500,000 pounds
of bread, fresh for immediate shipment to the troops at the front,
could be produced in one day. Another such plant was built and put
into service at Neufchateau, and at Liffol-le-Grand it was proposed,
and plans had been prepared, to construct a third plant for 400,000
pounds of bread per day, but this project was canceled just after the
armistice. In addition to these plants, bakery capacity for 240,000
pounds per day was provided at the base ports.
Oil storage was provided for 175,000 barrels of oil and gasoline. The
large plants, with tanks having a capacity of 25,000 barrels each,
built with enduring concrete foundations and equipped with connections
and pumping plant for the loading of tank cars destined for the front,
rivaled in size the installations at large refineries of this country.
For the operation of these many plants numerous power developments were
undertaken, and a total of 5,000 kilowatts of new power, being provided
for at the time of the armistice, was canceled. Plants of the capacity
of 750 kilowatts each, providing 3,500 kilowatts of electric power in
all, were in operation when the armistice was signed, not to mention
numerous smaller units installed at various points where needed.
Ordnance repair shops were erected, as were also assembling plants
for ordnance material, and heavy gun-mounting plants. Repair shops
of enormous extent were established near the front, equipped with
machine-tool equipment for the repair and maintenance of tank and motor
transport material. Schools for the line and staff were constructed,
the first and largest being at Gondrecourt and Longres. Laundry plants,
salvage depots, aviation assembly plants, sewage disposal plants,
refuse incinerators, mechanical repair shops, locomotive assembly
plants and locomotive round-houses were placed at convenient points.
At Chalmdray and at Colombey-les-Belles, both within a short day's
automobile ride of the front, were the tank and air-service repair
depots, each one covering many acres of ground and each provided with
full equipment for any job of manufacture or repair in their respective
fields.
[Illustration:
AMERICAN ENGINEERS QUARRYING STONE TO REPAIR MILITARY ROADS
DESTROYED BY GERMAN SHELL NEAR MENIL-LA-TOUR, FRANCE.]
[Illustration: SAWMILL AT LARGEST LUMBER CAMP IN FRANCE. TWENTIETH
ENGINEERS NEAR ECLARON, FRANCE.]
[Illustration: HAULING LOGS BY MOTOR TRUCK, CAMP KELLOG, BORDEAUX,
FRANCE.]
[Illustration: STORAGE DAM AT SAVENAY, FRANCE, AND THE LAND THAT WILL
BE INUNDATED WHEN IT IS COMPLETED.]
The forestry work of the American Expeditionary Forces was developed
to meet the heavy demands of our armies for forest products of all
kinds. The first move in this direction was the dispatch to France of
the Tenth Engineers, a forestry regiment of two battalions. This was
in September, 1917. By the spring of 1918 we had recruited and trained
the Twentieth Engineers, a forestry regiment of 10 battalions. Later
additional forestry troops were sent across. Shortly before hostilities
ceased all these troops were consolidated into a single regiment of
13,000 men, known as the Twentieth Engineers. To this force were added
negro service troops to the number of 9,000, making 22,000 men engaged
exclusively in the work of cutting down French forests and turning them
into lumber required by our forces.
At first we had difficulty in supplying the necessary machinery. Until
the sawmills came the forestry troops were engaged in building camps
and hewing out railroad ties. In January, 1918, the machine equipment
began to arrive. In February our troops cut about 3,500,000 feet of
lumber; while in October the cut for the single month had reached
the enormous figure of 50,000,000 feet. When the war ended we were
expanding our forestry operations in France to produce 1,000,000,000
feet of lumber in a year.
The lumber produced by our sawmills in France up to November 30,
1918, would build completely enough barrack buildings 20 feet wide to
stretch out to a distance of 600 miles if placed end to end, quarters
enough for 3,107,600 men. In addition to this output the railroad ties
produced would build 1,091 miles of standard-gauge railway and the
small ties for the 24-inch track would build a double-track railroad
behind 185 miles of trenches.
Just the posts and poles produced, if all cut into 6-foot posts, would
be sufficient to support a wire fence, with posts one rod apart,
reaching one-third of the distance around the earth. The piling, if
stood end to end, would make a flagpole 362 miles high. The cord-wood
produced would make a rack 1 yard wide, 1 yard high, and 600 miles long.
The sawmill machinery installed to accomplish such a production
comprised 30 mills of 20,000 feet per day capacity, 56 mills of 10,000
feet per day capacity, and 92 smaller mills capable of producing ties
and rough timber.
In the base and intermediate sections a large amount of work was
necessary in the maintenance of the existing roads and highways,
and in the construction of new roads in the vicinity of the various
new projects. Experienced road engineers, drawn from civil life and
commissioned as officers of the Army, were put in charge of this work,
and specialist engineer troops and labor battalions were assigned
to them. Quarrying the rock, grading the road, surfacing it, and
maintaining it in good condition thereafter--all these duties fell
within the province of the engineers.
LIGHT RAILWAYS AND ROADS.
The light railway and road regiments of engineers attached to the
armies at the front, while their duties did not carry them so far or so
much into the zone of enemy fire, may be considered as combatant units,
since they operated with and in support of combatant troops in the
field. To the light railway regiments were assigned the construction,
operation, and maintenance of the light railroads of 60-centimeter
gauge (about 24-inch gauge). A great quantity of such trackage was
used during the war. These narrow-gauge railroads, capable of being
operated under extreme conditions of grade and curvature, and powered
with light steam and gasoline locomotives, were essential to the proper
supply of a stabilized sector. They were the lines of communication
between the railheads of the broad-gauge system and the dumps and
depots within the front sectors. At the very front, sometimes within
a few hundred meters of the German lines, these light railroads were
operated by hand or animal traction, while further back the gasoline
locomotive, less conspicuous than the steam engine, came well within
range of the enemy's light field pieces. In periods of activity and
during an advance these railroads did a tremendous service, not only in
transporting troops, munitions, materials, and subsistence stores, but
in affording a means of bringing up rapidly a certain class of railway
artillery adapted for use upon 60-centimeter gauge trucks. Built of
light rail and steel ties assembled in portable sections, this track
was easily destroyed by shell fire, and such was often its fate, yet it
was but short work for the engineers to replace broken sections with
new material, a work frequently done under heavy fire. Engineer troops
suffered many casualties in this service.
In cooperation with the Engineer Department in the United States, a
practical, efficient, and standard type of narrow-gauge motive power
and rolling stock was developed by American manufacturers. This
material was shipped to France knocked down, and was assembled and set
upon the rails at Gondrecourt, where a plant for this purpose had been
established. Up to November 30, 1918, there had been built and placed
in operation 538 miles of 60-centimeter track, with 347 steam and
gasoline locomotives furnishing motive power for the operation of 3,281
cars of different types.
[Illustration: TYPE-PRINTING, BASE PRINTING PLANT, 29TH ENGINEERS, A.
E. F.]
[Illustration: LITHOGRAPHIC PRESSROOM, BASE PRINTING PLANT, 29TH
ENGINEERS, A. E. F.]
[Illustration: BINDING DEPARTMENT OF THE PRINTING PLANT OF THE SOCIÉTÉ
PUBLICATIONS PERIODIQUES.
The new pay books were manufactured at this plant and were
turned out at the rate of 100,000 a day, using 36 tons of
print paper, 16 tons of parchment cover, 15 tons of paper for
envelopes, 6 tons of paste, 10,000 rolls of moleskin. Paris,
France.]
The road-building regiments in the zone of the armies built and
maintained the roads immediately behind the front. Equipped with modern
road-building machinery and motor trucks, these regiments maintained
the roads in shape to handle the abnormally dense and heavy traffic
incidental to operations at the front. The Army road troops were
recruited from among men accustomed in civil life to road building,
quarrying, and construction operations. They usually worked well within
sound of the enemy guns, and frequently under their direct fire.
During the advances made from the stabilized line of June, 1918, these
regiments improved and perfected the hasty roads thrown across No
Man's Land by the sapper regiments of the fighting divisions, so that
transport of supplies and troops could be maintained to the advancing
armies. To furnish materials for this construction many quarries were
opened or taken over from the French road service. A total of 42,000
cubic meters of rock was quarried and prepared for use in quarries
operated exclusively by American engineers, while in quarries jointly
operated with French forces 75,000 cubic meters were produced.
MAP MAKING AND PRINTING.
A vitally important part of the work of Engineer troops was the making
and reproduction of the many maps required for the conduct of tactical
and strategic operations by the American Expeditionary Forces. A highly
specialized regiment was organized to conduct the topographic surveying
operations, map reproduction, and printing work in France. Many of the
officers of this regiment had been formerly connected with the American
Coast and Geodetic Survey and the Geological Survey, and they were
well qualified for the work of war-map making. At Chateau Thierry a
portion of this organization rapidly mapped to a large scale the new
region in which the theater of operations suddenly found itself, thus
supplementing the excellent small-scale map which was in existence
for the whole of France, but which was not sufficiently precise for
the conduct of our artillery fire. This work was done under pressure,
but it contributed its share to the later American successes in that
locality. These troops also were charged with furnishing to the
Artillery the mathematical azimuths and coordinates, on the basis of
which artillery indirect fire was executed.
The maps in use even on stabilized fronts were in a constant process
of revision and change. The data and information on which these
changes and revisions were based were constantly pouring in from the
photographic branch of the air service, from the intelligence service,
the Artillery, and from the sapper regiments at the front. Consequently
new maps had to be prepared continually and furnished to all the
organizations and officers concerned with their use. Then, too, an Army
as large as ours required an impressive amount of field printing in
order to distribute its orders and information.
As soon as our forces reached France it was apparent that the French
map-production plant could not take care of our needs. The Chief of
Engineers in the United States thereupon ordered the purchase of
equipment for a base printing plant large enough to take care of all
the map printing for an army of 1,000,000 men. The special machinery
ordered in the United States for this plant did not arrive in France
during 1917, and so the American Expeditionary Forces purchased abroad
five large rotary lithographic presses, several type presses, and a
number of linotype machines and other printing equipment.
The base printing plant was established at Langres, France. In the
spring of 1918 the American equipment arrived, and thereafter the base
printing plant was able to print not only the current maps required but
also the base maps which the French had been supplying. In addition,
during the heavy fighting in July and August, 1918, our printing plant
supplied to the Seventh and Eighth French Armies the base maps of their
fronts.
The demands for maps and printing steadily increased until the base
printing plant grew to have a working force of 35 officers and 750 men.
From July 15 until September 15, 1918, the plant worked continuously 24
hours a day to turn out the work required. By this time the shop had
10 rotary lithographic presses, 4 linotype machines, and several job
presses, printing each month an average of over 1,200,000 lithographic
impressions and 500,000 sheets of printed matter. In November the plant
turned out 1,900,000 lithographic impressions and over 1,000,000 sheets
of type work.
To supplement the base printing plant we had at each army headquarters
an advanced printing shop to supply maps when they were needed within
a few hours. At the base printing plant we had a department for making
relief maps, which work had been done for us previously by the French
Government.
The equipment for military map making was enriched during this period
by an invention of Maj. James N. Bagley, United States Engineers,
called the aerial cartograph, or map camera. The Bagley camera's
three lenses at the height of 5,000 feet could photograph a strip of
territory 3½ miles wide.
MILITARY BRIDGES.
The science of building military bridges is an old one. When war with
Germany was declared the United States had developed its heavy ponton
equipment, which was standard in design and yet which had changed but
little since the Civil War. As soon as we formally took the step to
send troops against Germany the Engineers ordered great quantities of
this equipment and by the latter part of 1917 had plenty of it ready to
go overseas. Our deliveries to France, however, were hindered by the
shortage in ocean tonnage, particularly after we had begun to use every
available ship for the transport of men.
[Illustration: TRUCKS LOADED WITH PILING EN ROUTE TO FRENCH RAILWAY
YARDS NEAR BRUYERS, FRANCE.]
[Illustration: PILE DRIVING FOR FOOTBRIDGE BY ENGINEERS IN FRANCE.]
[Illustration: FOOTBRIDGE BUILT BY ENGINEERS ACROSS CANAL DE L'EST NEAR
THE VILLAGE OF BRIEULLES, FRANCE.
This bridge was constructed under heavy fire from enemy guns.]
Meanwhile the efforts of the Engineers were being directed to the
development of standard ponton equipment strong enough to carry tanks
and the ponderous artillery of the present day. The old ponton bridge
was first strengthened to carry loads of 5 tons on each of two axles
spaced 10 feet or more apart. The standard prewar equipment would
support only 3 tons similarly spaced.
The next step was to develop a bridge that would hold up axle loads of
10 tons with a distance of 12 feet or more between axles, although in
actual use this bridge showed itself capable of supporting a load of 15
tons concentrated on one axle. As soon as these developments were made,
the plans were mailed to the American Expeditionary Forces, so that the
Engineer Corps abroad could provide the beams and metal parts at its
own mills and shops in France. When the fighting ceased, the Engineers
were designing a raft capable of transporting the heaviest portable
ordnance then under manufacture in the United States.
In 1917 the Engineer Department made designs for a standard sectional
steel bridge, consisting of short latticed steel truss sections capable
of being assembled to form trusses varying by increments of 11 feet up
to a maximum span of about 90 feet. Two of these trusses with the span
mentioned were capable of supporting a load of 30 tons, and they could
be erected in a matter of hours over abutments prepared in advance or
extemporized from the ruins of a demolished structure. These bridges
had been manufactured in quantity in this country and were ready for
shipment when the armistice was signed.
In the Argonne push Army bridge troops repaired and replaced the
bridges destroyed by the retreating enemy as fast as material and labor
could be provided at the points needed. For this work much heavy timber
was utilized, and, in general, trestle structures were erected as best
meeting the conditions of relatively soft crossings and soft river
bottoms.
The fighting in the French terrain with its numerous narrow but deep
streams and canals indicated to us the desirability of a portable
floating footbridge. Such a bridge was designed and produced by the
Engineers in France. Many of the crossings of the Meuse River and
near-by canals under machine-gun and artillery fire from the high hills
on the eastern side were made possible by the use of these bridges.
CAMOUFLAGE.
While camouflage has existed in nature since the beginning of time,
its application to warfare on a grand, scientific scale was almost
solely a development of the great war. Camouflage, due to the great
developments of aerial observation and aerophotography, as well as of
air bombing and indirect artillery fire, became a vital necessity for
every branch of the service, far back in the rear as well as at the
front. Any matériel or personnel the position of which was observed was
at the mercy of the enemy, but, further, such observation might betray
strategic plans. The need for camouflage became universal.
Camouflage organization was carefully developed for both the field
and the factory, while one of the most important duties, that of
instruction, was carried out in Army and corps schools and artillery
camps, where thousands of officers and men were taught both the
necessity and the methods of camouflage.
Our undertakings in this direction were based largely upon the methods
developed by the French and British. In one respect camouflage was a
matter of quantity production. This was in the manufacture of material
used for concealing guns, roads, and other strategic locations which
fall under the eyes of enemy observers on the ground or in the air.
In this work the British did nothing without the most careful
scientific investigation, including the aerial photography of all
their materials used, while the French relied more on their innate
artistic sense of color and form. The camouflage material produced in
quantity by the British consisted principally of burlap cut in strips
about 1 inch wide and 12 inches long, colored in the desired hues with
oil-emulsion paint. For artillery cover this was knotted in fish nets
and chicken wire. The French for this purpose used raffia, a common
product of Madagascar, whose natives use it largely for making their
fantastic garments. The raffia was dyed and then knotted on nets and
wire in the French camouflage factories.
After a careful study we adopted the British system and used burlap.
Our Engineers made this decision because of the impossibility
of finding permanent dyes for raffia and because raffia is more
inflammable than burlap and scarcer and higher in price.
The first demand for camouflage material which we received embraced
coverings for guns, sniper's suits, dummy heads, silhouettes, and some
airplane hangar covers. In order to supply this material at the outset
the engineering forces abroad leased a factory building in Paris and
turned out a sufficient quantity with a working force of 30 enlisted
soldiers and 100 French women.
But, as the American troops at the front increased in number, the
demands for camouflage material became rapidly heavier. Battery
positions of some types required about 4,000 square yards of camouflage
cover. Aviation hangar covers were demanded in large numbers, and
each one was a special order due to the varying conditions of terrain
encountered. It became evident that we needed a vast increase in our
camouflage-factory space.
In January, 1918, the Engineers secured about 20 acres of ground in
Dijon, Haute Marne, a city on the main supply line north through the
regulating station at Is-sur-Tille. They started to erect buildings
immediately, and within 20 days this plant began turning out material.
By November the Dijon factory numbered about 40 buildings, including
blacksmith and machine shop, a sewing shop, a paint shop, laboratory,
and a toy shop where dummies and silhouettes were made. The factory
turned out artillery cover at the rate of 50,000 square yards per day.
The total output of camouflage cover for all purposes required about
3,000,000 square yards of burlap per month. When the fighting stopped
the American Expeditionary Forces were using camouflage materials to
the value of $1,500,000 monthly.
By new methods of manufacture, we succeeded in reducing the weight
of fish-net covers. We designed two important field devices, one
being an improved frame and set for mobile artillery protection, this
equipment being later adopted by the British, and the other an umbrella
machine-gun cover having special advantages. The central camouflage
works of the American Expeditionary Forces at Dijon was declared by
unprejudiced observers to be the best equipped and most efficient of
any on the western front.
When the Dijon camouflage plant was projected it was expected that
the American forces would require great quantities of camouflaged
observation posts, silhouettes, dummy heads, snipers' suits, and other
concealing devices. It was for this production that the toy shop at
Dijon was erected, this shop being a kind of studio for the painters
and sculptors connected with the Fortieth Engineers, which was the
camouflage regiment. These various devices for deceiving the enemy,
however, were used principally in the stagnant action of the trench
warfare deadlock. By the time American forces came into the war in
large numbers the struggle had become one of movement in which the
trenches were left far behind. Also, American troops found themselves
largely in sectors which were well wooded and therefore provided plenty
of secure observation. The result was that there was never a great use
on the part of American troops of these clever and interesting exploits
in camouflage with which the public is familiar.
One of the best observation posts was the imitation of a tree trunk
made of armor plate and set up in advanced positions during the night.
Both the British and the French made considerable use of these. The
British tree consisted of an oval shell of manganese steel. This was
covered with tin, crimped in imitation of bark, and further camouflaged
with paint and plaster and natural bark.
When it was desired to set up such a post a camouflage artist would
surreptitiously make a faithful sketch of the tree trunk to be
duplicated in armor plate. This sketch was then taken back to the
workshop, where the spurious tree was built in exact duplication. The
metal tree was built to rest on a base with hinges holding it down on
one side. During the night two saps, or trenches, would be dug to the
natural tree selected. Workers in one of these trenches would fell the
branchless stub and carry it back out of the way. The armor plate tree
would be drawn up in the other trench. The base would be set in place,
and then the whole tree was raised on its hinges by means of ropes
until it was upright and as life-like as artistry could make it. Inside
the tree was a flight of iron steps leading to a seat in the upper part
of the trunk. At this seat were peepholes and a stand for the phone
which was connected up with the exchange at the adjoining trench. The
sap, covered over, served as the gallery leading back to the trench.
The American camouflage force built only a single one of these trees,
using it as a training device. Such objects were useless in an
advancing movement, since, under such circumstances, they would play
an important part only a short while and would then be left far in the
rear.
The Dijon factory, however, turned out a number of small observation
posts for use at the edges of shell holes. These were known to our
troops as beehives and to the English soldiers as domes. Each one was
built of light metal and covered with chicken wire and plaster. It was
camouflaged with paint and bits of grass to simulate the appearance of
the surrounding terrain, often being studded with tin cans or old shoes
to make it appear to be an accumulation of rubbish. The favorite way of
making the peephole for a beehive was to cover with gauze a hole cut in
the bottom of an old shoe, which was then fastened to the observation
post.
Another device built by the Dijon factory was the trench periscope.
This was built and set up to look like an ordinary stick, thrown down
casually upon the ground. For periscopes, too, we also used imitation
stakes placed naturally in the barbed-wire entanglements. The British
on occasions used imitation trench telephone poles to mask their
periscopes.
The Dijon shop turned out large numbers of silhouettes and dummies.
They were drawn from life by artists at Dijon and then cut out from
ordinary wall board. Soldiers of the Fortieth Regiment posed as models
for these silhouettes. All sorts of postures were employed, but nearly
all of them represented soldiers in the act of climbing out of a trench
or running, gun in hand, towards the enemy. The uniforms were painted
in neutral shades, but the faces and hands were highly colored to be
visible at considerable distances during the gray and mist of dawn,
when silhouettes were usually employed.
The object of these dummy heads and silhouettes was to draw the fire
of the enemy so as to make him reveal his strength and positions. The
usual method of use was to place a number of silhouettes, possibly
several dozen of them, in shell holes out in front of the trenches.
The silhouettes were mounted so that they could be made to stand
erect instantly whenever the ropes were pulled from the trenches. At
the appointed moment the ropes would all be pulled at once, and the
appearance to the enemy would be that of a raiding party starting out
at top speed.
The British troops called this operation the Chinese attack. The
Germans made no extensive employment of it. The silhouettes nearly
always fooled the enemy, as indeed they would deceive anybody in such
light and under such circumstances. The British were often amused to
read in the German communiques that these Chinese attacks were regarded
by the enemy as the real thing. More than one such "repulse" of
silhouettes has gone down into the German records as a local success.
On one occasion the Germans took a Chinese attack so seriously that
they concentrated troops against it with the result that the British
were able to gain considerable ground at the points weakened on both
sides of the pseudo attack.
The Dijon factory made a thousand or so silhouettes, as well as a
large number of dummy heads, these latter devices to draw the fire
of snipers. These simulacra, however, had their principal use at the
training schools in France, since they were peculiarly adapted to
trench warfare, and by the time the American forces reached the front
in strength the war of movement was in progress.
Several thousand sniper suits were turned out at Dijon. These suits
were made of burlap, resembling in appearance the teddy-bear pajamas
which little children wear. They were colored to match the terrain,
either painted to resemble rocks or fitted with a grasslike covering.
An adjunct to this suit was the cloth cover for the sniper's rifle.
Sniper suits were so deceptive that they would protect a man from
observation even at short distances, and if exceptional care were used
in the making of one, a man could conceal himself so effectually that
an observer might step on him before seeing him. An American camouflage
officer upon his return from France brought a sniper's suit with him
and found a novel but practical use for it when he was invited to go
duck hunting with a party of sportsmen. The other hunters stayed in
their blinds, but the officer in the sniper suit went out in the open
and shot more ducks than all the other gunners together were able to
bring down.
The Dijon camouflage factory also turned out a large number of covers
for the so-called Bessenaux hangars for airplanes. These hangars were
large tents set up at aviation fields near the front. It was soon found
to be impracticable to attempt to camouflage such tents by day, as
they gave plenty of indication of their position in spite of the best
efforts at concealment on the American and allied sides. However, the
great danger at aviation fields came at night when the German bombing
planes were abroad. Even on a dark night a white tent proved to be a
good mark for the hostile airmen. Consequently the attempt was made to
camouflage Bessenaux hangars at night only. It was found impracticable
to paint the tents themselves, since the waterproof canvas would not
take the paint readily. The solution was a large cover of burlap. This
was painted in broken patches of color, much as artillery was painted
in camouflage. At the factory such covers were spread out on the ground
and painted with floor brushes dipped into water color.
All machinery at Dijon, with the exception of two lathes, two drill
presses, and a shearing machine, was designed and built at the plant
itself. The work of providing camouflage cover required enormous
quantities of burlap to be cut up into strips. The English camouflage
shops used stationary knives and a machine operated by a crank.
American Engineers at Dijon designed a power-driven cutting machine
with a large number of circular, whirling knife blades. The invention
of this machine increases the production of burlap strips 900 per cent
with the same force. The engineers at the plant also designed paint
tanks and special machinery that would mix 4,000 gallons of color in a
day.
There were about 1,000 French women employed in this plant. The
executives paid great attention to their welfare. A special nursery,
the "Creche," was built for their children. American Red Cross nurses
cared for the babies during the time their mothers were at work. Many
of the women employed were refugees driven from once comfortable homes.
Their children fattened up with the good food provided by the army
mess, and the mothers were correspondingly happy. Entertainments were
frequently provided for the operators of the factories. The artists at
the shop worked during their leisure moments and eventually produced
the scenery and equipment for a genuine Yankee circus, animals and all,
the menagerie, however, being made principally of papier-mâché with
human operatives inside the beasts. The first performance of the circus
was given on Thanksgiving Day, 1918, and the audience was so delighted
that it demanded a repetition. After three encores of this sort it was
suggested that performances be given in Dijon, a city of upward of
50,000 population, with admittance charged. This advice was followed,
and the circus made such a hit that the Engineers were able to turn
over to the French orphan fund a considerable sum of money.
CONCLUSION.
The foregoing account gives in a broad way an idea of the scope of
activities and the achievements of the Engineers during the 19 months
of actual warfare in France. To furnish the organization of technical
troops and specialists which made all this possible, the original
Engineer Arm of the United States Army was increased to 131.5 times
its prewar strength, and the proportion of Engineer troops relative to
the total forces was increased from 1.6 per cent to 10.8 per cent. To
accomplish this, a heavy demand was made upon the technical professions
and upon the industries of this country. In filling this demand most
necessary assistance was given by the engineer societies and the
engineering journals, whose patriotic work demands the highest praise.
In situations requiring special knowledge almost always there could
be found some specialist capable of adapting himself and his work to
the military needs. Engineer officers for the combatant regiments were
younger members of the technical professions, who were sent to the
training camps provided for the purpose and there given the essentials
of strictly military knowledge. This training was later supplemented by
courses in Engineer and line schools located in France. The training
officers of the regiments were supplied from the Corps of Engineers,
these men having both the military and technical knowledge fitting
them for the command. The diversity of education and experience
necessary in all branches of the Engineer service may be understood by
a consideration of the duties of the different units sent to France
during the war--specialist units, in addition to the strictly combatant
divisional regiments, who also numbered among their commissioned and
enlisted personnel many technical specialists of high attainment.
We had, for instance, seven railway construction regiments, two
railway construction battalions, one regiment and five battalions
for railway maintenance of way, two battalions for maintenance of
railway equipment, four regiments and one battalion to operate our
main military railways in France, three regiments to operate the
light railways in France and their repair shops, two regiments for
operating the regular railway shops, two regiments and six battalions
for constructing buildings and other general construction work, two
regiments for storing and transporting Engineer supplies, a forestry
regiment, a light railway construction regiment, a regiment for
building roads, a water supply regiment, a mining regiment, a quarrying
regiment, a technical regiment for handling surveying, sound ranging,
and location of enemy positions by means of special apparatus, three
survey and printing battalions, two railway transportation battalions,
an electrical and mechanical regiment, several companies to operate
cranes, a camouflage service, five inland waterway companies, five
ponton trains, a ponton park, a railway transportation and stores
battalion, and a searchlight regiment.
Utilizing and applying the new knowledge and scientific achievements
of recent years, drawing upon the fund of experience acquired by the
Regular Army in its theoretical studies and past wars, making available
the vast amount of technical skill which has assisted this Nation to
its present commercial and industrial status, the Engineers of the
United States Army worked and fought, planned, and accomplished in
France a work which in magnitude exceeds any similar undertaking
recorded in American history. From base port to first waves of an
assault upon the enemy's position, Engineer troops have been constantly
in action first to last and have "carried on" always with the high
ideals of the profession and with the motto of the Corps of Engineers,
"_Essayons_," before them.
CHAPTER II.
MILITARY RAILWAYS.
In establishing contact between our great bases of supply on the
French coast and interior points, as well as with the fighters in the
various fields of operations, the Department of Military Railways of
the Engineer Corps found it necessary to provide thousands of miles
of railway track ranging from the standard gauge down to the narrow
60-centimeter type built right up to the border of No Man's Land,
to construct and ship across seas thousands of almost every kind of
freight cars, to build hundreds of locomotives and transport them to
Europe, to provide in addition fabricated track that could be laid
under heavy shell fire, and hospital trains that could care for our
wounded.
It was on July 10, 1917, that Gen. Pershing cabled stating that the
French had asked for 300 locomotives and 2,000 kilometers of track, in
addition to numerous items of accessories that go with an order of this
size. Delivery of the locomotives was requested by October 15, 1917,
and of the track by December 31, 1917.
It was ascertained that the American Locomotive Works had built
consolidation engines for France of an entirely satisfactory type, and
that similar locomotives for the use of British forces on French soil
had been turned out by the Baldwin Locomotive Works. After the decision
to adopt the consolidation type of locomotive, which is generally used
in freight service in the United States, arrangements were made at once
with these two concerns to build 150 locomotives each.
The consolidation locomotive weighs 166,400 pounds, and is about the
heaviest that can be used in France. It has one pair of engine truck
wheels and four pairs of drivers. The engine is just as large as it is
possible to use within the French tunnel and platform clearances. The
type sent to France was, however, not nearly so large nor so heavy as
the general run of freight engines used here.
The order for 150 engines was placed with the Baldwin concern on July
19, 1917, and the first locomotive of this order was ready for shipment
on August 10, 1917, just 20 working days elapsing between the date
of the placing of the order and the day when the first engine was
completed and all set up ready for shipment.
This is believed to have established a new record for locomotive
construction in the United States and probably in the world for an
engine of this size. All the other locomotives in this order were
delivered promptly--36 of the Baldwin engines being freighted from the
factory in August, 71 in September, and the final 43 in October. Of
the locomotives ordered from the American Locomotive Works, 133 were
freighted in October and the remaining 17 in November.
On account of differences in the details of construction the original
price fixed for the locomotives turned out by the American Locomotive
Works was $51,000 each and for those of the Baldwin Works $46,000
apiece. Advance payments on these engines reduced the price by $1,000
each.
Changes in the painting and other small details resulted in a saving of
$60 additional on each locomotive built by the Baldwin Works and $400
on each engine turned out by the American Works, so that the net cost
of each Baldwin locomotive was $44,940, and of each American locomotive
$49,600.
After much consideration, and after this initial order had been
disposed of, it was determined that the Baldwin type of engine should
be made the standard, and all subsequent orders for engines went to the
Baldwin Works.
As orders were placed from time to time with the Baldwin people,
reductions were made in price, so that the last engines of the total of
3,340 ordered from this concern were obtained for $37,000 each. Orders
for 1,500 of these engines eventually were canceled without cost to
the United States Government. The saving effected by the reduction in
price on the engines ordered, using the original price as a basis of
comparison, was $22,989,385.
There were shipped in all to the American Expeditionary Forces 1,303
locomotives, of which 908 had been put into service by November 11,
1918.
During the severe winter weather of 1917-18 and the simultaneous
shortage of motive power on American railways, 142 of these
consolidation engines built for the American Expeditionary Forces were
turned over to the American railways to help out a critical situation
in this country. It was possible to use these engines here by making
changes in the couplers and some other slight additions to meet the
requirements of our safety appliance laws.
At the time these engines were turned over to the Railway
Administration we were producing locomotives for France much more
rapidly than it was possible to provide tonnage to transport
them overseas. These locomotives were in service helping out the
transportation facilities in this country an average of 6 months
and 28 days each before being recalled for shipment to France. They
earned profits for the Government while in service for the Railroad
Administration at the rate of 32.3 per cent a year.
[Illustration: STANDARD GAUGE 10-WHEEL CONSOLIDATION (BALDWIN)
LOCOMOTIVE. CYLINDER, 21 INCHES × 28 INCHES.
Driving wheels, 56 inches; wheel base, engine, 23 feet 8 inches; wheel
base, engine and tender, 57 feet 4½ inches; weight in working order,
engine 166,400 pounds, tender 112,000 pounds; tractive power 35,600
pounds; capacity, water 5,400 gallons, fuel 9 tons.]
[Illustration: RATION TRAIN NEAR MENIL-LA-TOUR, FRANCE.]
It might also be noted that the Director General of Military Railways
was appointed custodian of undelivered locomotives ordered by the
Russian government from the Baldwin and American Works. In January,
1918, a total of 200 of these Russian locomotives was purchased,
and the engines were converted to meet American requirements by a
change in the gauge from 5 feet to 4 feet, 8½ inches, and a change
in the coupling system to meet our standard. The price of these was
$55,000 each. The Baldwin Works turned its 100 over to the Railroad
Administration between February 3 and May 20, 1918, and the American
Works made its deliveries between February 19 and May 30, 1918.
The combined cost of these locomotives was $11,000,000 and their total
rental revenue from the railroads was $2,585,475 up to December 31,
1918, or 23.5 per cent of the cost price, or at the rental rate of 29.8
per cent per annum.
Orders for 90,103 freight cars to be used by the American Expeditionary
Forces were also placed with American contractors. Of these the orders
for nearly half--40,915 cars, in exact figures--had been placed just
before the armistice, and these contracts were canceled at slight cost
to the Government. Up to the end of the year 1918 a total of 18,313
freight cars had been shipped overseas, nearly all of these cars being
of the 60,000-pound size. Close bargaining in the purchase of these
cars resulted in a saving of $15,737,633 under the prices originally
quoted.
For the first time in history American locomotives were shipped
across the Atlantic stacked in ships on their own wheels. In our
normal foreign trade, and even in the early locomotive shipments to
the American Expeditionary Forces, both engines and cars had been
disassembled at the seaboard and their parts put up in packages
for convenient and economical loading on ships. Each of the first
locomotives sent to France was crated in 19 packages, while the parts
for an ordinary box car were put up in 26 packages.
On October 29, 1917, however, Gen. Atterbury called attention to the
fact that the English were shipping locomotives across the Channel
on their own wheels and stated that it would result in very great
economies of time, money, and man power if such an arrangement could
be made for shipments from the United States. Manufacturers of the
locomotives, however, advised against this. So did our own embarkation
people and the Shipping Control Committee. Efforts were unsuccessful to
get car ferries from the Key West and Habana line and from Quebec for
the transport of locomotives on their own wheels over the ocean.
Finally, however, after numerous efforts to get ships with large
hatches the ore steamer _Feltore_ was loaded with 33 locomotives on
their own wheels, packed in baled hay. This steamer sailed May 18,
1918, and its arrival in France resulted in the following cable from
Gen. Pershing:
Shipment of erected locomotives transmitted on the _Feltore_
very satisfactory. Boat completely discharged of locomotives
and cargoes in 13 days with saving of 15 ship's days in
unloading the 33 locomotives erected as compared with same
number of locomotives not erected and further saving of 14 days
of erecting forces. Observations of Capt. Byron, who came with
these locomotives, show that by loading locomotives in double
tiers, placing cab parts and tools, now in separate packages,
within tender space and fire boxes, 40 to 45 locomotives can be
loaded.
Subsequently the steamers _Cubore_, _Firmore_, and _Santore_ were
assigned to the task of carrying these engines over on their own
wheels. The total number of locomotives that went abroad in this
manner was 533. After the signing of the armistice we sold the French
Government 485 locomotives, of which 142 had been shipped up to January
1, 1919.
Efforts were likewise made to ship over freight cars already set up
but this was also met with much objection. Finally, 1,000 cars were
built to go over complete but the signing of the armistice stopped the
shipment. The saving in the cost of shipping locomotives on their own
wheels amounted to $775 for each one, and an average of $20 a car would
have been saved by sending the cars over on their own wheels. But, in
addition to this, the cost of erection on the other side, amounting to
$800 for each locomotive, should also be added to the saving.
The number of cars actually shipped overseas for the American
Expeditionary Forces, if made into one solid train, would be 140 miles
long.
In August, 1918, there came a call from abroad to produce locomotives
at the rate of 300 a month and freight cars at the rate of 8,200
monthly. Machinery for getting this production was started at once
and was so effectual that during the months of September and October
and up to the signing of the armistice engines were actually being
produced and shipped from the Baldwin Locomotive Works at this rate.
This company was turning out the greatest number of locomotives ever
produced by any one company in the same length of time.
Arrangements for increasing production of freight cars to meet every
possibility of tonnage facilities on the ocean were also made, and had
the armistice not been signed we had planned to produce during the
month of December 11,000 complete freight cars and to maintain this
production rate until we had filled all orders from Gen. Pershing.
[Illustration: LOADING RAILWAY LOCOMOTIVES, COMPLETE, ABOARD SHIP.]
[Illustration: 60-CENTIMETER GAUGE TANK CAR.
Capacity in gallons 2,500. In pounds 22,000. Length over end sills 22
feet 1¼ inches; width over side sills, 5 feet 7 inches; weight, 12,000
pounds.]
[Illustration: 60-CENTIMETER GAUGE V-SHAPED DUMP CARS.
Capacity, 27 cubic feet. Length over couplers, 6 feet 9 inches. Width
of body, 48-5/8 inches.]
[Illustration: RAILROAD LOCOMOTIVES PACKED WITH BALED HAY IN THE HOLD
OF A SHIP.]
On our first purchase of rails, amounting to 102,000 tons, the price
paid was $38 a ton for Bessemer steel and $40 a ton for open-hearth
steel, as against a price of $59 a ton that the Russians were paying
and prices between $54.36 and $61.87 that were being paid by the
French. There was a saving in this item of approximately $2,040,000
as compared with the prices paid by the Russians and of $1,938,000
compared with the prices paid by the French.
In connection with our first purchase of this steel rail, it should
be stated that the Lackawanna Steel Co. and the United States Steel
Products Co. agreed to sell us rail on this basis. Orders were placed
with these companies, but not with two other companies--the Cambria
Steel Co. and the Bethlehem Steel Co.--who declined to accept the price
offered.
All subsequent orders for steel rail were on the basis of $55 and $57
a ton for Bessemer and open hearth, respectively, which figure was
established by the War Industries Board pursuant to the Government
policy to stabilize industry by establishing fixed prices alike for all
purchasers--the Government itself, the allies, and the public.
A total of 937 miles of standard-gauge railway track was laid in France
with material shipped from this country.
A big money saving was effected by changing the design of the freight
cars asked for by our overseas forces. Their original call was for
17,000 four-wheel cars of the French type, these varying from 10 to
20 tons capacity per car. Our investigations here convinced us that
the American type of car with 30-ton capacity could be used on the
French railroads. Consequently we recommended that 6,000 of the 30-ton
American-type cars be sent abroad instead of smaller-capacity French
cars. Our recommendation was approved by officers abroad, and as a
result there was a saving of $12,640,000 in the cost of this initial
order of cars. From that time all cars shipped from the United States
were of the American 8-wheel type, a fact which resulted in a saving of
approximately $189,600,000 over what it would have cost to build and
ship the lighter French cars.
Had the light French type of cars, as originally suggested, been
adopted, 270,309 cars would have been required instead of 90,103
cars, and probably twice as much tonnage would have been necessary to
transport these cars overseas.
Most of the steel rails were purchased from the Cambria Steel Co.,
the Lackawanna Steel Co., the Bethlehem Steel Co., the United States
Steel Products Co., and the Sweets Steel Co. Raised pier, gantry, and
locomotive cranes were turned out by the several crane builders in
proportion to their ability to produce. The Standard Steel Car Co. made
millions of dollars' worth of metallic parts for freight cars, and
the Colorado Fuel & Iron Co. produced rails and bars. As previously
mentioned, the Baldwin Locomotive Works got the bulk of the orders for
locomotives, although the American Locomotive Co., the Vulcan Co.,
the H. E. Porter Co., and the Davenport Locomotive Works also made
locomotives for our Expeditionary Forces.
HOSPITAL TRAINS.
Ambulance trains were called for by Gen. Pershing in his cablegram
of July 15, 1917. It was stated in this message that plans for these
ambulance trains would be furnished by the Surgeon General of the Army.
To build these ambulance trains, with their complicated designs and
specialized equipment, in this country would have entailed lengthy
delay and very heavy expense, as after they had been constructed it
would have been necessary to knock them down for shipment. With this
fact in mind our officers here took up the question with Sir Francis
Dent, of the British railway commission, who was in this country at
the time. He stated that ambulance trains built by the London & North
Western Railway, which had proved wholly satisfactory in three years of
service, could be turned out by that same concern there quickly if the
English design were adopted for our Army.
After considerable discussion and consideration the English design
was followed, and orders for our ambulance trains were placed abroad.
Up to December 7, 1918, there had been completed for our Army 19 of
these trains, with a total of 304 cars, and there were in the course of
completion at that time or under order 29 additional ambulance trains.
Information from England shows that it was indeed the part of wisdom
to order these ambulance trains abroad, as figures from England stated
that the first 14 of these trains were produced at a cost to us of
£3,845 per car, including repair parts. This means that at the present
rate of exchange the cost of each coach was $18,302.20, while to have
built these cars in this country, knocked them down, and shipped them
overseas would have cost $40,000 each.
NARROW-GAUGE RAILWAY EQUIPMENT--FABRICATED STEEL TRACK.
The urgent necessity for narrow-gauge railway equipment for our armed
forces in Europe was first brought home to us when Gen. Pershing cabled
on July 15, 1917. In this message he asked for large quantities of
60-centimeter locomotives, cars, and track. The types requested were
entirely new in this country.
Specifically, there were required 195 60-centimeter steam locomotives
with a low center of gravity and with a maximum of 3½ tons axle load;
126 40-horsepower gasoline locomotives; 63 20-horsepower gasoline
locomotives; and 3,332 freight cars of various types, including box
cars and flat cars of 10-ton capacity, tank cars, and dump cars. To
aid in the building of this new equipment many photographs and designs
brought over from France were used. It was decided to build the 10-ton
cars fitted with small 4-wheel trucks at each end, rather than to make
them of the 4-wheeled type, as with this construction they would be
better adapted for the rounding of short curves.
[Illustration:
60-CENTIMETER GAUGE STEAM LOCOMOTIVE; TRACTIVE POWER, 6,225
POUNDS. CYLINDERS, 9 × 12, DRIVING WHEELS 23½ INCHES, WHEEL
BASE 5 FEET 10 INCHES; WEIGHT IN WORKING ORDER 34,500
POUNDS; CAPACITY: WATER 476 GALLONS, FUEL 1,700 POUNDS.]
[Illustration:
60-CENTIMETER GAUGE STEAM LOCOMOTIVE; 50 HORSEPOWER. CYLINDERS
5½ × 7, DRIVING WHEELS 30 INCHES, WHEEL BASE 4 FEET; WEIGHT
IN WORKING ORDER 14,000 POUNDS; FUEL CAPACITY, 30 GALLONS.]
[Illustration: ARMORED RAILWAY MOTOR CAR. HALL-SCOTT GASOLINE ENGINE;
LENGTH 62 FEET 9 INCHES, WIDTH 9 FEET 11 INCHES, TRUCK CENTERS 46 FEET.]
[Illustration: ARMORED MOTOR CAR, OIL-ELECTRIC ENGINE.]
[Illustration: ARMORED CAR EQUIPPED WITH 3-INCH GUN AND SEARCHLIGHT ON
CAR ATTACHED.]
In turning out the different kinds of locomotives for the 60-centimeter
railways new designs were made in order to produce locomotives that
would run with equal facility in either direction. For the gasoline
locomotives, designs of types similar to standard-gauge engines, a few
of which had been in the service in this country, were made, and orders
were placed with the Baldwin Locomotive Works for the first lot.
The first steam locomotives were delivered by the builders on October
3, 1917, and the first gas locomotives on November 7, 1917.
Orders for the freight cars for these narrow-gauge railways were placed
with a number of the larger car-building companies of the country. The
first of these cars were delivered November 24, 1917.
When the armistice was signed a total of 1,841 locomotives and 11,229
cars of the narrow-gauge type had been ordered and 427 locomotives and
6,134 cars completed. Up to the 11th of November 361 of the locomotives
and 5,691 of the cars had been shipped overseas.
Of the 361 locomotives sent to France, 191 were steam engines, 108
had 50-horsepower gasoline engines, and 62 had 35-horsepower gasoline
engines. Of the 5,691 cars that went to the Expeditionary Forces prior
to the signing of the armistice, 600 were box cars, 166 were tank cars,
500 were flat cars, 1,555 were 8-wheeled gondola cars, 330 were dump
cars, 100 were artillery truck cars, 970 were motor cars, 180 were
inspection cars, 300 were hand cars, and 990 were push cars.
For the construction of the narrow-gauge railroad used in the combat
areas behind the front line trenches a special type of fabricated track
was designed. This consisted of short sections of rail bolted to steel
crossties. The American narrow-gauge railway was so arranged that it
could be packed in knockdown shape to save shipping space. Most of
this track was in 5-meter lengths, although many shorter sections were
used. All, however, were in multiples of 1¼ meters, accurately sawed
so as to insure absolute fit of intermediate sections when shell fire
made replacement necessary. Vast quantities of curved track, as well as
innumerable switches and turnouts, also were built.
In all about 605 miles of fabricated, narrow-gauge steel track were
purchased and 460 miles shipped to France. All but 192 miles of the
fabricated track was built at the Lakewood Engineering Co., near
Cleveland. The balance was obtained through the United States Steel
Products Co. The cost of the straight track was about $7,400 a mile,
while the cost of the curved sections was $8,000 a mile.
Much of this narrow-gauge track that went to France was manufactured at
the rate of between 5 and 6 miles of completed track a day.
Great quantities of the fabricated track produced by the Lakewood
Engineering Co. were loaded upon camouflaged steamers in Cleveland in
May, 1918, and sent direct to France, via Lake Erie, the Welland Canal,
and the St. Lawrence River.
CHAPTER III.
ENGINEER ACTIVITIES AT HOME.
A vast quantity of motorized or portable equipment was required by
the Engineer units of the American Expeditionary Forces and this had
in the main to be furnished under the supervision of the Engineers in
this country. The extent to which this material was produced is shown
by such items as 6,923 trucks of all kinds, 2,082 portable buildings,
124 portable shop and material trucks, 51 portable pile drivers, 90
electric storage trucks, 6,006 boilers, and 3,504 dump cars. Two-thirds
of this equipment was shipped overseas before the armistice was signed.
The development of mobile shops was one of the most interesting phases
of this branch of engineering work. Quite early in the war, when we
began the construction of the great base shops in France, we developed
these portable machine shops, blacksmith shops, carpenter shops, and
storeroom shops in demountable truck bodies, to be used for general
service in the field. The shops were so constructed that they could
be entirely closed up when the unit was in motion; but when the shop
was ready for use the sides and ends of the inclosing structure were
lowered, forming work tables when the shop was left on the truck
chassis. If the shop were entirely demounted, these sides and ends,
let down, formed extensions of the floor. With this arrangement a wide
range of general repair and construction work could be handled on the
spot on short notice. If it were necessary for the shop to stay in one
place for several days or weeks, the body could be demounted, and the
truck chassis was then used for transporting materials to and from the
shop.
Each portable shop contained about 800 different items of tools and
equipment. Each was mounted on a 5½ ton truck. The portable machine
shop contained a workbench, a drill press, a portable electric drill, a
grinder, and a 14-inch lathe, these being operated by an electric power
plant carried on the truck; and it also had an equipment of necessary
small tools and supplies, including an oxyacetylene welding outfit.
The portable blacksmith, plumbing, and tin shops each contained a
workbench, forges, hoists, pipe-fitting machines, a shear and punch,
vises, and a welding and cutting outfit, together with a power plant
and switchboard and the necessary small tools and supplies. The
portable carpenter shop contained boring machines, a drill press, a
bench grinder, a workbench, a saw bench, a winch, power plant and
switchboard, small tools and supplies.
A complete machine shop on wheels cost the Government about $8,500. The
carpenter shop cost $7,600. As supply units for the portable shops, the
Government built 30 material trucks, each containing about 600 items of
tools and supplies. These material trucks cost $6,100 apiece.
Another successful development of this nature was the portable
photolithographic press truck, already referred to in the account
of the American Expeditionary Forces' lithographic equipment. These
automobile presses, which were at our front soon after our troops went
into the trenches, were able to print and distribute lithographic
sketches and maps within 12 hours after the original sketches were
submitted for reproduction. The French and British armies also had
mobile photolithographic units which were much less portable than ours
and much slower in operation. The best time made by the French and
British outfits was four days for the same work.
We also supplied to the Engineering forces abroad special water
sterilizers and water tanks, mounted on trucks. The Engineers put small
job-printing shops on trucks and photographic dark rooms on trucks for
use in the field.
They equipped trucks with derricks, capstans, and wrecking machinery.
They furnished automotive road sprinklers and oilers, as well as trucks
with special dump bodies for highway work.
They developed a light, portable pile driver unlike anything used
theretofore in commercial work. This machine was constructed of
structural steel and had a total weight of 4 tons. It was mounted on a
truck drawn by horses or mules, and the pile driver itself was operated
by a 25-horsepower gasoline engine. The pile driver could be used
within 16 minutes after its arrival at any point.
One development of this sort, the mobile clam-shell derrick, is worth
noting. This unique piece of machinery was built by the Winther Motor
Truck Co., of Kenosha, Wis. When the American Expeditionary Forces
issued a requisition for 120 clam-shell derricks mounted on motor
trucks, no such piece of equipment was in existence anywhere on
earth. The Winther Co. volunteered to attempt to produce the machine.
By giving a wider tread of rear axle to the Winther motor truck,
the company could provide a suitable vehicle, but, search as they
might, they could not find a derrick of sufficient power to operate a
half-yard clam shell and also light enough to mount on a 7-ton truck.
No such derrick existed. The company, therefore, without knowing
anything about the manufacture of derricks, put its engineering force
to work to produce a design. This design was developed in two weeks,
and the derrick built from it was less than half the weight of any
derrick of equal capacity. After being perfected, the mobile derrick in
tests showed that it could move 350 cubic yards of sand or gravel per
day or 500 or 600 tons of coal. One man could operate it and the motive
power was a 4-cylinder gasoline engine.
[Illustration: ENGINEERS' TOOL WAGON.]
[Illustration: ENGINEERS' BLACKSMITH SHOP, CLOSED.]
[Illustration: ONE OF THE ENGINEERS' PORTABLE MACHINE SHOPS.]
The Engineering Department approved this design and ordered 32 such
clam-shell units. Nine of these were delivered before the armistice was
signed. The company has continued production of these derricks with a
view of selling them to road builders and excavators in civil life.
For use of the various Engineer units we manufactured 1,610 tool wagons
and shipped most of them to France. Because of the rough nature of the
shell-torn ground over which these wagons must be used, we designed
each to be uncoupled and operated as two 2-wheeled carts.
The development of mobile industrial units mounted on motor trucks is
likely to have a profound effect on American industry in the future.
For instance, the special derrick or crane trucks which we built
are almost certain to be adopted in commercial use. The locomotive
crane has always been a useful machine, but its chief use has been in
handling heavy materials which were being loaded on or off railway
cars. A crane which can be moved rapidly to places where railway tracks
are not located should be of almost equal importance. An accompanying
illustration shows in operation one of the derrick trucks which we
built for overseas use.
In the same way the mobile pile drivers designed by the Engineer Corps
should be of great future service in road building in this country.
The various machine shops which were built for war purposes will, in
their duplications and adaptations, undoubtedly serve a useful purpose
in future commercial activities in this country. The increased use of
motive power on farms has created a demand for machine repairs. The day
may come when the traveling machine shop will be a familiar sight on
our rural highways.
The Engineer troops required a great quantity of hoisting machinery.
Our purchases in this respect amounted to 700 cranes, mostly of
the locomotive type, and 886 hoisting engines, at a total cost of
$4,996,000. About two-thirds of this equipment was sent to France and
installed at the ports of debarkation and at depots. The rest was used
at the shipping points in this country. This machinery was of great aid
in the rapid handling of materials at tidewater.
A vast amount of small tools and construction material was required.
Some 21,000 tons of barbed wire, shipped abroad to be used principally
in the construction of entanglements in front of American battle
positions, were manufactured principally by the United States Steel
Products Co., Jones & Laughlin, the Gulf States Steel Co., and the
Colorado Fuel & Iron Co., although several other firms also supplied
barbed wire.
The Engineering Department ordered in the United States, during the
fighting, equipment and supplies which cost approximately $754,201,407.
We furnished in all 85,120 steel shelters of various sizes, of which
38,320 were of the individual type which could be carried by one man.
The steel used in these individual shelters was about one-eighth of an
inch thick.
There may be expected to be great incidental benefit to future American
industry from improvements and inventions brought out by American
military engineering in 1917 and 1918.
One important work, for instance, which the Engineer Department
undertook was that of standardizing the requirements for paints and
varnishes. At the outset our Army needs ran into 29 shades of color in
315 different paint and varnish mixtures. Without affecting any of our
camouflage projects or other important undertakings, we reduced the
number of shades required from 29 to 16 and brought the total number
of commodities down from 315 to 99. This reduction in the range of
commodities will be of great use to the paint and varnish industry in
the future.
At the beginning of the war the mechanical rubber industry had but few
standard specifications. The Engineers, after considerable research,
developed 30 standard specifications for mechanical rubber goods,
which class included such materials as hose, packing, and sleeves.
The representatives of the rubber industry verbally stated that the
Engineer Department in this short time did more good to the trade than
it had been able to accomplish for itself in the previous three or four
years of effort. Immediately after hostilities stopped rubber concerns
began asking the Engineer Department for its standard specifications.
In the manufacture of hardware and kitchen utensils there was also
considerable standardization done, and changes in manufacturing methods
were recommended which were put into effect by the producers. All spun
goods were eliminated, and the industry confined itself to straight
stamping, which meant a reduction in labor. A standard cobalt coating
for enamelware was developed by which the industry conserved about
30 tons of nitre per month and made a more durable and satisfactory
enamel coating, with the result that to-day the Army is purchasing
its vast quantities of enamelware subject to certain tests, whereas,
in the past, practically all this material was bought purely upon the
manufacturers' statements. The shortage of tin was of considerable
importance. Upon the recommendation of an Engineer officer enormous
quantities of cafeteria trays were coated with zinc and large amounts
of tin thereby conserved. The finished tray was entirely satisfactory
and gave essentially the same service as that plated with tin.
Horseshoe nails, formerly a variable product, were standardized and
tested, and methods were devised by which the Army was enabled to
control their quality.
Before the war there was no standard rating for internal-combustion
engines, each manufacturer rating his motors according to his own
ideas. Our studies of small engines of the type used for driving
pumps or operating woodworking and metal-working machines resulted in
many improvements, which have been adopted by the manufacturers of
internal-combustion engines. Out of these studies came the so-called
army rating, a standard which is bound to result in the more careful
rating of commercial engines.
The Engineer Department brought out a modification of the design of
the existing line of gasoline-driven shovels by applying caterpillar
traction to the larger sizes, thus doing away with the labor required
to plank up and block shovels that move on wheels.
When we entered the war, the explosive trinitrotoluol was standard for
our Army for mining and demolition purposes. The Bureau of Mines, in
cooperation with the Engineer Department, developed an explosive which
is cheaper than T. N. T. and promises to replace it for engineering
operations.
We also improved the devices commercially used in electrical detonation
of distributed charges, our improved detonators being more certain and
reliable than anything in use.
Commercial machines for detonating as many as 250 standard No. 8 caps
were developed for the Panama Canal, but the machines in common use had
seen little improvement for 25 years. As a result of the development
by the Engineer Corps, a machine capable of detonating 120 caps was
obtained, weighing no more than the 30-cap commercial blasting machine
and costing slightly less.
A second machine was developed, capable of exploding 500 caps, at a
price not greatly above the price of a 30-cap commercial machine.
Mining engineers who saw this development stated that it would have
a high commercial value, as these improved machines would make
electric blasting more positive and dependable than any other form of
detonation, as well as making it possible to set off a large series of
charges simultaneously. The Panama Canal machine weighed 35 pounds and
cost $126. Our 500-cap machine weighed 30 pounds and cost $35. The du
Pont 30-cap machine weighed 25 pounds and cost $25. Our small machine
weighed 20 pounds, cost $22.50, and would fire 120 caps.
In addition to this there might be mentioned other projects developed
primarily for war purposes but which will be available for the
industrial uses of peace. These included portable well-drilling outfits
of a new type, alcohol stills of a small size for the utilization of
waste products in small units, sound reducers on the exhaust pipes of
gasoline engines, air strainers to minimize the chances of dust and
grit entering gasoline engines. When the war ended we were working
on the problem of hastening the setting of concrete and were also
studying the production in this country of photographic colors and tone
chemicals formerly secured only from Germany.
In general, mention should be made of the exhaustive tests in many
industries conducted by the Engineer depot and by special detachments
of Engineers. Tests were made of hundreds of pieces of apparatus,
and these tests led to many improvements in American manufacture.
Illustrating how these tests were regarded by individual concerns,
the Cleveland Tractor Co., after a test of its equipment conducted
by Army Engineers, stated: "Our people consider this test to be the
most valuable ever undertaken by this company." This is indicative of
benefits scattered throughout American industry by the engineering war
tests.
While practically all of the research work which resulted in the
developments and improvements noted was conducted by Engineer officers
while on duty at the General Engineer Depot in Washington, since the
transfer of the functions of the General Engineer Depot to the Division
of Purchase, Storage and Traffic, November 1, 1918, much of this
research work has been and still is being carried on by the latter
division.
For handling Engineer materials there were established the General
Engineer Depot at Washington, D. C, embarkation depots at South
Kearney, N. J., and Norfolk, Va., and shipping depots at Baltimore,
Md., Philadelphia, Pa., Jacksonville, Fla., New Orleans, La., and
Mobile, Ala. In addition, subdepots were organized at all of the
divisional camps and cantonments.
The war demanded the production in America of quantities of precision
instruments. These were required not only by the Ordnance Department
for the equipment of artillery with sights and indirect fire-control
apparatus but also by the Engineer Corps, the Signal Corps, the Bureau
of Aircraft Production, and the Medical Department. These instruments
were such things as aneroid barometers, pocket compasses, measuring
tapes, surveyors' equipment generally, map-drawing outfits, draftsmen's
supplies, and so on. For a large period of the war the procurement
of precision instruments was in the hands of the General Engineer
Depot. Later, when the War Department's supply activities were being
consolidated, the purchasing of precision instruments, except the
highly technical sound-ranging devices, was taken over by the Director
of Purchase and Storage, the organization of the General Engineer Depot
going along in the transfer. The development and the production of
searchlights and sound-ranging apparatus remained in the hands of the
Engineer Corps.
In April, 1917, there were probably not more than a dozen recognized
American manufacturers of high-grade precision instruments. As an
indication of the expansion of manufacturing capacity required by the
war, one concern, the Taylor Instrument Cos., of Rochester, N. Y.,
which had manufactured in peace times watch-pocket compasses at the
rate of 15,000 a year, were called upon to turn them out at the rate
of 10,000 weekly to fill an order for 200,000 of them. In order to
handle this contract the Taylor Instrument Cos. built a new factory
building in 20 days. A certain type of aneroid barometer required by
the exigencies had never before been produced in America. The Taylor
Instrument Cos. succeeded in producing 1,240 of these barometers.
The Lufkin Rule Co., of Saginaw, Mich., was called upon to manufacture
700 band chain measuring tapes for surveying, graduated throughout
according to the metric system, and also 1,240 special outfits for
repairing such tape. These band tapes when broken are fastened together
by tiny rivets, which are produced by special machinery. Because of
the inability of the machine-tool industry, swamped as it was with war
demands, to produce the special rivet-making machines, it was necessary
to reduce in the specifications for repair outfits the quantity of
metal rivets for each kit from 4 ounces of rivets to 2 ounces.
Field artillery required a precision instrument known as the miniature
telescopic alidade of the Gale type. It is unlikely that 150 of these
instruments had been made in the United States during 10 years, yet
the Artillery demands called for the production of 1,110 of them.
The W. & L. E. Gurley Co., of Troy, N. Y., not only manufactured
half of this order, but, in order that the Government might obtain a
sufficient supply of these instruments, it turned over to a competing
firm, the Eugene Dietzgen Co., of Chicago, the lenses, prisms,
hermetically-sealed bubbles, and other parts for 555 instruments.
The Army required large numbers of hand tally registers to be used by
checkers and observers. The Benton Manufacturing Co., of New York, had
been making less than 15,000 registers of this sort in a year, yet it
increased its facilities and turned out 62,000 of them for the Army
within two months.
The Army required 35,000 complete sketching outfits for the use of
military observers. The contents of these outfits were manufactured by
a dozen different concerns.
Drawing instrument sets were produced by the Eugene Dietzgen Co.
Each set included a pair of proportional dividers. Our draftsmen had
always obtained their dividers from Europe. The divider, which nearly
everyone has seen, appears to be a simple device, yet it must be made
with the utmost precision, or else it is valueless. In manufacture it
goes through more than 100 distinct factory operations.
Marching compasses for troops were made by the Sperry Gyroscope Co.,
of Brooklyn, N. Y., the quantity in manufacture being over 200,000
instruments.
Many other delicate instruments of most difficult manufacture, whose
description is too technical to be set down here, were produced
successfully in America during the war period.
[Illustration: DERRICK TRUCK FOR OVERSEAS USE.]
[Illustration: LIGHT MICROPHONE SET.]
[Illustration: GEOPHONE SOUND RANGING SET.]
[Illustration: AMERICAN T-M SURFACE SOUND-RANGING SET.]
CHAPTER IV.
SOUND AND FLASH RANGING AND SEARCHLIGHTS.
In childhood we were enthralled by the tales of those magic persons
whose keen hearing could detect even the whisper of the growing grass.
As camouflage developed, modern warfare yearned for such supernatural
gifts of sense that troops might detect the unseen presence of the
enemy. Accordingly Science, the fairy godmother of today's soldiers,
raised her wand, and lo, the Army was equipped with the wonderful ears
of the fairy tale, uncanny no longer, but a concrete manufacturing
proposition.
Artillery practice nowadays abhors the wasted shot. The time when
cannon fired in the general direction of the enemy, and hoped to hit
something, passed when the long-range rifles and howitzers, with their
marvelously accurate sighting instruments, came into existence. Whole
books have been written on the subject of pointing a modern cannon in
the modern way. A great proportion of our industrial effort in the
recent conflict was devoted to the sole end that we might aim our
artillery accurately.
For instance, to this end almost exclusively was devoted the
enormous production of aircraft material. The observer in the
airplane or balloon trusted not to his eyes but to the finer sight
of the photographic camera; and this again occasioned a large war
industry--the production of cameras and their operation in the field,
which included the production of finished photography in the field
dark rooms. But, as the airplane and aerial camera were perfected,
camouflage was undertaken as a protection from discovery from aloft;
and so might be brought in another chapter--the production of
camouflage material and the work of camouflage experts in the field.
Presently camouflage succeeded in baffling the camera to a great
extent, and this made necessary the development of instruments that
could detect the location of the enemy by sound. Since the unaided ear
was not keen enough to supply the desired information, applied science
came to the rescue with the various devices embraced in the general
classification of sound-ranging equipment. The production of this
equipment was under the direction of the Engineer Department of the
Army.
In three classes of military work we needed hearing refined to the
razor-edge. With keen enough ears we could detect those subterranean
operations of the enemy known as mining; with ears of that sort we
could detect and locate the positions of hostile cannon; and still
again we could employ such sensitiveness of hearing to find in the
darkest sky at night the hostile raiding airplane.
One of these long-distance ear drums which man invented for himself as
an aid to his military operations was known as the geophone. The first
geophone used by the western powers in the war was invented by the
French. It was a simple mechanism. The device or drum which received
the sound waves and magnified them consisted of a small closed box with
a confined air space. This box was weighted with a leaden disk to give
it the required inertia. The geophone was placed upon the ground and
the vibrations of the earth were communicated through the medium of the
confined air space. The sounds then reached the listener's ears via a
rubber tube and an ordinary stethoscope horn. By means of this device
the slightest vibrations of the ground were rendered audible.
The geophone was used to detect enemy mining operations. The listener
placed the weighted box on the floor of an underground gallery or on
solid earth or rock. If the enemy were burrowing in the ground anywhere
within a distance of 75 yards the geophone would tell about it. In
order to enable the listener to know in what direction the sounds
came, two geophone boxes were provided, one connected with each ear.
By placing the boxes a small distance apart from each other and them
moving them until the vibrations in both ear horns were equalized, the
listener could tell approximately in what direction the enemy mining
operation was located.
Geophones were used by both sides, and so effective did they prove to
be that it is reported that they were largely instrumental in stopping
mining operations altogether. If an enemy mine were located by one of
these devices, a counter mine could be started at once and carried
through, usually with disastrous results to the hostile miners.
As our first step in the production of geophones, we adopted the
French device; but later on we developed an instrument with nearly
one-third greater range than the French geophone had. This improvement
was developed by the Engineers and bureau specialists at the Bureau
of Standards in Washington with money provided by the Engineering
Department. We produced the improved model in sufficient quantities to
meet the requirements of the American Expeditionary Forces.
We also developed an electromechanical geophone that could be connected
up by wire to a central listening station some distance back from
an exposed location. The sound-receiving boxes or microphones were
placed out in No Man's Land and hidden under trash or earth. They
were so sensitive that they would not only record any subterranean
activities of the enemy within their range, but at night would
betray enemy raiding parties attempting to cross to our positions,
the sensitive boxes picking up the vibrations of their speech or
footsteps. The central listener could locate approximately the position
of hostile operations by observing which boxes were receiving the
sounds in greatest intensity. The boxes could also pick up and send
to the central listening stations conversations carried on by the
enemy parties even in low tones, the apparatus thus acting as the
dictatorship of the war.
But by far the most important work done by listening instruments was in
locating the positions of enemy gun batteries. This was one scientific
instrument, at any rate, which the Germans were never able to produce
successfully for themselves. During the final months of the war more
enemy guns were located by listening instruments than by any other
means. An American instrument with the Army spotted 117 German gun
positions in a single day by surface sound ranging. This was the high
American record set in the war, but at all times our sound-detecting
equipment had an uncanny accuracy. Up to the end of the fighting,
no way had been discovered to conceal the location of a gun from
sound-ranging instruments suitably placed and properly operated.
The instruments used for locating gun positions were of such a highly
complicated and technical nature that no one but designers and
mechanics skilled in the production of complex electrical equipment
could build them at all. The recording instruments, or microphones,
were of a sort so delicate that their use theretofore had never been
considered outside of laboratories. Yet they were required to operate
successfully amid the din and concussion of heavy bombardments. All
useless sounds and jars were filtered out so that only the sought-for
vibrations could come to the central recording mechanism.
Studies of gunfire showed that when a cannon fires an explosive shell
of high velocity there are three distinct concussions. One of these is
the sharp crack produced in the air when the shell, dragging a short
vacuum trail behind it, passes over the head of the observer. As the
air rushes into this vacuum and collides with itself, it produces
a crack that is similar in origin to ordinary thunder. The second
concussion to be heard is that produced at the muzzle of the gun by
the expanding gases that propel the shell. There is still a third, the
break, or explosion. In order to locate a battery or gun exactly only
one of these concussions--the explosion at the muzzle of the gun--must
be picked up by the microphone. The first and third shocks, and all
other sounds not useful to the work should be damped out and excluded.
A number of these microphones would be placed in scattered positions,
usually in a trench, and then connected with the central recording
mechanism. When a microphone picked up a hostile gun explosion the
disturbance was instantly transmitted through several miles of wire. An
ingenious and complicated mechanism actuated an electromagnetic needle,
which instantly recorded this disturbance on a tape of photographic
paper, calibrated to show fifths of seconds in time. Each microphone
on outpost duty was represented on this tape by a parallel line; and,
as six microphones were usually used, the tape was striped with six
parallel lines. As the other microphones at the front picked up the
concussion of the gun, their records were made on their respective
lines; and the observers at the central station, by noting the
difference in time between the reports of the various microphones,
and by making calculations based on the rate at which sound travels,
could locate the gun that set up the disturbances by means of ordinary
surveyor's triangulations. So accurately would this mechanism do the
work that a gun position could be determined within 50 or 60 feet.
Incidentally, it is interesting to note that the practice of our Army
was to secure in advance, by means of surface sound ranging and other
methods, the positions of all the enemy's guns that could be learned.
Then, often after intervals of hours or even days, the fire began
simultaneously upon all these gun positions just as our attack started.
In this country we had two experimental stations for the development
of sound-ranging apparatus. We began experiments in this work in
June, 1917. Before we had perfected any satisfactory instruments, the
British had met with great success with the Bull-Tucker system; and we
adopted that type for the use of the American Expeditionary Forces.
From plans and models sent to this country we produced an American
Bull-Tucker machine, utilizing standard American electrical equipment
wherever we could. At the close of the war we had in operation along
the American front 12 complete American outfits. The six microphones of
each recording machine in action were set about 5,000 feet apart along
the front, so that each sound-ranging section covered a frontage of
approximately 5 miles. The 12 outfits in use were sufficient to locate
the guns of the enemy on a 60-mile front.
About a month before the fighting stopped we sent to France a new model
sound-ranging set which had been developed with the cooperation of
the Bureau of Standards. The reports from the American Expeditionary
Forces indicated that this American development was superior in several
important particulars to anything else in use when the war came to an
end. The American instruments were lighter, easier to carry about,
easier to install, and much cheaper than those of the British type,
and would operate under more adverse weather conditions. The impulses
received by the microphone in this equipment were recorded on a running
tape smoked by an acetylene flame.
Sound ranging for the detection of airplanes at night requires an
equipment which consists fundamentally of a sound-gathering device and
a listening mechanism, the combination enabling the observer to tell
the direction from which the sound is coming. When a bombing plane
approaches at night the hum of the motor can be heard at a distance
from 1 to 3 miles, or even more, depending upon conditions. But the
direction of this sound is elusive to the unaided ear, as anyone can
testify who has heard an airplane in broad daylight but could not
locate it with his eyes. Before the invention of aerial sound ranging
the searchlights hunting for the hostile airplane were obliged to sweep
the sky aimlessly in an endeavor to locate it; and the pilot of the
plane could often maneuver to keep out of the light. But by use of the
sound detectors not only can the approach of the airplane be detected
at a distance beyond the hearing range of the unaided ear, but, what
is more important, its direction can be determined within an angle of
3°. The use of these sound detectors greatly increased the chances of
locating airplanes at night by searchlight.
The Engineer Department conducted extensive experiments in the
development of aerial sound detectors. One form developed consisted
of a set of long horns with listening tubes attached to the small
ends and leading to receivers on the observer's head set. These horns
were mounted on a turntable which the observer could revolve, so that
the horns could be turned in the general direction of the sound. Four
horns were used in this mechanism--two to indicate the direction of
the airplane on a horizontal circle (in azimuth), and the other pair
to indicate the direction on the vertical arc (in elevation). Under
favorable conditions the sensitiveness of this device was three times
that of the unaided ear, and the airplane could be located within an
angle of 1°. The horn detector, however, was large and cumbersome and
not satisfactory for a mobile unit.
For field sound ranging, when the listener may wish to move from
place to place, the parabloid sound reflector was developed. This
hemispherical object, like a huge fountain basin in shape, was made of
material similar to building board and shaped in parabolic lines. Such
a sound collector echoed or reflected the sound from every point of its
surface to a focal point where the listening instrument was located.
The observer turned the parabloid on its universal mount until the
sound was equalized in his ears, and then the exact direction of the
airplane would be indicated by the azimuth and elevation pointers on
the machine. The paraboloids developed by our Engineering Department
had a sensitiveness three times that of the unaided ear and could
locate sound within 3° of arc.
We were not pioneers in developing the parabloid, however, the French
having built them ahead of us; but our apparatus possessed marked
advantages over that of the French. In the first place, the French
collecting device weighed 3½ tons and was so heavy and cumbersome that
it could scarcely be moved at all. The total weight of the American
collecting device was only 1,300 pounds. The American instrument was
thus much lighter and more portable. It was so simple that it could be
set up in about one-sixth the time that it took to erect the French
device. The cost of our machine was only about two-fifths that of the
French mechanism.
Although valuable work in detecting gun positions was done by sound
ranging, yet both sides located guns by watching their flashes. We
improved flash-ranging sets of the allies. These were simple in
principle. A number of observers at posts commanding good views were
equipped with observation telescopes mounted on tripods to watch for
the flashes of enemy guns. Whenever two or more of them observed the
same flash and reported its direction, the position of the gun could be
determined by ordinary triangulation.
However, in operation the system was not so simple, because of the fact
that the observers reporting might not have turned their instruments
upon the same flash. This difficulty was met by furnishing each
observer with an outpost switch set. As soon as he observed the flash
through his telescope he closed the switch, and that action turned on a
small electric light at the headquarters station, which might be miles
away. Then, as soon as he could, he telephoned in the direction of the
flash observed. If the operator at the switchboard saw two or three of
the lights flash simultaneously, he knew the observers at the front
had probably caught the same flash. Lights that came on a little ahead
or a little behind the simultaneous lights were disregarded when the
observers telephoned reports.
In developing the telescope for this system considerable difficulty
was experienced on account of the shortage of the proper optical glass
in this country. We were, therefore, obliged to buy our telescopes
in France until our supply would be available. These telescopes were
expensive mechanisms, and in some of the work of the flash-ranging
sections two of them were originally required at each observing
station--one to determine the position of a shell burst in elevation
and the other its position on the horizontal circle in azimuth. Since
the declaration of the armistice an American Engineer officer has
designed a telescope eyepiece which enables this work to be done by
observing through a single instrument, thus effecting a marked saving
in the number of telescopes which might be required in the future.
[Illustration: AMERICAN PARABLOID TYPE ACOUSTIC DETECTOR.]
[Illustration: 60-INCH OPEN TYPE PORTABLE SEARCHLIGHT.]
[Illustration: 60-INCH HIGH INTENSITY SEACOAST TYPE SEARCHLIGHT.]