PROVIDING THE MEANS
Spruce and fir production in the forests of the Northwest for airplane
stock was at once pushed forward. I. W. W. agitators endeavored to
incite the men of the logging camps to cease work, disable machinery
and injure stock. But they were driven away, the loggers and lumbermen
of the district formed a Loyal Legion which was assisted by 30,000
enlisted men sent to the Northwest for this purpose, and production
was increased to unprecedented figures. The output previously had
never exceeded two and a half million feet per month. By the end of
hostilities it had reached 25,000,000 feet per month and was still
increasing in the effort to reach the goal, as it would have done very
shortly, of a million feet per day.
To make this possible several railroads had to be located, the
right-of-way cleared and graded and the roads built, all within a few
months. One of them, reaching into two fine spruce districts, had
thirty-seven miles of main line and twenty-three of spurs. The gravel
for the ballasting of its tracks, nearly 5,000 carloads, had to be
transported for a hundred miles. Part of the right-of-way had first to
be cleared by hand power of huge trees amounting to a million feet of
lumber per acre while other portions were covered by thickets so dense
they were impenetrable except as opening was made with axes. Half a
dozen or more other lines penetrated far into the vast spruce and fir
forests of the Northwest. Sawmills were built, great warehouses were
constructed and all the cities of the West and Northwest were searched
for the enormous necessary equipment of shovels, scrapers, picks, axes,
tools of many kinds, steam shovels, pile drivers, horses. Substantial
camps were built to house comfortably the thousands of workmen. A
kiln-drying plant was erected to insure proper drying of the wood and
economize freight charges upon the stock.
A total of 174,000,000 feet of spruce and fir was shipped out
for airplane manufacture, of which a large part went to our
co-belligerents. It was, indeed, seven months after our entrance
into the war before any of it was sent to American factories, the
Inter-Allied War Council thus directing the supply across the ocean
because the need for airplanes was very great and they could be more
quickly made and sent to the front in this way. Not until more spruce
was produced than was necessary to satisfy their urgent need was any
of it sent to our own factories. By November, 1918, enough spruce
was being shipped out of the Northwest to meet the needs of all the
associated nations.
For wing covering of airplanes linen had formerly been thought
necessary, but the supply of linen was practically exhausted and there
was none for the airplanes we must build. The Western Allies had been
experimenting upon cotton materials for some time but had thus far
produced no fabric possessing the necessary strength. A substitute
for linen for the wing coverings of our airplanes was an absolute
necessity. American chemists and members of the Signal Corps had
already been working upon a series of experiments upon cotton fabrics
and they presently devised a method of treatment that made them as good
as linen for this purpose and thereafter this substitute was used by
both our war associates and ourselves. When the armistice was signed
1,200,000 yards of this material were being manufactured and treated
per month. Castor oil was necessary for the lubrication of airplane
engines, but the world’s available supply was barely sufficient for the
planes of our war associates and we would have to grow the beans and
make the oil for the engines of our own planes. Castor beans for seed
were rushed from India and planted by the thousand acres and machinery
installed for crushing the beans and refining the oil. In the meantime,
chemical experiments were being made for the purpose of discovering
or devising a substitute. They were finally successful and an oil was
produced that was equally good for all except the rotary type of engine.
Not only had the production of airplanes and engines to be provided for
but a great variety of accessories of which the country had none was
equally necessary. The aviators needed special clothing and equipment;
for the battle planes there had to be mechanism synchronizing their
machine-gun and propeller action, new kinds of ammunition, bombs and
bomb accessories specialized for air combat; planes of all kinds had
to be equipped with many kinds of gauges, meters and other instruments
requiring the most delicate and exact work in their manufacture, and
necessary also were cameras for air use and camera guns for training
purposes. The manufacture of all these and many other accessories had
to be instituted and rushed forward and, because of the shortage in
skilled labor and the need for it in so many kinds of war production
at the same time, workers had frequently to be trained for the making
of them. At the end of hostilities between three and four hundred
manufacturing concerns, employing over 200,000 skilled workers, were
supplying the various needs of this highly specialized branch of
warfare.
While this preparation and development were going on ground schools and
flying fields for the training of the personnel of the Air Service were
being planned and built. For the study of airplane engines and of the
elements of aviation and for military training arrangements were made
with universities and technical institutions in various parts of the
country and within a few weeks after the declaration of war young men
were at work in “ground schools” at eight of these institutions.
This first step in the training required eight weeks and when the first
students to be graduated from it were ready for primary instruction
in flying the land for some of the flying fields had been acquired
and tents set up. Here, under primitive conditions, they began their
work, and kept it up while the fields were being developed underneath
the wings of their planes. Construction proceeded rapidly and in a few
months every one had its comfortable barracks for the cadets and men of
the squadrons, shower baths, lecture buildings, mess halls, officers’
quarters, long rows of hangars for the housing of the planes, and all
the usual structures of a large cantonment planned and built according
to the principles of sanitary engineering and provided with telephone,
electric lighting, water, sewage and garbage disposal systems. One of
these fields, representative of them all, although they varied in size,
with its hangars, machine shops, machine-gun ranges, landing fields,
fire department and its many buildings, covered five square miles--more
than 3,000 acres. As the system of training was evolved the fields were
specialized and each one was developed according to the purposes for
which it was used. In all, thirty-six flying fields were built in the
United States, while in France several great air instruction centers,
one of them the largest in the world, comprising in all seventeen
fields, were prepared and in use when the war came to its sudden end.
America’s war associates had developed a multiplicity of types of
both planes and engines, with much resulting loss of economy both in
production and in the training of the fliers to operate them and of
the mechanics necessary for their upkeep. Profiting by this mistake,
the Air Service of the United States endeavored to simplify types.
The primary need was a standardized, high-powered motor that could be
produced in quantity. Two or three engineers devoted themselves to this
problem, working out in a few weeks the Liberty Motor, which proved to
be a signal contribution to air warfare and to the possibilities of
peace time aeronautics. It soon demonstrated its worth for all except
the light pursuit plane and won the highest praise from our own airmen
and from those of England, France and Italy. By the time it was ready
for manufacture battle front needs had begun to indicate the necessity
for a still higher horsepower and the making of these complicated
changes delayed its completion. The first contract for its manufacture
was signed early in September, 1917, and when the “cease firing” order
was passed along the battle lines over 15,000 had been turned out and
quantity production at a rate of 2,000 per month had been reached,
while 16,000 motors of other types brought the total to 31,800. The
month of October had seen a total production of 5,600 airplane motors.
Advising with the air service officials of England, France and Italy,
it was decided that this country could render the most efficient
aid by specializing in battle and observation planes, rather than
by attempting to produce all of the several kinds into which the
developments of air warfare were specializing airplane uses. The types
of foreign planes selected for these services had to undergo a certain
amount of alteration to fit them for the Liberty motor and for other
reasons, but when production began it proceeded rapidly, and over
3,000 were built, together with a large quantity of spare parts for
repairs. Other types were being adapted to the American engine, which
was considered the best engine for these planes, and new designs were
being developed when the armistice was signed, and all of these would
very soon have been in quantity production. American designers had been
spurred to high pressure effort by the needs of the country and among
the planes ready for testing, or already tested, approved and ready
for manufacture, were several embodying original ideas that would have
made them highly efficient as fighting planes. One of these was so
simplified for the purpose of speedy production that it required but
one-tenth the number of parts of the ordinary service plane of European
design.
The first necessity of our plane production was for training purposes,
of which we had hitherto made only those for primary instruction.
Deliveries of improved models of these planes began in June, 1917, but
those for advanced instruction required longer for their manufacture.
At the end of hostilities more than 8,000 had been provided. In a
year and a half an airplane manufacturing industry had been developed
and a total of nearly 12,000 planes had been produced, together
with a large quantity of spare parts of every type, and there were
orders outstanding for service planes to be ready for early delivery
aggregating a value of $125,000,000.
In addition to the means for training flying men, there had to be
provided a series of schools for the training of the non-flying
officers and men of the Air Service. Engineer officers to direct
the upkeep of the equipment, supply officers to keep it on hand in
sufficient quantities, and adjutants to have charge of the records were
all essential to the Air Service. All had to have a certain amount of
training and, at first, schools were provided for each of these special
needs. Schools or courses of instruction had also to be instituted for
aerial photography, for radio work, for armament and compass officers.
Another series of schools for mechanics was necessary in order to train
men for the fifty or more trades necessary in the repair and supply
shops of flying fields. Much of the work was new to American mechanics
and demanded the greatest skill, care and delicacy of execution and
in schools for this purpose intensive training was given to them as
rapidly as they could be secured. Many of these mechanics had also to
be sent overseas, at the request of our co-belligerents, for service
in their factories and flying fields, in addition to those who went to
work in our own flying fields in France.