Part 10

With the creation of a Construction Division in the War Department on March 16, to handle the largest single building program in history, aggregating $1,084,000,000, a board of eminent experts appointed by Acting Secretary Crowell took over the work of the Cantonment Division, which did the preliminary work of building national army camps. The building program, involving hundreds of thousands of workmen and extensive structures for the army throughout the country, is under the immediate direction of the Chief of Staff. Headed by Professor A. N. Talbot of the University of Illinois, President of the American Society of Civil Engineers, the board includes representatives of leading architectural, engineering, business, and labor organizations.

OUR GROWING ARMY

The year of intensive recruiting for the regular army by volunteer enlistment ended on March 30, 1918. A year previously the enlisted strength of the regular army was 121,797 men, and to bring it to full war strength 183,898 additional soldiers were required. These men were obtained some months ago. The recruiting campaign, however, was continued, and on March 30 the regular army was about 501,000 strong, which represented about one-third of all the men serving under the War Department.

Major Gen. Enoch Crowder, the Provost Marshal General, on April 6 sent out a call to all the States for a total of 150,000 men in the second draft. Instructions were given for the movement of these men to begin on April 26, and for their mobilization to be complete five days later. They were selected from Class Al of the registration lists and were to replace the men who have been sent abroad from the training camps.

A resolution providing that all young men who have reached the age of 21 years since June 5, 1917, the first draft registration day, shall be subject to military service was passed by the Senate on March 29. About 58,000 men thus become available each month, and in the year since June 5, 1917, about 700,000 will have been brought under the selective draft law. The Senate rejected a proposal for universal military training for all males between 19 and 21 by a vote of 36 against 26.

The number of colored citizens registered on June 5, 1917, was 737,626. Of these 208,953 have so far been called up, and 133,256 rejected, exempted, or discharged, leaving 75,697 certified for service and inducted into the national army.

Shortage in Aircraft Production

Senate Committee's Report

The shortage of aircraft for the American Army in France has been the subject of investigation by the Military Affairs Committee of the Senate, following the sensational disclosures regarding German control of the air in the sector held by the Americans, [see CURRENT HISTORY MAGAZINE, April, 1918, Pp. 12-14.] The Senate Committee was not unanimous, and two reports were presented on April 12, 1918, differing as to the causes of delay in the execution of the airplane program.

The substance of the majority report is contained in the following extracts:

The Signal Corps has established and is now conducting twenty aviation training schools in the United States. Four additional schools are in process of construction and are expected to be finished in June next.

The aggregate capacity of the schools now in operation is something over 3,000 cadets; 1,926 have thus far been graduated from this primary training course and commissioned as reserve military aviators. Very few of these have received their advanced training in this country.

In addition to the above, the Signal Corps, acting upon the invitation of the several Entente Governments, dispatched some 1,200 cadets to England, France, and Italy last year, who were to receive primary and advanced training in aviation schools of those countries. The experience of a great many of these men has been most unfortunate in that at some of the schools a very serious delay has occurred in providing them with the training planes, which it was expected would be manufactured in foreign factories in sufficient numbers. As a result, several hundred of the American cadets have been practically idle and have made no progress. About 450 of them are reported as having completed the primary training, after long delay.

The Signal Corps is giving serious consideration to the advisability of bringing the remainder back to the United States to be trained. With the exception of this severe disappointment, the primary training of our aviators, according to the testimony of the aviation officials, appears to be progressing favorably.

For some time after the inception of the work the output of primary training planes in this country for use in our schools gave ground for grave concern. In recent weeks, however, the output has been greatly increased, and there seems to be no doubt of the Signal Corps having an amply sufficient number in the future. On April 1, 1918, 3,458 primary training planes had been completed. The advanced training planes are being turned out in accordance with the schedule and estimates laid down at the inception of their manufacture. In advanced training planes four types are being made, the total number up to date manufactured being 342. In these planes three types of engines will be used, of which 965 have been completed. The Liberty motor is not suitable for use in these planes.

It is apparent from the evidence that the twelve-cylinder Liberty motor is just emerging from the development or experimental stage. Since the original design and the setting up of the first completed motor in July, 1917, a large number of changes have been found necessary, many of them causing delay in reaching quantity production. Within the last two months changes of considerable importance have been made which, it is hoped, will make the motor serviceable for combat planes of the defensive type and for bombing and observation planes.

Twenty-two thousand five hundred Liberty motors have been ordered, 122 have been completed for the army, and 142 for the navy. Four have been shipped overseas. Some of those already delivered are being altered to overcome the defects ascertained during the last few weeks. It is understood, however, that these alterations will consume but a very short time.

The production of Liberty motors to date is, of course, gravely disappointing. The Government officials having the manufacture of the Liberty motor in charge have made the mistake of leading the public and the allied nations to the belief that many thousands of these motors would be completed in the Spring of 1918.

The production of combat planes in the United States for use in actual warfare has thus far been a substantial failure and constitutes a most serious disappointment in our war preparations. We had no design of our own; neither did we adopt any one of the European designs until months after we entered the war. In all, five types, at one time or another, have been adopted. Two of them have been abandoned after the expenditure of much time and money. The three remaining types still left upon our program are now in the course of manufacture. Of these the largest and most powerful is the Handley-Page heavy bombing machine, designed to carry as many as six men, eight machine guns, and a heavy load of bombs, and to be driven by two Liberty motors. The testimony before your committee shows that the Signal Corps finally decided upon the manufacture of a number of sets of parts of this machine about Jan. 1, 1918. Officials of the Aviation Section of the Signal Corps testify that they do not expect the completion of the first set of parts in this country before June, 1918.

Another type of combat plane, known as the De Haviland, is included in our program. This machine habitually carries two men, four machine guns, a moderate load of bombs and other apparatus and is driven by one Liberty motor. Fifteen have been completed; one has been shipped to France; the remaining fourteen have been very recently completed in this country.

The third type upon the program is known as the Bristol fighter. This machine is lighter and faster than the De Haviland. Its speed is expected to be in the neighborhood of 125 miles per hour. It is what is known as a reconnoissance machine. Another term which might be properly applied to it is "defensive fighter." It carries two men, four machine guns, and is driven by one Liberty motor. The decision to make this type was reached on Nov. 7, 1917. The manufacturers completed the first of these machines during the week ended March 30, 1918. The machine was tested once during that week with a Liberty motor, and, according to the testimony of the aviation officials, met its preliminary test successfully. This machine, a few hours after its flight, caught fire while standing upon the aviation ground and was entirely destroyed. The officials of the Signal Corps assured the committee that another machine would soon be finished by the manufacturer, and that if it met the tests satisfactorily quantity production might be expected within a reasonable period.

In addition to the American production of engines and airplanes as herein set forth, considerable orders for combat airplanes and engines were last Summer placed with European manufacturers by General Pershing, and we have furnished quantities of material and numbers of mechanics to aid in their construction.

Your committee is convinced that much of the delay in producing completed combat airplanes is due to ignorance of the art and to failure to organize the effort in such a way as to centralize authority and bring about quick decision.

Further light is thrown on the production of aircraft for the American Army by the minority report. One passage reads:

Soon after the war began the Signal Corps arranged with the French Government for the making of 6,100 combat planes at a total cost of $127,000,000, the planes to be produced as rapidly as American fliers could be trained to operate them. As the American aero squadrons reach the front ready for duty, battle planes are being supplied them under this arrangement. To aid in this foreign manufacture of planes for American fliers, the Signal Corps has shipped to France 11,000 tons of various materials and has sent 7,000 mechanics to release, for French factories making planes for our American fliers, the French workers on motor transports. The Signal Corps then arranged for the making of about 11,500 combat planes in the United States, the term combat plane being here used to embrace all kinds of planes, both offensive and defensive, except training planes.

Let it be said here that when the war began the United States Government had purchased altogether less than 200 airplanes in its entire history, and that of the few airplane factories in this country probably not one was making over five or six a month. It is hardly possible to grasp the magnitude of the task the factories contracting to make the 11,500 combat planes found before them.

America's First Year of War

An Anniversary Summary

April 6, 1918, marked the first anniversary of the participation of the United States in the European War. The period was primarily one of preparation. If America did little actual fighting in the first year, it nevertheless achieved a great deal both in strengthening the cause of the Allies and in getting ready to play its own part on the battlefields of Europe. The increase in the war strength of the army is shown in the following figures:

APRIL, 1917 Officers. Men. Regulars 5,791 121,797 National Guard 3,733 76,713 Reserve Corps 4,000 National Army ----- ------- Total 9,524 202,510

APRIL, 1918 Officers. Men. Regulars 10,698 503,142 National Guard 16,893 431,583 Reserve Corps 96,210 77,360 National Army 516,839 ------- --------- Total 123,801 1,528,924

Of these 1,652,725 officers and men, several hundred thousand were already in Europe in April, either in training camps or on the battle front. "Over 100,000" was the figure given by General Pershing when he announced the number of adequately trained, fully equipped American troops that were immediately available for use in the battle of Picardy. The War Department had announced its expectation of having 1,500,000 American soldiers in the war zone before the end of 1918. The progress of training in the camps in the United States was unexpectedly rapid, and at the close of the first twelve months our troops were going across the Atlantic as fast as transportation could be provided.

General Pershing and his staff arrived in France on June 15, 1917, and less than a month later the first division of American troops followed him. Exactly 187 days after the United States declared war the first American soldiers were in the trenches. The first contingents were ordered abroad well in advance of the time intended, or expected, when war was declared.

LABORS IN FRANCE

The preliminary labors in France necessitated by the presence of an ever-increasing army were both diverse and herculean. Docks had to be constructed, railways built and equipped and cantonments, hospitals, and a base constructed. American engineers went into the French forests and there did the work of the pioneers of the American Northwest, cutting down trees to build the permanent camps which were to replace the temporary cities. They built a railroad 600 miles long from the points of disembarkation to the operating base. The rolling stock it carried was all shipped across the ocean from the United States.

All this was accomplished with great rapidity. An army locomotive, for example, was built in twenty-one days and shipped to the expeditionary forces. In a few weeks after the first departures there were urgent calls for other locomotives, for cars, trucks, logging trains, sectional buildings to be assembled on arrival. All these took many ships and appreciably delayed the transport of men. There was sent everything from fabricated ironwork for buildings and trestles to nails and crossties for the railroads. Among the items of construction is an ordnance base costing $25,000,000. Most of this preliminary work was approaching completion as the first year ended. Much of it is finished.

American troops occupy trench sectors of their own in the line northwest of Toul, and in the neighborhood of Verdun. They have taken up positions also in other sectors, and the main body is operating with the Allies in opposing the German advance. Casualties in the first year of war reached a total of 2,368, distributed as follows:

Killed in battle 163 Died of disease or accident 957 Lost at sea 237 Died of wounds 52 Other causes 47 Missing and prisoners 63 Wounded 829 ----- Total 2,368

RAISING THE NEW ARMIES

Most remarkable in the preparations for the struggle was the method of raising the new armies, namely, conscription. With comparatively little opposition the selective draft law was passed by Congress barely five weeks after the declaration of war, and three weeks later 9,600,000 young men were registered for military service. By June 30 the 4,000 local draft boards were ready to begin the task of examination and exemption. Sixteen cantonments, small cities in themselves, were already under construction in various parts of the country for the reception of the drafted men. Ninety days after this work began the initial groups of the first national army were on their way to these camps. In a steady stream since then the men have been called up, organized into military formations, and put under intensive training.

The first half million are now ready and are being sent across the ocean, to complete their training within the war zone and take their place on the battle front. As fast as the camps are emptied new men are being summoned to refill them, new battalions formed, and new forces sent forward. Another 800,000 unmarried men without direct dependents are under notice to report for duty.

The cost of raising the army under the selective draft law has been only 54 cents per registrant, $1.69 per man called up, and $4.93 per man accepted for service.

With the national army there have also been made available the 450,000 men of the National Guard, who meantime have been mustered into the Federal service and trained under their own officers. Of these three divisions, the Rainbow, (so called because almost every State in the Union is represented in its composition,) the New England, and the Sunset (Far Western) Divisions have already gone abroad, and the first two have won honorable mention in the battle zone.

TRAINING NEW OFFICERS

The National Guard had its own officers. There was none, however, to spare for the national army. The regular military establishment could provide only a handful. Two classes at West Point were graduated in advance of the usual time, but they were not enough to affect the situation. The new army was, therefore, provided with carefully selected, specially trained officers, chosen by merit rather than on the old system of political appointments, by the general adoption of the Plattsburg training camp system, initiated in 1915. When war was declared there were already in the United States some 20,000 graduates of the Plattsburg, Fort Oglethorpe, and other training camps, who had undergone at least one month's intensive military training, supplemented by military studies when out of camp.

The Plattsburg organization was taken over by the War Department, and a series of sixteen training camps for officers, in which most of the earlier Plattsburg graduates were commissioned as subaltern and company officers, was opened at advantageous points, and continued until the middle of August, 1917. Of 40,203 candidates enrolled in these camps 27,341 qualified for commissions. Sufficient officers were thus at the cantonments to receive and command the national army when the men arrived. A second series of officers' training camps was begun in August, to add to the line and staff. Approximately 23,000 candidates attended, of whom 17,237 obtained commissions. Many who failed have since been enlisted and appointed noncommissioned officers in the national army. A third series was instituted in January, 1918, to create an officers' reserve force. Only enlisted men were admitted, except for a limited number of students who had received military training in schools under army officers during the last ten years. About 18,000 are in attendance, and the problem of officering the new armies has practically been solved.

PROVIDING THE GUNS

When war was declared, the Army Ordnance Department had ninety-seven officers. It now has 5,000 in America and abroad, and in the first year of the war had spent $4,756,500,000. To its peace-time task of administering eleven small Government arsenals has been added the problem of getting quick production of shells of all calibres, rifles, ammunition, grenades, and bombs from some 1,400 private manufacturing establishments. It has acquired a total of 2,475,219 square feet of storage space, has 2,701,880 square feet more under construction, and requires 23,000,000 square feet altogether to store its supplies. It has miles of railroad sidings, all inclosed, including 50 miles of track especially built, and it handles 10,000 carloads of explosives a month, with the total steadily increasing. The complexity of the Ordnance Department's task may be seen in the fact that the number of items made and supplied to the troops totals about 100,000, ranging from the small firing pin of a rifle to a complete 16-inch gun and emplacement, or a motor truck or tractor. Reserves of all these spare parts must be maintained and ready for distribution.

The Ordnance Department has had to create organizations, build new plants, finance them and to design as well as to manufacture not only the weapons themselves, but thousands of tools, gauges, and jigs required for their manufacture. For instance, the French Government offered the secret of the recoil mechanism in the carriages of its famous .75 guns. To manufacture these it was necessary to machine steel castings so accurately that they will not be off two-thousandths of an inch in a distance of more than six feet.

BUILDING NEW PLANTS

Never had machinery been built in the United States to work on so large a scale with such a degree of accuracy. The Ordnance Department had to persuade manufacturers to undertake this difficult work, to assist them financially to build a thirteen-acre plant, to purchase and manufacture $6,000,000 worth of special tools, and develop an organization to do this. The contract was signed on Nov. 1, 1917, and today the plant is completed and is turning out the recoil mechanisms.

The Nitrate Division has under construction two plants for the manufacture of powder, costing $45,000,000 each.

The Ordnance Department itself has provided for the army 1,400,000 rifles, has brought the production of them up to 45,000 a week, or enough to equip three army divisions; has secured deliveries on 17,000 machine guns and brought the rate of production of them from 20,000 to 225,000 a year. It has increased the rate of production of field guns, heavy and light, from 1,500 to 15,000 a year, and is manufacturing 35,000 motor trucks and tractors to haul them and their ammunition. It has remodeled the British Enfield rifle so that it can be produced in quantities to take American ammunition and adopted two new types of machine guns, the Browning, heavy and light.

The United States entered the war resolved to win supremacy in the air. Congress adopted an appropriation of $640,000,000, in addition to $15,000,000 already granted, to provide the best airplane service possible. The best motor engineers in the country combined their talents to provide a motor, and the result of their efforts was the Liberty motor, asserted to be superior to anything used by any army air corps. Delivery of the new motors in quantity has been delayed by various causes. But the initial difficulties have been solved and quantity production of battle planes, as well as of training planes, is expected during the Summer of 1918. While there are more than seventy different types of airplane motors on the western allied front, the United States is relying on a single standardized type, greatly reducing the ratio of forty-seven men required on the ground by foreign service for every man in the air.