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.

ENGINEERS' TOOL WAGON.

ENGINEERS' BLACKSMITH SHOP, CLOSED.

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 serviceas 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 theexhaust 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 ofsearchlights 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.

DERRICK TRUCK FOR OVERSEAS USE.

LIGHT MICROPHONE SET.

GEOPHONE SOUND RANGING SET.

AMERICAN T-M SURFACE SOUND-RANGING SET.

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