Chapter 53

A FIELD OF ROLLING KITCHENS AT NEVERS, FRANCE.

FIELD KITCHEN EQUIPMENT.

MULES AFTER MALLEINING.Malleining is a serum test to determine if the animal is suffering from glanders.

MULES AFTER MALLEINING.

Malleining is a serum test to determine if the animal is suffering from glanders.

The baling plant at New York in the calendar year 1918 shipped to France approximately 1,000,000 bales of clothing and textile and other equipment that could be baled. The saving in money to the United States Government by this method of packing at this one plant in a single year amounted to approximately $55,000,000. The largest item in this economy was the matter of cargo space, which is estimated at $49,080,000 saved to the Government. The complete statement of the financial saving in the shipment of these 1,000,000 bales is as follows:

In addition to the financial saving there was a large saving in raw materials, which count for more than money to a nation engaged in a desperate war. This million bales of clothing saved 58,000,000 board feet of lumber, which would have been used in boxing had the old system of packing been followed. The lumber which might have gone into these boxes requires 30 years for its growth, but the burlap covering the bales was made of jute, which is raised in semiannual crops.

The size of the bale adopted was 30 by 15 by 14 inches and up to 19 inches. It is interesting to note that this size was determined upon because it was found that the burlap covering such bales of this size would cut into sandbags with a minimum amount of waste material. The Army abroad used great quantities of sandbags. Thus, by wrapping bales in burlap pieces of proper size, there was saved a considerable amount of cargo space previously occupied by baled burlap being shipped to France to be made into sandbags. It is also notable that baled clothing arrived in France in much better condition than clothing which had been packed in cases.

The Quartermaster Corps was charged with the duty of providing horses and mules for the Army. This function is known technically as remount, and the buying of horses was in the hands of the remount division.

There were three permanent remount depots in the United States when the war began in April, 1917—one at Front Royal, Va., one at Fort Reno, Okla., and one at Keogh, Mont.,—an auxiliary remount depot at Fort Bliss, Tex., and a purchasing headquarters at Kansas City, Mo. When it became apparent that the Army would need a large number of horses, some of the most celebrated horsemen andriders in the country offered their services as buyers. Some 50 of them were commissioned as captains in the Quartermaster Reserve Corps and sent to the various purchasing headquarters for short training in the proper types of horses and animals required by the Army. These buyers purchased a large number of excellent animals.

In addition to the existing three remount depots there were established 33 additional auxiliary remount depots and two animal embarkation depots. The horses purchased were shipped to the various remount depots and there trained and conditioned for Army use.

It required a large number of officers and men to care for the remount establishment. Shortly before the armistice was signed there were approximately 400 officers and 19,000 enlisted men in the American remount service. The following statement shows the total numbers of horses and mules purchased for the American Army in the calendar years 1917-18, including those acquired by the remount service in France:

Thousands of American animals were shipped to the American Expeditionary Forces in France. Because of the lack of tonnage there were no animal shipments between March 26, 1918, and August11. Between the declaration of war and March 26, 1918, a total of 30,329 animals were shipped abroad, and in the August 12-November 30 period 37,619 animals crossed the Atlantic, making a total of 67,948 American horses and mules sent to the American Expeditionary Forces.

The total expenditures of the Army both abroad and at home for horses and mules during the war period was $115,957,000, divided about half and half between the United States on the one hand and France, England, and Spain on the other.

The largest remount depot developed during the war is located at Camp Jackson, Columbia, S. C. This depot has a capacity of about 10,000 animals and its construction cost was about $300,000. Soon after the armistice was signed, when it became apparent that animals would no longer be needed, thousands of horses and mules at the different remount depots were sold at auction, these auction sales drawing large crowds of buyers.

The problem of storing Army supplies became great only after hostilities had ceased. Before that time supplies were going through the warehouses and to the ships at the deep-water ports so rapidly that there was no backing up of the tide of them in the vast warehouse facilities that had been provided as a war measure. But as soon as the armistice was signed and the Army no longer grew in size but rapidly diminished as men were discharged, the manufacturing operations under way, necessarily continued for a time on a scale which had been developed in preparation for an Army nearly double the size of the one that existed on November 11, 1918, soon began filling up the warehouses.

The total storage capacity which the Army had on hand at the time of the fighting, exclusive of that at ports and that for the Department of Military Aeronautics, was as follows:

The operation of one of the Quartermaster depot warehouses might be described at this point, and the general supply depot at Jeffersonville, Ind., is typical. During the war this depot procured for the Quartermaster Corps of the entire Army all horse-drawn vehicles and harness, and such items as barrack ranges, field ranges, and ovens, pack-train equipment, and other supplies.

The war deliveries began at Jeffersonville in the late summer of 1917. Receipts soon outgrew storage space. Adjoining lands were leased, and supplies, covered by paulins, were stored in the open. This early period of the war, prior to the spring of 1918, was a back-up period at all the warehouses, as supplies were produced faster than men were trained and transported to France. In the late spring of 1918 Jeffersonville began making heavy shipments of supplies overseas and from then on shipments exceeded receipts. For three months before the armistice was signed the Jeffersonville depot's shipments averaged 60 carloads a day and its receipts about 25 carloads.

After the armistice was signed, Jeffersonville was designated as the depot for the storage of all surplus horse-drawn vehicles and black harnesses therefor. Extensive temporary storage sheds were erected. Inbound shipments increased to about 80 cars a day. The depot has stored 4,000 rolling kitchens of the trailmobile type, these kitchens being packed in boxes, each package weighing about 4,300 pounds. The work of storing these kitchens is still in progress, and the pile of boxes will ultimately be 45 feet wide, 30 feet high, and 1,000 feet long. As the pile is made, corrugated-iron roofing is placed on the sides and top, thus forming a waterproof building.

Crated automobile trailers, weighing about 9,000 pounds per crate, are being handled in the same manner. Wagons are stored in galvanized-iron warehouses, each one capable of receiving 2,500 wagons, without wheels. Wagon wheels are stored in specially adapted sheds. About 2,000 automobile trucks have already been received for storage in specially constructed sheds. These trucks are mainly Nash Quads, four-wheel-drive trucks, and G. M. C. ambulance chassis. These chassis are stored on end, resting on the bumpers. The engines of all trucks are well oiled and the magnetos are covered with waterproof material.

STORAGE OF AUTOMOBILE CHASSIS, JEFFERSONVILLE, IND.

STORING ROLLING KITCHENS.

METHOD OF STORING WAGON WHEELS AT JEFFERSONVILLE QUARTERMASTER STORAGE DEPOT.

METHOD OF STORING HORSE COLLARS AT JEFFERSONVILLE DEPOT.

As the supplies backed up into the warehouses, it became necessary for the Army to know where it stood in the matter of property; and a complete inventory was ordered, since there had been no time during the hurry and bustle of the war period to take stock. This inventory in itself was an enormous undertaking. To prepare for it the quartermaster training school at Camp Meigs, D. C., was completely transformed into a school for training experts for taking inventories. A standard scheme was worked out. The experts, after being trained in the standard method, were sent out into every zone in the country as instructors. In each zone they convened the so-called "town meetings." The town meeting was made up of Army storekeepers from each depot, post, camp, and station in the zone—any place where Army supplies were stored. These representatives were schooled in the inventory method and then sent back to their stations with instructions to start the inventory on December 31, 1918. The next operation was to organize an inventory factory in Washington as the consolidating point for all the inventories in the United States.

Some idea of the number of articles which Uncle Sam accumulated as a result of the war may be gained from the fact that the inventories received in Washington filled 40,600 sheets of paper, the size of an ordinary large letterhead, with typewriting single spaced. To take the inventory required a force in Washington of approximately 100 officers and 400 civilians, while there were probably over 10,000 officers and men engaged in the entire operation over the country. The inventory was undoubtedly the largest ever taken in the world.

Before the war the standard items of Army supplies had been 20,000. The inventory in the consolidation of its figures in Washington disclosed the fact that at the beginning of the year 1919 there were 120,000 standard items, and many of these stood for large quantities of individual pieces. As this report is written, a catalogue, or standard nomenclature list of supplies, comprising 120,000 items, is being prepared, to establish throughout the United States one language of supply for all items stored, distributed, and issued under the direction of the Director of Storage.

Back to Index Next