CHAPTER XVIPROVIDING 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 portionswere 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 thewing 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 andcamera 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 builtaccording 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 complicatedchanges 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 butone-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 wasgiven 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.