Full text of "The fighting engineers; the minute men of our industrial army"

See other formats

'A'4 ^vWVtwOQCVANPitnar ' >

T
FIGHT
ENGIN

FRANCIS A, COLLINS

wnwriiiMiBiiiiumwWiirniiiiiMiiiomii nmni>tMfmiiMM)VKW<mrj)otico'J6

\ -^---^- '^^x

THE
FIGHTING ENGINEERS

THE MINUTE MEN OF OUR
INDUSTRIAL ARMY

BY
FRANCIS A. COLLINS

Author of "The Air Man," "The Camera
Man,'' etc

ILLUSTRATED
WITH PHOTOGRAPHS

iin,yf^€M

NEW YORK
THE CENTURY CO.

1918

P%ihlished, June, 1918

r './•

THE AMERICAN ENGINEERS
^ AT CAMBRAI

345459

CONTENTS

CHAPTER PAGE

I Railroad Building "Over There" . 3

II Destructive Engineering .... 29

III The Road and Quarry Regiments . 41

IV Forest and Farm Regiments ... 54
V Arms and the Automobile ... 75

VI The Famous iith Engineers . . . 99

VII The Man Behind THE Guns . . .115

VIII Modern Shells and Armor . . . i47

IX American Versatility 164

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS

PAGE

American engineers on the job . . Frontispiece

Officers of the Fighting Engineers .... 9

Unloading American locomotives at a French

port 10

Track work at the front 23

A short cut through a deserted French village 24

Placing a turntable on a narrow guage railroad 33

Narrow guage construction 33

Marine engineering 34

The Highway Regiment at work .... 47

Ruthless destruction of shade trees .... 48

The invaders despoiling a French front . . 61

Amputation after a gun shot wound ... 62

A man power pile driver 7^

Railroad devastation 7^

A trench digger in action .... .81

One of our 100,000 war motors 82

German efficiency in bridge destruction . . 91

An example of German bridge building . . 92

ILLUSTRATIONS

PAGE

With the forestry regiment . . ., ,., „, . 105

Building a bridge against time . ,., . . 106

Type of modern ordnance 123

Work of the "Busy Berthas" 124

A modern gun in action 141

Modern ordnance on caterpillar wheels . . 142

American foresters at work in France . . . 155

A wayside repair shop . . . . . . .156

A problem for the waterways engineers . . 165

Temporary bridge construction 166

Familiar American architecture in a French

forest 175

All that remains of a French forest ... 176

An example of destructive engineering . . . 185

After a "retreat to victory" . .. <., . ... . 186

THE
FIGHTING ENGINEERS

THE FIGHTING ENGINEERS

We dug up husky mountains by the roots ;

We spanned the rushing torrent with a bridge ;
We laid the rails to guide the steam-charged brutes

That fed the men and guns at Cambrai Ridge.
We built a road through slush and soupy mud,

While dodging shells the German "minnies" sent;
We did the Job and saw that it was good —

And then we heard another call — and went.

The pick and shovel dropped from every hand ;

We didn't even notice where they fell ;
We crawled or climbed or ran in No Man's Land

To bring back tortured souls from worse than
Hell.
And then the Germans came — we had to fight ;

With something near to joy we grabbed the guns ;
For this we'd waited many a day and night

To send our deadly greeting to the Huns.

With British Tommies we stood face to face

With Death — and counted it the Chance
Of all — to be with them in that red place,

To live and fight and maybe die for France.
So shot for shot and ball for ball we gave,

From trench and shell-hole till the fight was won ;
Then we came back, each from his living grave —

Save those whose living fighting days were done.

So when the story of the war is told,

Let one small chapter tell our little tale.
Say that we helped the thin first line to hold —

That when the Big Test came we did not fail.
But do not call us "heroes" — do not give

For those who died "out there" your futile tears.
But, smiling proudly, let their names still live

Upon the Roll — the Fighting Engineers !

H. Varley.
Courtesy New York Times.

THE
FIGHTING ENGINEERS

CHAPTER I

RAILROAD BUILDING "oVER THERE"

ON the declaration of war the call for
volunteers for the engineering regi-
ments found America admirably prepared.
In organizing its industries to create, rather
than to destroy, the country faced familiar
problems. The lively dangers of the enter-
prise served only to arouse enthusiasm. No
draft was needed to fill, almost overnight, the
ranks of nine regiments of engineers for the
period of the war. Drawing upon our
boundless resources in skilled workers, the
Government has recruited at this writing an
army of 115,000 men.

The Great War is preeminently a conflict
of engineers. A locomotive may prove more

THE FIGHTING ENGINEERS

deadly than a battery, while the building of
bridges may decide the issue of a campaign.

The fighting engineers often face greater
perils than soldiers in other branches of the
service. Theirs is in no sense a ''bullet-proof
job." Their losses frequently exceed those
of the artillery regiments, the fatalities in
which are, in turn, greater in number than
those in the aviation corps. When other
troops cross an exposed position, for in-
stance, they usually do so at the double-quick,
and seek shelter as soon as possible. The
engineers often find themselves under fire at
a time when they must stick to their work
until it is finished.

The men of the engineering regiments look
like those in any other army service. They
wear the same uniform and carry the usual
arms and equipment. Their best fighting,
however, is done with such complicated
weapons as engines, batteries, and construc-
tion tools. The engineers receive only such
military drill as will give them greater mo-
bility and better organization. After a lim-
ited period of training in camp they are hur-
ried directly to France, since their real fight-

RAILROAD BUILDING

ing ability, now so sorely needed, has long
since been trained to its highest efficiency.

While the drilling of other troops was
scarcely under way, America had put in the
field complete regiments of railroad men,
forestry workers, miners, electricians, bridge
builders, — in short, representatives of all
departments of constructive engineering.
The call for volunteers met with an enthusi-
astic response in such widely scattered cities
as New York, Philadelphia, St. Louis, Chi-
cago, Boston, Pittsburgh, Detroit, Atlanta,
and San Francisco. In New York, for in-
stance, there were men enough in line, when
the recruiting office opened on the first day,
to make up the required quota. Ten appli-
cants offered their services for every one
who could be chosen. It is significant that
the leading engineering societies of the coun-
try display ''service flags" plentifully sup-
plied with stars.

No activity of the American engineers has
made so profound an impression upon France
as the actual work of the regiments of rail-
road men. The most persistent publicity
campaign could not have taught Europe in

THE FIGHTING ENGINEERS

a generation so much about American rail-
road methods. The traveled Frenchman or
Englishman, especially if he were an engi-
neer, knew something of the progress in
railroad building in America, but the gen-
eral public in the land of our allies was not
prepared, and has been taken completely by
surprise.

When the first American locomotive
reached France a large force of our engi-
neers was on hand to welcome it. Many
French railroad men and government engi-
neers watched with lively interest the un-
loading of the strange importation. As the
parts were swung to the dock American
workmen quickly assembled them, working
with a celerity that amazed the observers.
Another force of American railroad workers
meanwhile hastily laid a section of track
from the dock to the main line. Several
days would have been required by the for-
eign workmen to complete such a task, but
in a few hours the Americans had finished
both jobs, got up steam, and tooted a fare-
well.

The American locomotive's trip across
6

RAILROAD BUILDING

France was in the nature of a triumphal
procession. The unusual size and form of
the engine naturally attracted great atten-
tion, while its American flag served to
identify the visitor and assure its welcome.
Here, in the midst of the cities and fields of
France, was a tangible proof of the arrival
of American forces. With its bell and
whistle going without interruption, the en-
gine was rushed to the eastern boundary of
France.

Its destination was a sector occupied by
American troops. News of the approach of
the locomotive from back home flashed from
camp to camp, and when the familiar whistle
and bell were heard in the distance the sol-
diers lined the tracks to welcome an old
friend. As the engine came to a standstill
the men greeted it with somewhat tremu-
lous cheers, crowding about it and patting
its wheels affectionately.

The locomotive had approached very near
the front lines, and an unexpected complica-
tion followed its noisy greeting. Its Ameri-
can crew had not learned that the ringing of
a bell is the signal at the front for a gas-

THE FIGHTING ENGINEERS

attack. The French troops who heard the
clanging bell drew their own conclusions,
and lost no time in crawling into their sub-
terranean cellars and shelters. Not a
Frenchman was on hand to welcome the
new-comer. The bell has been removed, to
be put to other uses ; but the American loco-
motive is still in active service.

The American engineers found the French
railroads very different from their own. It
is a great tribute to their skill that American
methods have been so quickly adapted to
strange conditions. The French operating
system, for one thing, is left-handed; the
tracks are not of standard gage, in our sense ;
the rails are differently adjusted, and a new
signal system had to be adopted. Add to
these problems the fact that the engineers
have to conduct their work by the medium of
a foreign language, and the difficulties may
be appreciated. Within a few days after
their arrival, nevertheless, the Americans
had taken hold of this highly complicated
system and were operating without mishap.

Large supplies of American locomotives
and rolling stock have been carried to

RAILROAD BUILDING

France, and these have been ingeniously
adapted to the new conditions. The differ-
ence in the width of the tracks was overcome
by adjusting the wheels' carriages so that the
railroad-beds would serve.

The method of building tracks in France
was a new problem for the American engi-
neer. The French rails are differently sup-
ported with wedges to tighten them. Our
rails, of course, lie directly on ties or metal
tie-plates. The French rail-joints are placed
opposite ea(;h other, instead of being stag-
gered as at home. In France a railroad
curve is built on a scale of meters of radius,
while Americans calculate the degrees of
curvature.

In taking over the French railroad-proj-
ects, the American engineers were first
obliged to study the existing French plans
and redraw them all to a new scale. The
French method of preparing blue-prints of
the proposed work differs from our own;
besides, such work must be done with the
constant aid of interpreters, and here again
great difficulty was encountered, since the in-
terpreters were laymen who were not fa-
il

THE FIGHTING ENGINEERS

miliar with technical engineering terms.
Furthermore, all the French dimensions and
quantities, which are measured by the metric
system, had to be translated into familiar
units of measurement.

The Americans, nevertheless, completed
this preliminary work, and carried through
immense railroad projects at a rate that as-
tonished the French engineers. Despite all
the difficulties they had to contend with, it is
interesting to mention the fact that one of
the projects entrusted to the Americans has
been the construction of main-line tracks
long enough to reach from New York to
Chicago.

Much of the equipment has had to be
standardized to fit new conditions abroad.
In laying down standard-gage railroad
tracks in France, a special type of eighty-
pound American Railway Association rail
was rolled for the purpose. The French
standard gage is four feet, eight and eleven
sixteenths inches, or 114 centimeters, while
American track is four feet, eight and one
half inches. The narrow track consisted of
twenty-five-pound American Society of Civil

RAILROAD BUILDING

Engineers standard rails, laid one foot,
eleven and five eighths inches, or sixty centi-
meters, apart. For both types of rails the
American engineers provide standard turn-
outs, frogs, switches, and cross-overs, made
interchangeable left or right. A light, port-
able type of track is also generally employed,
which may be laid very rapidly and bolted
into position.

Much of the trackage has been laid down
in the immediate vicinity of the great sea-
port freight-terminals. Practically all the
supplies required by our fighters abroad must
be ferried across the Atlantic. To handle
this immense freight, classification depots
and warehouses had to be built and a vast
system worked out for routing this material
from the ships to the front.

The classification sheds are very long, with
a width of fifty feet, and have eight-foot
platforms. The most approved mechanical
equipment for handling freight had to be de-
signed, built at home, and rushed to France.
The railroad construction work in these
great regulating freight-yards is said to be
the most efficient in France.

THE FIGHTING ENGINEERS

The port-docks are great rectangular
basins, which presented a pecuHar problem
to the American engineers. Parallel to the
sides and ends of these basins three lines of
tracks were laid, and cranes and loading der-
ricks were installed. In planning all this
construction, it was found that French tim-
ber does not have the same supporting
strength as American lumber, and the plans
had to be corrected accordingly. Again, the
French piles could not be had in lengths
greater than forty-five feet.

In many instances the regular materials
could not be found, and any makeshift was
employed.

Then, too, when our railroad cars arrived
in France it was found that the wheel-trucks
would not pass over the French turntables,
and an entirely new turntable system had to
be designed and built. A thousand unex-
pected difficulties had to be met, in order that
a smooth, steady stream of traffic might flow
across France to the front.

The organization of these vast enterprises
has been carried out along characteristic
American lines. A Director-General of

RAILROAD BUILDING

Transportation has been put at the head of
the building and maintenance of roads.
The completeness of the organization is indi-
cated by the titles of the various officials,
these including a Deputy-Manager of Rail-
roads, a Superintendent of Supplies, a Su-
perintendent of Equipment, a Superintend-
ent of Quarries, a Bridge-Engineer, a Su-
perintendent of Business Affairs, a General-
Superintendent of Construction, and many
division engineers. Each division is highly
specialized.

Shortly after their arrival in France the
American railroad men were set to work
on the highly complicated problem of double-
tracking several of the main lines. Every
detail of the work was entrusted to them.
Hundreds of miles of land had to be sur-
veyed, the roadbeds and bridges had to be
widened, and countless engineering prob-
lems had to be solved. Such double-tracked
lines have been built from several seaports,
— across the entire width of France, — to the
front, in order that the carrying capacity
of the railroads may be doubled as quickly as
possible.

THE FIGHTING ENGINEERS

American workers soon became familiar
objects in many sections of France. The
skill and expedition of these regiments have
made as profound an impression upon the
French engineers as upon the general public.
In the progress of this work a unique record
for speed in railroad building has been es-
tablished in France, if not in the world. A
section of standard-gage track, just five
eighths of a mile in length, — a French unit
of measurement, — was built and made ready
for traffic in two hours and ten minutes.

As the fighting men push forward, the
task of supplying millions of troops with
food and ammunition has become unprece-
dented. To this end the railroads are al-
ways the vital element. The American en-
gineers have been very active of late in the
unheard-of-task of transporting a railroad
bodily from England to France. Every rail,
tie, and spike of this system was taken up,
its proper position marked, and the immense
bulk of material loaded on steamers. The
equipment was complete to the last detail,
including the engines, cars, signal-systems,
and repair-shops.

RAILROAD BUILDING

After braving the U-boats in the EngHsh
Channel, the railroad fleet arrivel safely in
port, when an even more complicated task
had to be faced. Only trained railroad men
could be entrusted v^ith the work. The
problems involved made a special appeal to
the American engineers. Without an
amazingly efficient system the work would
have fallen into hopeless confusion. With
the aid of the newest labor-saving ma-
chinery, the track-bed was prepared, the
tracks were laid, the repair-shops established
and manned, and trains were soon running
in a foreign land on their accustomed
schedule.

The engineering methods of generations
have often been swept aside in an hour. To
transport a cargo from London to Paris and
beyond has been a complicated procedure.
Such a cargo must be handled at least four
times in transferring it from train to boat
and again to train, with countless delays, due
to the conflicting methods of two different
countries. To-day a railroad car is loaded
wdth ammunition at a factory in England
and unloaded in France at a point convenient

THE FIGHTING ENGINEERS

to the firing-line. Without the pressure of
war, so direct a method might not have been
adopted for generations. The American
railroad engineer trained to get results in
the shortest possible time, is proving indis-
pensable to France and England in the intro-
duction of these radical reforms.

Great technical skill in railroading is re-
quired to work out the new problems. The
transportation methods of both countries
must be thoroughly understood to the last
detail before they can be coordinated. The
British, French, and American engineers,
working together, have mapped out entirely
new systems of transportation. Under the
crushing burden of the war the French rail-
roads have badly run down. They are in
need of men and equipment of every kind.
The men who operate them are sorely needed
at the front. It is a matter of national
pride that our best engineering talent has
been quickly recruited for the task of recon-
struction.

The gap between the terminus of the regu-
lar railroad lines and the trenches is often
difficult to bridge. The ground may be con-

RAILROAD BUILDING

tinuously under fire from the great siege-
guns of the enemy's batteries. Since the
battle-Hne is drawn without a break uphill
and down dale for hundreds of miles, it
often passes through rough country. The
land back of the trenches is frequently
broken by deep ravines or valleys, where or-
dinary railroad construction would be diffi-
cult to carry on and to defend. The en-
emy's aeroplanes are constantly on the look-
out for such targets.

A light, narrow-gage track, separated by
only twenty-four inches, is commonly used
for the railroads immediately back of the
trenches. By using light timbers, or almost
any makeshift for ties, several miles of such
track are often laid overnight. The trains
of supply cars are hauled either by steam-
engines or by gasoline-motors ingeniously
contrived from an automobile. When it is
important that the trains be as noiseless as
possible, horses and mules are used as motive
power.

When very rough country is to be bridged,
an ingenious cable railway, which may be
thrown across a deep ravine in a few hours,

THE FIGHTING ENGINEERS

is often employed. A narrow bridge or
walk is built, of lumber, and light cables are
strung at the side. The wheels of the cars
are grooved to fit these cables, so that a com-
paratively heavy load may be moved by
hand-power.

When the trench-railroads traverse spe-
cially exposed country, tunnels are often dug
as a protection against attack. The tracks
are arched, covered with branches of trees,
ingenious arrangements of boards, or strips
of painted cloth for the purpose of deceiving
the scouting air men. The most flimsy cov-
ering, if the coloring is cleverly arranged,
will suffice. The familiar routine of rail-
roading often goes forward in these curious
tunnels within sound, perhaps within range,
of the firing-lines.

American railroad men have been espe-
cially commended by the British officers for
their work in the flooded districts near the
front in Flanders. Until our men came it
had been found impossible to establish rail-
road connections in the inundated sections.
The British troops in this region were com-
pelled to wade through a morass, camping on

RAILROAD BUILDING

the slightly higher bits of ground. The
railroads were usually covered with water
as fast as they were built.

To drain off the land, — hundreds of
square miles of it, — was obviously impos-
sible, while filling-in would have required
enormous labor. The American engineers
solved this problem, and actually "floated a
railroad" that keeps the advanced lines in
continuous communication with the rear.
The censor has not permitted any informa-
tion in regard to this work to come through,
— for such information would be highly
valuable to the enemy, — other than the gen-
eral statement that an ingenious application
of hydraulics has been employed.

The fighting railroad engineers at present
comprise three regiments for operation, five
for constructive work, and one for motive
and repair work. The Eleventh Engineers
has been recruited largely in New York ; the
Twelfth Engineers comes from St. Louis;
The Fourteenth, which directs operation of
railroads, hails from New England; the
Nineteenth, composed of railroad shop-men,
comes from western Pennsylvania. It is the

THE FIGHTING ENGINEERS

last regiment which has done such excellent
work on the Paris-Orleans system. The
Thirty-Fifth was organized at Camp Grant,
Rockford, Illinois. Still other regiments
have been raised in Chicago, on the Pacific
Coast, and in the southwest. Each of these
regiments includes iioo men and 33 officers.
The work of our railroad regiments
abroad has been greatly facilitated by un-
limited American supplies. Until Novem-
ber, 15, 1917, the orders for railroad equip-
ment exceeded $70,000,000; since that date
these figures have been greatly increased.
The early orders for supplies included :

100,000 tons of steel.

3000 complete turnouts.

500,000 ties.

12,000 freight-cars.

600 field- and ballast-cars.

600 miles of telephone and telegraph wire.

The work of the Canadian engineers in
France has attracted special attention.
Little was known abroad of the railroad en-
gineers in Canada. On their arrival, a com-
pany of Canadians were assigned to a par-

(•-.' tp t *?,

Fji^^

RAILROAD BUILDING

ticularly difficult piece of railroad construc-
tion, and a time far short of ordinary esti-
mates was fixed for completing the work.
It was not thought possible that the Cana-
dians could do the work, at least not in any-
thing approaching the time agreed upon.
The workmen from oversea were handi-
capped by an unfamiliar environment. But
these men, fresh from a successful struggle
with grades in the Canadian Rockies, found
the task comparatively simple. The work
was completed several days before the ex-
piration of the time allotted them.

Perhaps the most striking feat of the Ca-
nadian railroad men has been the transpor-
tation of large sections of railroads with
their equipment, bodily from Canada to
France. The Canadians found that they
could spare many of the side-tracks from
their railroad systems. To build so much
track and equipment would have taken time,
and time was a valuable commodity. Miles
of track were quickly taken up, carried to the
eastern seaports, loaded on shipboard, and
carried to France. Within a few days after
their arrival the tracks were actually doing
25

THE FIGHTING ENGINEERS

invaluable service in putting through troops
and ammunition-trains from the seacoast to
the front. To borrow a railroad from a
neighbor is a unique request, especially when
he lives more than three thousand miles over-
sea.

All locomotives used near the front are
painted a battleship gray, to render them as
inconspicuous as possible. The American
locomotives now employed in France are not
our most powerful type, although far out-
classing the European models. A standard
locomotive has been selected for this work
which weighs 166,400 pounds, or 275,000
pounds with its tender. It is the familiar
eight-coupled driver-type, with two-wheeled
pony-truck in front, and will haul sixty fully
loaded freight-cars.

The biggest order for freight-cars yet re-
ceived called for 13,000 cars of the flat, gon-
dola, box, and other types. American cars
used on French tracks are considerably
longer than the French type. The latter has
a capacity of twenty tons, while the Ameri-
can car can carry thirty-five tons. They are
mounted on two four-wheeled arch-bar

RAILROAD BUILDING

trucks, measure thirty-six feet in length, and
weigh 32,000 pounds. American engineers
have studied the problem carefully and have
designed cars for this service that combine
the best American and European features.
One of the most useful pieces of machinery
sent to France is a powerful steam-shovel,
mounted on a caterpillar tractor, which is
proving invaluable in railroad construction.

The distinguished personnel of the rail-
road regiments is a guarantee of their high
efficiency. America is lending her best
talent to the service of France. The or-
ganization and development of the railroad
regiments is in charge of Mr. Samuel Felton,
president of the Chicago Great Western Rail-
road. In 19 1 6 Mr. Felton was selected to
advise the United States Army in the Mexi-
can campaign. American railroad opera-
tions in France are in charge of Brigadier-
General W. W. Atterbury, one of the
operating vice-presidents of the Pennsyl-
vania Railroad system. Prominent in the
work are such well-known railroad men as
Brigadier-General McKistry and Colonel G.
M. Hoffman.

.THE FIGHTING ENGINEERS

When the history of the American engi-
neering regiments in France comes to be
written, one of their achievements, which
has hitherto passed uncited, will doubtless
take a high place. During the Allied ad-
vance at Cambrai, American engineers
quickly extended their tracks far behind the
enemy's trenches. In the forward rush they
suddenly came upon a German railroad that
had been left untouched in the panic of re-
treat. The challenge was instantly accepted
by the Americans, who connected their own
line with the German system, so that trains
could pass from the Allied line to the former
German railroad without interruption. Our
engineers laid altogether eight miles of track
on the heels of the advancing column. By
British officers this work has been com-
mended as the most daring piece of construc-
tion in the war.

The American railroad men have the
credit, therefore, of building the first con-
necting link in the service between Paris and
Berlin since the outbreak of the war, al-
though the schedule of trains remains to be
adjusted.

CHAPTER II

DESTRUCTIVE ENGINEERING

IN no Other war have such scientific en-
gineering methods been employed in
purely destructive work. New standards
for ruthlessness have been established.
The enemy's engineers have brought techni-
cal training and wide experience to the task,
and have applied the most ingenious effi-
ciency to the work of devastation. It has
been commonly supposed that the methods
of the Romans in destroying Carthage had
set a perpetual standard; but their work now
appears primitive and unscientific.

The destruction of a railroad is an espe-
cially difficult problem for the engineers of
an invading army. In a familiar picture of
the Civil War troops are shown prying rails
from the ties, heating and bending them into
grotesque shapes. The fighting engineers
of a modern army, with the latest tools and
29

THE FIGHTING ENGINEERS

experience at their command, could repair
such damage in a few hours. To destroy
miles of track so that they could not be again
utilized would involve enormous labor.

During General Hindenberg's operations
in Galicia hundreds of miles of track were
destroyed by an entirely new method. Sol-
diers attached dynamite-cartridges to the
fish-plates of the tracks, hundreds of men
doing the work at top speed. When the
dynamite was exploded, every plate and rail
was either shattered or badly bent, thus put-
ting the system entirely out of commission.

When the same engineers had more time
to work, their program was varied. The
Russian railroads are built with a much
wider gage than those in Germany, and the
engineers with the armies invading Galicia
were quick to profit by it. The ties were
taken up and sawed, so that they would
barely serve for the German gage of tracks.
The roadbed could thus be utilized by the
Germans, and on their retreat would be
found useless for the purposes of the Rus-
sian railroads. The Germans make a prac-
tice of destroying all railroad buildings, such

DESTRUCTIVE ENGINEERING

as repair-shops, round-houses, tram-sheds,
and stations.

The destruction of bridges has also become
a scientific problem. In the early days of
the war bridges were mutilated by the simple
expedient of breaking them in the middle.
The central span would be dynamited, leav-
ing a gap in the structure, when the work
was considered complete. As the invaders
retreated, the engineers found little difficulty,
however, in patching up these structures,
sometimes in a few hours. They would
build up a pier, — often with light scaffolding,
— and mend the gap so that troops, or even
trains, would soon be passing over them.
Profiting by these mistakes, the engineers
of the invading army thereafter made a
much more thorough job of bridges by tear-
ing the frames apart until restoration was
impossible.

The long tunnels, hewn often from solid
rock, offered still another problem to the en-
gineers of destruction. New methods had
to be devised. In previous wars armies that
have occupied land containing tunnels have
respected these works which represent so
31

THE FIGHTING ENGINEERS

much labor and which play so important a
part in industrial life. In former times the
lust for destruction was not so highly de-
veloped as at present. German engineers,
however, do not content themselves with
destroying the tracks or roadbeds of tunnels,
but drill deep into the rock and blast away
the entrance, until the passages are com-
pletely blocked and can only be cleared at
great cost of labor and time.

The German engineers have also applied
characteristic methods of efficiency in cutting
down the forests of Belgium and Northern
France and in transporting them to Ger-
many. The most modern type of sawmills
and machinery for cutting and hauling logs
have been brought from Germany. The
logs are stripped of their bark, which is util-
ized, so that no byproduct shall go to waste.
When lumber is needed in any section near
the forests, sawmills have been established,
in order that the finished products can be
prepared without loss of time.

To "spike a gun" has long been an ac-
cepted synonym for crippling it. Histories
of battles abound in stories of daring men

^ ys-<;: •«t^«>«^5^

Narrow gauge construction

Placing a turntable on a narrow gauge railroad

DESTRUCTIVE ENGINEERING

who have rushed upon an enemy's gun,
forced a bayonet into the bore, and thus de-
stroyed its usefulness, perhaps at the cost of
their own Hves. The great modern pieces
of ordnance are proof against such attacks.
The old-fashioned cannon of cast-iron or
bronze might be reduced to junk by blows of
a sledge-hammer or a charge of powder.
The strength of a modern gun, however, is
proof against such attacks. But the mech-
anism for loading modern guns and mov-
ing them into position is delicate, and the
complicated machinery may be put out of
commission by a few blows directed with
scientific certainty.

The technical methods employed in mod-
ern range-finding have been made an excuse
for immense destruction. Many great
buildings, even whole towns that would have
been spared in past wars, have been attacked,
because they aided the enemy in directing
artillery fire. The success of a shot from
one of the great modern cannon is not due
so much to the man behind the gun as to the
man behind the telescopic sight. By de-
stroying towers, or positions from which

THE FIGHTING ENGINEERS

such observations may be made, the effective-
ness of artillery may often be greatly re-
duced. A problem new to international law-
has thus been raised in the present conflict.

It is frequently found necessary to sacri-
fice valuable property, belonging to loyal citi-
zens, in order to facilitate artillery fire or
to gain some purely technical advantage.
During the early days of the war, when the
German advance through Belgium men-
aced Paris, a considerable section of the city
was marked for destruction, in order to give
free range for the great batteries brought up
for its defense. Besides, in the event of the
enemy's advance to this point, the buildings
would afford valuable shelter. Here was a
problem for the technical engineer. A large
force of men was engaged in this work, and
rows of buildings were scientifically demol-
ished. Explosions of the blasts used to re-
duce them were distinctly heard on the inner
boulevards of Paris.

A special tribute should be paid to the
Frenchman who cheerfully sacrificed his
chateau in Northern France, so as to assist
the artillery fire of a French battery. The

DESTRUCTIVE ENGINEERING

ancient building, surrounded by gardens,
was shown to be in the way. The owner at
once agreed to make the sacrifice; and he
cahiily watched the French guns reduce his
ancestral home to ruins.

A striking parallel might be drawn be-
tween the methods employed by the Romans
in devastating Carthage and those employed
by the invaders of modern France. The
scientific destruction of this rich, fertile
country has been complete in every detail.
When the enemy's forces retreat, nothing
is left that the returning population may
utilize in restoring their land to normal con-
ditions. The homes in villages, for example,
are reduced to piles of debris. Trained en-
gineers first inspect the ground and deter-
mine how dynamite may be exploded to re-
duce the walls with the least possible waste
of energy. Bridges are damaged beyond
hope of repair by men skilled in bridge con-
struction; roadways are ploughed up; shell-
fire has pitted much of this country with
craters, while the intricate systems of
trenches have chopped up the once fertile
fields.

345459

THE FIGHTING ENGINEERS

Engineers who have visited these scien-
tifically devastated regions differ v^idely as to
the length of time necessary to bring this
land back to its original condition. Some
have thought that a generation w^ould be re-
quired, while others have been more hope-
ful. Meanwhile the problem of restoration
has been attacked with an engineering skill
and efficiency equal to that of the invaders.
Portable cottages are built wholesale. They
are then taken apart, to be set up with all
possible despatch when the opportunity
comes to reoccupy the relinquished territory.
An army of workers has been recruited for
this work for which much of the service is
volunteered.

In Northern France many of the roads
that were the pride of the country have been
found hopelessly mutilated by the enemy's
engineers. The work has evidently been
done by experts in road engineering, so that
it would be easier to build a road in a new
land than to attempt to mend these old road-
ways. To work such destruction by hand
would require an immense expenditure of
time and labor; so, with characteristic effi-

DESTRUCTIVE ENGINEERING

ciency, massive power-machines have been
employed by the enemy, machines that tear
up the roadbed and scatter it, while keeping
up a slow but steady pace.

The work of directing the water-courses
and flooding the country whenever possible
has evidently been carried out by expert hy-
draulic engineers. A dam is thrown across
a stream, and, when necessary, the water is
even siphoned to a new level. Great tracts
of land are thus placed under water, and
these tracts have to be drained at great ex-
pense before the territory can be reclaimed.
These engineers often show great ingenuity
in diverting the streams in such a way that
sand will be washed over the fertile soil,
thus rendering it useless to the farmers for
a long period to come.

Since France is covered with an intricate
network of canals, the enemy's engineers
have found an unusual opportunity for sci-
entific destruction. In time of peace a great
fleet of canal-boats can navigate from one
end of France to the other. The destruction
of these waterways will cripple the interior
commerce of France for years to come. A
39

THE FIGHTING ENGINEERS

favorite method of the invaders is to con-
struct dams across the canals and so flood the
surrounding country. In other places great
sections of the banks are torn away by ex-
ploding mines, so that when the country is
reoccupied by the French the waterways
cannot be used without rebuilding them.

One of the most wanton tricks of the
retreating Germans is to leave a watch hang-
ing in plain view in a deserted home. The
watch is electrically connected with a mine,
so that the first person who touches it is
probably instantly killed in the explosion
that follows. No possible military advan-
tage is gained by this practice.

The condition of these reoccupied cities
has been vividly pictured by a member of
the nth Engineers in a recent letter from
the front. He writes:

Visited a large French city the other day, which
the Germans occupied, but which was later recap-
tured by the French. No human being could imag-
ine the destruction that has been wrought there.
Among the thousands of houses, there is not a
single one that could be lived in. Most of them
are beaten to dust, churches and everything else.

CHAPTER III.

THE ROAD AND QUARRY REGIMENTS

FRANCE, in proportion to its area, has
an immense mileage of roads, which
naturally play a vital part in military opera-
tions. In many sections of that country
there is an average of one mile of road to
every one and a half square miles of land.
Enormous labor is involved in keeping these
roads open for war traffic, and American
engineers have tackled this problem with
characteristic vigor.

The Road Building and Quarry Regiment,
which was organized especially for such
work, contains engineers experienced in road
building under a great variety of conditions.
The regiment carried to France a large con-
structive plant, with much labor-saving ma-
chinery, new to Europe, to facilitate the
work.

These American engineers first made an
41

THE FIGHTING ENGINEERS

exhaustive study of the resources of the
French quarries. Two men were selected to
investigate. One was formerly prominent
in the quarry business on the Pacific Coast,
and the other was formerly the representa-
tive of a large machinery manufacturing
company. In their tour of inspection they
covered nine hundred miles by automobile,
visiting the principal quarries of France.
The data thus gathered made it possible to
accurately gage the resources of the quarries
and at the same time to suggest what ma-
chinery would be required.

It was found that the French method of
quarrying calls for little use of the modern
mechanical equipment common in America.
According to American standards of effi-
ciency there is an immense loss, due to the
general use of hand-labor. It is impossible
at present to find the proper mechanical
equipment in France, and such machinery
will have to be imported from America.

To begin with, most of the drilling in the

French quarries is done laboriously by hand.

The rate of drilling is said to be only from

one to one and a half meters per man a day.

ROAD AND QUARRY REGIMENTS

The drill-holes are usually about eight feet
in depth. As a rule, the rock encountered
is a soft limestone, with layers of clay.
When the American steam-driven jackham-
mer-drills get to work, the output will doubt-
less be enormously increased.

After a blast the rock is usually broken
by hand. The hammer used for this work
is small, and the handle has been compared
by Americans to a light cane. The stone-
crushers used in some quarries are small
and ineffective, compared with the American
machines. Great improvement is also pos-
sible in the use of power in driving these
machines. The cars used for carrying
stone are usually loaded by hand. The
plans of the engineers of the Quarry Regi-
ment include the general use of modern
American stone-drilling and stone-crushing
machinery, new methods of handling and
storing the stone, and greater efficiency in
loading the cars.

One of the first problems in such construc-
tion is to build roads as free as possible from
dust, since the dust-clouds quickly attract the
enemy's fire. The slow, laborious work of
43

THE FIGHTING ENGINEERS

road-construction must often be carried on
very close to the front, and the casualty rate
is high. The problem is rendered extremely
difficult by the unprecedented burdens the
modern military road must support. It is
often impossible, moreover, to get the best
materials for road-building, and ingenious
shifts must be employed. Again, ordinary
road-building machinery cannot be employed
near the front. A puff of smoke from a
steam-roller, or the steam from its exhaust,
is likely to attract a devastating fire from
some German battery.

It was soon found that the limestone used
in France for road-making was so soft that
it clogged the American stone-crushers; but
this was obviated by designing a special jaw
for crushing it. American engineers have
learned to like the soft limestone, since it
compacts easily and thus facilitates the work.
The familiar macadam road is found to stand
up best under the enormous strain of war
traffic, but even the best roadbed requires
constant mending. It has been difficult to
find the trap-rock commonly used in Amer-
ica, but in the vicinity of the industrial cen-

ROAD AND QUARRY REGIMENTS

ters there is abundance of slag. The road-
builders are constantly experimenting with
new materials and new constructive methods,
and this war experience is proving invalu-
able.

A large force of American engineers and
workmen has set to work to widen the
French roads. These men find the main
roads sufficiently wide, but many of the road-
ways are only eighteen feet in width, and
these are to be increased to thirty-four feet.
An immense amount of labor is, of course,
involved in this work.

The existing drainage-system must be re-
adjusted, bridges must be widened, and
scores of such problems solved, without in-
terrupting traffic for an hour. The main
military roads must be constructed with all
the skill known to such engineering. A
weight of thirty tons is commonly carried
on a four-foot wheel-base, while eighteen
tons of artillery are often supported by a
single axle. The tanks are kept off the
roads as much as possible, and when they
have to be used a road-mending crew always
follows to repair the resulting damage. The
45

THE FIGHTING ENGINEERS

weight of the tanks also worries the builders
of wooden bridges.

The regulation of road-traffic on crowded
thoroughfares is always difficult; but the
problem is immensely complicated near the
front. A greater number of motors often
pass a given point near the front than are to
be seen on Broadway or Fifth Avenue dur-
ing the rush hours. Accidents are common,
but the road must be kept clear at all costs.
This dense stream of traffic must also be hur-
ried forward at night, without slackening its
pace and practically without lights, lest they
attract the enemy's attention.

War traffic is regulated by military ''traf-
fic cops," stationed at regular intervals. By
day the traffic men signal with three flags, —
red, green, and white, — and by night they use
small lanterns of the same colors. The
white signal, day or night, means "all clear,"
the green signal is to slow down traffic, and
the red is to bring all traffic to a stop. When
artillery or infantry wishes to pass, the road
is completely cleared for them without a
moment's delay.

It is so important that all lights be con-
46

ROAD AND QUARRY REGIMENTS

cealed at night that the immense traffic is
compelled to find its way in the dark. To
keep this traffic on the straight way a series
of whitewashed pickets are driven at inter-
vals of ten feet along the roadside. One of
the favorite diversions of the German air-
men is to locate a crowded military roadway
and, flying low, to rake the line of ammuni-
tion-trucks with their machine-guns, in the
hope of causing an explosion.

As the road-builders approach the front,
their work becomes increasingly difficult.
The ground is often a succession of shell-
craters, where no ordinary road could be
built without an immense amount of grad-
ing; and neither time or money can be spared
for such work. In such cases they build a
very serviceable plank road. The timbers
for this road are prepared of a standard size,
measuring five by nine inches, with a length
of nine feet. The lumber is adjusted to the
irregularities of the land, the planks are
spiked firmly together. This plank road is
quickly laid and serves very well for one-
way traffic.

The Road-Building Regiment has also
49

THE FIGHTING ENGINEERS

performed invaluable service in constructing
miles of foot-bridges throughout the devas-
tated regions of Northern France and Bel-
gium. Great tracts of country have been
so cut up by shell-craters or abandoned
trenches as to be practically impassable.

The Americans have introduced a type of
foot-bridge familiar in marshy tracts in the
United States, by driving stakes into the
ground and constructing a narrow board-
walk a foot or more above the ground or
water, as the case may be. Its construction
is simple and inexpensive, and it clears the
way for the passage of light wheelbarrows,
small wagons, and foot-traffic.

Volumes might be filled with descriptions
of the engagements of the road-builders.
For instance, it is the boast of the men of
the Road-Building Regiment that when they
had been enlisted but seven months they
had seen four months' service at the
front.

The following quotation from a letter
from one of the officers gives an excellent
picture of their work. He writes:

ROAD AND QUARRY REGIMENTS

The day after Thanksgiving we left camp at six
o'clock. We were running parallel with the front
line and about one mile and one half from it.

There was very heavy shelling, — in fact, quite a
barrage was breaking just over the hill between us
and the front line ; but, as we had been more or less
under shell-fire during the past weeks, we did not
think it was anything unusual. We had just set
nicely to work, spread along nearly a half-mile,
when the barrage lifted over the hill. We had to
get out then as quickly as we could, although we
had not yet any idea that the Boche was coming
over.

Lieutenant Holstrom had to go through the bar-
rage to reach his detail. Lieutenant Cone went in
one direction and I went in the other, to get all the
men away. In fact, we did get every man away
who was in sight ; but a number of men had jumped
into dugouts for shelter from the shell-fire, and we
could not see them.

When I had brought every man away from my
vicinity, I started across a field, hurrying the men
ahead of me to a sunken road several hundred yards
away. Cone was one hundred yards to my left
and slightly in the rear, hurrying along the men he
had gone for. We were all just ahead of the bar-
rage.

When I reached the sunken road I got the men
into dugouts there, and looked back over the edge

THE FIGHTING ENGINEERS

of the road. There was Cone coming along, with
his head, face, neck, — everything, — covered with
blood. He had been caught by a shell-burst ahead
of the main barrage, and the shell-bursts of the bar-
rage were now getting thick about him and over
the sunken road. I hurried out and helped him in,
with two of his men who had come in with him.
The shell-fragment had gone in one side of his
steel hat and out the other, giving him a bad scalp-
wound on top of his head, but not injuring the skull.

He said that Sergeant Haley was out there, and
that he had been hit at the same time. I went out
and found Haley, with Sergeant Donald Mclsaac
and two British Tommies, in the midst of the bar-
rage. We picked him up and carried him to the
sunken road. Mclsaac and I then returned for a
Tommy, who we had been told was wounded out
there in the barrage. We could not find him, and
as the Boche was then coming over the hill, we re-
turned to the sunken road and got the men out of
the dugouts and started them back to safety.

As the shell-fire stopped, it seemed as if hundreds
of Hun aeroplanes filled the air and turned their
machine-guns on us while we were crossing the
field or were on the roads. They were flying so
low that we could see every detail. If we had only
had our arms — ! Never again !

The shortest man in the regiment is a little Sec-
ond Lieutenant (one of those who has been pro-
moted) who was struck in the head with a bullet

ROAD AND QUARRY REGIMENTS

that went clean through both sides of his steel hel-
met and chipped the upper edge of his forehead on
the way. If he had been one quarter of an inch
taller, it would have finished him. A story has
reached us through the Tommies that one of our
men was found dead in the field from bayonet-
wounds ; but he had three Germans in front of him,
killed by the railroad pick he had wielded valiantly.

CHAPTER IV

FOREST AND FARM REGIMENTS

IN recruiting the Forestry Regiment only
men having technical training or actual
experience in forestry work were chosen.
The foresters are in charge of two regular
army officers, and this body includes fifteen
foresters selected from the United States
Forestry Service, two from the Forestry
Branch of British Columbia, one lumberman
from the Indian Forestry Service, and thir-
teen foresters, or skilled lumbermen, taken
from civil life. One thousand skilled
woodsmen complete the regiment, which is
divided into six companies of 164 each. No
more vigorous and fearless body of fighting
engineers could be found than this regiment
of brawny lumberjacks, seasoned by ex-
posure in many winter camps.

The foresters were among the first Amer-
icans to enter war service. As early as
June, 191 7, a sawmill unit, composed of 360

FOREST AND FARM REGIMENTS

men, was recruited in New England, com-
pletely equipped with portable sawmills, and
hurried abroad. The machinery and sup-
plies were sufficient to make the unit self-
sustaining for one year. The unit has since
been at work cutting lumber in Scotland for
use in France. Timber-land on Andrew
Carnegie's estate at Skibo Castle, or in the
vicinity, contains about 15,000,000 feet of
lumber.

The lumbermen assigned to France were
first assigned to two training camps, — at
Washington and at Fort Leavenworth, Kan-
sas,— where they were uniformed and armed
like other units of the United States Army.
The camp experience was intended to train
these independent types of workmen in mili-
tary discipline and accustom them to team-
work. In this way a mobile body of work-
ers has been formed to carry on the work of
logging and milling in France and to solve
many problems in intensive forestry.

Never, perhaps, has a more difficult prob-
lem confronted America's woodsmen ; for the
forests in many parts of France have been
destroyed with malicious, scientific skill.

THE FIGHTING ENGINEERS

The American Forestry Regiment fights
with weapons of characteristic power and
ingenuity. Their equipment includes five
complete, large, mobile, steam-driven saw-
mills, which have been transported across the
Atlantic and hurried to the devastated sec-
tions of Northern France. Each of these
sawmills can turn out 20,000 board feet of
lumber every ten hours. By working the
mills in two shifts, each of these mills has
turned out 40,000 feet of lumber a day, while
the total daily output of the combined units
is 200,000 feet.

This regiment also carried to France five
smaller and more portable sawmills which
might be drawn by either a motor or four
horses, thus saving much valuable time.
The smaller mills, have an output of from
8000 to 10,000 feet of lumber, or a combined
output of 50,000 feet every ten hours. A
number of horses were carried along to be
used in logging work, so that the Forestry
Regiment suppled both the machinery and
the power required.

The problem of transportation was antici-
pated by carrying to France twenty-five miles

FOREST AND FARM REGIMENTS

of light steel rails for the construction of a
railroad to carry lumber and finished prod-
ucts from the forests to the front. The sci-
entific ruthlessness of the Germans is thus
matched against an unexpected unit of effi-
ciency from overseas.

The hum of these American sawmills has
sounded a new and welcome note in the for-
ests of France. Once safely landed on the
Continent, our men and machinery were
quickly transported to the forest lands.
With a skill born of long experience in
American forests, the trees were felled and
transformed into the finished products so
anxiously awaited.

It is estimated that about 25,000,000 feet
of lumber is needed monthly to supply the
armies and carry on the war. For this
supply the Allies must depend mainly on the
forests of France. American forestry ex-
perts report that the French forests consist
of pine, fir, oak, beech, and other hard woods.
The timber is smaller than the American
lumberjacks are accustomed to, and the for-
ests resemble the wood-lots of southern New
England. The logs are sawed into boards
57

THE FIGHTING ENGINEERS

and dimension material ; the smaller trees are
hewn into ties, poles, etc. Nothing is
wasted. One of the most valuable products
of the forests is charcoal. The soldiers in
the trenches warm themselves by burning
charcoal in small braziers, since the smoke
from wood-fires would attract the attention
of the enemy. Timber is selected and cut
with the greatest care, so that the forests
may be left in good condition for further
production.

In following the fortunes of our forestry
workers in France, it should be kept in mind
that the men are serving in two regiments,
known as the Tenth Engineers and the
Twentieth Engineers. The former regi-
ment, comprising about 3000 men, has been
serving in France for several months at this
writing. The latter regiment, whose full
strength will be 7740 men, is now being re-
cruited and trained for immediate service.
It includes ten battalions, each commanded
by a major, with the usual number of cap-
tains and lieutenants. Of these officers, fifty
per cent, are men who have had practical
forestry experience, while twenty-five per
58

FOREST AND FARM REGIMENTS

cent, have had regular military training.
The forestry regiments are representative,
having been recruited from fourteen dis-
tricts in widely separated sections of the
country. A good idea of the versatility of
the forestry regiments may be gained from
the list of workmen. This includes skilled
axmen, wood-sawyers, crosscut-saw-filers,
tie-hewers, skidders, teamsters, wheel-
wrights, blacksmiths, mill-sawyers, circular-
saw-filers, expert mill-hands, carpenters, ma-
chinists, and charcoal-burners. All the men
are enlisted for the period of the war.

The vital need of lumber to construct rail-
roads was soon relieved by an output of mil-
lions of railroad ties. Several of these mills
have been worked overtime at full speed, es-
pecially in the winter months, to supply cord-
wood for fires to warm the troops in camp.
The trenches have drawn freely upon this
supply.

In rebuilding cities and villages through-
out Northern France our American sawed
lumber has proved invaluable. Entire vil-
lages have been rebuilt with such material
within a few days after their evacuation by
59

THE FIGHTING ENGINEERS

the Germans. Much of this work has been
standardized. Roofs have been constructed
by the thousand, and these may be quickly
placed on the walls of houses that have been
left standing. Houses are built wholesale,
taken apart, and transported to the devas-
tated districts, to be set up in an incredibly
short time. The advance of this American
regiment into the forests of France will be
remembered as one of the great achieve-
ments of the war.

In building barracks and hospitals by the
acre for our soldiers in France an unsur-
mountable difficulty seemed to face American
engineers. France was already badly in
need of lumber, and the extensive barracks
required for the shelter of a million or more
men made a serious demand upon her re-
sources. The American Forestry Regiment
was turned loose on the work. The French
Government assigned to their use extensive
forest lands in France, and the regiment,
with their battery of sawmills, advanced on
the double-quick. By working these peram-
bulating sawmills double-time, hundreds of
thousands of feet of lumber of the desired

rm-:i^:

FOREST AND FARM REGIMENTS

shape and size were turned out daily, and
the great barracks rose as if by magic.

The experience and energy of American
foresters have in the same way worked mar-
vels in restoring the mutilated forests of
France. A tree that has been badly dam-
aged by gun-fire, for instance, may often be
nursed back to life. The modern tree-sur-
geon works astounding cures. His skill in
saving trees damaged by wind-storms or in
prolonging the life of historic trees is well
known at home. The shattered limbs are
pruned with a skilful hand, or parts are re-
moved and the cavities filled with the cement.
Serious wounds are thus healed, while old
trees are rejuvenated and their lives pro-
longed indefinitely. By the application of
these modern methods of intensive forestry,
thousands of trees have already been re-
stored in France.

In the regions seemingly devastated be-
yond hope by the invaders the work of re-
forestry was quickly begun. The method
is familiar in many sections of the United
States. Trees are grown from seeds sown
in hotbeds; and these seeds sprout like grass.

THE FIGHTING ENGINEERS

The tiny sprouts are separated and trans-
planted, and on reaching a height of a few
inches, are set out in specially prepared soil
throughout the regions to be reforested. A
bed of small trees a few feet in extent will
some day spread out to cover great areas of
land. To save time, small trees are im-
ported, and a small package may contain
trees that will some day reclothe mountains
and valleys. The Forestry Regiment has
not waited for the end of the war, but pushes
forward as quickly as the Germans retreat.

One of the most cruel outrages visited
upon the invaded country by its plunderers
has been the destruction of fruit-trees. The
practice is forbidden by international law,
and even in Biblical times and during the
Roman conquests invaders spared such trees.
Great orchards in Northern France have
been ruthlessly and senselessly cut down, be-
ing left, so it was supposed, to die on the
ground.

Among the first to reach this devastated
land have been the tree-surgeons. These
men represent a branch of technical engi-
neering that the Germans had overlooked.
64

FOREST AND FARM REGIMENTS

By these specialists the cross-sections of the
trees are treated and joined, and the trunks
are bandaged and fastened together by
means of splints. A convalescent period fol-
lows, when the soil is renewed and the with-
ered branches are pruned away. The
French soil responds quickly to the touch of a
friendly hand, and many thousands of these
trees have blossomed again.

No plan in the complicated problem of re-
storing these devastated areas has been ne-
glected. The regiments of American engi-
neers have included a number of agricultural
experts, who have made minute surveys of
the farm-lands. On the retreat of the en-
emy, these once fertile fields are often found
in an appalling condition. For instance, it
is impossible to imagine more hopeless fields
than the region known as "no-man's-land."
There the earth has literally been torn to
pieces by the explosion of the most deadly
shells ever devised. The crater-holes are
sometimes twenty feet deep, with an even
greater diameter. The heat from these
countless explosions and the poisonous gases
have seared the ground, killing vegetation.

THE FIGHTING ENGINEERS

Besides, thousands of the shells have buried
themselves in the earth without exploding,
and the farmers are in constant fear that a
chance blow from a plough or rake will set
them off.

Our engineers have collected various types
of such shells and made careful tests. They
have' found that a shell whose detonator has
not gone off after traveling five or ten miles
through the air is practically harmless.
Tests, made by striking them with bars of
iron, showed that the farmer's danger is ex-
tremely slight. It was found, on taking such
shells apart and analysing their mechanism
and chemical contents, that after they have
been buried in damp earth for a few months
it was practcially iinpossible to explode them.
Therefore the farmer may safely pick up
these old shells as if they were so many
stones and throw them to one side, or plough
them under. The examinations of the
American experts have done much to reas-
sure the French farmers.

It was feared that the terrific force of re-
peated explosions had destroyed the rich top-
soil and would render this once fertile land

FOREST AND FARM REGIMENTS

barren for a generation to come. To the eye
of the layman the appearance of this land is
appalling. An American expert on the
chemical qualities of various soils, who has
studied these regions, has made a fortunate
discovery. He finds that, while the non-
humus-bearing, or lower, soil has been
thrown up in great quantity by the explo-
sions, the effect is likely to have a beneficial
result. The explosions have served to
loosen this lower strata, similar to the result
accomplished in America when farmers dy-
namite the hard-pan, so that roots may
reach the lower strata with its heavier mois-
ture. This expert points out that, for every
pound of this subsoil that has been disturbed,
a much larger quantity of the topsoil, which
is rich in vegetable matter, has been widely
scattered over the surface. Earth disturbed
by a shell-explosion takes the form of an
inverted cone, and it is the base or f rustrum
of this cone that is sifted about.

After this amazing upheaval the surface
soil is believed to be far richer than it was
before, and thus will yield better crops for
many years to come. American observers

THE FIGHTING ENGINEERS

have found flowers growing in such soil, —
scattered clumps of petunias, nasturtiums,
and snapdragons, the seeds of which had sur-
vived many explosions and had doubtless
been turned over many times. Often in the
most hopeless-looking soil patches of corn,
barley, oats, and Indian corn have sprouted,
the seeds of which must have been thrown
high in the air by repeated explosions. Both
the flowers and the grain are stronger and
more vigorous than those grown in the orig-
inal soil, even when richly manured.

The fear that the effect on vegetation of
poisonous gases from exploding shells will
continue for many years appears to be
groundless. Investigation by experts has
shown that the fumes bleach the grass and
shrubbery, so that it wilts and lies upon the
ground, but that the roots are rarely injured
and after a few days or weeks will begin to
sprout again. Within a month the most
rugged shell-holes are usually covered with
a heavy, rank vegetation of surprising va-
riety. A few months after the most violent
battles the fields and crops are found to be
the richest ever seen on French soil.

FOREST AND FARM REGIMENTS

The battle-fields are often covered with
litter that can only be removed by great la-
bor. The barbed wire from the entangle-
ments is easily picked up, while much of it
may be ploughed into the soil. The debris
includes pieces of railroad iron, sheets of
corrugated iron, used for roofing or lining
the trenches, pieces of concrete, and many
heavy objects, — all of which must be labor-
iously collected and carted off, much as the
farmers at home clear up a stony field.

The problem of leveling the fields and
making them ready for the plough and har-
row has also been carefully studied by Amer-
ican engineers. To ''clean up" the rugged
surface of a country, broken by innumerable
shell-craters, of course involves enormous
labor. Nature has, however, already com-
menced to lend a hand in the work. An or-
dinary shell-hole is filled up at the rate of a
foot or more a year, merely by the dust blown
into it and the silt deposited by the rain.
The great shell-crater at Pozieres, for iia-
stance, was in one year filled to a depth of
many feet by the action of wind, snow, and
rain.

THE FIGHTING ENGINEERS

Ordinary farm-tractors would prove use-
less on such land. It is even found ex-
tremely difficult to draw scrapers and shovels
over these holes. A very happy idea has
been conceived to solve this unprecedented
problem. After the war, the engineers point
out, there will be thousands of tanks in
France without any fighting to occupy them.
The ingenious caterpillar tractors, with their
great driving force, are ideal tools to crawl
over the most rugged country and drag after
them leveling shovels, ploughs, and harrows.
General Grant's famous order to let the sol-
diers keep their horses to use on the fields
may be repeated by turning over these great
fleets of tractors to the farmers of France.

Let the Germans retreat, surrendering any
sector of French fields, and the engineers and
toilers of the soil are found in instant readi-
ness to advance. When the enemy swept
over this fertile country the peasants were
always among the last to retreat. They had
been accustomed for centuries to plough a
certain furrow, and continued to do so un-
disturbed, even when they found themselves
under fire. French troops often had to use

FOREST AND FARM REGIMENTS

force to persuade the farmers to abandon
their land, when the rich fields had to be
transformed into trenches.

Once these fields have been freed from the
invader, the rural population sweeps back.
In an incredible short time the scars of war
begin to disappear. The government engi-
neers lend all possible assistance in restoring
farm-machinery or replacing it. If the
home and the farm-buildings have been de-
stroyed, which is a common occurrence, they
rebuild them, — in part at least, — or a tem-
porary wooden building, manufactured
wholesale, is rushed to the place.

American observers in this region are
amazed at the thrift and adaptability of the
French. An American family under simi-
lar conditions would require continued as-
sistance before it became independent. Give
a French family a shelter, a pair of rabbits, a
few chickens, and some food, and it is soon
self-supporting. Upon so firm a founda-
tion rests the future of Northern France.

Engineers have been organized for this
herculean work of restoration. Every need
of the farmer resident of this restored region

THE FIGHTING ENGINEERS

is studied with intelligent sympathy. Roads
are quickly rebuilt ; bridges of every form are
repaired, or new structures brought to re-
place the old ones; canals are rebuilt, and
streams are turned back to their ancient
courses. In a single year these wastes have
been made to yield valuable crops.

CHAPTER V

ARMS AND THE AUTOMOBILE

THROUGHOUT the United States to-
day the automobile industry displays
"service flags" liberally sprinkled with stars.
No class of America's fighting engineers was
more prompt to reach the war zone, and none
has continued to recruit men more freely.
Early in the war thousands of Americans
volunteered to drive ambulances, motor-
trucks, and automobiles of every type, and
their skill and daring became familiar to the
French, British, and Italian armies.

On America's entrance into the war the
motor industries were quickly mobilized, and
their wealth of experience in constructive
work was placed at the disposal of our Gov-
ernment. It is not generally realized, per-
haps, that the United States, with its 4,250,-
000 motor-vehicles of all types, has about
four times as many cars as all the rest of the

THE FIGHTING ENGINEERS

world. Considering the vital importance of
the automobile in war-engineering, the
weight of these resources is certain to prove
a vital factor in winning the war. Since
1 914 the United States has supplied the Al-
lies with more than 50,000 motor-trucks, to-
gether with an army of men to run them.

Since many of the officials of the leading
motor manufacturing companies have volun-
teered and received commissions, the best en-
gineering talent of the country is to-day in
the service of our Government. Twenty-
five representatives of our leading automo-
bile manufacturers are in France, adminis-
tering the motor-service. A single organi-
zation— the Motor-Truck Club of America
— has recruited 2000 chauffeurs, of whom
1400 have been mustered in. At the request
of the Government, training schools have
been established for transport-officers and
men. All kinds of workers in the automo-
bile industry are being specially trained, in
order that this great power may be directed
efficiently.

No other service of our fighting engineers
has been recruited in such force. For ev-

ARMS AND THE AUTOMOBILE

ery twenty-one men America will have under
arms, she will furnish two motor-vehicles.
An army of 1,000,000 soldiers will be sup-
plied with 95,000 automobiles of a bewilder-
ing variety of types. The greatest mobiliza-
tion of motor-vehicles heretofore was at
Verdun, where the cars, if placed fifteen
feet apart, would have extended more than
six hundred miles. Even France, however,
could only find one motor for every fifty men
in her armies. The English army has man-
aged to keep its front supplied with food and
other necessities by employing one car for
every sixty-six men.

As late as the spring of 191 6, when Gen-
eral Pershing was ordered to Mexico, the
army was absurdly unprepared as to its mo-
tor equipment. Great difficulty was expe-
rienced in finding a score or more of motor-
trucks adapted to the carrying of supplies to
the army. In a period of less than two years
the United States Army has become the best
motorized army in the world. Until the
Mexican trouble the motor was not popular
in the army. It is a great tribute to Ameri-
can ingenuity and energy that in this brief

THE FIGHTING ENGINEERS

period so many new types of cars, suited to
every service should have been designed and
manufactured at a rate unprecedented in
history. During the present year the United
States will turn out 2,000,000 passenger-cars
and 200,000 motor-trucks.

Among the invaluable services automo-
biles of every type have rendered throughout
the war, three great achievements, at least,
will go down in history. The rapid advance
of the German forces through Belgium
would have been impossible without the sup-
port of motors. The transportation of men,
ammunition, and food was accelerated be-
yond all precedent, to the bewilderment of
the Allies. Such an advance gave their op-
ponents little time to mobilize, and Belgium
was overrun before the French army could
be brought up or England's expeditionary
force could cross the Channel.

But the French were quick to turn this
same weapon against the invaders. Years
of preparation had given the Germans great
fleets of motor-trucks, which now stood
ready to advance at a moment's notice.
Within a few hours France had learned its

ARMS AND THE AUTOMOBILE

lesson, and when General von Kluck's army
threatened Paris it was the automobile that
saved the capital.

The French army did not possess motors in
sufficient numbers, and Paris was drawn
upon with feverish haste. The smooth, level
roads running out of Paris proved invalu-
able. Every form of car was pressed into
service. Unbroken streams of automobile
traffic were soon set in motion. Motor-
trucks, taxicabs, auto-busses, and every form
of private car were loaded with soldiers.
The men filled the bodies, lay upon the roofs,
and clung to the running-boards as the cars
dashed forward. So great a force had never
before been transported over open country at
such a pace. But Paris was saved I

Later, when the enemy concentrated his
forces at Verdun, the motor proved the force
behind the front that held the line firm. So
great a mobilization of motors had never be-
fore occurred in history. It is estimated
that the ammunition carried by a standard
auto-truck will supply one of the French
guns for ten minutes. This army of motors
moved in an endless stream over the famous

THE FIGHTING ENGINEERS

Vergennes loop. On many of the roadways
near the front the congestion of automobiles
exceeded that on great American thorough-
fares,— even that on Fifth Avenue during
the rush hours. As the traffic converged at
the front, the stream of vehicles knew no in-
terruption through the twenty-four hours.

The rapid evolution of the war automobile
was unforeseen. Twenty years had been
required to develop the early types of "horse-
less carriage" to the present models, but the
necessities of war demanded quicker action.
It is estimated that to-day there are over
100,000 automobiles of various types on the
Allies' side of the trenches.

A highly-specialized form of automobile is
demanded for war. At first the ordinary
type of commercial truck was employed; but
under new and untried conditions it proved
inefficient. The war truck must be light, yet
capable of hauling a trailer and of operating
over rough roads. The five-ton truck of
commerce answered no better than the orig-
inally designed two-ton truck, and a compro-
mise was finally struck by building a three-
and-a-half-ton truck.

ARMS AND THE AUTOMOBILE

Even to the experienced motorist the re-
sults of countless experiments in developing
a standard type will come as a surprise. It
has been found that four cylinders serve bet-
ter than six. To get the best staying power
out of a loaded car on an eight per cent, gra-
dient, new gears and systems of piston-dis-
placement had to be worked out. The chain-
drive is replaced by the worm-drive. Gaso-
line is the only fuel that will stand up under
the strain. On poor roadways a driver can-
not hope to get more than 1500 miles out of
his tires, and often it is only 200 miles. A
hundred details of construction have been
changed, reversing the familiar experience
of experts in less troublous times.

Early in the war, as the armies began ''to
dig themselves in," French engineers looked
about for labor-saving devices for trench-
^iiggiiig- The problem presented was unpre-
cedented. Thousands of miles of trenches
had to be dug; and time was priceless. If
the work were done by hand, as in the early
stages of the war, a great force of soldiers
must be thus employed who were badly
needed for fighting. It was at length de-

THE FIGHTING ENGINEERS

cided to intrust the problem to American in-
genuity.

Thereupon several manufacturers of ma-
chinery in the United States were invited to
study the problem and devise a new type of
ditch-digger, suitable for military work.
The trench-digger constructed in America
and rushed to the front proved to be one of
the most dependable engines of the Great
War, and it has released many thousands of
soldiers for more active service.

The operation of this trench-digger is as
follows : Upon the heavy motor-truck chas-
sis, so familiar in the United States, is
mounted an ingenious bucket-excavator of
the continuous-belt type. The buckets, car-
ried steadily forward by the belt, scoop up
the earth at a surprising rate, and carry it up
to chutes which dump it to one side of the
machine. The machinery is so powerful
that it will attack any soil however hard and
rocky. The belt, with its train of buckets,
may be quickly adjusted to any angle. By
merely shifting a lever the power is supplied
by the motor of the automobile. An engine
of 100 horse-power has been found sufficient

ARMS AND THE AUTOMOBILE

to drive the machine at a rapid pace, and to
operate the digging apparatus in the toughest
soils. Each digger, manned by a crew of
only five men and a chauffeur, readily does
the work of one hundred soldiers armed with
the primitive pick and shovel. Each bat-
tery of ten diggers, therefore, releases a reg-
iment of men.

A fleet of trench-diggers is probably the
most mobile unit among all the constructive
machinery employed in the Great War.
These machines are held in instant readiness
for any movement, like so many fire engines.
The crews sleep beside their machines, ready
to spring to their places and rush their en-
gines to any part of the field. Let the enemy
retreat or advance, so that a new line of
trenches is required, and the trench-diggers
are rushed to the point as quickly as our fire-
men respond with their engines and ladders.
The digging machinery is set in rapid mo-
tion. While the troops a few feet away may
be checking the enemy's advance, a trench is
scooped out of the earth, and thus by the aid
of this shelter the day is saved.

It is estimated that if all the trenches dug
85

THE FIGHTING ENGINEERS

in the present war were straightened out and
placed end to end, they would more than
circle the earth. It would have been impos-
sible without the trench-diggers to dig 25,-
000 miles of trenches of the modern type.
Much of the work, of course, is carried on
well behind the firing-line. As the trench is
cut out, workmen strengthen the sides with
boards, limbs of trees, or metal plates.
Grooved steel plates, about ten inches in
width and six feet in height, are often em-
ployed. These may be slipped into place and
securely locked without the use of screws or
hammers.

Another characteristic American inven-
tion is a searchlight mounted on a collapsible
tower and carried by a fast motor-truck. It
resembles the familiar water-tower of our
fire departments. The searchlight is of the
powerful type used in the navy. When un-
der fire, or when traversing rough country,
the tower is folded back, so that the car is
no more exposed than is an ordinary automo-
bile. The electricity for the lamp is gener-
ated by the automobile-engine.

[The searchlight may be rushed to any
86

ARMS AND THE AUTOMOBILE

point to which an automobile can penetrate,
and the light may be raised to its maximum
height as quickly as our tower-hose is
brought into action. Its powerful rays will
illuminate an object many miles distant, thus
revealing the activities of the enemy when
he least expects it. Again, from its elevated
position it will light up a large tract of land,
turning night into day. The first of these
American searchlights accompanied the
First Regiment of United States Engineers.
Among countless types of specialized auto-
mobiles for war use now built in America
are a number of trucks equipped to repair
shoes. These are manned by crews of ex-
pert shoemakers and carry the latest shoe-
making machinery. The waste of shoes at
the front is enormous. After a battle dis-
carded shoes are picked up by the thousands,
and the perambulating cobblers set to work.
No shoe is so badly worn that some part of
it cannot be utilized. When the leather is
stiff it is soaked in chemical baths until pli-
able, after which it is scraped and patched.
Even when a shoe is hopelessly worn out,
some part of it may be cirt away and used

THE FIGHTING ENGINEERS

again. Thus nothing is wasted. A single
shoe-repairing unit will sometimes turn out
two thousand shoes in a day.

Were it left to a popular vote, the favorite
unit of equipment carried by our engineering
regiments to France would doubtless prove
to be the motor-kitchen. The perambulating
kitchen, — which is really a marvel of com-
pleteness,— is mounted on a powerful motor-
truck, and may be rushed along ordinary
roads at a forty-mile pace if occasion should
demand.

The kitchen has three main compartments :
a refrigerator at the front, a storage place
for perishable foods amidships, and a large
three-open range at the rear. On this range
four large kettles or pots may be heated at
a time. Overhead, an ingenious system of
derricks and block-and-tackle devices enables
the cook to move his cooking-utensils about
with ease.

In no branch of the service is the motor-
vehicle so indispensable as in the Ordnance
Corps. Trucks to carry ammunition and
tractors to haul the big guns have been con-
structed for this corps on a lavish scale. It

ARMS AND THE AUTOMOBILE

is estimated that the Ordance Department
will have in all about 60,000 motor-vehicles,
and of these fully 10,0000 will be tractors.
A three-ton truck, which seems so efficient
in our city streets, will carry enough ammu-
nition to supply one of our ten-inch howitzers
for about ten minutes. It is obvious that
an unbroken line of motor-vehicles must span
the spaces between the supply-bases and the
great batteries, if the artillery fire is to be
continuous. The Quartermasters' Depart-
ment will have about half as many trucks as
the Ordnance Department.

No engine of warfare has undergone so
complete a transformation in so short a pe-
riod of time as the "land-ships," or tanks.
The armored automobile, from which tanks
have been evolved, had appeared in several
forms before the war, but no great conquest
was hoped for it. In the construction of the
primitive machine a conventional chassis was
employed, and the more vulnerable parts
were protected with light armor-plate. A
light field-gun was sometimes mounted on it.
In no sense, however, was it a fort, being de-
signed to carry despatches or to convoy

THE FIGHTING ENGINEERS

troop-trains in exposed territory. During
the early stages of the war in Belgium such
cars were used with good effect in small
frays, in attacking enemy outposts, and in
surprise attacks preparatory to a general ad-
vance.

As the great armies settled down to
trench-warfare all roads in the vicinity of
no-man's-land disappeared, and even the
lightest cars found the open country impos-
sible. The usefulness of the armored auto-
mobile seemed at an end. The tanks, which
are perhaps the most sensational achieve-
ment of the fighting engineers, came as a
complete surprise. In their present form
these tanks are virtually perambulating forts
whose defenses are proof against any ordi-
nary attack that field-troops can direct
against them.

To the enemy, the most baffling feature of
the tank is its ability to move at will over
land that would be impassable for ordinary
vehicles. The gaping shell-craters and fur-
rows of these areas, though cut wide and
deep, are, nevertheless, readily surmounted
by the new engine of war. The tank is

ARMS AND THE AUTOMOBILE

mounted on endless corduroy belts, and is
steered by large flange-wheels at the rear.
In passing over the roughest land the tank
maintains a speed of looo yards an hour, or
something more than a half-mile. When
the first of these tanks appeared in America,
taking part in a military parade on Fifth
Avenue, it moved over the paved street at the
speed of an ordinary pedestrian and with
surprising smoothness.

The British land-ships are of two forms,
known as the "male" and "female" tanks.
The male, which is the more formidable,
has sponsors built On either side, in which
six-pound guns are mounted behind movable
shields. The sponsors are sometimes built
with five sides, so that the guns may be
swung in a wide arc, covering the ground at
the sides, and can be fired parallel to the axis
of the tanks.

Each of these cars also carries several ma-
chine-guns, or at least four "Lewis" guns, to
serve as a supplementary battery. The fe-
male tanks are less deadly than the male, and
each carries six "Lewis" guns. The tanks
weigh thirty tons. They are driven by 105-

THE FIGHTING ENGINEERS

horse-power motors of the silent type. The
crew of each tank consists of an officer and
seven men.

These perambulating forts are impreg-
nable when attacked by either rifle or ma-
chine-gun. The armor employed at present
consists of plates one fourth of an inch in
thickness, made of steel of a special compo-
sition. The openings for the guns are so
contrived that the crews are comparatively
safe from attack, even though the tank be
surrounded by the enemy. These tanks are
painted fantastically in brown, yellow, and
green, to make them harmonize with the
landscape. While advancing at night or in
a fog they are very difficult targets to hit.

The sensations of the crew in an attacking
tank furnish experience unique in warfare.
The interior of the traveling fort barely ac-
commodates the crew of seven men. The
steering-wheel is placed forward, so that the
driver may look ahead through narrow slits
in the armor. The two field-guns are
mounted amidships. The tanks have no
springs of any kind, which makes rough go-
ing for the crew. Since the forward end

ARMS AND THE AUTOMOBILE

rakes up at an angle of thirty degrees, to en-
able it to climb trenches, the tank is often
pointed at an even steeper angle, when the
crew must hold on by main strength. The
jolting when passing over rough ground is
extremely painful. It is said that if the
tanks moved faster than looo yards an hour
over such surfaces, the movement would be-
come dangerous for the crew. Increase this
motion by the violent vibration of the steel
walls as they are peppered with the fire from
rifles and from machine-guns, often dis-
charged point-blank at the tank, and a ride
in the enemy's territory becomes a strenuous
experience.

In the famous advance of the tanks at
Cambrai one of these traveling forts became
separated from the fleet, and at a critical mo-
ment its engine suddenly stalled. The Ger-
mans, who had been keeping at a respectful
distance, hailed this accident with shouts of
joy, and rushed forward. As the driver
struggled frantically with his engine, the
enemy swarmed about the tank, climbed upon
it and sought the observation openings, in
order to shoot the crew like rats in a trap.
-95

THE FIGHTING ENGINEERS

At such short range the guns of the moving
fort were useless, and to open the doors and
make a sortie against such overwhelming
forces would have been hopeless. At this
critical moment the engines — as is the way
of engines — suddenly ''picked up." The
tank moved slowly forward, and then, gath-
ering momentum, shook off the enemy cling-
ing about it and soon crawled within the pro-
tecting range of its brother-tanks.

The French tanks differ materially from
the English models. In the former the belts
are better protected from shell-attack and are
less liable to break. They are shorter than
the British, however, and such tanks are
likely to get stuck in crater-holes from which
a British tank might readily crawl out. The
French tanks carry on their roofs a camou-
flage canvas, which can be readily unrolled
and let down to cover the tank when at rest.
Many of these machines carry the famous
French 75's, mounted inside the car, with
their muzzles pointing directly ahead.

With America's entrance into the war has
come a new development and a more general
application of the tank. ^The British used

ARMS AND THE AUTOMOBILE

the American tractor as the basis for their
tanks, increasing the motive power and pay-
ing special attention to heavy armor and
large guns. The result has been the con-
struction of formidable moving forts, with
a corresponding loss of lightness and mobil-
ity, which thus renders them rather clumsy
in supporting infantry action. The French
made fewer changes in the original Ameri-
can model and employed lighter armor and
guns. At the same time their tanks are less
cumbersome and less powerful than the Brit-
ish type.

Profiting by the experience of the English
and the French, the latest form of American
tank combines the two systems. A great
fleet of tanks of several types has been built
for General Pershing which includes both
heavy and light machines, the fleet being
thus adapted to a variety of purposes. The
heavier American tanks will be used to sup-
port our artillery in the field, while the lighter
models may be used for transporting artillery
and motor-lorries over rough roads where
ordinary automobiles could not pass. A bat-
tery of field-guns may thus be drawn into ac-

THE FIGHTING ENGINEERS

tion under a fire that would prove deadly to
exposed troops or ordinary automobile-trac-
tors. In other words, American tanks will
fight the enemy and bring heavy guns into
action at the same time.

American forces have been provided with
tanks in the same liberal spirit that marks the
supply of other equipment. An appropria-
tion of over $50,000,000 has been set aside
to construct these fleets of tanks. Their
motors will range from 12 to 250 horse-
power. Many of our tanks have already
been completed and shipped safely to France.
With such a fleet at his disposal, General
Pershing, thanks to American engineering
ingenuity, will have enough tanks to keep up
with infantry advances and maintain a sus-
tained offensive action unique in the history
of warfare.

CHAPTER VI

THE FAMOUS IITII ENGINEERS

GENERAL GRANT is credited with
saying that his troops, recruited from
many trades and professions, formed the
most efficient army ever assembled for solv-
ing engineering problems. In recruiting the
nth Engineers this ideal of general efficiency
has been completely realized. The regiment
is beHeved to be unique in the history of war-
fare. Among its 1300 engineers and skilled
workmen is enlisted much of the best talent
in America. Many of the engineers have
cheerfully given up large incomes in order
to devote their skill and, if need be, their
lives to the service.

In no department of engineering is Amer-
ica better prepared to lend assistance than
in work connected with the water-supply.
Throughout the United States every con-
ceivable problem of supply has been encoun-

THE FIGHTING ENGINEERS

tered, and this varied experience has served
to train a great body of highly efficient work-
men. The Catskill Aqueduct, for example,
outclasses any similar work abroad, while
the famous Roman aqueducts seem primitive
by comparison. A number of engineers
prominent in the Catskill project are to-day
in France, as are hundreds of others whose
names are associated with the greatest engi-
neering projects of our country. In a recent
letter from the front a former Catskill en-
gineer writes that he finds the work abroad
the most difficult in all his experience.

Several of the engineers of this regiment
have been assigned the ambitious task of sup-
plying water for great bodies of troops, as
well as for cities and towns throughout
France. Projects which would require
years to plan and build at home must now be
rushed through, for a day's delay may cause
disaster. Much of the work must be done
under fire. A lucky shot from a German
battery may destroy at a stroke the labor of
weeks, but the engineers must be ready day
and night for any such emergency.

Watersheds have been selected and sur-

lOO

THE FAMOUS iith ENGINEERS

veyed. Dams are built and water-mains laid
for miles up hill and down dale. The mains
are carried over rapidly-constructed trestles,
or, again, are concealed from the German
fire by ingenious camouflage. It is often dif-
ficult to find suitable material, and ingenious
makeshifts have to be resorted to. The regi-
ment includes several bacteriologists whose
judgment is followed in anaylzing water or
the soil through which it drains. One of the
first duties of these bacteriologists on reach-
ing reoccupied territory is to make careful
analysis of the wells and water-courses, since
the Germans frequently poison them when
evacuating the country.

To complete the work of devastation, the
enemy, on retreating, often floods great
tracts of land. The skill of American en-
gineers had not been counted upon in these
plans. It is just such problems that our en-
gineers, fresh from great Western irrigat-
ing projects, are prepared to face. No time
is lost in theorizing. Surveys are quickly
completed, and large forces of men attack
the work. By some ingenious arrangement
of dams and sluices, or the hasty construc-

lOI

THE FIGHTING ENGINEERS

tion of new water-channels, large areas of
country have been drained in a few hours.
Invaluable work is being done in purifying
the water-supplies of camps and cities by
modern methods employed in the United
States.

A well-known American engineer, now in
France, recently wrote to a friend at home,
asking him to send some illustrated cata-
logues of the American machinery commonly
used in water-supply. He explained that he
did not wish to buy such machinery, and
could not get it over if he did, but he wanted
to have the satisfaction of showing the cata-
logues to the French and English engineers,
who could not believe that such machinery
as he described actually existed.

The war has necessitated mining opera-
tions on an enormous scale. Expert geolo-
gists are enlisted to examine the soil and de-
cide what material will be encountered at
different levels in the regions to be tunneled.
One tunnel 1663 feet in length has been ex-
cavated, for example, from which 2200 cu-
bic yards of earth and rock were removed.
The miners use pneumatic rock-drills and all
102

THE FAMOUS iith ENGINEERS

the latest mining machinery. The working-
squads consist of twenty-five or thirty men,
laboring in shifts of six hours.

Excavations usually take the form of long
tunnels, dug at a slight incline to the hori-
zontal. Such tunnels are often run ahead of
the front trench for a length of lOO to 125
feet under no-man's-land, which carries them
directly beneath trenches occupied by the
enemy. On reaching the desired point, the
tunnel is widened to a chamber where ex-
plosives may be placed. In such work the
dimensions are kept as small as possible,
leaving only room enough for the dirt and
stone to be removed. The longer tunnels are
usually kept three feet wide and from four
to six feet high. When not over 100 feet in
length they are only three feet high, while
the width is often not more than thirty
inches. In order to save time, which is
priceless under such conditions, the men work
in tunnels that compel them to stop over and
crawl about the excavations like moles.

The progress of the work depends, of
course, upon the nature of the material to be
removed. If conditions are favorable, a
103

THE FIGHTING ENGINEERS

tunnel may be pushed forward at a rate of
from fifteen to twenty feet every twenty-
four hours. When the earth and stone of-
fers great resistance, progress may be re-
duced to three feet a day. The earth may
prove to be so soft that the roof of the tunnel
must be continually braced with timbers.
As the tunnels advance, narrow tracks are
laid and small cars, pushed by hand, are used
to carry the earth to the opening of the shaft.
One of the greatest dangers that faces these
fighting engineers is that their work will be
discovered by the enemy and a counter-mine
be employed against it. It sometimes hap-
pens that engineers will locate the position
of an enemy tunnel, force a hollow pipe un-
der it, and explode a mine directly beneath
the workmen. An alert watch must con-
stantly be maintained by the miners far un-
derground to detect the approach of an en-
emy tunnel. It can readily be seen that
modern American machinery and methods,
such as the electric and pneumatic drills em-
ployed by oair American engineers, are prov-
ing invaluable.

The idea in such work is, of course, to un-
104

With the foreslry regiment

THE FAMOUS iith ENGINEERS

dermine the enemy's position, while excavat-
ing soil that offers the minimum amount of
resistance. When the tunnel has reached its
maximum length, the explosives are set in
position and electrically connected with the
base. The tamping is done with concrete,
sand-bags and heavy wooden beams. The
famous ridge at Messines was undermined
by ninety excavations, in which five hundred
tons of high explosives were simultaneously
exploded.

In recruiting a large force of mining
engineers and experienced mine-workers
America draws upon a large and skilful body
of men. Only those men were selected who
had had much actual experience as engineers.
They are men who know rock and soil and
who can judge its strength at a glance. In
this force men are to be found capable of
solving every possible mining problem that
may be encountered.

It is a high tribute to America's reputation
in this field that the French Government has
entrusted some of its important mining oper-
ations to this regiment. Both coal and iron
mines are being worked in France to-day by
107

THE FIGHTING ENGINEERS

complete units of American miners. One of
these units can take over the entire work of
operating a mine — the location of ores, the
construction of tunnels, the building of sup-
porting timbers, and the laying down of rail-
roads for the purpose of getting out the ore.

The miners cheerfully face a lively danger
in their tunnel-work in the front-line
trenches. Here they must select the most
vulnerable point in the German lines and run
long tunnels forward under the enemy posi-
tion. By exploding mines directly beneath
the trenches, the way is prepared for an ad-
vance. In order to carry out such enter-
prises, the miners must know earth and rock,
and must stake their lives upon their judg-
ment. A mistake in calculating the strength
of materials may cause them to be buried as
they work, or may attract the attention of
the enemy before the tunnel is completed.

The workers in subways or tunnels are ob-
jects of sympathy, but their position is safe
by comparison with these men. One of the
most perilous tasks the mining engineer
workers are called upon to perform is to
extend hollow pipes from the front-line
io8

THE FAMOUS iith ENGINEERS

trenches under the enemy's position. High
explosives are set off at the end of these pipes
by an electric-spark. The position of the
soldiers in the front-line trenches is at best
perilous, but that of the workmen, whose re-
treat is practically cut off, calls for rare cour-
age.

In preparing for General Byng's famous
drive, it was found absolutely essential that
a considerable amount of engineering work
be completed before the advance was or-
dered. This work was entrusted to Ameri-
can engineers, assisted by American work-
men. A British officer high in command
urged that the work be rushed as fast as pos-
sible, and asked for an estimate of the time
required. It was decided that even by work-
ing on an American time-schedule more than
eleven days would be required. The censor
has not permitted any description of the na-
ture of this work to come through.

The British staff decided that they could
not wait eleven days to begin the drive, and
urged greater speed. A great force of coolie
labor was offered to hasten the work. This
offer was refused, the American engineer
109

THE FIGHTING ENGINEERS

much preferring his own workmen. The
construction work was completed, neverthe-
less, in less than five days, and the famous
advance started on schedule time. The en-
gineer in charge of this work has written
home that he found time for only eight and a
half hours sleep during more than five days.
The end of the job found him so exhausted
that he lay down beside a battery of twelve-
inch guns, and even their bombardment
failed to disturb him. The work of the
Americans has received most enthusiastic
praise from British officers.

When the proportion of deaths and cas-
ualties is definitely counted after the war, it
will doubtless be found that the fighting en-
gineers have suffered severely. Apart from
the obvious danger of working under fire,
these men are exposed to every kind of ac-
cident common among workers with machin-
ery. In the building and operating of rail-
roads on rush-schedules, under new condi- ♦
tions and while using new and unfamiliar
materials, the risk is naturally great. Re-
ports of such accidents are already coming
in, and the demand for false limbs, glass
no

THE FAMOUS iith ENGINEERS

eyes, and other surgical material tells its
own story.

The first man of the American engineers
to be invalided home is, at this writing, in a
hospital in Baltimore, suffering from a
broken hip. A railroad accident is likely to
be more serious than a bullet-wound, and the
fighting engineers face both dangers.

The spirit of the American engineers at
Cambrai, which has been so highly praised
abroad, was no surprise to their friends at
home. The British Commander in Chief,
Sir Douglas Haig, has especially praised and
recommended for a decoration Lieutenant
Paul McLoud, of the American Engineering
Corps, for his bravery in the Battle of Cam-
brai.

The Americans were busy on the morning
of November 3, 1917, building a railroad-
yard near the British front, when they were
surprised by a sudden German advance.
Without a moment's warning, the Germans
concentrated a heavy artillery-fire on the
yard. Lieutenant McLoud collected his men
and calmly marched them through the Ger-
man barrage to a point of safety. They had
III

THE FIGHTING ENGINEERS

retreated about two miles, when they chanced
upon a number of British soldiers. McLoud
at once took command and, rallying the
troops, returned to the firing-line. On the
way back the Americans met a British staff
officer, and with his aid they succeeded in
getting additional arms and ammunition with
which to equip the engineers of the party.

Once armed, the improvised troops rushed
forward and were soon in the thick of the
fight, giving an excellent account of them-
selves. Lieutenant McLoud was formerly
chief engineer of the New York State High-
way Department, and was one of the first to
enlist in an engineering regiment. It is from
such material that America has recruited her
regiments of fighting engineers.

The bravery of the fighting engineers at
Cambrai called forth the following letter
from Colonel Henry W. Hidge, U. S. A., to
Mr. Mac Isaac the father of one of the men.
The colonel writes :

I want to write you a line of congratulation on
the conduct of your son in the recent conflict with
the Boches.

Every one here says that, but for his heroism and

112

THE FAMOUS iith ENGINEERS

those who were with him from the Engineers,

we might have had a serious fall-back, but that he
and Lieutenant McLoud and a few others rallied
their men and our soldiers and held the Boches.
I hear that the Allied commander will probably
give especial recognition to their gallantry, and 1 am
sure that you will be glad that your boy is one of
the first to show that we Americans are going to do
our part in this great struggle.

At the present writing, at least fifteen
members of the nth Engineers are known
to be prisoners in Germany. The capture
was made in the famous advance at Cambrai,
and indicates that the Americans must have
been very near the first-line troops. In this
campaign an advance was originally planned
on a thirty-mile front, with the assistance of
the famous tanks. Later the forces were
concentrated, but, as all the world knows,
the British troops pushed forward for five
miles.

The wedge thus driven into the enemy's
territory was open to attack on three sides,
which rendered the position extremely pre-
carious. The American engineers, never-
theless, pushed forward into this territory, in

113

THE FIGHTING ENGINEERS

order to consolidate the position. A simul-
taneous attack quickly developed on three
sides, and the position proved untenable.
Doubtless our engineers could have saved
themselves, but they remained at their posts
until overtaken and made prisoners. ,

The relatives of members of the nth En-
gineers have formed an association in New
York, an example that may well be followed
elsewhere. Headquarters have been estab-
lished, a paper is published in the interests
of the organization, and monthly meetings
are held. The work of communicating with
the men at the front and of caring for their
families at home, if need arises, is carefully
organized. An attractive feature of these
meetings consists in reading letters from the
men at the front, and plans are discussed for
lending every possible assistance to the men
in the camps, the wounded, and to prisoners.
The honor list of the month, including the
dead and wounded, is read, patriotic songs
are sung, and prayers are offered. A collec-
tion for the engineers is taken up by passing
around a German helmet captured in the war.

114

CHAPTER VII

THE MAN BEHIND THE GUNS

MANY revolutionary ideas in the sci-
ience of gunmaking have had their
origin in the United States. By some bold
stroke the American engineer has repeatedly
set aside the usage of years and opened up
an entirely new field of scientific conquest.
Later the idea has been seized upon by Eu-
ropeans, carried to perfection, and, in its
ultimate development, turned against us. It
is a proof of the peaceful ideals of one na-
tion that, after originating ideas that may
revolutionize warfare, we have allowed oth-
ers to apply them.

So rapid has been the advance in military
science that the weapons of a generation ago
are to-day only fit for decorations, — of
doubtful artistic value, — in our public parks.
The best guns of the Civil War period, made
of cast-bronze or wrought-iron and strength-
115

THE FIGHTING ENGINEERS

ened with metal bands, are as extinct as the
stage-coach. Even the field-guns of the
Spanish War are hopelessly outclassed.
The field-artillery of the United States
Army, previous to the Great War, comprised
seven or eight types of guns, varying in bore
from three to seven inches, which armament
compared favorably, however, with the best
European ordnance.

The marvelously complex gun of modern
warfare dates from the Crimean War.
With the appearance of the breech-loading
weapon, the ordnance which had determined
the issue of battles for centuries began to
disappear. Even the guns heard at Trafal-
gar and Waterloo were soon silenced for-
ever.

The first great cast-iron guns to be used
in actual battle were of American make, al-
though they were heard in Europe during the
engagement between the Kearsarge and the
Alabama, in the English Channel, in 1864.
At that period American guns were acknowl-
edged to be the best, since American iron had
a tensile strength of 40,000 pounds per
116

THE MAN BEHIND THE GUNS

square inch, as against 20,000 pounds for
English iron.

But the heaviest guns of cast metal could
not long withstand the explosions of modern
charges, which appeared after the Crimean
War, and the barrels were soon made of con-
centric tubes welded together. American
guns were strengthened by hoops of iron
shrunk around the breech. Many experi-
ments were tried, and the modern gun slowly
took shape. The steel tubes that form the
lining were first forced into the guns, but
later the outer case of the gun was shrunken
about them.

By the year 1874 guns were made in Eng-
land with an inner tube of steel encased in no
less than five coils of wrought iron. The
largest of these guns fired projectiles weigh-
ing 1258 pounds, the power charge weigh-
ing 170 pounds. Wrought-iron gradually
disappeared, and the guns were made entirely
of steel. The first all-steel gun appeared in
France at so recent a date as 1881.

The best engineering talent of the world
has been engaged upon this problem of gun-
117

THE FIGHTING ENGINEERS

making. After countless experiments, all
countries seem agreed upon the best method
for turning out gun-barrels, much as details
or workmanship may vary. The steel is
first cast in ingot molds in the form of solid,
truncated cones. The ingots are roughed
out with several reheatings of the steel, and
are then turned and bored roughly. The
core is cut away and taken out in a single
piece. An oil bath is employed in tempering
the steel, when the rings are shrunken on,
and the gun is ready to be filed. It has been
found that a wire-wound gun offers greater
resistance than one strengthened by any sys-
tem of hoops. The tension the gun must
withstand is, of course, calculated in ad-
vance ; nothing is left to chance.

The secret of the enormously increased
effectiveness of modern ordnance lies, of
course, in its power of resistance. There
are two ways of increasing the firing-power
of a gun : by lengthening its tube and by in-
creasing the charge. The early guns had a
lensfth of twelve diameters. Some of the
latest guns are fifty times that of their bore.
The muzzle velocity of the high-powered
ii8

THE MAN BEHIND THE GUNS

guns of the past was 7000 foot tons, as com-
pared with about 53,000 foot tons in the case
of the largest modern ordnance. An in-
crease of 800 per cent, in driving force is
thus obtained.

The force of explosions has been increased
by using nitro-explosives in place of gun-
powder. Again, by using smokeless powder
a much larger volume of gas is obtained than
by the use of black powder, and hence its
increased effectiveness. The wrought-iron
guns had an elastic limit of twelve tons per
square inch, while the limit of steel is twenty-
one tons.

Before the opening of the Great War the
artillery available for use in the field included
several types of direct-fire gun, ranging in
caliber from three to four inches, with high-
angle-fire guns or howitzers of from 4.7 to
7 inches. The largest of these guns in the
United States fired seven-inch projectiles.
Some European countries were known to
have larger guns, — even eight-inch guns.

Meanwhile Germany had been secretly
building and testing guns of unprecedented
power, which for a time were to spread con-
119

THE FIGHTING ENGINEERS

sternation among her enemies. The Krupp
gun-works had turned out giant howitzers
of 12 and even 16.5 inches. Tests were
made on carefully-guarded proving-grounds,
and the "Busy Berthas," as they came to be
called, were held in readiness.

In designing this unheard-of ordnance the
German engineers had definite targets in
mind. The guns were intended to reduce the
concrete foundations of Liege, Namur, and
Maubeuge, which were supposed to be im-
pregnable. The idea, by the way, did not
originate with the Germans ; for similar guns
had already been used by the Japanese
against the Russians in Manchuria. Bor-
rowing the idea, the Germans stole a march
on their adversaries. Experts are not yet
certain whether these great guns should be
classed as howitzers or mortars. The true
howitzer has a barrel somewhat shorter in
proportion to its bore. The mortars of late
years have been growing larger, but then,
again, the new guns are too large for this
classification.

The world was not prepared for the explo-
sions of the ''Busy Berthas." The shells,
120

THE MAN BEHIND THE GUNS

weighing looo pounds or more and aimed
with amazing accuracy, crumpled up the sci-
entific foundations of modern forts eight
miles away. For some anxious days it
seemed as though they could batter their way
to Paris. Later they were used with appal-
ling effectiveness to destroy trenches at Ver-
dun. A single shot has buried fifty men, and
their explosion is said to kill men within a ra-
dius of 150 yards. The Austrian "Skoda,"
a howitzer of 17 inches, throws shells weigh-
ing 2800 pounds. In the bombardment of
Duirkirk fifteen-inch shells were hurled
twenty-two miles.

The efficiency of such guns is due to the
fact that they are readily portable and may
be carried with surprising speed from place
to place. Heretofore, guns of enormous
power have been stationary and have only
been available for coast-defense purposes.
The new guns are cast in three parts, each
of which may be loaded on a motor-truck of
special construction. The gun is trundled
on one truck, the carriage on another, and
the foundation on a thirci. A crew of sev-
era.l hundred men is employed to transport
121

THE FIGHTING ENGINEERS

them. If the country permits, trucks are
employed, while specially constructed rail-
road-cars are sometimes used. It is said
that the gun-crews are always ready, on a
moment's notice, to destroy the guns by blow-
ing them up, if they are threatened with cap-
ture.

Against the unprecedented attack of the
"Busy Berthas" the Allies for a time could
bring no adequate defense. But the reign
of the "Busy Berthas" was short-lived. Al-
though they were met only by guns of in-
ferior size and range, the French set up an
impregnable barrier, and the giant guns
never arrived within range of Paris. By the
time the Battle of Picardy was fought, the
British were able to utilize great howitzers
that threw shells weighing 1700 pounds a
distance of seven miles, at a rate of one shot
a minute. Like the German and Austrian
ordnance, these guns were brought up on
motor-trucks. In the Battle of the Somme
the pendulum had swung back, and the Al-
lies, completely outclassing the enemy, di-
rected against them the heaviest artillery-fire
known in warfare.

122

<c- '.

THE MAN BEHIND THE GUNS

The gun-makers of every country at war
realize that probably the greatest problem
in building modern guns is that of overcom-
ing the recoil. Until recently the kick of a
gun was considered a necessary evil, and no
effort was made to control it. A cannon,
on being discharged, would run back several
feet, and the aim would be completely lost.
A crew was then forced to labor to bring it
again into position, and the difficult work of
sighting it had to begin all over again. The
time lost between shots was, of course, price-
less ; but since both sides worked at the same
disadvantage, it was accepted as a necessary
evil.

With the present system of non-recoil em-
ployed, a battery of field- or even siege-guns
can be made to fire from twenty to twenty-
five shots per minute. The problem has been
solved in different ways in the several em-
battled countries, but the construction is
essentially the same. The carriage of the
gun remains fixed, and the gun recoils on this
carriage and returns to its original position.
The force of the recoil is enormous, but this
is taken up by a highly ingenious system of
125

THE FIGHTING ENGINEERS

hydraulic cylinders, counter-weights, and
counter-recoil springs.

It is difficult for the lay mind to realize
the power of such guns. In the case of a
twelve-inch gun the counter-weight consists
of 140,000 pounds of lead. The recoil-cyl-
inders are filled with oil, which has been
found best for taking up the stupendous
shock of the discharges. The guns are re-
turned to their carriages by releasing the
great counter-weights, thus forcing the
weight of the gun forward to its firing posi-
tion.

In no other branch of engineering, it is
safe to say, may be found mechanism at once
so powerful in its execution and so delicate
in design. One type of our seacoast guns
measures fourteen inches in caliber. This
measurement means little to the average
mind, although our respect for the gun will
rise when we learn that it fires a projectile
weighing 1660 pounds, which, in turn, car-
ries a bursting charge of eighty-five pounds
of high explosive.

The largest gun in our fortifications is of
sixteen-inch caliber ; it is mounted on a dis-
126

THE MAN BEHIND THE GUNS

appearing gun-carriage. The almost irre-
sistible force of this gun is cleverly utilized
to operate much delicate, but powerful, ma-
chinery to bring it back into position in the
shortest possible time.

This gun-projectile weights 2400 pounds,
— a weight equal to that of a large wagon or
automobile filled with passengers. Its speed
on leaving the gun, or its muzzle-velocity, is
2700 feet, — rather more than half a mile per
second. The energy exerted by such a dis-
charge is equal to 121,430 foot tons. This
power will raise a projectile weighing more
than a ton to a height of eight and a half
miles, an altitude equal to that of several of
the highest mountains in the world.

The extreme range of such a gun is
twenty-seven and one third miles. To vis-
ualize this distance, describe a circle of
twenty-seven miles from some familiar point.
Incredible as it may seem, every point within
this imaginary boundary would be within
range of this gun.

Great engineering skill Is displayed In de-
signing guns with an extremely high-angle
fire. [The shells from such guns climb to
127

THE FIGHTING ENGINEERS

great heights, and after describing a grace-
ful parabola, drop with wonderful accuracy
upon the target. In defensive work along
our seacoasts such batteries are, of course,
likely to be more effective than more power-
ful guns of longer range. The idea is to
have the shot strike vertically, or as nearly
so as possible, upon the deck of a ship.
Since such shots are more likely to cause in-
ternal explosions than is direct fire. The
mortars used in seacoast forts usually con-
sist of batteries of four guns, which are fired
electrically. Four shots may thus be fired
simultaneously, or two of the mortars may be
set off singly by touching a button. The
man behind the gun must be a highly tech-
nical engineer, with all his forces, trained by
long schooling, constantly on the alert.

The complete field-gun consists of two
parts : the gun, and its limber or caisson, the
latter carrying the ammunition. In action
the two parts stand side by side. The
method of serving field-guns has been made
familiar to the most peaceful citizen through
the medium of the motion-picture. Every
one has seen the guns brought forward, —
128

THE MAN BEHIND THE GUNS

often with hysterical speed, — loaded, sighted,
and discharged, while courage, daring, or
fear are "registered" by the hard-working
actors.

The patron of the ''movies" need scarcely
be told that modern field-guns do not recoil
with each shot and have to be hauled back
into position. The gun is aimed by means of
a telescopic sight. The carriage is fixed in
position by means of a spade, at the end of
its tail, dug into the ground. The shell is in-
serted in the open breech, which is then
closed and locked. The gunner pulls a lan-
yard, there is a flash from the muzzle, and
the gun springs backward. By beating on
a drumlike instrument somewhere back of
the screen the illusion is made complete.

The action is probably too quick to be
caught by the eye ; but in this fraction of time
the gun compresses a coiled spring, while the
main force of the kick is taken up by a cylin-
der filled with oil and water. A moment la-
ter the spring forces the gun back, sliding it
on its fixed carriage, or base, to its original
position, where it may be sighted and fired
without loss of time.

129

THE FIGHTING ENGINEERS

.There is important economy of time in
using modern cartridges. The metalHc
cases are slipped into position in a flash, the
breech-block being operated by a single ac-
tion. An ingenious device throws out the
empty cartridge-case. Some cartridges are
placed beside the breech in their original
package, and are pushed into position with-
out being touched by the hand, thus keeping
them free from dirt or grease. Compare
this method with the violent exertion of
swabbing out the old-fashioned breechload-
ers and ramming home the shots, the charge
of powder, and the bullets. Our gunners
can fire fifteen shots to a minute with these
guns, while in France constant practice en-
ables a gun-crew to fire twenty times a min-
ute.

The machine-gun, which, by the way, must
not be confused with revolvers or magazine-
rifles, was used in our Civil War in more
than a score of different forms. Little prog-
ress was made in developing it, however, un-
til about 1870, on the appearance of the new
torpedo-boats. The rapid movement of the
new craft eluded the guns of that period,
130

THE MAN BEHIND THE GUNS

and the ordnance engineers set to work to
invent some new gun to overcome this advan-
tage.

The early machine-guns had from six to
ten bores, which revolved around a central
shaft. Each shot had to be fired by hand,
the gun being operated by turning a crank.
It was at best a cumbrous method. Al-
though the idea of utilizing the recoil of the
shots to fire a gun was old, it was not suc-
cessfully utilized until the appearance of the
Maxim gun.

The machine-gun has had a wonderful de-
velopment in the last few years. The older
forms of rapid-fire gun have been completely
outclassed. The gas-operating type of gun
made and used in the United States appears
almost magical to the layman, as, indeed, it
would have appeared to the trained soldiers
of another generation. It is an air-cooled
gun, which is operated automatically by the
escape of gas after each explosion. The gas
escapes through a port a short distance from
the muzzle and sets in motion the compli-
cated machinery that operates the gun. As
long as one holds back the trigger, the gun
131

THE FIGHTING ENGINEERS

discharges at the rate of from 450 to 500
shots per minute. A small battery of such
guns fires as many shots as a regiment of
men.

The cartridges — hundreds of them — are
fastened to a woven canvas belt, which is
fed into the gun with bewildering speed.
When the gas, after each explosion, passes
through the port, it acts on a piston which
moves a lever, and the sharp impulse of the
gas is instantly transmitted to a train of lev-
er-springs and feed-wheels, all working in
amazing harmony. As each cartridge comes
into position, it is plucked out of the belt,
delivered to a carrier, raised into position,
and the cartridge-chamber is closed, ready
for firing. On being discharged, the cart-
ridge is thrown out and a new one takes its
place.

Imagine the delicacy and precision of the
mechanism which performs this complicated
operation almost ten times in a second and
keeps up sustained action indefinitely. By
way of comparison, it is interesting to recall
that the first guns used in warfare, which
were adaptions of the ancient crossbow and
132

THE MAN BEHIND THE GUNS

were "loaded" by winding-up devices, re-
quired about half an hour to wind up or load.
Battles were fought in which only seven
rounds of shots were exchanged.

A few years ago a gun of any size without
some recoil would have seemed impossible.
With the development of the aeroplane the
makers of ordnance busied themselves to
design a weapon that could be discharged
aloft. The balance of an aeroplane is, of
course, so delicate that the recoil of an ordi-
nary gun, even a small one, might mean a
fatal plunge. For some time the problem
presented to the gun-makers proved baf-
fling, but the advantage of directing artil-
lery-fire from the air is so great that the en-
gineers of ordnance returned again and
again to the task. Until a good non-recoil
gun was invented, a machine-rifle was the
largest piece of ordnance an air man dared
carry aloft.

In the first type of non-recoil gun the
weapon was fired to the rear. When dis-
charged in the air, the gun fell and was lost,
so far as that particular flight was con-
cerned. This proved an expensive method
133

THE FIGHTING ENGINEERS

of aerial attack. The present non-recoil
type of gun is a marvel of ingenuity and
workmanship. In a word, it consists of two
guns, firing two projectiles, which exactly
balance each other. The recoil of one gun
cancels that of the other, so that the delicate
balance of the aeroplane is undisturbed.
With this invention, the aeroplane suddenly
became an efficient weapon of attack.

This aero-gun is, in reality, a double-bar-
relled or, more accurately, a double-length
gun. Placed end to end, ready for firing,
it appears to be a very long, single-barrelled
gun. The two guns have the same bore, so
that when discharged breech to breech, the
force of the recoil exactly balances. Two
projectiles are fired in opposite directions.
A steel shell leaves the forward barrel, speed-
ing toward its target, while the second pro-
jectile speeds toward the rear. A man di-
rectly behind the gun would occupy a dan-
gerous position.

The cartridge fired from the front barrel
is of the conventional form used in ordinary
guns. The rear barrel fires a charge of wad-
ding which breaks up, losing its initial veloc-
134

THE MAN BEHIND THE GUNS

ity in a few feet. By the time the wadding
has fallen to the ground it becomes entirely
harmless, and even if it should chance to hit
some one, no injury would result. This
highly ingenious form makes it possible to
build guns firing two-, six-, or twelve-pound
cartridges, weighing from 60 to 210 pounds.
The muzzle-velocity of these shots is in ex-
cess of 1000 foot seconds. The aeroplane
can thus carry aloft a battery of cannon
which, as regards bore and efficiency, enor-
mously increases their deadliness.

One of the most interesting forms of mod-
ern ordnance is the anti-aircraft gun that
has appeared in very recent times. An
aeroplane in flight naturally is an extremely
difficult target to hit. It moves at a rate of
100 miles or more an hour, and often at an
altitude of one or more miles. Its course
may be a rapid zig-zag, which greatly adds
to the problems of the gunner. The extreme
range of these anti-aircraft guns is about
21,000 feet, or about four miles. When fir-
ing directly upward, the shot requires about
twenty-two seconds to reach its destination.
The gunner must therefore calculate the
135

THE FIGHTING ENGINEERS

speed of the aeroplane and aim his gun in
advance of it in such a way that it will in-
tercept its course almost half a mmute after
the gun is fired. Such guns obviously fire
shrapnel.

Air defense remains one of the unsolved
problems of the war. The anti-aircraft
guns are marvels of ingenuity, but the prob-
lem they must face is extremely difficult.
Much progress has been made, and the guns
are to-day so effective that the Zeppelin has
been practically driven from the skies. By
night such work is greatly complicated.
The most powerful searchlights can do little
to pick out aircraft several miles high. The
discharge of the batteries drowns the sound
of the aeroplane's propellers. Such guns,
of course, can be readily aimed at any angle
and, despite their size and weight, are
extremely mobile. The gims are often
mounted on motor-trucks that may be rushed
from point to point at top speed.

The aeroplanes that raid London as a rule

reach England somewhere above the mouth

of the Thames and follow the line of that

river. When the approach of a hostile fleet

136

THE MAN BEHIND THE GUNS

is discovered, a barrage is put up at the
mouth of the Thames. This usually proves
very effective, and it is believed that one half
the attacking fleet is often brought down at
this point. In using anti-aircraft guns
above any city, there is danger, of course,
that the shrapnel will fall back, and, gaining
immense momentum in dropping several
miles, inflict damage upon friends. It is
commonly said that everything that goes up
is Allied, while everything that comes down
is Boche.

A complete revolution in artillery methods
may follow the invention of guns of such ex-
treme range as are now being employed by
the Germans in the fourth year of the Great
War. In the spring of 1918 the world was
startled by the announcement that shells dis-
charged from German guns had reached
Paris, inflicting loss of life. The first re-
ports were discredited, so impossible did
such a bombardment appear. It was esti-
mated that such shells must travel for more
than seventy miles, or nearly four times as
far as the most powerful guns heretofore
used. The continued long-range bombard-
^Z7

THE FIGHTING ENGINEERS

ment of Paris, with considerable loss of life,
soon convinced a sceptical world, however,
that a seventy- or perhaps eighty-mile gun
was in operation.

Although the secret of these guns has been
closely guarded, it is known that their bar-
rels are about sixty feet in length. The
shells fired measure eight and one quarter
inches in diameter. The empty shell weighs
330 pounds, and the charge has the same
weight. The projectile rises to a height of
18.6 miles and then descends from the sky,
gaining velocity as it falls. By climbing to
this height the shell, of course, reaches rare-
fied air. This is said to simplify the prob- ,
lem of throwing it this immense distance.
It is estimated that the shell requires more
than three minutes to reach its target.

The Lewis gun depends for its marvelous
speed in firing upon the tension of springs
acted upon by the force of exploding gas.
Although weighing only twenty-one pounds,
it will fire from 400 to 700 shots per minute.
Its action is entirely automatic. The car-
tridges are arranged in a spiral shell that
holds fifty rounds. This shell can be re-
138

THE MAN BEHIND THE GUNS

placed in two seconds. The gun is cooled
by means of a long tube of aluminum, along
which air is drawn.

Doubtless the most mobile batteries in
service are the motor-cycle machine-guns.
The English army alone has thirty thousand
machine-guns mounted on motor-cycles.
Over any passable road these motors can
cover thirty or forty miles an hour, or better,
and therefore prove indispensable in support-
ing infantry. The cyclists are daring riders,
and hundreds of such guns may be brought
into position with bewildering speed. A
company is often rushed forward to hold a
position until reinforcements arrive. The
machine-guns may be fired from the motor-
cycle by using a rigid tripod. Distance is
covered so quickly by the motor-cycles that
repair-shops are usually placed well in the
rear.

The most completely equipped motor-bat-
tery in the service to-day is said to be the
Ninth Heavy Field Artillery of the United
States Army. Motor-tractors of many
forms have completely superseded the horse-
drawn units. The colonel of a regiment
139

THE FIGHTING ENGINEERS

travels about the field in a light automobile,
thus keeping in touch with widely separated
units with the least possible delay. Officers
travel rapidly in motor-cycles equipped with
''bathtub" side-cars. A complete equipment
of motor-trucks, driven by all four wheels,
are used to rush up ammunition and supplies
of every kind. The heavy guns are drawn
by "caterpillar" tractors, which trundle
slowly but surely over ground that would be
impossible for horses. The tractor part of
a regiment's equipment includes forty-five
machines. One of the great advantages of
these tractors is that much heavier guns may
be drawn into action than is possible by the
use of horses. Such equipment replaces at
least one thousand horses that would other-
wise be required for each regiment.

The work of arming millions of men with
rifles is one of the main engineering prob-
lems of war. Several rifles are turned out,
complete, for every man in the ranks. In all
these millions of weapons the greatest accur-
acy of every part must be assured, and the
fabrication of the parts requires a high de-
gree of technical skill. The barrel is the
140

■^y

i hi

THE MAN BEHIND THE GUNS

most difficult problem. At present the ma-
terial most favored is smokeless barrel-steel,
which is found to resist the corrosive action
of the gases set free by the explosion.

The methods of manufacture vary consid-
erably. A common method is to cut a rod of
uniform diameter, and then upset one end
and thicken it to form the breach. Some
barrels are rolled by special machinery, in or-
der to get the proper taper. The barrels are
next roughly straightened. The boring is
done by rotating the barrel at high speed,
while the metal is cooled and lubricated by
a stream of oil, after which the bore is
smoothed. It is so vital that the bore be ab-
solutely straight that the work must be done
by experts, with the greatest precautions.
The barrel is ground on a grindstone, and
then is repeatedly tested with a bullet. The
rifling comes next, when the bore is cut with
the grooves that give the bullet its rotary
motion on being discharged. The rifle is
then ''browned," as it is termed, by a chemi-
cal bath, although its color, as all the world
knows, is really a dark blue.

Before leaving the factory every rifle is
143

THE FIGHTING ENGINEERS

subjected to a high-powder test. A heavy
leaden plug is driven into the muzzle, and a
charge equal to two or three times any nor-
mal charge is exploded. Such a rifle may be
discharged 250,000 times without losing its
accuracy.

The general public has no conception of
the difficulties that face the engineers of the
ordnance department in constructing vast
supplies of guns and ammunition. It has
been necessary to supply our troops with
100,000 different items, ranging from the
tiny firing-pin of their rifles to the complete
16-inch gun with its emplacement. One of
the great guns mounted on a modern disap-
pearing-carriage consists of 7,990 parts, not
including the sights and accessories. Even
a 3-inch gun-battery requires 3,876 different
tools, accessories, and supplies. For every
gun in use there must of course be a reserve
supply of all parts. Since hundreds of thou-
sands of such guns must be supplied in "rush
time," new engineering problems must be
solved in quantitative production.

It has been necessary to build new plants
on an unprecedented scale, finance them, and
144

THE MAN BEHIND THE GUNS

assure an enormous production in the brief-
est possible time. In times of peace the
Government directed eleven small arsenals.
Within a few months it directed the output
of 14,000 private manufacturing establish-
ments. A great army of workers is em-
ployed to turn out shells of all calibers, rifles,
ammunition, grenades, and bombs. The
housing of these supplies alone presents a
serious problem, since more than 23,00,000
square feet of storage-space will be needed
for such supplies. An efficient system of
handling supplies has been worked out by
army engineers, and this has necessitated
the building of hundreds of miles of special
railroads. More than 10,000 carloads of
explosives, for instance, are handled every
month.

In the first year of our participation in the
Great War the Army Ordnance Department
increased its staff from ninety-seven to over
5,000 officers, a large proportion of whom
are highly skilled engineers. Its expendi-
tures during our first twelve months in the
conflict aggregated $4,756,500,000. The
output of rifles was increased to 45,000 a
145

THE FIGHTING ENGINEERS

week, and during the past year 1,400,000
guns were supplied. The delivery of ma-
chine-guns was increased from 20,000 to
225,000 a year, while the output of field-guns
of all types was jumped from 1,500 to 15,000
a year.

146

CHAPTER VIII

MODERN SHELLS AND ARMOR

THE old-fashioned, cast-iron cannon-
balls, which we see piled in neat pyra-
mids in public parks, are as obsolete as the
guns that used to fire them. They have been
replaced by a complicated contrivance of steel
some thousands of times more effective than
the old missiles. The deadliness of the shell
is immensely increased by a secondary
charge of bullets, — several hundred of them,
— which are scattered by a second explosion,
much the same as a rocket explodes after a
long flight. The base of the shell carries a
charge of powder and several hundred bul-
lets, the interstices being filled with a smoke-
producing mixture. A time-fuse is ar-
ranged at the nose of the shell, which may be
set with reference to the range and the time
of flight, so that the powder will explode
when the shell nears its target, usually when
147

THE FIGHTING ENGINEERS

above a body of troops. The time-fuse must
be constructed with mathematical accuracy,
— in order to measure the time in minute
fractions of a second.

The fuse-device in a modern shrapnel shell
and in a high-explosive shell contains mar-
velously delicate mechanism. There are
shearing-wires, centrifugal bolts, safety-
pins, needles, and hammers adjusted with
the utmost delicacy. Although these shells
are capable of destroying every object in
their vicinity, they are perfectly harmless
until the safety-pins are removed, when their
complex mechanism is permitted to function.
The safety-pins resemble the familiar domes-
tic articles only in name. A generation ago
the soldiers often cast their own bullets and
cannon-balls by melting lead and pouring it
into crude molds. To-day a scientific metal-
lurgist is required to prepare the materials.
Some knowledge of chemistry is required,
even to read the formulas that describe their
composition. Every detail of the work is
highly specialized.

The shells must, besides, have just the
right hardness, for if they are too brittle,
148

MODERN SHELLS AND ARMOR

they may be shattered in the gun, and if too
soft, they will bulge and widen before leav-
insf the barrel. The most minute detail is of
vital importance, for the period of explosion
must be brought within absolute control.
The balls in such a shell are discharged from
their case with an additional velocity of from
250 to 320 feet per second. These guns
have a range of several miles, and so delicate
and accurate is this mechanism that the point
at which they will explode may be determined
within a few feet.

Among the most complicated of these mis-
siles are the aerial bombs dropped from air-
craft. It might be supposed that any con-
tainer loaded with an explosive would prove
sufficiently deadly when dropped from an
altitude of two or three miles, — but engineers
have succeeded in greatly increasing its dead-
liness.

The cross-section of such a bomb appears
hopelessly complicated to the layman. The
mechanism is so arranged that a drop of fifty
feet starts its extremely complex machinery.
A small propeller at the end of the bomb is
spun by the resistance of the air, and this sets
149

THE FIGHTING ENGINEERS

the involved machinery going. The aviator,
having calculated his altitude, the speed of
his aircraft, and the resistance of the wind,
and having solved a rather difficult equation,
determines how long his missile will take to
reach its target. The time-fuse in the nose
of the torpedo is set accordingly, then re-
leased. In the fraction of time taken for
the heavy bomb to plunge down to the earth
the machinery functions with scientific pre-
cision. A plunger is released, which brings
the chemicals together, a primer is fired, and
at a prearranged distance from the earth the
bomb explodes. Before these time-mechan-
isms were employed a great deal of energy
was lost, since the bomb only exploded on
striking its target, and was likely to plunge
deep into the earth, where it could do com-
paratively little damage.

New figures of speech must be found to
describe the unprecedented volume of sound
in modern cannonading. Cannons no longer
"thunder." Never before have so many
guns of great caliber been massed together
or served so continuously. Observers, both
on the Allied side and the German, have re-
150

MODERN SHELLS AND ARMOR

marked the peculiarly impressive roll that
follows the discharge of a high-powered gun.
This sound is heard to best advantage in rug-
ged land of irregular contour, well-wooded
and set with many buildings. The report of
the cannon is followed by a majestic, echoing
roll, which has been described as like a great
brass orchestra, with a more distinctly musi-
cal note than thunder. The report is fre-
quently mistaken for the actual roar of the
shell, while in reality it is produced by the
combined echoes from thousands of recesses
and inequalities in the earth over which the
shell passes.

One of the curiosities of the war is the
tricks of acoustics played on the gunners
and the enemy in artillery duels. It is a
well-known law of acoustics that intensity
of sound grows less in proportion to the
square of the distance. Double the distance,
and the sound has but one fourth its original
volume. We are likely to apply this rule in-
stinctively when locating or comparing any
sound.

To the bewilderment of the soldiers at the
front, the enemy's guns often sound much
151

THE FIGHTING ENGINEERS

louder than their own batteries. Men well
behind their own cannon have often been
alarmed to hear the attacking guns sound
much more formidable than their own. The
evidence of their senses would seem to tell
them that the enemy's battery was the more
powerful.

The explanation is simple. Sound is con-
centrated in the direction of artillery fire.
The reports of these great batteries, heard
from the rear, merge into a great, dull roar
of incredible volume. The reports from the
guns aimed directly at one have a sharp,
staccato note, although the guns may be of
similar type. It is this sharp, staccato note
that has been frequently compared to the
tattoo of a giant drum. During the bom-
bardment on an unprecedented scale of the
massed Allied artillery on the Somme, the
Germans described this curious phenomenon
as trommel feuer, or drum-fire, and the
phrase has come into general usage.

The destructive power of the great guns
has been carefully measured. The seven-
teen-inch howitzers, which hurl shells filled
with explosives weighing 2800 pounds a dis-
152

MODERN SHELLS AND ARMOR

tance of twenty-four miles, are practically
irresistible. No structure nor fortification
has yet been devised that can withstand such
a blow. One of these shells has penetrated a
barrier of twenty-six inches of steel armor,
backed by twenty feet of solid oak timber,
and then a thickness of twenty-one feet of
granite and concrete masonry, making a total
of forty-three feet of the hardest materials
that can be assembled.

As the weapons of warfare have become
more deadly of late, several forms of armor,
long ago discarded, have returned. A sol-
dier of the Middle Ages, who had never
heard of gunpowder or firearms, would find
the trenches, with their steel-helmeted sol-
diers, a familiar sight. The gas-mask bears
a faraway resemblance to the visors that pro-
tected the knights of old. Within a few
years the appearance of the fighting man has
been transformed, and if the war should
continue and new^er and more deadly missiles
be invented, modern armor may assume un-
expected forms.

The soldiers of Rome and Greece wore no
armor, except the shields they carried to
153

THE FIGHTING ENGINEERS

ward off the blows of spears. As side-arms
and the lower-power projectile came into
use, the complicated armor of the Middle
Ages gradually developed. To ward off at-
tacks of crossbows or javelins, the soldiers
first wore thick garments of skins and furs,
and then came the helmet and cuirass.

The period of armor reached its complete
development by the middle of the fourteenth
century. The soldiers then fought under a
heavy weight of metal, so that often it was
necessary for a knight to be accompanied by
a follower to assist him to carry his fighting
equipment. The legs and arms of the
mounted men were protected by steel plates,
the hands by articulated gauntlets, and the
feet by iron shoes. It was impossible for
men on foot to carry such armor, and they
were less well-protected. They wore hel-
mets, shoulder-pieces of metal, shields, arm-
and thigh-pieces, a protective piece for the
knees, and short coats of mail.

The use of gunpowder quickly changed

the appearance of fighting men. In a period

of ten years, as firearms grew more effective,

most of the protective armor disappeared.

154

MODERN SHELLS AND ARMOR

The saving in weight of equipment that
men had to carry into battle was, of course,
an enormous gain. Warfare was revolu-
tionized. Instead of converting each man
into a movable fort, as it were, every effort
was now made to gain individual invisibility,
and the familiar service-uniform next ap-
peared.

To-day, with steel helmets, gas-masks, and
spectacles, we are, in a measure, returning
to the ancient methods of protection. The
first form of this modern protective headgear
in the present war consisted of metal caps
worn under the kepi, which assured ordi-
nary protective covering. It was found,
however, that this headpiece caused head-
aches and other discomforts, and its conven-
ient form often tempted the soldiers to use
it as a cup or a cooking-utensil. The pres-
ent form of helmet has gradually evolved.
It is designed along scientific lines, so that a
missile striking it, even at an angle of fifty
degrees, will glance ofif .

The steel helmets worn by our soldiers in
France afford a unique problem in engi-
neering. Four fifths of all the casualties in
157

THE FIGHTING ENGINEERS

modern warfare are head wounds. The
protection of the soldiers' heads, therefore,
becomes a matter of supreme importance.
Profiting by the experience of the British,
French, and Germans in designing these steel
protections, American engineers have im-
proved upon earlier designs. The helmet
worn by American soldiers follows the gen-
eral lines of the British type of inverted
*'soup-plate," rather than the French
''casque" or the German "coal-scuttle."
Penetration tests show that no helmet is
more efficient than that of the American type.
Every helmet issued to the American sol-
dier has passed a severe test and is absolutely
free from cracks or flaws. To turn out this
complicated headgear by the million, using
only the highest grade of materials, is a big
order ; but the great manufacturing resources
of the United States have proved equal to the
work of quantitative production. Steel hel-
mets had never before been made in the
United States; but new machinery was de-
signed, and the supply has never fallen be-
hind the demand. The helmets are made by
stamping and punching sheets of steel, so
158

MODERN SHELLS AND ARMOR

that thousands may be turned out in a day,
with great saving of labor. Each steel sheet
is one foot square and one Syixth of an inch
thick. The pieces sheared off and other
wastage are returned to the Government, so
that nothing is lost.

Careful tests are first made of each sheet,
to determine if it is free from flaws. The
lives of thousands of men depend upon the
thoroughness of these tests. Each sheet is
then placed between "male" and "female"
dies, and under enormous pressure it is
forced into the familiar shape. The process
is accompanied by a piercing shriek from the
steel. The next machine cuts away the edge,
or brim, with a single blow. An electric
welding apparatus is used to join the parts
and smooth the rim.

It is important that the steel be colored,
so that it will not reflect the light and thus
make a conspicuous target for the enemy.
The French color their helmets blue, while
the British sprinkle sand over theirs. The
American helmets are treated with a secret
preparation that kills reflection and at the
same time is a poor conductor of heat. Our
159

THE FIGHTING ENGINEERS

helmets are finished by inserting a special
lining that keeps the head from touching the
steel sides and absorbs the shock of all im-
pacts. The American helmet, complete,
weighs less than two pounds.

Since the adoption of these helmets the
number of cranial wounds has considerably
increased, but a large proportion of such
wounds are curable. Before a helmet was
worn, fewer men Were treated for cranial
wounds, for the simple reason that wounds
of this nature were usually fatal. The latest
form of helmet that has been found in cap-
tured German trenches is designed to resist
even direct rifle-fire. It is made of Krupp
steel one fourth of an inch thick, which
makes the head-piece too heavy to be carried
about. These helmets have only been picked
up in first-line German trenches, and it is
supposed that they are only worn when the
men are on duty, to protect them against
snipers.

Many engineers in America and Europe
believe it possible to construct a bullet-proof
shield or cuirass sufficiently light and port-
able to be made part of the modern soldier's
1 60

MODERN SHELLS AND ARMOR

equipment. Several years ago it was
thought that the problem had been solved by
a German inventor who devised a shield the
height of a man, consisting of four or six
hinged parts that could be rolled up and car-
ried about with ease. It was found to suc-
cessfully resist bullets fired only twenty-
three feet away. Before any general use
could be made of the invention the penetrat-
ing power of bullets was increased, and the
shield proved useless, except to turn aside
glancing blows or pieces of shrapnel.

A later plan has been to make the cuirass
of steel covered with special padding of cot-
ton, over which, in turn, is placed thin metal
bands. A flexible cuirass has been made of
a series of metal spheres held together by
hooks and eyes. Still another plan is to build
up a resisting fabric by means of a series of
hollow metal balls. A French inventor has
devised an elastic cushion, a combination of
springs and sockets filled with rubber. The
theory of these cushion-formations is that
the bullet will embed itself without penetrat-
ing, the force of the impact being taken up
before the missile passes through the fabric.
i6i

THE FIGHTING ENGINEERS

Many designs have been suggested for ap-
plying such protection. It is urged by some
that it be used exactly as were the metal
plates in early armor, or that portable buc-
klers or shields be fastened by leather brace-
lets to the left arm of the soldier and used
in an advance as a shield.

Many military authorities also believe that
great advantage may be gained by utilizing
the knapsack carried by soldiers, his en-
trenching tools, and even his clothes for de-
fensive purposes. Many forms of knap-
sacks have been designed to resist bullets
and shrapnel. When fully loaded they of-
fer considerable resistance. By placing
them upright, a miniature breastwork is
formed that protects the soldier from ordi-
nary rifle-fire. Scientific tests have been
made with various forms of knapsacks by
firing at them from different ranges. It was
found that two knapsacks placed together
would resist forty per cent, of all balls fired
at them from a range of eight hundred
paces. The metal tools used by the infan-
try, and especially by the engineering regi-
ments, are also used with good effect. A
162

MODERN SHELLS AND ARMOR

trench-spade driven into the ground and
backed with a few shovels of earth often
proves surprisingly effective. The ingenu-
ity of the engineers now fighting at the front
is expected to devise many new forms of pro-
tection.

163

CHAPTER IX

AMERICAN VERSATILITY

THE great industrial army recruited in
America will comprise some forty regi-
ments, elaborately equipped for service in
France. Within a year the engineering
forces of our army have been increased 1660
per cent. Meanwhile the purchasing power
of the Engineer Corps has been raised 2250
per cent. During the first three months of
mobilization the General Engineering De-
pot spent $175,000,000, and during the fiscal
year the total was about $375,000,000. The
cost of the Panama Canal, which heretofore
was the high-water mark for all engineering
expenditures, seems trifling by comparison.
This immense budget has made possible the
designing, specification, purchase, gathering
into central depots, and forwarding of all en-
gineering materials and equipment supplied
164

AMERICAN VERSATILITY

our army, as well as all engineering opera-
tions in the field.

The names of the regiments of engineers
already recruited will give some idea of the
energy and versatility of these forces. The
classification is as follows :

Water-Supply Mining

Highway Quarrying

Light railroading General Construction

Standard-gage Rail- Engineers' Supplies

roading Surveying

Gas and Flame Army and Pontoon
Forestry Post

When America entered the war France
designated certain seaports for the exclusive
use of the ships landing our armies and sup-
plies. Our engineers found these were tidal
ports, and special docks had to be built to ac-
commodate the unprecedented demands of
our fleet. The work was handed over to the
engineers, who quickly prepared complete
plans for building elaborate docking facili-
ties.

These docks were fabricated in America
167

THE FIGHTING ENGINEERS

and sent to France to be placed in position.
Every detail of their construction was pre-
pared on this side of the Atlantic, including
the piles for the docks, the flooring, and
houses for the protection of men and provi-
sions. An immense amount of machinery
for handling heavy weights, including many
powerful cranes, was designed to meet the
peculiar demands of this work. With the
aid of these American-built docks and ma-
chinery, the enormous task of disembarking
an army of hundreds of thousands of men
has been carried on without mishap.

A favorable impression has been made
in France by the system of repair-shops
built and operated by American engineers.
The steel for many buildings was prepared
in the United States in an incredibly short
time, and put together in France with a speed
that suggests the erection of Aladdin's pal-
ace. An order was placed in America, for
instance, for 4000 steel hangars, measuring
68 by 165 feet, each to house four aeroplanes.
This order was executed in less than sixty
days. The field repair-shops, incidentally,
168

AMERICAN VERSATILITY

are usually placed as near as possible to the
front to save time in transporting broken ma-
chinery. They are never built close to-
gether, but at intervals of a half-mile or
more, so as to offer an inconspicuous target.

Equipped with American machinery and
manned by skilled workmen, these shops are
prepared to mend every conceivable form of
fighting-machine. The guns, large and
small, require constant attention. Should
a great gun get out of order, every moment
of delay in bringing it into action may be
priceless. Again, the tens of thousands of
automobiles behind the front require con-
stant repairs. The life of some of the more
delicate aero-motors proves to be only about
forty hours at the front, after which they
must be reground.

In recruiting these engineering regiments
every conceivable service seems to have been
anticipated. The engineering regiments in-
clude a number of expert workers on bicy-
cles. From the tons of litter picked up on
the battle-fields, the broken parts of bicycles
are carefully sorted out and put aside.
169

THE FIGHTING ENGINEERS

Many of the wheels used have been stand-
ardized, which simplifies the work. The
wrecks of wheels that seem beyond hope are
combined in order that nothing shall be
wasted. Companies of motor-cyclists use
up their wheels very quickly, and by keeping
the workers busy, thousands of wheels are
reclaimed. There are, besides, many hos-
pitals for broken rifles, where injured weap-
ons are repaired or parts of guns are stored
for future use. The saving that results
from this scientific economy amounts to mil-
Hons of dollars a year.

As might be expected, the electrical indus-
tries of America are well represented in the
engineering regiments. Several of the larg-
est manufacturing plants have sent their of-
ficials, who are well-known engineers, while
hundreds of experienced workers in every
branch of constructive work have volun-
teered. These American units are prepared
to take over bodily every imaginable electri-
cal enterprise, install a new system or oper-
ate an old one, without an hour's delay. So
many American inventions are in common
use abroad, and the French have made such
170

AMERICAN VERSATILITY

general use of our electrical machinery, that
American electricians report that they find
themselves much at home in the work.

An immense amount of electrical work
must be carried on at the front and imme-
diately behind it. Great distributing sys-
tems for operating electric-lights and sup-
plying power have been established and op-
erated in the war zone. A large and uni-
form supply of current must be provided for
headquarters, cantonments, artillery repair-
shops, and hospitals, as well as for the air
service and the reconstruction bases. If,
through any carelessness or inefficiency, the
power should be cut off for a single hour,
the loss would prove serious. Again, a well-
directed shot may at any moment of the day
or night destroy conduits vital to the ma-
chinery, and repairs must be made, however
difficult the conditions, with the greatest ex-
pedition. The linesmen, as well as the en-
gineers, in the electrical stations near the
front frequently perform highly technical
work while under fire.

The ingenuity of our engineers has proved
valuable in the conservation of electrical
171

THE FIGHTING ENGINEERS

power in many cities and towns in France.
The electrical industry has often been de-
moralized, especially in cities near the front.
Thousands of Frenchmen have had to go to
the trenches, and production has conse-
quently suffered. American engineers have
accomplished marvels in meeting this power-
famine. In some localities the electrical
system has been completely reorganized.
Important plants have been combined, and
all unnecessary waste has been eliminated.

The allotment of power to street-cars and
for street-lights has been systematically re-
duced, in order that manufacturing indus-
tries essential to the war might not suffer.
In some sections a census has been taken of
all the electrical machinery, so that every
part may be utilized. The new power-plants
constructed and the system installed by intro-
ducing the latest American methods will
prove of great permanent value to France.

The engineers of the Signal Corps often
have to face great peril. Telephone com-
munication is so vital a matter at the front
that communicating lines of wire must be
laid at any cost. When an advance is pre-
172

AMERICAN VERSATILITY

pared, the telephone linesmen, with their
material in hand, are held in readiness.
They carry an ample supply of heavily in-
sulated copper telephone-wire, — for the lines
are often run along the ground, — with their
equipment for setting up a loud-speaking
telephone. First the heavy artillery-fire pre-
pares the way and sweeps the front trenches
of the enemy. Heavy smoke-bombs are then
thrown to conceal the advance, and at a sig-
nal the men go "over the top."

The signal-men follow closely. They
carry reels of wire, which they run out as
they struggle forward. If a linesman falls,
another takes his place. There is no time, as
a rule, to arrange supports for the wire, and
in the barren wastes of no-man's-land no
tree nor stick remains to which to attach
them. The wires are run rapidly from
point to point, until the field is covered with
a network of communicating lines. A
chance shell from the enemy may destroy
these wires at any moment, when the work
must be repeated.

Such work is often complicated by lack of
supplies. In a hurried advance the electri-
173

THE FIGHTING ENGINEERS

cal equipment may be lost, and the signal-
men must then work with whatever make-
shift material they find at hand. An engi-
neer, finding himself one day on a battle-field
hopelessly far from his base of supply, im-
provised a working-station entirely of waste
material. A switchboard, capable of serv-
ing five stations, was contrived entirely from
material picked up on the battle-field. The
metal was supplied by an eighteen-pound
cartridge-case. This was fastened to boards
with screws taken from ammunition-boxes.
The plugs consisted of .303 rifle cartridge-
cases, and fuses and pieces of picked-up wire
completed the installation.

As the infantry advance, it is of vital im-
portance that the heavy batteries far in the
rear be informed of their progress and their
exact position. The signal-men rush for-
ward, the wires are connected with the in-
struments they carry, and news of their prog-
ress is sent to the batteries at the rear. Ar-
tillery fire can thus be directed from a posi-
tion perhaps miles at the rear ; otherwise the
shells might fall alike on friend and foe.

Few of the fighting engineers face greater
174

^ '4

=r- n '

AMERICAN VERSATILITY

danger than do the men recruited for the
Gas and Flame Regiment. As the name
suggests, these engineers direct the work of
producing liquid fire, which is employed be-
fore an attack. These men must be expe-
rienced chemists, and the preparation of in-
flammable solutions is left to them. Streams
of burning oil are often shot forward a dis-
tance of 150 feet.

The Gas and Flame Unit is officially-
known as the Thirtieth Engineers. In en-
listing this regiment, men between the ages
of eighteen and forty-five have been taken.
Every member was obliged to have some
technical experience which fitted him for the
work. The regiment, therefore, includes
chemists, mechanical engineers, explosive
gas-workers, electricians, gas-experts, me-
chanics, pipe-fitters, and special interpreters.
The regiment was quickly mobilized as early
as October 15, 1917, and was sent to Camp
American University under command of
Major E. J. Atkinson. A number of Eng-
lish officers who were experienced in the
work, were sent over to train them.

One of the engineering regiments includes
177

THE FIGHTING ENGINEERS

a company of twenty "skyographs," a serv-
ice new in warfare. These men, who are ex-
perts in their profession, are employed to
analyze the bird's-eye photographs taken by
aeroplane scouts. From long training, they
are skilful in constructing the military maps
used in planning campaigns and directing
military operations. The aero-photograph-
ers fly regularly over the lines, and take
thousands of photographs from various ele-
vations with the aid of special aero-cameras.
Such photographs are then compared with
the maps of the region, and the information
available and everything of military impor-
tance is indicated upon them. A few hours
after the pictures are made, a general, per-
haps miles behind the lines, by the aid of such
map-photographs may be said to look directly
down upon the enemy.

The varied experience of American
bridge-builders has proved a valuable asset.
The regiment recruited in the United States
for this work is officered by a number of en-
gineers selected from railroad companies, the
Army, and official bodies, while the rank and
file is made up of men trained by years of ex-
178

AMERICAN VERSATILITY

perience in actual construction work. With
such a force, every problem abroad may be
attacked with confidence. Widely scat-
tered over Northern France, American en-
gineers are to-day actively engaged in build-
ing a variety of bridges, great and small.

Compared with European standards,
American engineering work sets a fast pace.
In the present operations every effort has
been made to improve upon our own best
records, often with amazing success. Un-
loading of ships in France has been speeded
up, so that the work is being done to-day in
less than one third the time usually required.
The first order in America for standard-gage
locomotives of the ninety-ton type, calling for
three hundred units, was placed on July 19,
and delivery was required in October. The
first locomotive was delivered, complete, on
August I. This was followed by a second
order for 680 locomotives of the same type.

In some respects the most notable construc-
tive work of the American engineers is the
great ordnance base ''somewhere in France."
It is really an industrial city in which every
unit is carefully organized for constructive
179

THE FIGHTING ENGINEERS

work. The cost of building this plant is esti-
mated at $25,000,000, while the tool equip-
ment cost is an additional $5,000,000. The
plant includes twenty large storehouses,
twelve shop-buildings, and one hundred
smaller shops and magazines.

One of its important features is a great
gun repair-plant, equipped to handle more
than 800 field-guns of all sizes each month.
In connection with this is a gun-carriage
repair-shop of large capacity, where 1200
vehicles may be repaired monthly. The
small-arms repair-shop has a capacity of 50,-
000 small-arms and machine-guns a month.
Furthermore, there will be a large shop for
repairing horse and infantry equipment.
The reloading plant is capable of renewing
100,000 artillery cartridge-cases a day. In
connection with this tremendous activity
there are innumerable forges, carpenter-
shops, and auxiliary buildings. A popula-
tion of 16,000 men and 450 officers is re-
quired to carry on this base. More than
8000 men have already enlisted in America
for the work, and the training of these highly
technical troops is progressing rapidly.
180

AMERICAN VERSATILITY.

The Allied governments have been amazed
at America's facilities for turning out steel
and iron constructive material. In build-
ing thousands of steel structures throughout
the country the number of constructive
plants has been greatly increased in recent
years, and the time required to fill orders has
been cut far below European standards.
The facilities of such plants were well illus-
trated in the filling of a recent order for one
hundred steel warehouses. The buildings
were to measure 50 by 400 feet, with a height
of 16 feet below the trusses, the sides and
the roofs to be made entirely of galvanized
steel. Each building required 175 tons of
steel. The order was received at the depot
on a Thursday afternoon at four o'clock.
By the following Saturday at four, — within
forty-eight hours, — the entire job had been
designed in detail, and orders for the parts
had been placed with seven different fabri-
cating shops. Seventy-five of the buildings
were delivered, complete, in six weeks, and
the remainder followed shortly. An order
was recently filled for 750,000 sheets of cor-
rugated iron, to be shipped at once.
181

THE FIGHTING ENGINEERS

On retreating from any occupied territory
the Germans and Austrians often content
themselves with destroying the central sup-
port of a bridge, leaving the spans to fall to
the bottom of the river or ravine, as the case
may be. Such a bridge is restored in a sur-
prisingly short time by rebuilding the central
pier and raising the spans to their original
position. The bridge-building engineers
employ a make-shift pile-driver, which works
with surprising rapidity. Power-plants are
usually hard to find, but man-power is likely
to be plentiful. A heavy weight is quickly
rigged with pulleys, and a hundred or more
men, pulling on the rope, raise the weight,
then let it drop, forcing the pile into the earth
with slow but steady blows.

Every detail of the work that can be pre-
pared is, of course, done in advance. Not
only are the plans made in detail for bridging
a variety of openings, but bridges of vari-
ous designs are built and then knocked down,
ready to be carried away and put together
again. For small spans, a steel bridge is
sometimes used. This can be set up in dif-
182

AMERICAN VERSATILITY

ferent lengths. The parts are cut and
drilled, so that when put in place they will fit
as neatly as a puzzle. No riveting is re-
quired, the parts being fastened together
with bolts that may be driven with an ordi-
nary hammer. Such bridges may be set up
very quickly.

The engineering regiments are liberally
supplied with expert photographers equipped
with up-to-date apparatus. The skill and
daring of the camera-man is proving invalu-
able in a variety of war activities. In many
cases the photographers form an advance-
guard, and may be compared to the sharp-
shooters or pickets who fight in advance of
the main body. It often happens, for exam-
ple, that the advance-guard will reach a
bridge, or the site of a bridge, made unten-
able by the enemy's fire. It may be impera-
tive that the bridge-builders at once survey
the location and make their plans for build-
ing a new structure with the least possible
delay. A deadly fire, meanwhile, may ren-
der the position practically impossible. For
the engineers to expose themselves, while
183

THE FIGHTING ENGINEERS

they examined the injured structure and
made the necessary measurements, would
mean almost certain death.

The alert camera-man, however, readily
solves the problem. By slowly crawling for-
ward, taking advantage of every tree and
rock, or it may be by a rapid dash, he secures
snap-shots of the bridge from one point of
view after another, with the details of the
approach. Such a set of photographs are
well worth the risk. The exposed films are
then rushed to the rear, to be developed and
enlarged with the least possible delay. The
prints serve as rough working-drawings
from which the engineers, in this case the
experienced bridge-builders, may calculate
the size of the parts required to restore the
bridge or to construct a new structure. The
parts are quickly prepared and hurried for-
ward, where a corps of engineers assemble
them, and the chasm is bridged or the old
structure is sufficiently repaired to enable the
troops to advance. The fearlessness of the
camera-men has thus saved many valuable
days.

The camera serves the road-builders in
184

AMERICAN VERSATILITY

much the same way. If a raih-oad is to be
laid, the photographers accompany the sur-
veyors in advance of the workmen, and inci-
dentally often face a very lively peril while
working in disputed territory. The photo-
graphs thus obtained show the engineers the
nature of the ground to be traversed and as-
sist them in preparing material in advance.
The builders of highways have also learned
to depend upon the camera-man. A section
of road that is to be repaired, for instance,
is photographed in detail from various an-
gles. From this evidence the road-construc-
tion engineers can readily determine the na-
ture of material needed for repairs and can
calculate the quantity required. When a
road is projected across new territory the
staff-photographers are first sent out to
make detailed pictures of the ground.
From these the engineers at the bases far in
the rear may make their plans in detail. So
much depends upon the highways in this war
that the work of the camera-men in facilitat-
ing such construction often proves invalua-
ble. When any territory is to be evacuated,
once more the photographers picture every
187

THE FIGHTING ENGINEERS

detail of the ground, the buildings, bridges,
possible observation-posts, streams, and
other natural features. If the country falls
into the hands of the enemy, they thus retain
an accurate, detailed record that will prove
valuable to the artillery and to the aeroplane
scouts in subsequent operations.

In no other country is the camera so com-
mon as in America. In some form it is in
the hands of all classes, even to the further-
most corners of the land. Years of practice
have served to develop a surprisingly high
degree of skill in picture-taking. The Gov-
ernment therefore draws upon an inex-
haustible supply in recruiting men for pho-
tographic work.

The fighting engineers so often find them-
selves under fire that elaborate concrete shel-
ters, or abris, are built at frequent intervals.
These shelters are built of brick or concrete,
with solid, concrete roofs two feet or more in
thickness. They are practically shell-proof.
The entrances are convenient to the roads,
so that workmen may quickly find shelter.
From long experience the engineers have
come to think scarcely more of such fire than
i88

AMERICAN VERSATILITY

they do of a passing thunder-storm ; and as
soon as it shows signs of letting up, they
hurry back to their work.

The rapidity with which a towering sky-
scraper rises in the United States, or a
**boom" town is built on a Western prairie,
has been surpassed by the erection of the
great cantonments throughout the United
States. A more severe test of our resource-
fulness than the building of these vast
wooden cities could not be conceived. The
order came as a complete surprise. No ma-
terial was at hand, an army of skilled work-
men had to be recruited overnight for the
task, and every hour had to count in the
work.

The task might have daunted Aladdin
himself. Sixteen wooden cities had to be
built, comprising 26,500 buildings, for the
housing and care of 675,000 men; two em-
barkation camps for 43,000 men; one quar-
termaster's training camp for 18,000 men;
additions to the regular army barracks for
100,000 men; repair shops, units and their
structures at sixteen National Guard camps
to care for 462,000 men; and many large
189

THE FIGHTING ENGINEERS

plants for our army in France. A force of
200,000 trained, skilled mechanics had to be
recruited for this work. The cost of the
operations, — about $187,000,000, — is more
than three times the annual outlay in build-
ing the Panama Canal.

The work progressed with military pre-
cision at an unheard-of rate. The sites of
the sixteen National Army cantonments
were not approved until dates ranging from
May 31, to June zy, 191 7, but the contracts
were issued, nevertheless, between June 15
and June 23, and work was commenced be-
tween June 1 3 and July 6. In less than three
months, or on September 4, half a million
men could have been accommodated at the
cantonments. By December the camps were
practically completed.

The total area of the cantonments is 261
square miles. In these camps alone over
800,000,000 feet of lumber were used, or
enough to fill 37,000 cars, and 40,000 more
cars were required to bring the other ma-
terials, making a total of 77,000 cars. Some
idea of the magnitude of the task may be
gained from the fact that 172,000 doors were
190

AMERICAN VERSATILITY

used, 34,000,000 square feet of wall-board,
106,000 kegs of nails, 314,000 barrels of ce-
ment, 282 miles of pipe, 23,550 hydrants,
and 75 miles of fire-hose. The building of
these great wooden cities has been a unique
achievement, one that will go down in history
as a monument to the loyalty and ability of
American engineers.

Preparations on this side of the Atlantic
for expediting the delivery of war supplies
are most impressive. A vast system of in-
terior depots and port-terminals has been de-
signed, which doubtless establishes a new
standard of efficiency. Under the direction
of the cantonment division of the quarter-
master-general's office, a large force of de-
signers perfected plans on an enormous scale.
The type of construction was selected with
an idea of early completion, although most of
the buildings will be permanent and will be
used by our Government after the war.

A series of interior depots of great ca-
pacity were first designed at points readily
accessible by railroad to the large manufac-
turing centers. In connection with these, a
number of port-terminals have been located
191

THE FIGHTING ENGINEERS

at tidewater, where ocean-going vessels
might dock, or, at least, be within lighterage
distance. The products of the factories are
first assembled in the interior depots by rail-
road or motor-truck. These depots thus
come to form great reservoirs for feeding
the terminal warehouses. An enormous vol-
ume of supplies can thus be moved from the
interior of the United States to the coast,
and finally to France, with the least possible
delay.

Interior depots have been built at St.
Louis, Chicago, Pittsburgh, and elsewhere
convenient to the great manufacturing cen-
ters. The type of buildings varies with dif-
ferent localities, some being constructed of
reinforced concrete, while others are entirely
of steel. The first of the great port-termi-
nals was erected at Philadelphia. One of
these terminals occupies a tract of land 3800
feet in length, along a ship-canal that has a
depth of 25 feet and a length of 1600 feet.
Special tracks have been laid, connecting the
terminal with a main-line railroad half a
mile away. Along the sides of the canal two
open sheds have been constructed, measuring
192

AMERICAN VERSATILITY

1 100 by 1 60 feet, nine large storehouses, an
open shed 1200 by 500 feet, together with
quarters for the stevedore troops. A series
of warehouses have also been built 160 feet
in width, in multiples of 140 feet in length.
Another of the great port-terminals has a
pier extending 1500 feet, and utilizes 400,000
square feet of shed-storage.

In organizing our resources, an important
use has been found for the skill of the
moving-picture men. It is well known, of
course, that a large proportion of the mov-
ing-pictures used the world over are made in
America. A large force of men has thus
been trained in the new art, and, as might be
expected, this group has reached a high state
of efficiency. The Government has added to
its engineering regiments hundreds of men
recruited from ''movie" studios to assist in
preparing camouflage material. Every fre-
quenter of moving-picture theaters knows
that these artists perform wonders in build-
ing villages or the semblance of cities over
night. In a few hours they can produce
scenes from any country or century so con-
vincing in every detail that the most critical
193

THE FIGHTING ENGINEERS

moving-picture audience is readily deceived.
It has been a happy idea to utihze this skill
in safeguarding our armies abroad. The
ingenuity displayed and the amazing facility
of these war artists in their work may well
be a source of pride to Americans. Work-
ing with lath and canvas or papier-mache,
the magic of the movies has been adapted to
many surprising uses. After long expe-
rience in building scenes that deceive mil-
lions of "movie fans," it is an easy task for
them to produce the same illusion for Ger-
man military audiences. One of the most
successful ''sets" is a reproduction of de-
vastated buildings in the war zone. It
often happens that a fragment of a house
or a church, perhaps only the corner of a
wall, is left standing in no-man's land. The
camouflage artists quickly reproduce the
piece in life size with light wood or papier-
mache, and then paint it to duplicate the
original. On some dark night, perhaps un-
der cover of artillery fire, the original ruin
is removed and the duplicate set up in its
place. A day or two is allowed for the
enemy to detect the deception. If the for-
194

AMERICAN VERSATILITY

gery passes muster, it is cautiously moved
forward a few feet every night. It is often
found possil)lc to advance the piece of scen-
ery a consideraljle distance nearer the en-
emy's Hnes without arousing suspicion.
Meanwhile, an alert scout from a look-out at
the top of the fake ruin spies upon the enemy
and by means of telephone communication
keeps his base supplied with information.
A similar deception is often worked by keep-
ing the ruin stationary, but to increase its
height a few inches at a time until the in-
genious observation-post reaches the desired
elevation. Thus it becomes a matter of life
and death as to how skilfully the scene-
painter can practice his art.

A piece of landscape having a thousand
details to deceive the eye is sometimes repro-
duced with perfect success. At one point on
the long battle-line a road chanced to cross
both trenches at right angles, so that the
enemy could look for some distance up this
thoroughfare. An elaborate piece of stag-
ing was prepared to reproduce this scene,
and this was set up one night across the
road. Viewed from a short distance, the
195

THE FIGHTING ENGINEERS

enemy imagined that he still looked up the
empty road. The painted scenery mean-
while concealed the actual road, which was
quickly utilized by trains of automobiles
bringing supplies and ammunition. This
surprising activity went on for several
weeks, until a chance shot destroyed the
scenery across the road and revealed a very
different picture to the amazed Germans.

Every object found on the battle-field is
reproduced by these skilful stage-artists to
serve some purpose. When the ground is
apparently absolutely barren, some means
will still be found to deceive the enemy. A
stone, a log, or some piece of debris will be
selected and carefully reproduced. Under
cover of darkness the stone, or whatever it
may be, is removed and the imitation put in
its place. A day or two is given the enemy
to discover the forgery. If he does not, a
hole will then be hollowed out beneath the
stone large enough to conceal a man, and
here he may sit with his head covered by the
piece of stage scenery. He must take up
this perilous position at night, and remain
there until the following night, but if he sur-

196

AMERICAN VERSATILITY

vives, he may be able to telephone back some
highly valuable information. One of the
favorite ''properties" of this kind is a repro-
duction of a dead horse, with distended body
and stiff legs pointed upward. The ob-
server thus protected has an unusual amount
of room in which to turn about and to op-
erate his telephone.

Years are required for an industrial,
peace-loving people to recruit and train a
great army. Brought face to face with the
forces of a distinctively military people, the
United States is, of course, for the moment
at a great disadvantage. Her great army
of engineers, with its innumerable conquests
in every field behind it, has, however, been
mobilized in force at a moment's notice.

The American engineer is in no sense a
superman. He has brought average skill to
his work with perhaps a liberal share of
American energy and alertness. His ver-
satility is due to the simple fact that he has
been trained in the greatest school of expe-
rience in the world. He has encountered
every conceivable engineering problem in
the United States, and with these achieve-
197

THE FIGHTING ENGINEERS

ments behind him, he is well prepared for
any new undertaking. A New York fire-
man, for instance, enjoys a reputation for
skill, not because he is more alert or more
intelligent than the firemen in small com-
munities, but because he fights half-a-dozen
fires of all kinds every day.>^

In the early days of the war, when Atlan-
tic steamers were crowded to capacity with
home-coming Americans, a number of en-
gineers were already bound in the opposite
direction. Mr. William J. Hillgas, the well-
known engineer, was one of the first five to
reach the front, and he has since been ac-
tively employed in France. One of the first
American engineers to join our forces was
Mr. (now Major) William Barclay Parsons,
who, it will be remembered, was the chief
engineer of the Rapid Transit Commission
who directed the building of New York's
first subway. The foreign staff to-day in-
cludes Mr. W. S. Buck, who built the Man-
hattan Bridge across the East River and one
of the great Niagara bridges. The engi-
neer who built the East River Tunnel is also
198

AMERICAN VERSATILITY

in France. The list might be continued in-
definitely.

A force of American sanitary engi-
neers has been entrusted with the work of
cleaning up Palestine. Since the days of the
Roman occupation at least, the sanitary situ-
ation throughout the Holy Lands has been a
constant menace. Jerusalem with a popu-
lation of lOOjCXX) has had no water supply
and no sewage system. Throughout Pales-
tine the better classes have been obliged to
import their drinking water from Austria.
The system of drainage has remained ex-
tremely primitive. It is necessary to edu-
cate the public in the most fundamental prin-
ciples of sanitation.

A new era will be opened for the Iloly
Lands w^ith the adoption of modern Amer-
ican methods. Our engineers have taken
with them, for instance, a complete filter sys-
tem with a special chlorinator apparatus
which will make it possible to supply thou-
sands of the population of the region, wnth
pure water. It is planned to supply at least
two gallons a day for every person. For the
199

THE FIGHTING ENGINEERS

first time in recorded history the Holy Lands
will be made a decent place to live in.

The American forces will be directed by
several of the best known sanitary engineers
of the country, including Captain Groemiger,
President of the American Society of Sani-
tary Engineers, Captain Pease of the Wor-
cester Polytechnic Institute, Captain Carson,
Chairman of the Research Committee of the
American Society of Sanitary Engineers and
others. The work of the American engi-
neers will include the scientific drainage of
great areas of swamp regions to insure per-
manent relief from the menace of disease.
It has remained for American ingenuity and
energy to utilize the pools of Solomon to
purify its historic waters by modern meth-
ods, and make it available for the capital of
Judea. In lending the genius of its engi-
neers, America is making a contribution
worthy of our country's best traditions.

200

"LADIES
FROM HELL"

By R. D. PiNKERTON

This is war — its thrills, its nobilities, its splendors. A poet at heart,
and face to face with the flaming realities, this young Scotchman wrote
the first draught of his book, and in it is the very breath of the battlefield.

Mr. Pinkerton was a member of the famous London Scottish Regi-
ment, which went into the fighting at the very beginning. "Ladies from
Hell" the Germans called the Scotchmen in kilts as they came tearing
through their lines, fighting with an effect associated with a place whose
climate is said to be different from that of Scotland ; and the name has
lived.

The reader will re-live, with the author, in minutest detail, his months
of training and fighting; the reader will be made a comrade in arms with
the captivating "Ladies from Hell." From the book Americans may see,
with a clearness to be gained from few other books on the war, just what
our soldiers meet when they fight the men in the dirt-colored uniforms.

There are in this book of a fighting Scot with a poet's heart flashes
that tremble in vividness against the tremendous black background. And
at the end the reader will know more of what war is — its sacrifice and
its magnificence — than he ever knew before, unless he already has been at
the middle of the greatest event of modern times.

Illustrated from photographs
Price $1.50

At All Bookstores TUC PFISITITRY CC\ 353 Fourth Avenue
Published by * HE VEiil 1 UIV 1 \AJ. New York City

FLASHES FROM
THE FRONT

By Charles H. Grasty

With a Foreword by General John J. Pershing

"The history of this war cannot be written without the perspective
which time alone can give," says General John J. Pershing in his foreword.
"In the meanwhile such chronicles as the author (Mr. Grasty) has pre-
sented supply the public with current information and preserve a useful
record for the historian. The exceptional opportunities of observation
enjoyed by the author will make this volume one of the best among
contemporary publications on the war."

Mr. Grasty is a war correspondent of the New York Times traveling
with orders to go wherever there are big things to see, study and write
about. "The exceptional opportunities of observation" spoken of by
General Pershing are founded on the international prestige of his paper,
the machinery for facilitating the seeing and reporting put at his disposal
by its regular correspondents in Europe wherever he went, and Mr.
Grasty's own special equipment for seeing and studying the great figures
and events of the war.

"Flashes From the Front" is made up of his maturest opinions on
men and things of the war, and they are presented with an accuracy, charm
and fullness not possible for the usual newspaper correspondence. The
book is a series of brilliant sidelights on the war, illuminating now an
outstanding figure among the Allies, now a section of trench-Hfe, now a
matter of diplomacy or international politics, etc.

"Flashes From the Front" is the cream of the material gathered in
Europe by one of the greatest war correspondents from this side of the
Atlantic.

Octavo, 350 pages

Illustrated with photographs, and with drawings

by Muirhead Bone, one of the official

artists for the British Government

Price $2.00

At All Bookstores TII17 rTWTITPV CCi 353 Fourth Avenue
Published by inEi V/EilliUIVI \^\I. New York City

THE ROOTS
OF THE WAR

By William Stearns Davis

In Collaboration with William Anderson and Mason W. Tyler

This book undertakes to outline the circumstances that made possible
Germany's inconceivably daring attempt to achieve at one, or, at most,
two or three ruthless and gigantic strokes of the sword, the establishment
of a world empire, an Empire of Teutonia, indescribably vaster, richer,
more universal than that of imperial Rome.

President Wilson, himself a historian, has said: "You can explain
most wars very simply, but the explanation of this war is not so simple.
Its roots run deep into all the obscure soils of history."

It is to discover some of these roots and their fateful growths that
this book was written. It covers especially the period from 1870 to 1914,
with background references of course to preceding European history.

The authors say in their preface : "By general consent the period of
history which ended in 1914 saw its beginning in 1870 when the Prussian
militarists won their original triumph over France, thereby establishing
a precedent for the use of armed force as a wise supplement to flagging
diplomacy, a precedent that was to be applied with incalculable effect upon
a much greater field of action forty-four years later. During this interval
a great many national and international forces were acting simultaneously
which all together helped to produce the climax of Armageddon."

12mo, 400 pages f 6 maps
Price $1,50

At All Bookstores TOC PpKITITPY CC\ 353 Fourth Avenue
Published by * "Ei V/Eiil 1 UIV I \AJ* New York City

THE AIR MAN

His Conquests in Peace and War

By Francis A. Collins

Author of " The Camera Man," Etc

In these stirring times when newspapers almost daily carry some
thrilling account of a battle amid the clouds, a book like "The Air Man,"
by Francis A. Collins, cannot fail to interest a host of readers. Here, in
succinct, vivid style that is not too technical for the lay mind yet never
departs from a clear exposition of its subject, the author paints a picture
of the immense strides — or shall one say flights — that aviation has made
since the Wright brothers introduced it to the world.

There are chapters on training the tyro and the qualifications, physical
as well as mental, necessary to become an expert; the art of navigation
and the recently devised mechanical arts that render it a practical cer-
tainty; types of aeroplanes, their cost and up-keep, together with records
of flights in this country and abroad ; methods of use, such as for hunting,
exploring, business, pleasure or war, giving graphic illustrations in each
case; the progress of aviation in the Great War, with its remarkable but
inspiring code, the "Chivalry of the Air"; and, last but not least, the
gratifying record of American achievement in aerial scouting work during
the Mexican campaign.

All in all, this is a book that holds the attention, and makes the heart
beat faster ; it will have a tremendous appeal for aroused America — ^young
and old.

12mo, 300 pages.

Fully illustrated from photographs

Price $1.30 net

At All Bookstores TUC rFNTITPV C(\ 353 Fourth Avenue
Published by * HE. V/Eiil i UIV I \AJ, New York City

THE
CAMERA MAN

His Adventures in Many Fields: With Practical
Suggestions for the Amateur

By Francis A. Collins

Author of "The Wireless Man," etc

A fact-story that reads like romance, telling what men can do, what
men are doing every day, with the black box with the unprejudiced eye.
A book full of entertainment and information for the general reader
interested in adventure and popular science and of very special value for
the amateur photographer, to whom it offers many ideas for the enriching
of his experiences with the camera.

Most people do not realize what a large and important work the
camera does to-day, into how many and what various spheres of activity
it has been called. Mr. Collins knows his subject intimately, and he presents
it with simplicity, completeness, and charm as well as with scrupulous
accuracy.

The following, which are some of the chapter-headings, indicate the
scope and nature of the book: Aeroplane Photography; The Camera
Man at Sea; The "Movie" Reporter; The News Photographer; The
"Movies" in Warfare; The Commercial Photographer; History of the
Camera; Color Photography; Photography in Science; Many Kinds of
Cameras.

12mo, 325 pages, jacket in color

32 full-page illustrations

Price $1.30 net

At All Bookstores TUC ri7WTITDV CC\ 353 Fourth Avenue
Published by inL LLillUlVl KA). New York City

DONALD THOMPSON
IN RUSSIA

By Donald Thompson

This book constitutes an amazing, contemporary, eye-witness record
of Russia in revolution by an American who had to be in the midst of
the cataclysm and who was interested only in seeing the facts.

Donald Thompson went to Russia to photograph the revolution.
"Shoot the revolution" is the phrase, for he made thousands of feet of
moving-picture films. You cannot imagine pictures, or get them from
some person who heard from a friend that so-and-so had happened ; you
have to be on the spot in the midst of things to get photos and "footage."

Donald Thompson was in the midst of the Russian revolution. He
went everywhere, favored by luck, supported by a camera experience on
every front in Europe that is without parallel. E. Alexander Powell, the
famous newspaper correspondent, says in his book, "Fighting in Flanders" :
"Of all the band of adventurous characters who were drawn to the Con-
tinent in the outbreak of war as iron filings are attracted by a magnet, I
doubt if there was a more picturesque character than a little photographer
from Kansas named Donald Thompson. ... He not only saw war, all
military prohibitions to the contrary, but he actually photographed it."

When Mr. Thompson started for Russia, to fall into the biggest story
he had ever dreamed of, he began writing newsy, vivid letters to his wife.
As he penetrated more deeply into the thrilling events in Russia, he found
himself telling the story of the Russian revolution, in detail, as he saw it,
as it happened.

8vo, 300 pages, 64 illustrationa from pnotographs
Price $2.00

At All Bookstores TUF rTMTITDV Cfi 353 Fourth Avenue
Published by 1 nL LLIN 1 UK I lAJ. New York City

UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA AT LOS ANGELES

THE UNIVERSITY LIBRARY
This book is DUE on the last date stamped below

IAP:<

iWAi

"tfr^KL

laBD

^14

:■< i

^\>

^^^^

KPR27'73

"Bffl^

SE
DEC 20 1989

1373
impa uum

291975

20m-12,'3n(.'i;iSG)

nStTERSm OF CALIFOSSXi

AT
LOS ANGELES

570. S Collins -
C69f _The_fi£htij
engineers.

L 005 834 339 3

UCSOUTHFRN l«:,r. •,.■.! , :l'!J-l.:, ;; ilJTY

AA 000 785 856

Internet Archive Audio

Featured

Top

Images

Featured

Top

Software

Featured

Top

Books

Featured

Top

Video

Featured

Top

Mobile Apps

Browser Extensions

Archive-It Subscription

Save Page Now

Full text of "The fighting engineers; the minute men of our industrial army"

See other formats