When the war traffic ended, the Transportation Service found itself in possession of enormous port facilities. Prior to the armistice the Government had seized or leased over seventy steamship piers at various Atlantic and Gulf ports; but even such facilities being entirely inadequate to the vast amount of shipping contemplated, the Government began the construction of seven great port bases located at Boston, Brooklyn, Port Newark, Philadelphia, Norfolk, Charleston, and New Orleans. Not one of these projects was complete on November 11. One of the early demobilization questions to be settled was what to do with these installations. Should the Government abandon them and set down as loss the millions spent, or go ahead with their erection and perhaps make the whole enterprise profitable by leasing the facilities to American commerce? The latter course was chosen. The contractors completed the construction at a total cost of $143,000,000. As the new piers became ready for use the Transportation Service turned back its leased piers to their owners. Then, as the military traffic dwindled, the space in the base terminals was leased to private ship operators. These terminals, among the largest and finest in the United States, are now rendering an important service to our foreign trade, but on terms ensuring their instant availability to the Government in the event of a future emergency.[3]

CHAPTER IV
EBB TIDE

Before the American Expeditionary Forces could be disbanded in this country it was necessary for the training camps, most of which were to become demobilization centers after the armistice, to be evacuated by the home forces occupying them. The fluvial system leading into that sea of humanity which we knew as the A. E. F.—main river crossing the ocean, chief tributaries leading up to the ports in this country, beyond them their branch creeks and brooks, and the rills at the sources—was running bank-full on the day of the armistice. Demobilization, which inverted many of the processes of war and changed familiar names into their antonyms, abruptly reversed the direction of troop-flow, as if some tremendous power had uplifted the reservoir and the mouth of the main stream in France above the ultimate sources in this country. Before the expeditionary sea could drain out, the home channels of troop supply had to discharge their contents into the nimbus of civilian life.

The process of dissolution began within the hour in which the news of peace came to Washington. It happened that November 11 was the first of five days during which the Army planned to absorb 250,000 soldiers inducted into service under the terms of the Selective Service Act. Although it was evident that an armistice was at hand, the Railroad Administration went ahead with preparations for the transportation of these men to the training camps, and even dispatched the draft trains on the morning of November 11 to pick up the selectives, although the morning newspapers had announced that the armistice was indisputably to begin at eleven o’clock in France. The only preparation looking toward demobilization had been to set up telephone and telegraph circuits over which the officials in Washington could stop and turn back the troop trains in a minimum of time. Immediately after receiving General Pershing’s message announcing the start of the armistice, the Secretary of War notified the Troop-Movement Section of the Railroad Administration to stop the draft trains. This was done within an hour, although the trains were then in operation in every section of the United States. Some thousands of young men who had taken the oath of allegiance that morning, and who at the approach of noon were on troop trains proceeding to military camps, found themselves back at home, civilians once more, before the embers of the celebrating bonfires had died out that night.

Hard on their heels came the hundreds of thousands of soldiers who made up the combat divisions in training in the United States. These were the men last to don the uniform—men who were only partially trained, and who could be of no service to the War Department in the activities of demobilization. Their disbandment was not a difficult undertaking. They had been in the service so short a time that there were no complications of back pay and incomplete records to hinder their discharge. Moreover, they were geographically homogeneous—i.e., their homes were generally in the regions surrounding the training camps—and therefore their demobilization brought about no problem in transportation. As a rule they were paid off and discharged at their training camps and allowed to make their way to their homes.

Quite apart from the divisional troops, there was another great body of soldiers in the United States on the day of the armistice. These were men undergoing training in special camps, such as those of the Air Service and the Quartermaster Corps, and also the troops engaged in maintaining the great war establishment in the United States. The demobilization of these men was more difficult. It was for them in the first place that the War Department set up the demobilization system which was to be seen in the perfection of operation later on when the A. E. F. began reaching the United States en masse.

Soon after the armistice the War Department established by order a system of thirty-three demobilization camps, or centers, as they were called. In large part these centers were former training camps. Practically all the National Army cantonments and some of the National Guard camps were so used. Other military posts and stations were added so as to distribute the demobilization centers evenly throughout the country according to the distribution of population. The War Department’s policy was to discharge soldiers in as close proximity as possible to their former places of residence.

The special troops on duty in this country lacked homogeneity in the regional origin of the members of the various units. Many of the organizations were composed entirely of men chosen because of special aptitude for special service. Single units were therefore made up of men from widely separated parts of the United States. When the time came to disperse these troops it was found impossible to send the units intact to demobilization centers and there to disband them, except at a great waste of transportation. Throughout the whole activity the War Department husbanded transportation. Before the armistice it had been the general policy to move men always to the eastward, since east was forward. The armistice inverted the policy; and in order to avoid expensive duplication of travel, the Army in assembling its demobilization units moved its men always essentially westward until at length they reached the camps where they were to be discharged.

Throughout the winter of 1918–1919 the disintegration of the home forces proceeded rapidly, as the great subordinate services of the Army tapered off their war activities and released their men. One or two of the services, such as the Medical Department and the Motor Transport Corps, held on to their troops for a few months in order to carry out necessary duties connected with the disbanding of the Army and the restoration of the military establishment to a peace footing; but the others, such as the Air Service, the Signal Corps, the Corps of Engineers, and the Quartermaster Corps, reduced strength as rapidly as the country could absorb the men. These men lost their unit identity as they proceeded toward the demobilization centers and finally found themselves once more grouped with their neighbors, regardless of what service any of them had performed.

By the end of February, 1919, more than 1,600,000 officers and enlisted men had been discharged from the Army. At that time only about 300,000 of the expeditionary troops had reached the United States. The great body of the A. E. F. was still to come, but the demobilization centers in the United States were empty and ready for it.