Certain of the growers, like suburban gardeners, watched for bean shoots that never appeared. Some of these alien beans seemed to derive a sort of floral madness from the heady gulf loam and sent up veritable trunks twenty, thirty, and forty feet in air. But never a bean pod crowned such luxuriant growth. Whether because of the growers’ lack of experience, unfavorable climate, or, more likely, defective seed, there has seldom been an American crop failure more nearly total than this. By gleaning every bean, the producers managed to gather 181,000 bushels, or 1.8 bushels to the acre.
As soon as the fell result was known, 12,000 angry farmers besieged the Government with demands for reparation. The claims aggregated millions. Not only did the farmers hold the Government responsible for the crop loss, but they also, dozens of them, put in claims for property damage and restoration costs, maintaining that in clearing their lands after the bean crop they had had to use stump pullers and dynamite to rout out the enormous stalks. One farmer sarcastically credited the War Department with his winter’s supply of firewood, which he said he had been able to cut from his bean patch. The War Department finally settled the claims for a total of $1,540,638, which was at the rate of $8.50 a bushel for the beans received. Thus ended the first lesson in the American cultivation of the castor bean. It will be some time yet before the Department of Agriculture will have to create a branch to gather statistics on the domestic castor bean crop.
The work of demobilizing the Air Service of the American Expeditionary Forces ramified into several main branches: the cancellation of our foreign contracts and the settlement of our accounts with the governments of the Allies arising from the mutual purchases of materials; the sale of the installations and surplus movable property acquired by the Service during the war; the salvaging of worn-out equipment; and the shipment to the United States of airplanes and other equipment retained by the Air Service for future use. Most of the surplus property of the Air Service abroad went to France in the bulk sale of all surplus A. E. F. property, although some was taken by other governments in Europe in smaller purchases. These sales were consummated by the United States Liquidation Commission, which also concluded the financial settlements of our air service accounts with the Allied governments. These transactions are to be explained in some detail in a later chapter. The disposition of all aircraft materials retained by the A. E. F. was accomplished by the Air Service itself.
The A. E. F.’s production center before the armistice had been at the great flying field at Romorantin, near Tours. Here all new airplanes acquired by the A. E. F., either from the American industry or from the factories in Europe, had been received, assembled, equipped, and dispatched to the front. It had taken more than 10,000 officers and enlisted men to do this work. After the armistice Romorantin was made the concentration depot for all American air service supplies in France, and here all materials for return to the United States were boxed and forwarded to the ports. About 1,000 airplane engines were shipped to the United States and 2,097 planes, of which 347 were German, 1,139 British and French, and 611 American De Havilands.
Merely the packing of this equipment was a work of great size. It required, for instance, 7,500,000 board feet of seasoned lumber for the crates, besides large quantities of nails, bolts, clamps, wire cable, paint, and roofing paper, and also tools for the packers. A lumber mill employing 195 operatives was set up merely to resaw, tongue, and groove the lumber for boxes and crates.
The 2,000 airplanes returned to the United States represented practically all of the great aërial equipment of the A. E. F. which was saved for use after the war. The sales of our used airplanes abroad after the armistice, to either governments or individuals, were practically nothing. The remaining thousands of airplanes which had once borne the American insignia aloft were stripped of their salvageable materials and burned in great bonfires, the pyres of original investments running up into millions of dollars. This seeming profligacy was harshly criticized by those in this country who did not understand the conditions; but, when those responsible for the destruction had put in their defense, the criticism ceased.
The life of airplanes in use or in storage is short at best. Thousands of the A. E. F. planes had given considerable service, either at the training fields or at the front. The average life expectancy of these ships was probably less than three months. There was no sale for them abroad—France already owned many more airplanes than she could possibly use up, and the attempts of the Air Service to sell used planes to individuals ended in complete failure. To knock down these machines, box them, subject them once more to the deteriorating effects of the salt humidity of a transatlantic voyage, and to reassemble them in the United States, would still further impair their condition and still further abbreviate their average life. There was also to be considered the expense of maintaining soldiers in France to protect this matériel for several months, the expense of preparing it for shipment, and finally,—the chief cost,—the expense of transporting it to the United States. The question was whether it was good business to spend all this money for the sake of returning to the United States materials which at best would have a useful life of only a few weeks, and which, because of the surpluses of new or little used airplanes already on hand, might never be used at all. The War Department did not hesitate in its answer. It ordered the sale or destruction of all A. E. F. airplanes of this class; and, since sale proved to be impossible, the order meant their destruction.
Those in charge of the work, realizing that criticism would be likely to follow, proceeded most carefully. Only the newest, least used, and best conditioned planes were reserved for shipment home. The air squadrons with the Army of Occupation were given a plentiful supply of airplanes. The rest, destined for destruction, were given several inspections by different committees and boards of survey, in order that the Chief of the Air Service might have a plentitude of expert opinion on which to base his condemnation orders.
The Class D material, as this condemned property was called, was concentrated in three centers—Romorantin, Issoudun (where the A. E. F. had operated the largest flying school in the world), and Colombey-les-Belles (the demobilization depot for the zone of advance). Here were conducted the final inspections. Many of the condemned planes presented, to the unpracticed eye, a perfect appearance. Storage space in the zone of advance after the armistice had always been short, and these apparently good machines had suffered from exposure to the weather. They were water-soaked; glued joints had given away, wooden parts were warped, and so on. They would have had to be completely rebuilt to be safe. Others had broken struts and cross braces and other damaged parts. All such machines were set aside for salvage.
