SAWMILL AT LARGEST LUMBER CAMP IN FRANCE. TWENTIETH ENGINEERS NEAR ECLARON, FRANCE.
HAULING LOGS BY MOTOR TRUCK, CAMP KELLOG, BORDEAUX, FRANCE.
STORAGE DAM AT SAVENAY, FRANCE, AND THE LAND THAT WILL BE INUNDATED WHEN IT IS COMPLETED.
The forestry work of the American Expeditionary Forces was developed to meet the heavy demands of our armies for forest products of all kinds. The first move in this direction was the dispatch to France of the Tenth Engineers, a forestry regiment of two battalions. This was in September, 1917. By the spring of 1918 we had recruited and trained the Twentieth Engineers, a forestry regiment of 10 battalions. Later additional forestry troops were sent across. Shortly before hostilities ceased all these troops were consolidated into a single regiment of 13,000 men, known as the Twentieth Engineers. To this force were added negro service troops to the number of 9,000, making 22,000 men engaged exclusively in the work of cutting down French forests and turning them into lumber required by our forces.
At first we had difficulty in supplying the necessary machinery. Until the sawmills came the forestry troops were engaged in building camps and hewing out railroad ties. In January, 1918, the machine equipment began to arrive. In February our troops cut about 3,500,000 feet of lumber; while in October the cut for the single month had reached the enormous figure of 50,000,000 feet. When the war ended we were expanding our forestry operations in France to produce 1,000,000,000 feet of lumber in a year.
The lumber produced by our sawmills in France up to November 30, 1918, would build completely enough barrack buildings 20 feet wide to stretch out to a distance of 600 miles if placed end to end, quarters enough for 3,107,600 men. In addition to this output the railroad ties produced would build 1,091 miles of standard-gauge railway and the small ties for the 24-inch track would build a double-track railroad behind 185 miles of trenches.
Just the posts and poles produced, if all cut into 6-foot posts, would be sufficient to support a wire fence, with posts one rod apart, reaching one-third of the distance around the earth. The piling, if stood end to end, would make a flagpole 362 miles high. The cord-wood produced would make a rack 1 yard wide, 1 yard high, and 600 miles long.