Our chain of gun factories, that were making this remarkable production, were built as follows:
One at the Watertown Arsenal, Watertown, Mass., near Boston, for the manufacture of rough machined gun forgings of the larger mobile calibers. This factory was entirely built and equipped on Government land with Government money and is splendidly able to produce rough machined gun forgings of the highest quality at the rate of two sets a day for the 155-millimeter G. P. F. rifles, and one set a day of the 240-millimeter howitzers.
At Watervliet Arsenal, Watervliet, N. Y., large extensions were made to the existing plant that had always been the Army's prime reliance for the finishing and the assembly of guns of all calibers, including the very largest. This plant was extended to manufacture complete four of the 240-millimeter howitzers each day, and two a day of the 155-millimeter G. P. F. guns.
At Bridgeport, Conn., there was constructed a complete new factory by the Bullard Engineering Works for the United States to turn out four 155-millimeter G. P. F. guns a day.
At Philadelphia, the Tacony Ordnance Corporation, as agents for the Government, erected complete a new factory officered and manned by experts well-trained and experienced in the difficult art of the manufacture of steel and gun forgings. On October 11, 1917, the grounds for this great undertaking had been merely staked out for the outline of the buildings. Seven months later, on May 15, 1918, the entire group of buildings, comprising a complete steel works from making the steel to the final completion of 155-millimeter gun forgings, was entirely erected at a cost of about $3,000,000. This difficult and rapid building operation was carried through successfully during the extraordinarily severe winter of 1917-18. On June 29, 1918, the first carload of gun forgings was accepted and shipped from this plant, so we have the marvelous enterprise of building a complete steel works from the bare ground forward to the shipment of its first forgings in a total elapsed time of only eight and one-half months.
At another, the works of the Midvale Steel Co. in Philadelphia, large extensions were made to enable some of the larger guns to be produced, to be finished later at the Watervliet Arsenal.
At the Bethlehem Steel Co.'s plant, Bethlehem, Pa., as early as May, 1917, orders were placed and appropriations allotted for expansions to this enterprise to enable a rapid output of a larger number of gun forgings and finished guns.
Large extensions were made at the works of the Standard Steel Works Co., Burnham, Pa., to increase their existing forging and heat treating facilities, so that at this plant two sets of 155-millimeter howitzers and one set of 155-millimeter gun forgings were produced each day.
At Pittsburgh, Pa., the plants of the Heppenstall Forge & Knife Co. and the Edgewater Steel Co. were extended so as to provide for the daily production at the first plant of forgings for one 3-inch antiaircraft gun and one 4.7-inch gun, and at the second plant of forgings for one 155-millimeter G. P. F. gun and one 240-millimeter howitzer per day.