STORING ROLLING KITCHENS.
METHOD OF STORING WAGON WHEELS AT JEFFERSONVILLE QUARTERMASTER STORAGE DEPOT.
METHOD OF STORING HORSE COLLARS AT JEFFERSONVILLE DEPOT.
As the supplies backed up into the warehouses, it became necessary for the Army to know where it stood in the matter of property; and a complete inventory was ordered, since there had been no time during the hurry and bustle of the war period to take stock. This inventory in itself was an enormous undertaking. To prepare for it the quartermaster training school at Camp Meigs, D. C., was completely transformed into a school for training experts for taking inventories. A standard scheme was worked out. The experts, after being trained in the standard method, were sent out into every zone in the country as instructors. In each zone they convened the so-called "town meetings." The town meeting was made up of Army storekeepers from each depot, post, camp, and station in the zone—any place where Army supplies were stored. These representatives were schooled in the inventory method and then sent back to their stations with instructions to start the inventory on December 31, 1918. The next operation was to organize an inventory factory in Washington as the consolidating point for all the inventories in the United States.
Some idea of the number of articles which Uncle Sam accumulated as a result of the war may be gained from the fact that the inventories received in Washington filled 40,600 sheets of paper, the size of an ordinary large letterhead, with typewriting single spaced. To take the inventory required a force in Washington of approximately 100 officers and 400 civilians, while there were probably over 10,000 officers and men engaged in the entire operation over the country. The inventory was undoubtedly the largest ever taken in the world.
Before the war the standard items of Army supplies had been 20,000. The inventory in the consolidation of its figures in Washington disclosed the fact that at the beginning of the year 1919 there were 120,000 standard items, and many of these stood for large quantities of individual pieces. As this report is written, a catalogue, or standard nomenclature list of supplies, comprising 120,000 items, is being prepared, to establish throughout the United States one language of supply for all items stored, distributed, and issued under the direction of the Director of Storage.