Clothing generally for the American troops in France was repaired at special shops and at the homes of seamstresses in the small towns and communes. Each town had a forewoman who distributed the damaged clothing, after it had been disinfected and laundered, and kept all counts. There were 880 of these home workers, nearly all of them from needy families. The best record for darning socks was made by an old French grandmére, aged more than 80.

Numerous soldiers were discovered in the American Expeditionary Forces who were unfit physically for the hard service on the front line. These were permitted to go into the various salvage depots and shops, where they learned to be shoemakers, harness makers, saddle makers, wood workers, painters, metal workers, tailors, laundrymen, electricians, mechanics, checkers, warehousemen, etc., occupations in which many of them expected to engage after their separation from the military service.

The salvage troops in France were in five classes—the salvage headquarter detachments, depot battalions, field salvage battalions, laundry units, and the clothing and bathing units. One of the last named was attached to each division to handle field bathhouses and delousing and disinfecting plants, to receive old clothes, and to issue new or reclaimed serviceable garments.

The ordnance property salvaged in the field in the period between January 1, to October 31, 1918, included 5,000,000 rounds of small-arms ammunition, 71,909 shell of the 75-millimeter size, and 16,195 of the 155-millimeter size, more than 32,000 rifles, and 21,000 machine guns and automatic rifles. The unexploded or "dud" shell is a menace to life, and the duty of destroying these in immense quantities fell to the salvage service.

Some of the salvage squads in the field were composed of men who through lack of education or lack of knowledge of the English language were unable to do front-line service. They were largely composed of American troops of alien birth.

The divisional salvage squads sorted the materials at the railhead dumps for shipment to the various depots. When trucks brought up supplies to the front and unloaded, the salvage detachments there filled them up again with all sorts of materials which had been picked up, and the trucks carried their loads back to the railheads, the railroad stations of the division. This queer conglomeration of trash consisted of everything from a hairbrush to a 77-millimeter enemy gun. To show the sorts of articles that are picked up in an area over which an army has fought, there is given here the following list of items selected at random from the check of a salvage shipment from the railhead of the Twenty-sixth Division on August 12, 1918:

The kitchen economics branch of the salvage branch of the American Expeditionary Forces in the recovery of fats and glycerine and other kitchen by-products during the month of September, 1918, saved $57,404.19 to the Government. The value was increased in October to $109,013.84, and in November to $120,158.63. In addition to this saving, kitchen salvage in October produced over 25,000 pounds of grease and over 14,000 pounds of dubbin for waterproofing shoes. This branch of the service also had the disposition of unserviceable food supplies, entailing the salvage of large quantities of flour, sugar, rice, and beans damaged in transportation or injured by exposure to weather so as to become unfitted for troops. Such vegetables as peas and canned corn, unsatisfactory for use, were dried and ground and sold for chicken feed or hog feed, bringing in a considerable revenue.

The question of laundering for the field hospitals, particularly after hard fighting, was a vital one. During the month of December, 1918, a total of 7,811,566 pieces of laundry was handled by the laundry branch of the salvage service. This included 3,700,000 pieces for the hospitals alone. The American Expeditionary Forces were required to establish three large shops for mending clothing sent to the laundries.