LINE EQUIPMENT.
The first requisition for line equipment for France called for the construction of 500 miles of telephone and telegraph main pole lines, carrying 10 copper telephone and telegraph wires. It was found that ship space could not be spared for poles in such quantity. Consequently a forestry unit was sent to France to get these poles from the French woodlands. All of the other materials for the 500 miles of line, together with materials for approximately 600 miles of extensions, were procured in the United States and shipped to France within six months after the requisition was received. This material was secured in such short time only by the cooperation of the large commercial companies in the United States, who literally stripped their warehouses bare of their supplies.
In the late summer of 1918 the American Government began anticipating the advance of the allied forces into Germany, and the Signal Corps put into production a reserve equipment for long distance line approximating 500 miles. Soon there was received from France a cablegram asking for the shipment of this material, and it was all floated before the armistice. However, as it turned out, this equipment was never required, since the terms of the armistice gave the American forces the German telephone and telegraph lines in the occupied territory.
This line equipment was all of a type standard in the United States. For the fighting zone special line equipment was required. Before the war with Germany American signal troops had set up their emergency telephone and telegraph lines on the standard "lance poles." These poles served admirably in open warfare, but proved to be impracticable for the static conditions of fighting in France. After a considerable supply of lance poles had been shipped abroad their production was curtailed. Thereafter the trench telephone and telegraph lines were supported on short stakes with special cross arms, in appearance the conventional telegraph poles in miniature. The enormous mileage of trench lines called for a great quantity of insulators and cross arms. The wastage of these fittings, due to their being exposed to artillery fire, became increasingly greater in the closing months of the war.
In wire itself, the American production was enormous. This production included the commercial type of copper line wire and the drop wire for connecting up individual telephones to the pole lines. Much commercial cable for connecting congested centers with branch switchboards was also required. Yet all of this wire used in the system within the Service of Supply was but a small quantity compared with the requirements in the fighting zone.
The production of double-conductor wire, or the so-called outpost wire of No Man's Land, which had relegated to the scrap heap the standard field wire of open warfare, necessitated an extraordinary effort. The wire had to be light enough for easy transportation and laying, strong enough to withstand the abrasions from traffic crossing it as it lay on the ground, and exceedingly well insulated. The first estimate was that an American Army in the field might use 1,000 miles per month of outpost wire. When the first American force actually went into action, in the spring of 1918, a reserve supply of 20,000 miles of outpost wire was in the American warehouses in France, with a vast quantity of cable in reserve. Cable, at first used in large quantities at the front, was invariably buried several feet underground and abandoned at every change of headquarters.
As the fighting grew more intense and covered a wider and wider area, the wastage of outpost wire became enormous. The demand of our forces for cable dropped to a negligible quantity, but wire requirements rose. Outpost wire became the main dependence of ourselves and the allies for all communication in the active sectors. A higher quality of wire was specified. So great was the destruction of wire that by July, 1918, the original estimate of 1,000 miles per month to be supplied by American factories had jumped to 20,000 miles.
As a substitute for outpost wire to fill the immediate needs the familiar twisted drop wire, with which the ordinary telephone is connected with the main circuit, was adopted. Our field officers liked drop wire, its only objectionable feature being its relative bulk. All available drop wire in the United States was shipped across, and its manufacture was pushed until the new type of outpost wire could be produced.
The Signal Corps supplied the mounting needs of the American Expeditionary Forces through August and September, 1918, with the available drop wire plus the growing production of the new outpost wire. In early August all the wire makers in America were summoned to a conference, in which the Signal Corps made known the necessity of pushing production. The result was an expansion which reached a total production of 40,000 miles of outpost wire in November.