"The world shortage of almost every kind of raw material used for war supplies makes Salvage an important Administrative Service. Without a well-organised and thorough Salvage system, the full maintenance of our Force in the Field would be made difficult.

"The co-ordination of all Salvage work is in the hands of the Controller of Salvage at G.H.Q. His duties include the inspection of executive Salvage work, the arrangements for the disposal of Salvage material, the investigation of methods for recovering bye-products, and keeping of statistical records showing the amount of material salved and disposed of and the resultant gain to the State.

"The Salvage Organisation is not intended to take the place of, or in any way discourage, a consistent effort on the part of every supply department to recover for repair and re-issue its own articles and its own empties. It is intended to supplement that effort; to collect and put to use what would otherwise become derelict; to ensure that nothing utilisable is allowed to go to waste.

"To this end it is necessary to arrange, in the first place, for the collection of unserviceable or derelict material, and, in the second, for its disposal so that it may be brought again into use with the least delay and to the best advantage."

AN ARMY POSTER.

"Salvage," in order to secure a practical interest in its work, used to issue statements to the soldiers showing how salved articles were utilised. Some examples:

Clothing:Cleaned and repaired locally. If beyond repair, sent to the United Kingdom as rags.
Sacking:Sent to the United Kingdom.
Entrenching tools: Heads cleaned and sharpened. If irreparable, disposed of as scrap.
Steel helmets: Cleaned and relined. If irreparable, indiarubber pads in lining removed and utilised for lining serviceable helmets. Chin strap sold as old leather, and helmet disposed of as scrap steel.
Rubber (gum boots, tyres, etc.):Sent to Paris for classification and repair. If irreparable, sent to the United Kingdom.
Mess tins, camp kettles, field kitchen boilers: Cleaned in caustic soda, reblocked, resoldered if necessary, and retinned. If irreparable, disposed of as scrap steel.
Water-bottles: Old felt removed—bottles cleaned, recovered with new felt and recorked. Old felt sent to the United Kingdom. Water-bottles not fit for re-issue as such are used for packing small quantities of oil or paint for the Front.
Web equipment, cotton bandoliers, etc.: Broken into component parts—dry-cleaned on motor-driven brushes, darned and repaired. If irreparable, sent to the United Kingdom as cotton rags, after brass or metal fittings have been removed.
Leather equipment, harness, saddlery, etc.: Broken down into component parts, washed with soft soap in lukewarm water, dried in a drying cupboard at 100 deg. F., treated with fish-oil and repaired. If irreparable, sent to United Kingdom as old leather after brass or metal fittings have been removed.
Boots: Classified, repaired and passed through fish-oil baths. The uppers of irreparable boots as far as possible made into shoe laces or heel lifts and used for filling.

"Salvage" had to suffer much from kindly "ragging." It was known as "Rags and Bones," and as "Swill." It was the favoured sport of the humourist to devise new salvage dodges, one of which I recall as holding the record for sheer asininity. It drew attention to the fact that the little circles of paper, punched out of folios so that they could be put on files, might be collected and sold as confetti!

But with all this "ragging," G.H.Q. had a very real respect and liking for Brigadier-General Gibbs and his Salvage Corps, and recognised fully the solid and practical patriotism which made them devote a passionate interest to the recovery of solder from old tins, to collecting waste paper, old boots, nails, horseshoes, rags and buttons. "There is nothing of the débris of the battlefield which we cannot put to some use," General Gibbs announced; and by his personal enthusiasm he made Salvage collection quite a popular sport in the Army.

Some of the items of salvage value from a return will show the wide range of the department: swill for piggeries, value 16,000 francs; solder from old tins, value 91,000 francs; cotton waste, 14,000 francs; tin-plate (won by unrolling old biscuit tins, etc.), 61,000 francs; old lead, 10,000 francs; various bye-products 7,000,000 francs. The old rags collected did a great deal to help the cloth shortage at Home, as they made the best kind of shoddy. The old bones collected helped to find the glycerine for explosives.

But perhaps the moral effect of the Salvage department was even more valuable than its excellent material results. War is a wretchedly wasteful business and must inculcate in soldiers a spirit of waste. But in the final phase of this campaign every soldier had brought home to him most urgently the wisdom of saving and the real value of what seemed to be waste bye-products. Many of them must have learned the lesson and carried it home with them to the advantage of the general community.