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AMERICAN FORESTRY 



VOL. XXV 



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JUNE, 1919 



NO. 306 



THE AMERICAN LUMBERJACK IN FRANCE 



BY LIEUT.-COL. W. B. GREELEY, 20th ENGINEERS 



NOTHING illustrates the far-reaching economic de- 

 mands of the Great War more sharply than the 

 enormous use of timber in almost every phase of 

 military operations. From the plank roads at the front, 

 the bomb proofs, the wire 

 entanglements, and the ties 

 needed for the rapid repair 

 or construction of railroads 

 r.pon which military strate- 

 gy largely depended, to the 

 h o s p i t al s , warehouses, 

 camps, and docks at the 

 base ports, timber was in 

 constant demand as a mu- 

 nition of war. One of the 

 earliest requests for help 

 from the United States by 

 both our French and Brit- 

 ish allies was for regiments 

 of trained lumbermen. Gen- 

 eral Pershing had been in 

 France less than two 

 months when he cabled the 

 War Department for a 

 force of lumberjack sol- 

 diers large enough to cut 

 upwards of 25,000,000 

 board feet per month for 

 the American Expedition- 

 ary Force. A year later, 

 the requirements of the 

 enormous army then plan- 

 ned for and being sent to 

 France with all possible 

 speed were put at over Jt,,- 

 000,000 board feet per 

 month. 



Such was the task mark- 

 ed out for the lumberjack 

 regiments of the American 

 Army, for the lack of ocean 

 transport made it necessary 

 to obtain practically all of 



O-.this material from French 



;y) forests. The organization 



of these lumberjack units, all of which were combined later 



. in the 20th Engineers (Forestry), began in May, 191 7, and 



_j continued until March, 1918. By May, 1918, forty-eight 



LIEUT COL. W. B. GREELEY 



companies of forest and road engineers, each 250 men 

 strong, had been sent to France. The core of a 49th 

 Company was obtained subsequently from the New Eng- 

 land sawmill units which were sent to old England in 



the early summer of 1917 

 to cut lumber for the Brit- 

 ish Government. These 

 troops represented every 

 State in the Union. Prac- 

 tically every forestry 

 agency in the country, to- 

 gether with many lumber 

 companies and associations, 

 took ofY their coats to help 

 in obtaining the right type 

 of men. The road engi- 

 neers of the United States 

 took hold of the organiza- 

 tion of the twelve com- 

 I)anies of troops designed 

 for road construction in a 

 similar spirit. The lumber 

 units were ofificered largely 

 by picked men of experi- 

 ence in forest industries of 

 America ; and the road 

 units by road and construc- 

 tion engineers of excep- 

 tional technical ability. 



The earlier units were 

 made up entirely from vol- 

 unteer enlistments. The 

 later units contained a large 

 proportion of men from the 

 draft, selected for forestry 

 work mainly on the basis 

 of their former occupa- 

 tions, together with many 

 volunteers beyond the draft 

 age from among the ex- 

 perienced loggers and saw- 

 mill mechanics of the coun- 

 try. But there was no dis- 

 tinction between volunteer 

 or drafted soldiers in the way the American lumberjacks 

 hit their job in France. These men represented the best 

 of their hardy and resourceful profession in the United 



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