1920.] 



THE INDIA RUBBER WORLD 



213 



owned by tlie Uniicd Slates, the rest being leased. At shops, 

 repaired articles were in nearly all cases returned to the orig- 

 inal wearers. 



While the shops handled a large amount of the material and 

 clothing to be repaired, it was obvious that with a military 

 organization the size of the A. E. F. there must be a series of 

 larger depots in the rear to handle the great mass of property 

 collected from the field. To meet this need, the depots at Lyon, 

 Bordeau.x, Nantes, St. Nazaire and St. Pierre-des-Corps were 

 established. To these depots, which included seven departments, 

 viz., laundry, clothing, shoes, rubber goods, leather and har- 

 ness, canvas, webbing and metals, came the grist that had been 

 taken from the battlefield, billet, training area and other sources. 

 Material arrived in all sorts of quantities and conditions. Noth- 

 ing was too big or too small to be taken care of in these great 

 modern repair plants. While each shop or depot was complete 

 in itself and could handle any sort of repair work it was found 

 often more practicable to designate some special line of work 

 for each of the various places. For instance, the shop at 

 Angers, started July 23, 1918, repaired hundreds of thousands 

 of campaign hats. The general shop at Paris handled large 

 quantities of laundry because of the facilities offered in this 

 line by the French metropolis. To whatever depot the material 

 came, there it was disinfected, laundered and repaired as needed. 

 Then, from the salvage depots the reclaimed material was 

 shipped to general supply depots for reissue. 



A DEPOT IS A MODERN INDUSTRIAL PLANT. 



In order to give some idea of just what a depot should con- 

 sist of, the one at St. Pierre-des-Corps may be taken as an 

 example of all the salvage depots in the .\. E. F. The buildings 

 taken over at this place had been used by the French for rail- 

 road shops and storage purposes. Under American control they 

 presented a vast hive of industry, with workers, most of them 

 women, seated at long rows of tables, sometimes eight hundred 

 in a single room. There were three of these buildings, one with 

 an area of 20,000 square feet, another of 100,000 square feet and 

 a third of 40,000 square feet. Three other buildings, SO by 180 



S.\LVAGE Dump of the 26th Division, Nanteuil-sur-Marne, 



France. Raincoats, Slickers and Ponchos Ready for 



Transport by Truck to the Railroad Cars. 



feet, were later constructed. The buildings were of cement 

 construction, light, well ventilated, and traversed by railroad 

 tracks so arranged as to enable quick loading and unloading of 

 cars. 



Considerable improvement was elYected in the buildings by the 

 United States Engineers and Quartermaster Corps to adapt 

 them for the purpose intended. .^ large power plant was in- 

 stalled consisting of a 300-h.-p. steam boiler, a 300-h,-p, steam 

 engine and a 225-kilowatt electric generator. Live steam for 



the laundry was furnished by two 125-h.-p. locomotive type 

 boilers, lo facilitate sterilization, washing and drying operations 

 as well as to speed up the drying of slickers and rubber boots 

 in the rubber goods department. 



Rubber boots, arctics, slickers, ponchos, and shelter halves 

 were the articles handled by the rubber goods department. 

 -About 3,000 garments and 850 pairs of boots was the output of 

 a twenty-four-hour day by this one depot. Slickers were first 

 washed, then examined, the bad garments being used to pro- 

 \ide material to repair the good. Patches that were basted on 

 by hand went to the machines where they were stitched and 

 the seams cemented and turned to insure them being water- 

 proof. Boots after being washed were fitted with new taps. 

 These were fastened with cold cement while the heels were first 

 cemented and then nailed. Upper patches made from irrepara- 

 i)le boots were cemented and rolled. Vulcanizing machines were 

 installed in the process of factory development and replaced the 

 slower method of patching. 



A commissioned officer with five non-commissioned officers 

 and 17 enlisted men composed the American personnel of the 

 St. Pierre-des-Corps Depots, while 28 male and 290 female 

 civilians were employed in this branch. The average wage to 

 the female workers was from 7 to 8 francs a day, while the 

 piece workers received as much as 18 francs a day. Production 

 for the month of August, 1918, was valued at $231,113.83 for 

 this one depot. 



The month of April, 1919, broke all records of the A. E. F. 



Salvage Service with a total saving made of $13,877,872.07. 



Some idea of the scope of these operations can be obtained from 



a list of articles turned out during the month, the list including: 



Article. On.-intity. 



K.ibhe, g.iods ait.des " 110,596 



■'^c'^" ' '" <- 51,628 



<V' ''' 2,944.563 



^ '•'•'- 436 144 



■■\rii^l' 'I ■•' i-l .■..lil.ui^ 246.679 



■^""l'~ "'. [ •" ' liani.:*s 20,402 



Metal artitks 2C0.2S,S 



The saving of scrap rubber was a very important function of 

 the Q. M. C. Salvage Service, A. E. F. Some 1,591,565 pounds 

 of rubber were sent back to the United States during 1918. 

 After the signing of the armistice, the disposition of scrap rubber 

 was placed in Europe. 



THE RECORD OF SALVAGE DIVISION AT HOME. 



The record of the Salvage Division in this country during the 

 war is equally impressive. During the fiscal year ended June 30, 

 1919, the Salvage Division of the Office of the Quartermaster 

 General, Director of Purchase and Storage, renovated and re- 

 turned to service the following articles made of rubber goods: 



, . , Fiscal Year, Estimated 



Article, 1919. Value. 



Arctics pairs 27,470 $116,198- 



Loots, rubber . i^airs 5,441 1S,499 



bhckers and raincoats 88,386 256.319 



Ponchos 72,275 130.095- 



During the same period there was collected in the United 

 States 4,737,975 pounds of rubber waste. Of this quantity, 

 2,492,417 pounds were sold for a value of $93,846; a total of 

 564.500 pounds turned over to Army organizations representing 

 a value of $42,586. In the period from July 1 to November 1, 

 the Salvage Division sold 691,100 pounds of rubber for a value 

 of $42,009.84. In the same period there were turned over to 

 .\rmy organizations 14,567 pounds, representing a value of 

 $1,456.70. 



The following formula is employed by the Salvage Division 

 in washing raincoats and slickers: (1) ten minutes in cold suds; 

 (2) cold rinse, five minutes; (3) from the washing machine 

 the coats are taken to dry tumblers where they are run for 

 about 10 minutes. Then these coats are allowed to' hang for 

 12 hours. The cost of washing a slicker by this formula was 

 35 cents per garment in the United States. 



