Army supply officers in many cases would order 

 lumber in even lengths, width and thickness just as 

 if they were dealing with an ordinary lumber yard at 

 home. We had neither the time nor the raw material 

 to be so meticulous, so in such cases we would instruct 

 the appropriate mill to ship a specified amount of lum 

 ber &quot;AWAL,&quot; meaning &quot;all widths, all lengths,&quot; and the 

 recipient had to adapt his needs to the supply available. 



We were also bothered by not infrequent orders 

 from higher up a general to give priority to 

 some new order. Naturally this caused some confusion 

 at our operations, and many earlier orders never were 

 filled. However, our engineers furnished great quantities 

 of lumber and other items and I doubt if any really 

 indispensable facilities for the army were too long 

 delayed. 



Getting operating equipment was a real task. 

 My friend Kiefer was attached to the staff of Lt. 

 Colonel George Kelly, a lumberman from Oregon, who 

 headed equipment procurement and installation. At 

 one time Kiefer scurried around a lot of territory 

 trying to find such simple things as railroad switch 

 frogs. On one occasion a scouting contingent from 



