1142 



AMERICAN FORESTRY 



ish, since I have to deal with American soldiers, French 

 civilians and Spanish contract labor. Also I am learning 

 how to talk with my hands, arms, shoulders and feet. 

 Actions speak louder than words, especially where you 

 don't know the words." 



Another handicap which the Americans had to 

 overcome was that, being the last on the ground, they 

 had the longest hauls to 

 make. The English forest 

 regiments operated in a 

 comparatively small semi- 

 circle up in the northern 

 part of France ; the French 

 in a somewhat wider arc 

 back of this, with Paris as 

 the center; but the Ameri- 

 cans had to swing around 

 on a much longer circum- 

 ference, reaching from the 

 ports of Brest, St. Nazaire 

 and Bordeaux on over 

 through the central south- 

 ern part of France and up 

 into the Vosges and Ar- 

 gonne section. This called 

 for the building of many 

 miles of railroad, at the 

 Eclaron plant alone, for in- 

 stance, eight miles of stand- 

 ard gauge and twenty-five 

 miles of two-foot gauge 

 railroad being constructed. 

 The wood cutting did not 

 cease with the signing of 

 the armistice ; and up to 

 February i, 1919, the for- 

 est regiment had to its 

 credit 205,000,000 feet of 

 sawed lumber ; 2,998,000 

 standard gauge and 941,000 narrow gauge 

 ties; 1,746,378 pieces of round products; 

 39,595 pieces of piling and 319,057 cords 

 of fuelwood. 



Some of the mills were close to the 

 front, others hundreds of miles away. 

 The mill at Ancemont, to mention one of 

 a number, was operating at the time that 

 town was bombarded ; and this mill, which 

 was four or five miles back from the line, 

 was moved to Ippecourt, in the Argonne 

 section. Among other mills close to the 

 front were those at Menil and at La Tour. 



One month after the first forestry troops 

 had reached their assignments in France 

 they had three mills in operation, two 

 of them French and one American. This 

 was on December 1, 191 7. The first 

 American mill had begun operations 

 on November 27 at Mortumier, near 



Gien. By the first of January the Americans had ten 

 mills in operation ; a month later, twenty-one ; by March 

 1, thirty-four; and so on in increasing numbers until 

 at the time of the signing of the armistice there were 

 eighty-one mills buzzing away in various parts of 

 France, with a dozen more in process of completion. If 

 the war had continued, it would have been necessary for 



the American foresters and 

 lumbermen to have gone 

 into some of the rougher 

 mountain territory, where 

 more difficult lumbering 

 operations would have met 

 them, including construc- 

 tion of railroads over steep 

 grades and rocky passes. 

 The engineers were prepar- 

 ing to meet these problems. 

 France was divided into 

 districts to facilitate the 

 handling of the forestry 

 work, the number of dis- 

 tricts being increased from 

 time to time until there 

 were eventually fourteen, 

 one for each battalion, with 

 headquarters at the follow- 

 ing places : Dax, Major 

 Brookings c o m m anding ; 

 Epinal, Major S. O. John- 

 son ; Dijon, Major San- 

 born ; Mimizan, Captain 

 Phipps ; Gien, Captain 

 Lynch ; Lapit, Major Kel- 

 logg ; Chateouroux, Cap- 

 tain Maas ; Bauge, Captain 

 Vail ; B o u r g , Major 

 Barnes ; Bourges, Major 

 Hinkley ; Pontenx, Major 

 Lafon; Besancon, Major Kelley; Eclaron, 

 Major Spencer, and Le Puy (the birth- 

 place of Lafayette), Major Bartelme. 



No finer body of men ever went from 

 America than the foresters and lumber- 

 men of the 20th Engineers. The highest 

 tribute that can be paid to them is this : 

 They did all that was expected of them 

 and more. The work which they did, the 

 toil and the struggle in rain and mud, 

 through long hours of the day and night, 

 to get the timber out of the forests and 

 through the mill ; with no opportunity for 

 decoration or military reward for ser- 

 vice gallantly performed ; fighting against 

 obstacles which tried men's souls and made 

 them "turn gray" all this makes the 

 members of America's great forest and 

 lumber regiment worthy of a glowing 

 page in the history of the world war for 



CAPTAIN HOWARD Y. WILLIAMS 



Chaplain of the 20th Engineers (Forestry) and doing yeoman work for God 

 and country in France. 



CAPT. H. R. CONDON 



Headquarters, 11th Battalion, 20th 

 Engineers 



