" MAKING THE FIR FLY " 



263 



Committee of Public Information 



LOGS AT THE MILL 



As rapidly as the logs come from the forests they are run through the 

 mills and hurried on to the yards where they are built into the framework 

 of the big wooden vessels. This shows a busy scene at one of the mills 

 at Tacoma, Washington, center of great shipbuilding activity, where a 

 fine record is being made in this work. 



Mr. H. B. Van Duzer, both prominent Pacific Coast lum- 

 bermen, and Col. Brice P. Disque, U. S. A. It represents 

 the interest of the Emergency Fleet Corporation, the 

 Army, the Navy, and the Aircraft Board, and directs the 

 placing of orders and the logging so that a logging party 

 will be able to use a large part of the timber in the sec- 

 tion where they are working. 



A great deal of criticism was aroused over the fact 

 :hat the Signal Corps lumbermen were felling large 

 magnificent trees to obtain the small part of wood suit- 

 able for airplane production, thus making useless for 

 other purposes the part of the tree that was left, in most 

 cases, over 90 per cent of the tree. In many cases the 

 entire tree was not taken and yet spoiled for other usage. 



The establishment of the Board has co-ordinated the 

 operations to such an extent that friction and clashes of 

 interest between the various government departments has 

 been practically eliminated and the timber now cut can 

 be used most advantageously. 



Although the West is the lumberman's paradise the 

 woodsmen of the South are striving hard to obtain timber 

 of the size required for ship construction in large quanti- 

 ties. The yellow pine unhappily does not assume the 

 gigantic proportions of the western firs, nor do the large 

 trees grow in as great profusion as they do in the West. 

 As a total of approximately 400,000 feet of the large 

 timbers, reaching a maximum width of thirty-four inches 

 are required per ship, the production of the ship-stock in 

 the South was limited to a belt of timber extending about 

 one hundred miles from the coast from North Carolina 

 to Texas. 



In order to aid in the production of these timbers it was 

 necessary to send out a logging officer whose duty it was 

 to spot trees of sufficient size, purchase them, and have 

 these milled supplementary to the work of the mills al- 

 ready under contract. It was necessary for the mills 

 first to comb the forests in search of the desired logs, 

 to fell them and then to get them to the mills. 



This was a hindrance because in many cases they had 

 to go into the woods far in advance of their regular log- 

 ging operations, and then by use of ox trains get the 

 logs out. In other cases, however, it was possible to 

 lay tracks into the heart of the forests, making the log- 

 ging operations much lighter. Primitive methods of 

 handling the timber often had to be resorted to, due to 

 the fact that the large sized flitchers were so much larger 

 than commercial stock that in a number of instances the 

 mills were not equipped with the necessary machinery 

 for treating them. 



Executives of the Emergency Fleet Corporation saw 

 that the South would have some difficulty in supplying 

 all the large logs needed for the floor construction in the 

 frames, and as an emergency order, placed duplicate con- 

 tracts on the West coast. 



This the fir forests of the northwest have had to ful- 

 fill in addition to the orders already in force for sup- 

 plying ships building in the west and every effort has been 

 made to secure a rapid production and still more rapid 



Photograph by Underwood and Underwood 



"COME ON IN: THE WATER'S FINE" 



That is what the "Coyote" the first wooden ship launched for the Emer- 

 gency Fleet Corporation seemed to call to her companions on the ways 

 in New Jersey Texas, at Tacoma, on the far-off Pacific Coast and else- 

 where, as she slid into the Passaic River recently. Miss Phyllis Hughes, 

 daughter of the late Senator Hughes, of New Jersey, christened the big 

 wooden vessel, which is 281 feet long. It was constructed by the Founda- 

 tion Company. 



