THE MEN BEHIND THE SAWMILLS 339 



foreseen that to supply our troops with timber from French forests would 

 require a special organization of engineers experienced and equipped for 

 this work. In fact one of the first requests for help from the United 

 States by both our French and British Allies was for regiments of trained 

 lumbermen. The organization of lumberjack units had actually been 

 begun in May, 1917, and was continued until March, 1918. By May, 

 1918, forty-eight 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 England Sawmill Units, a private 

 organization which was sent to Old England in the early summer of 

 1917 to cut lumber for the British Government. These troops repre- 

 sented every State in the Union. Practically every forestry agency in 

 the country, together with many lumber companies and associations, 

 helped in obtaining the right type of men. The road engineers of the 

 United States took hold of the organization of the twelve companies of 

 troops designed for road construction in a similar spirit. The lumber 

 units were officered largely by picked men of experience in the forest 

 industries of America, and the road units by road and construction 

 engineers of exceptional technical ability. 



The Men Behind the Sawmills. — The earlier units were made up 

 entirely from volunteer enlistments. The later units contained a large 

 proportion of men from the draft, selected for forestry work mainly on 

 the basis of their former occupations, together with many volunteers 

 beyond the draft age from among the experienced loggers and sawmill 

 mechanics of the country. But there was no distinction between vol- 

 unteer or drafted soldiers among the American forest engineers in France. 

 These men represented the best of their hardy and resourceful profession 

 in the United States. They came from her forests and sawmills, trained 

 in her woodcraft, with all of the physical vigor, the adaptability to life 

 in the open, and the rough and ready mechanical skill of the American 

 woodsman. 



Special credit is due to the officers and men of the three battalions, 

 the 41st, 42d, and 43d Engineers, which were organized and equipped 

 for road construction work in connection with forestry operations. 

 They came to France keen to take up this task for which they too had 

 been especially fitted by training and experience. But the necessities 

 of war dictated otherwise. They landed in France to find the under- 

 manned Forestry Section struggling to keep up with the timber needs 

 of an army already twice the size of that originally intended. It was 

 necessary for these road builders to turn lumberjacks themselves, cutting 

 fuel wood, piling, or entanglement stakes as occasion demanded and 

 manning the new sawmills which were installed as fast as they arrived 

 from the United States. The road companies took hold of this work, 



