340 THE AMERICAN FOREST ENGINEERS IN FRANCE 



to which most of them were unaccustomed, with splendid spirit and in 

 the end some of their mill crews made off with the laurels of certain pure 

 lumberjack units, in the records of the operations for production. 



To meet the growing requirements of the American Army, Engineer 

 Service battalions were rapidly added to the forestry and road troops 

 during the summer and fall of 1918. At the end of hostilities, thirty-six 

 Service Companies were working with the 20th Engineers. The first 

 four of them were white troops, organized as the 503d Engineers. They 

 contained a large proportion of railroad men and other skilled workers 

 and were soon in the mills and woods and on railroad jobs, on all fours 

 with the forestry troops. Upon the other Service Companies, com- 

 posed of colored troops, fell the brunt of cutting the fuel wood which the 

 quartermaster was calling for by the hundreds of thousands of cords. 

 But several sawmill crews composed largely or entirely of black soldiers 

 made exceedingly creditable records. 



A Division of Forestry Troops. — By the date of the armistice the 

 Forestry Section numbered 12,000 engineer troops, organized in the 

 fourteen Battalions of the 20th Engineers, and 9,000 service troops. 

 The Section operated from eighty to ninety sawmills during the last 

 two months of the war and employed some 3,600 draft horses and mules. 

 In addition to this vast organization about 10,000 service troops from 

 the Quartermaster Corps were engaged in cutting fuel wood under the 

 direction of forest engineer officers. 



THE FORESTRY SECTION OF THE EXPEDITIONARY FORCE 



Its Military Organization. — The Forestry Section grew with the size 

 of its task through a flexil^le development of the regimental organization 

 of the Army. Its engineer troops and attached service companies con- 

 stituted a single regiment, which functioned as a distinct Supply Service 

 under the Chief Engineer of the Army. Its duty was to keep all branches 

 of the American Expeditionary Force, from the base ports to the front, 

 supplied with timber. It was thus one of the far-flung Services of 

 Supply, "the Army behind the Army," the vast military-industrial 

 organization of ships, docks, railroads, factories, bakeries, repair shops, 

 distributing depots, and training camps in France, which did not fight 

 battles Imt without which no battles could have l^een won. 



Geographical Distribution of Forestry Operations. — The Forestry 

 Section resembled a large lumber corporation. As each battalion of 

 troops arrived in France it was assigned to operations at points where 

 the best forests were available and where the production of lumber, rail- 

 road ties, or piling was most needed to supply the growing require- 

 ments of the Army. The first districts to be operated were the soft- 



