Uncle Sam Goes into the Warehouse Business
A. E. F. Memorial in St. Nazaire Harbor
With outstreached arms
and a sword in his hand, a doughboy stands on the back of a giant eagle
that has just landed.
Construction at St. Nazaire, France
(This is a final summary
of the work done as the regiment was leaving France)
Extracted from the OoLaLa
Times, July 1918 issue, Vol. I. No. IX
He has gone in heavy.
Without using superlatives to promiscuously, it may be
said that he is building the biggest system of warehouses
in the world and one of the largest railroad yards in the world
to service it. It is an adjunct of one of the new American base
ports and one of the biggest construction jobs in the S.O.S.
(Service of Supply)
The warehouse system
when completed will consist of 116 storehouses, each
50 feet wide and 400 or 500 feet long and five huge warehouses
each 240 by 500 feet. It will contain Army supplies sufficient
to sustain one million men for 45 days.
The warehouses are springing
up at the rate of several a day and -- what is important--
they are filled with flour and bacon and ordinance and Q.M.
supplies almost as soon as they are completed. It is calculated
that there is already enough food in a certain group of these
buildings to cause the ringing of every bell in Germany for four
days -- if Germany had it.
A total of 4,500 men
is working on the warehouse system and the railroad trackage
which will be used for the transport of supplies in and
out. There are Americans, white and black, and workmen --
civilian and otherwise -- representing nearly 20 other nations.
There are steam shovels, cranes, pile drivers, switch engines,
concrete mixers and all the other machines used on a big construction
job, even to a saw and planning mill to cut and dress lumber which
comes fresh from the hands of a regiment of American woodsmen working
in the forests of France.
Hundreds of miles of
track. Nearly 100 miles of railroad track have been laid
and there is more to go down. The men are laying American
steel and driving American spikes, and they are making twice
the progress as they would if they were using French rails under
the French method.
The troops and workmen
on the job are quartered in a camp at one end of the
yard, with the exception of the German prisoners living
in tents. The main camp is laid out with streets and blocks
of barracks.
When not at work the
German prisoners are confined to quarters, the confinement
being made secure by a barbed wire fence which encircles
their quarters and a squad or so of English soldiers on guard
duty. The English troops are in charge of the prisoners. They
also act as Forman. The Germans were captured by the British, and
that is the reason why the Tommies are guarding them now.
The speed with which
the Americans have progressed with the construction of
the yard is a constant marvel to the French population. Peasants
come for miles around to see the steam shovels devouring a hill
and see track laying gangs put down rails that are fastened with
"nails".
