CHAIRMAN MCDOUGALL: Gentlemen, the time is getting very short, and I am sorry to feel obliged to stop discussion on this paper, as we have another paper that will take some time. However, if anybody has any other pertinent remark on the Committee report which has just been presented, I will entertain his proposition.

GEORGE R. JONES, Chicago: I hope that a committee will be appointed to go into this matter of inventory methods as was suggested at the end of the present paper. There was a committee appointed several years ago, if I recall correctly, which had the question up, and approached it in a very brief and, perhaps, unsatisfactory manner. There is nothing that I know of in central station practice on which there is such a divergence of opinion as this very matter of inventory methods, and I should like to suggest that the incoming administration of the Accounting Section appoint a committee to take up the matter very thoroughly with the gentlemen here.

CHAIRMAN MCDOUGALL: If there is no further discussion, I will call on Col. H. A. Gidney, of Boston, to read his paper, entitled: "The Establishment and Growth of the Ordnance Finance Section of the U. S Army During the War"

ESTABLISHMENT AND GROWTH OF THE

ORDNANCE FINANCE SECTION

BY HERBERT A. GIDNEY

(Formerly Lieutenant-Colonel, Ordnance Department, U. S. A.)

You have learned of the achievements of our gallant soldiers and sailors on land and sea in the Great War for Civilization, but you are only beginning to learn of the wonderful work performed by men and women of the Supply Bureaus and other departments of the War Department and the Navy. When the history is written of the work accomplished by these Departments in spite of the difficulties encountered, you will learn of results which contributed in no small measure to the early termination of the fighting which we expect will shortly result in peace.

The story of the work done by the Supply Bureaus and other Departments, while not so thrilling and spectacular, is most interesting and important. I will not attempt to tell you how the Quartermaster Corps clothed, fed, housed and transported the Army, in addition to many other splendid accomplishments, nor of the work of the Ordnance Department (except in part), the Construction Division, Corps of Engineers, Signal Corps, Adjutant-General, Inspector-General, Judge-Advocate-General, Medical Department, Chemical Warfare Service, Motor Transport Corps, Air Service and other Departments of the War Department, nor of the splendid work of the Navy. This is being entrusted to well-informed persons who are writing the history of their operations.

The work of the Ordnance Department in this war, when the facts are known, will stand out as a remarkable undertaking, the problems of which were solved with great success.

The Director of Munitions in the introductory section of his report brings out these facts relative to the ordnance problems:

"The problem of ordnance was to arm the manhood of the nation called to service in its defense, to provide promptly those material things necessary to convert what would otherwise be a well-organized, well-disciplined, well-clothed, well-fed, well

housed grouping of individuals into an effective fighting machine to make men into soldiers by giving them the tools of their profession—the tools of war-ORDNANCE.

ORDNANCE Comprises practically every material article whose sole use lies in warlike operations or the imminent possibility thereof:

Shoulder rifles by the million; cartridges for them by the billion. Heavy machine guns by the thousand, for playing the continuous leaden stream of the modern machine-gun barrage; sensitive sights and rugged tripods with elevating and traversing devices to insure placing the deadly hail with safety to our own advancing lines and maximum damage to the enemy; carts to carry them and water jackets to cool them.

Lighter one-man automatic rifles by the tens of thousands, capable of being slung from the shoulder and operated en marchant in tight places calling for short, concentrated bursts of fire.

Automatic pistols and revolvers by the hundreds of thousands for the "in-fighting" of the final clinch.

Baby two-man cannon of 37 mm. caliber for annihilating the enemy's machine-gun "pill-boxes."

Field guns by the thousands for divisional artillery—the famous "soixante-quinze" (75 mm.) and its running mate, the 155 mm. how

itzer.

Shrapnel, high-explosive shell and gas shell by the million for the preliminary bombardment, for the "rolling," "creeping," or "box" barrage.

High-powered, medium caliber guns-the French 155 mm. G.P.F. (Grand puissance Filloux) of glorious record, and American prototypes of 4.7-inch and 6-inch caliber for interdicting crossroads and harassing the enemy's middle areas.

Eight-inch and 9.2-inch howitzers, 8-inch, 10-inch, 12-inch and 14inch guns on railway mounts for incessant pounding of the depots and dumps in his back areas.

Trench mortars, from the baby 3-inch Stokes, light enough to go "over the top" with the first wave and simple enough to be fired, supported only by the steadying knees of a squatting soldier, to the 240 mm, trench mortar of position.

Trench mortar bombs and shells in endless variety for soaking selected areas with gas, for blinding designated sectors with smoke screens or for blasting whole trench systems out of existence.

Light tanks-the gallant little two-man, three-ton "whippet," escort of the infantry waves, slumping awkwardly into a friendly shell

crater to sidestep a too lively greeting from the enemy and determinedly climbing out again, cheerfully pumping away with its single machine gun to return the compliment with interest.

Heavy tanks-the Anglo-American Mark VIII, each mounting a sawed-off 37 mm. cannon and four machine guns, driven by a 500horsepower Liberty motor through the ooze and slime of No Man's Land, uprooting stumps, overturning trees and lipp-boxes, crushing barbed-wire entanglements into complete ineffectiveness against the infantry columns following in its wake, straddling the 12-foot breadth of trench of the vaunted Hindenburg line, squirting death and destruction from its every port, heedless of opposition, contemptuous of obstacles confident in its own irresistible 35 tons of brute strength, the spirit of "Treat 'Em Rough" incarnate.

Rifle grenades and rifle attachments to throw them.

Explosive hand grenades for defense against enemy raiding parties and for “mopping up” trenches on the offensive.

Gas grenades for cleaning out dug-outs, molten metal grenades for destroying enemy cannon and machine guns during brief, precarious possession of captured positions when effective consolidation is inadvisable or impossible.

Pyrotechnics, the "fireworks" of happier times-drafted one hundred per cent into war service-smoke screening daylight raids, illuminating the foreground to prevent a surprise night attack, signalling "S. O. S." from beleaguered battalions, "give us a barrage" from sorely pressed front line holding parties, “zero hour" when it is time to go over the top, and the glorious "objective attained" of the successful advance.

For the flying airmen, stripped machine guns speeded up to twenty shots per second, adjusted with inconceivable nicety to shoot between swiftly revolving blades of an aeroplane propeller; electric heaters for the gun mechanism to prevent freezing of the lubricating system into a fatal torpor in high altitude combat; short-counters to indicate the balance on hand of effective ammunition; armor-piercing bullets for use against armored planes or in low flying action against tanks; incendiary bullets to ignite the buoyant but inflammable gas of the enemy's captive balloons and dirigibles; tracer bullets to spot each burst; gun sights ingeniously utilizing the impinging air to correct automatically for the relative speed and direction of the opposing planes.

Aerial bombs-small ones for low flying employment against personnel, through all gradations in weight to the sixteen hundred pound bomb producing a crater fifty feet deep and one hundred feet in diameter, an instrument of destruction so incredibly effective as to threaten the "ship" from which it is released unless it attains an altitude of six thousand feet or greater at the moment of explosion; bombing

sights to determine the exact instant of release; mechanisms to suspend the varied assortment of bombs securely during flying and safely during forced landings, yet capable of instantaneous release, individually or in combination at will.

Limbers, caissons, auto ammunition trucks, tractors for the heavy artillery.

Guns and howitzers, on self-propelled caterpillar mounts capable of negotiating a 40 degree grade, or 12 miles per hour on the level— capable, too, of going into action the instant of arrival at the firing position and of departing for safer regions immediately the mission is accomplished.

Railroad mounts of weight so vast as to require from sixteen to twenty-four axles to distribute the load within the limits allowable on standard railroads, ammunition railway cars, machine shop cars, a whole railway train for each gun.

Bolos and bayonets, trench knives, helmets, trench periscopes, panoramic sights, self-contained range finders, and other accessories of general application.

Special facilities for maintenance in the field; mobile ordnance repair shops; self-contained machine shops in miniature mounted directly on motor trucks and accompanying each division; semi-heavy ordnance repair shops mounted on five-ton trailers accompanying each corps; heavy semi-permanent ordnance repair shops for each army; railway repair shops for the railroad artillery, successively less mobile but of greater capacity.

Complete expeditionary base repair shops, involving an industrial organization nearly three times as large as the combined organizations of all the manufacturing arsenals of the United States in time of peace, capable of relining one thousand canon, overhauling two thousand motor vehicles, two thousand pistols, seven thousand machine guns and fifty thousand rifles every month.

Repair parts, spare parts for every assembled unit.

All these are ordnance and more to the number of 100,000 separate and distinct articles, the net result of man's ceaseless endeavor to adapt every known device and expedient of art, industry and pure and applied science to the definite purpose of destroying the military power of his enemy."

I have given you this description somewhat in detail in order that you may have in mind the vast extent of the things which constitute ordnance, as it will give you some idea of the difficulties to be overcome in connection with the design and procurement by manufacture or purchase of ordnance, the work of