The Birmingham age-herald., 1916-04-23
SMALL BRITISH BASE FASCINATING PLACE Muddlers Are Kept at Home
 Not in France MILLIONS ARE SAVED Repairs of Every Conceivable Part Are Made, From Men to Watches. Special Emphasis Laid on Good
 Food and Plenty of It
MILLIONS ARE SAVED

l A British Base, Northern France, April 5.-(Special.-The smokestacks of Ameri- l can industry are busy making war sup | plies for the allies, and the result of the tremendous activity in the United States | is plainly apparent in a place like this, where an endless series of vast ware l houses and railway platforms are piled ! high with great quantities of stores for | the British army in France. We are told | that this is a small base, as compared | to several others. It is hard to believe, | so mountainous are the huge piles of SUD- | plies of all sorts. If this is a small base a genuinely large one must be a stag | gering proposition. Here is stored food | for millions, it seems, yet no more than enough to keep well supplied only sec 1 tion of the British forces. There is an American tinge to every thing. Scarcely storehouse or a work shop but had something in it from across the Atlantic. There were shoes from America back from the trenches, and worn and tattered, being repaired by American machinery. There was Amer ican flour in the huge bakery where SouIllicSS lOdNeS OI llHe, WIllte bread arg made each day. There were American
 machine guns in the repair shops, Amer ican forage piled high in the open, cov- cred by tarpaulins. American automo- piles filled shed after shed. Outside one i repair shop there were dozen bent and battered American bicycles of we'll known make. Through all the machine shops most of the machinery was American. In the great warehouses were myriads of cases of canned A111a in tIo refrigerators there was frozen beef, from all parts of the world-Australia, Argen- tine, Canada and the United States
 IS PEACEFUL SPOT
 A base Is a peaceful spot, a place of industry rather than war, with no even far distant booming of guns, yet a fas-
 cinating spot and an eye-opener to the
 magnitude of the great conflict. At a
 base there is every form of industry
 from the matchmaker who looks after
 the timepieces of the army, to the baker
 who looks after the bread and the smith
 who repairs guns and makes new iron
 heelplates for marching boots Every
 form of equipment for man or beast can
 De found at base; every repair that
 need be made can be done there If a
 fleldpiece comes in with bursted barrel
 it can be replaced at the base and
 quickly made ready for service at the
 front The same with shoes, uniforms.
 rifles, machine guns, bicycles and auto
 mobiles. And nearby is a hospital where
 men are repaired and made fit for fur ther service
 It may be that the British bungle, and they muddle through" as they them
 selves so frequently declare hut tber.
 at tnis base there is no muddling. Everv-
 ening moves smoothly. Orders for sun
 plles come down from the front in inc
 morning. The supplies go out by train
 Tn the evening. There is no confusion
 ana 1T the nation has not yet entirely
 rlo1ed ltser of muddlers they are over III England and not in France
 Here one gets better idea of what :. soloier mas to eat and to wear than is ootainaole up at the front. The hest is ooVlously none too good for the sol oier Tn the trenches as these vast nuan+i- ties or fresh meat, fine bread and jams snow. They serve pckled walnuts fo troops nowadays which is a scientific dodge of the doctors who found that ths soldiers system needed acids to keer hj,, yr, n.. Ihe soldier even has butter to gc wltn ms bread and fine English jam. His ciosnes are warm and his boots are stout
 ana are kept in good repair.
 mere IS one shop here where shoes are
 nenoed. It Is a marvellous place, q srea f
 iTas ouiioins with hundreds of workmen. all Enslish cobblers from home no;r
 or worn shoes is brought in al one e,5
 oI the building, tattered and torn. With remarKa Die celerity they are repaired and | go out the other end almost as good . ;
 new. First they are thoroughly washsd ana disinfected. Then turned over ro Q
 master cobbler who, by certain cabalistic lnArks' indicates what must be done to them. Then they are turned over to +ho cobbler who does the work. tearing tban, apart and putting them together again
 macnine drives great hobnails in the soies Iron plates are nailed to the heeis ana finally the shoes are dipped,, in .iI to make them waterproof. When dry thev are snipped back to the front The sav- ins oI money on shoes and other article. which are repaired rather than thrown away runs to hundreds of thousands of pounds a week. N Notnlng Is wasted. Old uniforms ar. brought in. If they are not too far rone they are repaired. If repair Is impossible they are turned over to women who cut oH all the buttons and chevrons. I'D out .ne Hnlngs and save the khali-cioth which sells for $400 ton
 RIFLES ARE REPAIRED Worn and broken rifles come down rom the front. They are carefully ex- amlned by an expert who, by grancIne through the barrels can tell if furthar service Is possible. If a rifle is com
 pletely worn out in the barrel, as sooner or ialer happens to all rifles, the barrel IS cast aside, but all other undama ged parts are saved Tn this same place ma : l chine guns are repaired The colonel vho | showed us around asked a soldier
 mechanic to show us a damaged gun !. bad one. he said. There was one nearbv
 that seemed bent and twisted to us. b,,t
 this technical experts idea of bad nm was different from ours. He brought out a. perfectly good looking gun, took if
 all apart and sadly pointed to a tinv broken bit inside, probably the guns verniform appendix. He evidently meas ured damage from the point of view of the difficulty of repairs.
 The bake-shop was wonderful place Hundreds of men were at work making thousands and thousands of loaves of bread. There were great troughs. Into each of these would be poured a couple of hundred pounds of flour the proper amount of water. yeast and so on. The dough was kneaded by hand and left to
 rise. When the half-full trough becomes full to overflowing the dough is cut into great chunks. shot down chute to a workroom below and there made into loaves and placed in the ovens Later out comes bread as fine as anyone would want to eat.
 In the automobile houses there are many American cars. Each long shed is divided into sections. with painted signs indicating each make. These sections are filled with spare parts. enough to con