The Cordova daily times., 1918-03-04
GREAT CHANGE IS WROUGHT BY
 OURSOLDIERS
(By Associated Press)

Hi"itj. A hItlS ulOIS IudH SIX IuOuLnS have wrought a mighty change in the base at which. last June, the first division of American troops landed to go into training for their fight with the Germans. The docks have been and are being I enlarged, storage warehouses have been and are being built, the harbor has been dredged out to accommodate more and larger ships, and the rail- road facilities have been nearly doubled and are being increased day by day.
 The enlargement of the port has created a somewhat anomalous situa- tion. For whereas up to about the end of last year troops landed more reguE- arly and quickly than supplies, so that 1t was sometimes feared it would be necessary to draw temporarily on the
 French for their support, the base is now in the position of being able to handle more tonnage than is at pres- ent coming to it, either in the form of supply or troop ships.
 The capacity of the port would, how
 ever, be almost reached with the com
 pletion of the docks and store houses
 now under construction If it were not
 for far-reaching engineering plans that
 are underway.
 The American authorities early fore saw that even comprehensive dock en-
 largements would inevitably result in
 congestion and confusion if some out
 let were not arranged for the increas-
 ing supplies expected to arrive when
 they are needed and which even in
 creased storage space could not be ex-
 pected to accommodate. The problem resolved itself into one of transporta-
 tion.
 Therefore, while the railroad tracks at the port itself are vastly more num- 5 erous than they were six months ago. 3 the American engineers have conceiv- ed plan whereby a vast tract of land 3 three or four miles back of the port 5 has been taken over, and is being de. 2 yeloped coincidently with the port it 3 self.
 On either side of a huge basin into which ships can if necessary be towed and unloaded, dozens of parallel spul tracks are being laid They will serva 5 a dual purpose, for cars either can be 5 filled from barges and vessels brought into the basin, or cars loaded at the port itself can quickly and easily bt 3 hauled to the spurs and there made UT 3 into trains
 !. Y The Americans already have taker 3 over on lease from the French Ger B Etain lines of railroad which will be g fed from the yards of the port and O its complementary station in the rear = They are increasing constantly the eff flcency and capacity of the port itsel 5 by helping the French to economizt 5 in dock and transportation space. The American plan which envisage: caring for vastly more volume thar 5 the port would normally accommodate even with the enlargement of docks and store houses, is not original witi 5 them but is more or less a copy ot what the English have done at another port, where they have increased tht daily output of merchandise from about 200 cars or less to more than 700. This they have been able to dc by laying out huge yards to the rear of the actual port to avoid congestion and to facilitate making up trains. ? The steady development of the American port has made it necessary to rearrange the manner In which the work is done. Last July comparative
 ly small branch of the quartermaster's
 department was amply able to superin- tend and manage the unloading and distribution of supplies. Today the work has grown so that it has had to
 be entrusted to a railway transporta-
 tion department that is growing in
 size every week and which now merely
 turns over to the quartermaster, as it
 does to the engineering, the aviation
 and all the other departments such
 material as belongs to each.
 To keep pace with the increasing
 volume of supplies that arrive, a huge
 force of workmen has been found nec-
 essary. Two regiments of colored sol
 diers, numbering three thousand men
 and most of them husky stevedore
 and longshoremen from New York and southern ports in times of peace, now do the bulk of the unloading from the
 ships and the reloading of the trains. A not inconsiderable force of Ger
 man DriSOnaPS Of war with whom tba