The Knoxville independent. [volume] (Knoxville, Tenn.) 1894-current, 1918-10-26
MAKING GUNS FOR
UNCLE SANS MEN
Day and Night Forces at Work
on Weapons for Fighters.
PRODUCTION IN YEARS TIME
Plants for Manufacture of Ordnance
Have Increased More Than 30 Per
Cent Since Beginning OF
the War.

From the Committee on Public Tnforma-
| ton, Washington, D. CO.
The foundries Of 16 steel plants in
the United States are today doing
capacity business. Throughout the
night the work will so on with slight
interruption. The whistles that blow
to announce closing time to one army
of workers will be summons to an
other shift to take its turn. The blast
OF chimneys will continue to roar, and
the glittering white-hot streams of
molten metal will flow into the molds
A year ago only two of these sixteen
toundries where cannon forgings are
now being made were in existence.
The foundrles at Bethlehem and Mid
vale represented almost our entire re-
sources for the making of cannon
forgings. Today those two plants con-
stitute less than 10 per cent of our
total facilities for making such prod
ucts
In one year new industry has been
created In this country. 1t is new not
only in the sense that the IA foundries
have been built, but that the processes
OF manufacture are new. Making
gun forgings is different from making
steel forgings for any other purpose.
The heated steel must be pressed and
not hammered. The methods of heat
treating the steel, of cooling it, and of
annealing the molten metal are all diff
ferent Yet, within one year, this new
industry has been built up In this
country and today it provides the
whereWithal for the carrying out of an
artillery program the like of which
has not been projected In any other
country.
Nor Is that all. In more than O score
of other factories gun carriages, recoil
mechanisms and other parts Of artil-
lery are being made. For the making
OF those parts, new industries have
likewise been created. AS an instance
new industry was established to
manufacture glass Of quality avail
able for use in telescope sights on can
non. Such glass had never been made
In the United States before. i 4
Handicapped at Start.
When we entered the war we were
handicapped by a lack of technical
knowledge. We had been a peaceful
people; we had not trained our scien-
lists and engineers In the art of mu-
nitiOns making. Therefore, we had
but one ordnance expert for every 200
in Germany. We went into this war
with an ordnance bureau consisting Of
81 officers and $40 enlisted men. Not
all Of those 81 officers were ordnance
experts. Some Of them were only on
detail to the ordnance department.
In fact, not more than eight of them
were charged with the designing work
In the manufacture Of artillery. Be.
fore year had elapsed, the ordnance
department had grown into an organl.
cation Of 5000 officers, 10000 enlisted
men and 10000 civilian employees.
1t has undergone thorough reshap-
ing to adapt itself to the extraordinary
new conditions. The ordnance bu-
reau in the first part Of the war did
total business Of $4,700,00O,OOO. In
peace times Its average annual ex-
penditures were $14,0OO,OO0.-
Large us these figures seem, astound-
ing as this rate of expansion must APP
pear, they give only scant idea of
the difficulties faced by the ordnance
department in Its year Of preparatory
work. Ordnance is highly technical