The Nenana daily news., 1919-06-03

story of the engineer corps at home and in France is told officially for the first time in chapters of the war departments brief history of American war efforts, which has been made public in advance sheets. Many of the recorded accomplish ments of the engineers have been published before as isolated incl dents, but this is the first complete and connected story which gives any idea of the extraordinary scope of the duties modern warfare has laid upon engineering troops.
 Probably the best illustration of this so far as the troops in France are concerned is the technical organ ization of the units of the engineers which reached the other side There were seven regiments and two bat talions of railway construction en- gineers; five battalions for main tenance of way, two battalions for maintenance of railway euipment; /; four regiments and one battalion to operate the main American rail- ways in France; three regiments to operate light railways and their re- pair shops; two regiments to oper- ate the regular railway repair shops two regiments and six separate bat talions on general construction work 7; two regiments for storing and trans porting engineer supplies; forestry regiment; a light railway construc- tion regiment; a road building regi- ment; a water supply regiment; a mining regiment; quarrying regi- ment; technical regiment for sur veying and sound ranging; three survey and printing battalions; two railway transportation battalions an electrical and mechanical regi- ment; several separate companies to operate cranes; camouflage serv- ice; five inland waterway companies to operate canal boats and the like /; five pontoon trains and pontoon park; a railway transportation and stores battalion and a searchlight regiment
 These special units, all composed of men trained in civil life in the United States for the work they did in France, were in addition to the fighting engineers with each divi- sion, the sappers, who formed about eight per cent of all the combatant troops in France. .:-.:
 One section of the report is de- voted to the development of Ameri- can railways in France and to the production of railway equipment in the United States to meet the call from the front. There were shipped to France 1908 locomotives before the armistice was signed of which 908 were in service at that time. In addition, 18,313 freight cars were shipped abroad, both engines and cars having been produced specially for service in France. These were employed upon the 937 miles of standard gauge track laid in France by the engineers with equipment shipped from this coun- try and the rolling stock was in addition to great quantities of light railway equipment for front line work that was also sent abroad.
 Hospital trains were obtained in England, 19 of them with a total of BOA cars having been completed by December, 1918 with 29 additional trains under construction. They ! cost more than $1S,000 per car, but it is estimated that to have pro- duced them in the United States and shipped them would have cost $40,000 per car.
 The report lays streess on the fact that great progress was made dur ing the war in the development of road building, railway and other engineering equipment which will be of value commercially in peace time, The motorized machine shops alone, it is stated, are practically certain to bring about in this country the use of moving shops of this char acter in agricultural communities as farming machinery increases.
 ''The day may come," the report says, "when the travelling machine shop will be familiar sight upon our rural highways"
 Among the motorized shops created were the photolithographic press trucks, which were able to reproduce mans from Orioina1 sketches within