The Ocala banner. (Ocala, Marion County, Fla.) 1883-194?, 1919-08-01
THE UNITED STATES In
THE GREAT WORLD WAR
Her Achievements Colossal-An Past Records Broken
The Nation May Well Be Proud.

committee, reads the marvellous fig
rres just compiled by Colonel Leon
ard P. Ayers, chief Of the statistical
branch cf the general staff of the ar
my, re win be astourded and perhaps
dumbfounded.
it will be remembered when a.
crisis was on and the tension was.
greatest; When the bravest of us
were in doubt as to the outcome, we
were stunned by a statement from
Senator Chamberlain. that every bu-
reau of every department of the gov
ernmeut had fallen down'-"that the
war department has ceased functions.
ms"
This etartljng and benumbing an
lOuncemept was made in a public adj
dress in ehe city of New York on a.
platform with the late Ex-PresidentI
Roosevelt who at the time was a
formidable critic. of the administra-
ton.
When the secretary Of war made
he statement before the foreign re-
!ati0ns committee that the war de-
parmept would have a million sol
diera in France fully armed and
equipped by the end of the year the
statement was Laughed to scorn as
incredulou8 and the secretary of war
was thought to be beside himself
The figures compiled by Colonel
Ayers tell a startling story of achieve
ment.
The following items viii prove in-
teteGting:
The British sent more men to-
France in their first year of war than
we did in our first year, but it took
Engsead tiifse years To reach al
strength Of 100000 men in. France,
and the United States accomplished
il in one-half that time.
Most Of the troops who sailed for
France left New York Half of them
landed in England and the other half
in France
OF every one hundred Americans
who went over, forty-nine went in
British ships, fortyfive in American
ships, three in Italian, two in French
and one in Russian shipping under
English control.
American cargo ships averaged one
complete trip every seventy days and
troop ships one complete trip every
thirty-five days.
The cargo fleet was almost entire
ly American. 1t reached the size IF
$4,000 deadweight tons and car
ried to Europe about 100000 tons
of cargo
Work o fthes Engineers
American engineers built in France
eighty-three new ship berths, 1000
miles of standard gauge track and
583 miles of narrow gauge track.
The signal corps. strung in France
100, 900 miles of telephone and tele-
r. @se''e S
graph wire
Prior to the armistice 10000 trucks
were shipped to the forces in
France.
Construction projects in the United
States cost twice as much as the Pan
ANA canal, and construction over
seas was on nearly twice as large a
scale.
The entire number of American
machine guns produced to the end of
1918 was 227,000.
The Browning machine guns are
believed to be more effective than the
corresponding weapon used in any
army.
American production of rifle am
munition amounted to approximately
$500, 100000 rounds, of which 1,500,-
100000 rounds were shipped overseas.
The number of rounds of complete
artillery ammunition produced in Am
erican plants was in excess of 100000
Oo0 compared with 100000 rounds
secured from the French and British.
In the first twenty months after the
declaration of war by each country
the British did better than the Uni
ted States in the production Of light
artillery, and the United States ex-
celled them in producing heavy artil-
lery and both light and heavy am
munition.
At the end of the war American
production of smokeless powder was
forty-fve per cent greater than the
French and British production COM
bined The American production of
high explosives was forty per cent