The Nenana daily news., 1919-06-04
War Department History Tells of 8Material'' Side
 Of Winning Great War

immediately after they had been en- gagged with the enemy in a severe action and while they still were encrusted with rust and mud and bearing shrapnel scars. Without be- ing cleaned in any way each gun fired belt of 250 cartridges with out malfunction.
 The demand for light Brownings was so heavy that when the armis- tlce was signed, the department was driving forward production to the end that British, Belgian and French troops might be equipped with this weapon, these three nations having asked for supplies of this latest American addition to the fighting equipment.
 Up to November II, the produc- ton of Browning rifles was 52,23S, a majority of which were in France. In addition, 29.0O0 Chauchat guns had been purchased, so that enough light automatic rifles were on hand to supply 100 divisions or an army of 3,500,000 men. In the same time 41,804 heavy Bownings and Nickers guns had been produced to make with the Hotchkiss weapons purchased from the French a total of 54,627 of this type, or enough to equip 200 divisions or an army of 100000.
 At the peak of our production. . the report says. '' total of 1,794 machine guns and automatic rifles of all types were produced within a period of 24 hours" and the tota! production of machine guns in the United States between April 6, 1917, and November II, 1918, was 1S5,- 039 as against 229,238 produced by the French and 181,040 by the Brit ish in the same period"
 ! Only the loyal cooperation of the manufacturers with whom ''com- petitive commercial advantages weighed not at all against the na- tional need" made possible this achievement, the report states.
 Other production struggles de scribed in the chapter include items varying in size from trench knives to the 45-ton Mark VIII tanks of British design of which 1,500 were being constructed in cooperation with the British and 1,450 additional wholly by American enterprise. Only one of these had been delivered up to January l, 1919, but it is noted that the work on each program on component parts was 50 per cent complete when the armistice was signed. Orders for all but 100 of these tanks have been cancelled.
 On November II. 64 tanks of the French six-ton type had been de livered and by January 3l, of this year, 291 Of these six were ship ped abroad Oreders for 1000 Mark I light tanks were cancelled, as were orders for 15,015 three-ton tanks, fifteen of which had been completed on November II.
 The history of the rifle produc- tion, including all of the considera- tions which led to the adoption Of the standardized British Enfield weapon for American use, also is fully outlined This was another element of the ordnance program that was severely criticized, but the department states that it sees no reason now to change it's view that the wisest course was that which wa: followed. Army experts still hold that the Springfield rifle is the best military weapon made, but it Is de clared the rifle program would have been .'hopelessly delayed" if it had been attempted to equip the forces with those weapons. IL is reiterated also that the Enfield rifle as it was in production in American plant' when the United States entered the war was an utterly inadequate weapon, while as it was modified, i became second only to the Spring field. Despite the delay due tc modification and standardization, al American troops were equipped with modern, efficient, American-made rifles before they left the United States.
 "The decision to modify the En- field" says the report, twas one of the greatest decisions of the ex ecutive prosecutions of the war-al honr to General John T. Thomp, rop and the other rifle eXperts who