Bisbee daily review., 1919-01-05
SIGNAL CORPS IN FRANCE LINKS UP VAST DISTANCES
Strings Lines Which Afford Communication From Sea- coast to Swiss Border, Us- ing American Supplies

HEADQUARTERS AMERICAN EAs PEDITIONARY FORCE, France, Nov. 2S Correspondence of the Associated Pressl In an army the size of this, sca tered throughout the length and ! cdtl of France, from the seacoast Swiss border, the problem of
 C, maunication is second only, if not
 of equal importance, to that of sup plies.
 When the American forces came to France it was one W the first efforts
 to which American Ingenuity and in vention was directed and the signal corps, under which Communications fall. met it as have the other organl- cations of the American expeditionary force. Existing French telegraph and telephone systems were overburdened.
 There was little left for us, and Brig. Gen. E. Russell. chief signal officer, and his staff of experts tackled the job.
 What They Have Done
 What they have done in construc- ton. is shown in some statistics fur nished to the Associated Press. The signal corps has built approximately l75O miles of poles on which it has strung 4175 miles of wire. In addi- ton, about 2OOO miles of American wire has been strung on existing sys- tens for our use and it has leased and operated more than 5000 miles of French wire. Exchange lines to the extent of 12,75O miles have been built and to operate these lines it has 244 telephone offices, 1895 telephone stations and 1O2 telegraph offices.
 All through France. from the base ports to the front lines occupied by the American forces, throughout our training areas, in fact nearly every where. the shining copper wires on American cross bar poles, so differ ent from the European system are new feature of the landscape, and ire quently one hears newly arrived Amer ican soldiers exclaim, That's Amer ican." On main line systems with I many wires. the French customarily l use two poles, side by side, and the wires are strung on cross bars be- tween. and others on single insulators fastened direct to the pole.
 The long distance telegraph and telephone system constructed by the signal corps, is entirely maintained by its own personnel and in addition some 5000 miles of leased wires are by it.
 Materials From U. s.
 All the construction has been made by signal corps battalions with inn plements and material from the Uni ted States, with the single exception of poles, most of which were obtained in France. In construction, mainte- nance and operation the standard practices of the United States have been followed and the American ex- force has been given sery- ice equal to the best Obtainable Tn the commercial world and admittedly unrivaled in any army. Its men have followed troops wherever troops went. down front line trenches, over shell | swept machine gun raked areas, to iay and keep their wires so that com might be maintained. The signal corps has a long list of brave dead and brave wounded more hon pred perhaps, because they could not fight back
 The telephone service of the corps was opened on June 24, 1917, and since then there have been handled nearly nineteen million local calls and more than one million long distance calls.
 Since the signal corps telegraph sys- tenn begun to function on August f9.i of last year, more than five and one half million messages have been han iled, aggregating more than one-third of a billion words.