The Bridgeport times and evening farmer., 1919-01-04
COMMUNICATIONS BETWEEN FORCES
 IS ESTABLISHED

Headquarters, American Expedi | uonary Force, France, Jan. S-(Cor- 1 respondence of The Associated Press) | In an army the size of this, scat tered throughout the length and breadth of France from the seacoast to the Swiss border, the problem of communication is second only If not of equal importance to that of sup plies.
 When the American forces came to France it was one of the first efforts to which American ingenuity and in vention was directed and the Signal Corps, under which communications fall, met 1t as have the other organ izations of the American Expedition ary Force. Existing French tele- graph and telephone systems were overburdened There was little left for us and Brigadier General E. Rus sell, chief signal officer, and his staff of experts tackled the job,
 What they have done in construc- ton is shown in some statistics fur nished to The Associated Press, The Signal Corps has built approximately 1,75O miles of poles on which It has strung 4.175 miles of wire. In addi- ton about 2,O0O miles of American wire has been strung on existing systems for our use and it has leased and operates 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 PA telephone offices, 7,995 telephone I &aIo
 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 different from the European system, are q new feature of the landscape and ire quently one heard newly arrived American soldiers exclaim, that's American" On main line systems with many wires the French custom arily use two poles side by side and the wires are strung on cross bars between, and others on single insula- tors 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 maintained by 1t.
 All this construction has been made by Signal Corps batta1ions with i'm plements and material from the Unit ed States with the single exception of poles, most of which were obtain ed in France. In construction I dard practices of the United States have been followed and the American Expeditionary Force has been given service equal to the best obtainahI~ in the commercial world and admit tedly unrivalled In any army. Its men have followed troops wherever troops went down front line trenches, ovel shell swept and machine-gun raket areas to lay and keep their wires st that communications might be main tained. The Signal Corps has a lonl list of brave dead and brave wound ed. more honored perhaps, because they could not fight back.
 The telephone service of the Corp was opened on June 24, 1917, ant since then there have been handled nearly nineteen million local calls an, more than one million long distanc calls
 Since the Signal Corps telegraph system began to function on Angus 19 of last year more than five an, one-half million messages have bee handled, aggregating more than one third of a billion words
 Manning these wires are man OF 71 TNz partment of The Associated Pres graduates of the key and the fastes wires In the world. Among ther ( are Sergeant ]. L. Belden, formerl of Dallas, Tex. who has charge c the base signal office at Bordeau, Among the fifty men under his direc