The weekly Alaska citizen., 1919-06-09
GOVERNMENT TELLS HOW YANKEE INDUSTRY RESPONDED TO CALLS
 MADE FOR ASSISTANCE IN WAR

and bearing shraplel scars. Withou being cleaned in any way each guI fired belt of cartridges without : malfunction.
 : The demand for light Browning was so heavy thu, when .hc armistw, w. s signed the departmem was driv ing forward production to the en'
 that British. Belgian and French } tloops might be equipped with th:. , weapon. these three nations havini .sFed for supplies of this latest An, erican addition to the fighting equip ment.
 | Up to November II the production ! of Browning rifles was 52.23S, a major
 ity of which were in France. In ad
 dition 29.000 Chauchat guns had beer
 purchased. so that enough light auto matic rifles were on hand to supply 100 divisions or an army of 3,500,0 { men. In the same time 41,804 heavy Brownings and enough Wicker guns 7 had been produced to make. with the
 Hotchkiss weapons purchased iron : the French. a total of 54.627 of this }! type, or enough to equip 200 divisions or an army of 7O00,0O0 At the peak of our production,
 the report says. "a total of 1,794 ma chine guns and automatic rifles of all types were produced within period ; of twenty-four hours." and the tota
 production of machine guns in the ,l United States between April 6, 1917 !, and November il. 1918. was 185,03e as against o29.238 produced by the French and l81.404 by the British in
 the same period.
 | Only the loyal cooperation of the !, manufacturers with whom "Competi |, tive commercial advantages weighed
 not at all against the national need,
 made possible this achievement, the |. report states.
 Il Other production struggles describ
 ed in today's chapters include items varying in size from trench knives tc the 45-ton Mark VIII tanks of British |. design of which 1,50O were being con structed in cooperation with the Brit ish and 1,45O additional wholly by Am erican enterprise. Only one of these
 had been delivered up to January 1
 1919, but it is noted that the work or
 each program on component parts
 was 50 percent complete when the ar {, mistice was signed. Orders for al
 but 100 of these tanks have been can
 celed.
 ,l On November II sixty-four tanks of the French six-ton type were ship ped abroad. Orders for 1000 Mark Il light tanks were cancelled as were orders for 15.015 three-ton tanks If
 teen of which had been completed or November H.
 | The history of the rife production ] including all of the considerations which led to the adoption of the g andardized British Enfield weapcr for American use, also is fully out |, lined. This was another elemeI. o! the ordnance program that was SC verely criticized. but the departmen, states that it sees no reason now tC
 change it's view that the wisest course was that which was followed Army experts still hold that the
 Springfield rife is the best military
 weapon made, but it is declared the rife program would have been ''hope
 lessly delayed" if it had been attempt
 ed to equip the forces with these wea
 pons. It Is reiterated also that the
 Enfield rife as it was in production
 m American plants when the United
 States entered the war was an utterly
 inadequate weapon, while as 1t wal modified. it became second only to the
 Springfield. despite the delay due 'e
 nDdificatiCn and standardization. al
 American troops were equipped witf modern. efficient. American-madc Il fles before they left the Un+tt States.
 "The decision to modify the NnAeld'
 says the report, twas one of the great
 est decisions of the executive prose
 cution of the war-all honor te General John T. Thompson and thu
 other rife experts who made It."
 The total rife production in tn, United States from the beginning o the war up to November g. 1919 was 2.506,307, of which a little more than 100000 were Springfield rifles. I Considerable attention is devoted to the production of automatic pis
 tols and revolvers for the troops In the Colt .45." the standard army
 automatic developed as a result o Philippine experience by the arm! and which also was an invention by Browning. the United States force,
 had a weapon which all Europe could not match with ef{lciency in action r and which brot terror to the Germanl : when American troops reached tn, 7 front.
 !. European countries failed to appre ciate the value of a large calibre