The Glasgow courier. [volume] (Glasgow, Mont.) 1913-current, 1942-11-19

EuitOI , INOlCs rs ItuSl Dt n
pected under wartime condition,
the following article from the Mis-
souri, River division office of tn
corps of engineers is general in ma
ture concerning the huge construc
ton program supervised by the For
Peck and other districts in the di
vision. However, many of the thing
said have local application to tn
Glasgow airdrome and are of par
ticular interest here.
OMAHA, Neb.-In the office o
almost every one of the area en-,
gineers of the Missouri River divi.
sion of the corps of engineers there
hangs a cartoon depicting an ares
engineer receiving orders to build {
war effort project on a piece o.
marshland. His orders from his SUI
perior are, we are in no hurry fol
this project. Take your time, just sc
it is ready in ten days"
Under the fast moving pace sci
by Col. Lewis A. Pick, the division
chief, that order is not as far wrong
as it would seem What should or
dinarily take a year to build must
be constructed in one-siXth to one
twelfth the time. Speed, essential
element in this war, is the symbol
of the officers of the division.
A close-knit organization, super
vised by the division and directed by
the three districts, Kansas City,
Omaha and Fort Peck, sends Off
GERS and men from the division and
district on a moments notice to as
sist an officer in the field to keep
the division ahead of schedule all
the time. Men and material are
shifted just as a commanding of
flcer shifts his men and material in
battle.
Home battle-ground
The construction program, in the
nine states of the Missouri division,
is in reality the battle-ground of the
home forces. Huge maps are the
working grounds for each chief of
a division. Each hour will change
the map. When new installations
are authorized, men and materials
must be shifted, lines of commune
cations and avenues of transporta-
ton opened and an area engineer
placed to direct the work.
1t matters little whether the or
der is to build an air base, a satel-
lite field, a cantonment, an ord
nance plant, a depot, a warehouse,
a hospital, a storage area, a relo-
cation center or a dog kennel, it
all must be constructed at once The
site selected may be far removed
from railroads, bus travel or plane
service. These must be installed and
lines of communication, hundreds
of telephone lines, made available.
The material sections may have
all of the available material in use
at the moment that a new war eff
fort project is authorized. All of the
big machines are working at top
speed, but the new project must
have attention. Material is pulled
from several jobs, and machines,
taken from this place and that, are
either on the road or on flat cars
bound for the new job almost be-
fore the rea engineer arrives to
hold on until something else may
be gotten for him.
Purchase Is Started
Real estate men set up their Of
fices and begin to buy the land.
in many cases, are OF the
almost simultaneously with the
real estate men. They are laying out
roads, runways, barrack sites and
drainage systems, while real estate
men purchase the land. Complete
office forces must be recruited and
set up by the new area engineer,
who in all probability has just fin
ished building a large airport 80
has left his assistant in charge of
takes over the new N {
E-Or1inn1ant nnofaria1 ond ,,op-
power needs must be planned in ad-
vance and orders sent out. Train
loads of material must be arriving
each day to keep the schedule, and
The men busy. To illustrate this, the
average small airfield must have at
east $50 train carloads of material I
alone each day of the time that {
hey are pouring concrete to keep
he PAYERS busy. These must come in {
an uninterrupted flow either by {
or truck. {
Sewerage systems must be planned
and installed. The local electrical !
power system is called upon for cleo 3
but in practically all cases I
S supplemented with a power plant G
the projects.
Some idea of the magnitude of the f
OBJ that confronts some of the area 3
engineers, may be realized when it s
S understood that runways con-
in go days or less, starting t
rom the time the area engineer
throughout the planning
the surveying and the form a
before a yard of paving can
,e laid, would, if stretched out in
standard 20 foot concrete highway, '
each from Omaha to Lincoln, Neb.
Tasks Are Many {
He still must build his barracks
or the men, recreation halls, thea
er, commissary, post exchanges and
hurcheS. Roads that will stand c
of usage must be constructed
long with the rest. Then, he must
ee that the roads into and away j