Evening star., 1944-12-10

built tremendous munition plants, huge
airflelds and troop cities. We completed
the Atlantic sea bases leased from Great
Britain and constructed supply routes
over $4,000 miles to our overseas pos
sessions and to those of the Allied
nations.
The century-old tradition of the Army
Engineers for improvisations in emer-
gencies served them well, for time was
the vital factor and speed the very heart
of our preparedness program.
A Good Head Start
When defense construction became
war construction after December 7, 1941,
the basic requirements of our expanding
Army were at least well on the way so
that they could be completed in time
and in proportion to the expansion of
the personnel.
The conclusive test of the Engineers
preparations and advance construction
may be judged in the light of our mill
tary advances on far-dung battle fronts.
When war did come, the needs of ord
nance and air facilities were pushed
ahead at top speed. From December
16, 1941, to March Is, 1912, more than
$4,000, 900 900 of new work was author
lied and nearly $500 ,000,0 900 of 1t was
already in place. BY June, 1912, the
tempo of performance had increased so
much that the value of completed work
rose to the astounding figure Of approx
mately $2O,ooO,OOO daily
Hammers welded by American work.
ers were ringing around the world
Never before in history had such activity
been recorded. Within our own borders,
more than $11 900, ,00O,OO0 worth of con-
struction had gone as America plunged
into an all-out war effort.
American engineers, in war as in
peace, have always been able to demon
strate their ability to meet the unlocked
for situation. to do the impossible" as
Gen. Pershing reminded.
Emergency Causeway
When Col Albert G. Matthews arrived
at Port Moresby to command the Amer
lean engineers working with the
Australians, he was confronted with the
emergency need of providing more dock
facilities for supplies. The only ap-
parent solution was to dredge larger
area and build new docks. This seemed
impossible because there we're no large
dredges within a thousand miles. Jap
planes were making daily raids.
Tn MoraShv Row ho II v,,i1a frov,, &l,~
mainland, lay small, fiat island in
fairly deep water. Col Matthews had
an idea. From one of the unloaded
ships in the harbor he got earth-moving
equipment, including three large bull
dozers. The latter were put to work
Immediately, showing dirt into the bay
Within 20 days causeway connecting
Port Moresby with the island was COM
pleted, despite frequent aerial attacks.
The effect was that the island became
large circular dock and the causeway
was used as the road over which trucks
carried the landed cargoes ashore. The
Japs never were able to blast this cause
way out of the water and Port Moresby
was kept supplied.
On Attu, in the Aleutians, the Japs
scratched for IL months with their in
ferior equipment to level landing strip
which American engineers could have
built in II days. When Attu was taken
the Jap air strip was still unfinished.
The north coastline of Africa was
ringed with landing fields within few
weeks after the Allied invasion. These
fields crept forward like . barrage to
intensity the sting Of our air power by
putting bases closer and ever closer to
the Afrika Korps
To defend the Port OF Bone, . large