Not all of us who were fortunate enough to get overseas got
to the front, for many were needed back of the lines to
carry on the detail work of getting up supplies, etc. Perhaps
one of the largest of these tasks was that of supplying the hospitals
and camps with fuel. Coal being very scarce the main supply of
fuel must necessarily by wood. As I happened to be engaged in
this line, being stationed in the forest at Montrichard (Lor
et Cher) France, I will give a brief outline of this particular
branch of the S. O. S. (Service of Supplies) work.
As the French Government is very strict about cutting down
trees for any purpose, the work of marking the trees to be
cut was supervised by French and American authorities. The
U.S. Government imported Spaniards to do the cutting. Their method
of cutting and trimming trees is somewhat different from ours.
They have an instrument, which looks a great deal like our corn-knife,
only that it is much larger and heavier and with this they do
most of their trimming and cutting, oftentimes cutting down quite
good sized trees with this knife, they seeming to prefer it to
an ax. The wood is then cut into meter lengths and split like
our cordwood.
As the forests of France are crossed and re-crossed with
good, hard, Macadam roads, the wood is hauled by means of
one-horse, two-wheeled carts to the road side where it is
piled up ready to be loaded on the trucks.
Every load is measured and the amount is recorded and an
accurate report of the amount of wood sent out and to where
it is sent, must be made out every week. The wood is not
measured by the cord but by the "Stier," a stier being
a meter long, a meter wide, and a meter high.
During the eight months I was at this place we supplied,
besides all the smaller camps in and about Montrichard, the big
camp at St. Aignan during the winter months, sending out
from thirty to forty big truck loads of wood per day and as many
more at night, besides shipping a couple of car-loads away every
weed to distant camps.