was made to
the intermediate depots in the cities of supply, and finally to the
depots immediately behind the fighting front. All these depots involved
enormous building operations; at first the lumber was shipped, but later,
American lumber jacks were brought over to cut French forests. At one
supply depot three hundred buildings were put up, covering an area of six
square miles, operated by 20,000 men, and holding in storage a hundred
million dollars' worth of supplies. For distribution purposes it proved
necessary for American engineers to take over the construction and
maintenance of communications. At first American engines and cars were
operated under French supervision; but ultimately many miles of French
railroads were taken over bodily by the American army and many more built
by American engineers. More than 400 miles of inland waterways were also
used by American armies. This transportation system was operated by
American experts of all grades from brakemen to railroad presidents,
numbering altogether more than 70,000.

In order to meet the difficulty of securing tonnage for supplies and to
avoid competition with the Allies, a General Purchasing Board was created
for the cooerdination of all purchases. Agents of this board were
stationed in the Allied countries, in Switzerland, Holland, and Spain,
who reconnoitered resources, analyzed requirements, issued forecasts of
supplies, supervised the claims of foreign governments on American raw
materials, and procured civilian manual labor. Following the
establishment of the supreme interallied command, the Interallied Board
of Supplies was organized in the summer of 1918, with the American
purchasing agent as a member. Other activities of the S. O. S., too
numerous to recount in detail, included such important tasks as the
reclassification of personnel, the installation and operation of a
general service of telephone and telegraph communication, with 115,500
kilometers of lines, and the renting and requisitioning of the land and
buildings needed by the armies. It was a gigantic business undertaking,
organized at top speed, involving tremendous expenditure. Its success
would have been impossible without the cooeperation of hundreds of men of
business, who found in it a sphere of service which enabled the army to
utilize the proverbial American genius for meeting large problems of
economic organization. At the time of the armistice the S. O. S. reached
a numerical str