end of the war included the
301st, 302nd and 303rd Stevedore Regiments and the 701st and 702nd
Stevedor Battalions; the 322nd and 363rd Butchery Companies; Engineer
Service battalions numbered from 505 to 550, inclusive; Labor battalions
numbered from 304 to 348, inclusive, also Labor battalion 357; Labor
companies numbered from 301 to 324, inclusive; Pioneer Infantry
regiments numbered 801, 809, 811, 813, 815 and 816, inclusive. These
organizations known as Pioneers, had some of the functions of infantry,
some of those of engineers and some of those of labor units. They were
prepared to exercise all three, but in France they were called upon to
act principally as modified engineering and labor outfits. They also
furnished replacement troops for some of the combatant units.

Service was of the dull routine void of the spectacular, and has never
been sufficiently appreciated. In our enthusiasm over their fighting
brothers we should not overlook nor underestimate these. There were many
thousands of white engineers and Service of Supply men in general, but
their operations were mostly removed from the base ports.

Necessity for the work was imperative. Owing to the requirements of the
British army, the Americans could not use the English Channel ports.
They were obliged to land on the west and south coasts of France, where
dock facilities were pitifully inadequate. Railway facilities from the
ports to the interior were also inadequate. The American Expeditionary
Forces not only enlarged every dock and increased the facilities of
every harbor, but they built railways and equipped them with American
locomotives and cars and manned them with American crews.

Great warehouses were built as well as barracks, cantonments and
hospitals. Without these facilities the army would have been utterly
useless. Negroes did the bulk of the work. They were an indispensable
wheel in the machinery, without which all would have been chaos or
inaction.

Headquarters of the Service of Supply was at Tours. It was the great
assembling and distributing point. At that point and at the base ports
of Brest, Bordeaux, St. Nazaire and La Pallice most of the Negro Service
of Supply organizations were located. The French railroads and the
specially constructed American lines ran from the base ports and
centered at Tours.

This great industrial army was under strict military regulations. Every
man was a soldier, wore the uniform and was under commissi