THE NISSEN HUT.

Auckland Star, Volume XLVIII, Issue 89, 14 April 1917, Page 13

THE NISSEN HUT.

TOMMY'S NEW HOME AT THE FRONT. At about the same time as the tanks made their memorable debut on the battlefield, another creature, almost equally primeval 01 aspect, began to appear in the conquered arens, says Mr Tileon Young, in a letter from British headquarters in France. Xo one ever saw it on the move or met it on tlie roads; it just appeared. Overnight you woirld see a Wank space of ground: in the morning it would be occupied by an immense creature of the tortoise species, settled down solidly and permanently on the earth, and emitting green smoke from a right-angled stem at one end, where its mouth might l>e, as though it were smoking a morning pipe. And when siK-h a pioneer found that the situation was gooil and the land hatrita'bJe. it would apparently paws the word; for toy twos and threes, by tens and hundreds, its fellow-monsters would appear, so that in a week or two you would find a valley covered with them that had been nothing but pulverised earth 'before. The name of this creature is the Xiseen hut. It is the solution of one of the many problems that every -war presents. The problem here was to devise a cheap, portable dwelling-place wherein men eoirid live warm and dry; cheap enough to be purchasable by tens of thousands; portable enough "to 'be : carried on any road; big enough to •house two dozen men; simple enough to be erected by anybody, and. on any ground; and weatherproof enough to give adequate protection from summer heat and winter cold. All these conditions are fullfilled by the Nissen hut, the invention of a Canadian Engineer officer who sat down and thought it out on an idle day in May. 1916. He did his preliminary thinking co well that the third hut he built is of the pattern now being used, of which there are at least 20,000 in the country to-day, and which a.re the " homes of some half-million of British Tommies. NO WALLS. One peculiarity of the Niseen hut is that it baa no walls. It consists of a roof, ends, and a floor. The roof is simply an arch of corrugated iron, so there are no eaves or ga.bles to fit. Thus the greatest amount of standing space is enclosed with the least amount ot material. You can order a. Nissen hut as you would order a garden chair, and it wiM arrive neatly packed, wit.h instructions how it is to be put up. Anyone can put it up, but four men can do it easily in four boure. The only tool required— a epanner—i« supplied with it. -I he whole can 'be packed on an Army wagon, and its weight is two tons; but no single part of package is heavier than can ibe unloaded by two men. All the parts are interchangeable. The whole thing rests on three longitudinal sills 27ft long. On these you lay the panele of floor-boarding. There are twelve of them; you can put them down m any order you like—they are all the same. The roof is in 48 pieoes—all the same. You arrange them in three 9-foot sheets, with a 6in overlap—that is, one corrugation of overlap. You go on Jit--1 ting them together anyhow, in any order, and when they are all used you find that the roof is complete. The lining, of half-inch matchboard, is fastened to ribs of Tiron that follow the semi-circular shape of the roof. There are five ribs made of three segments each. These segments are nested in bundles of five; you use them in any order you like—they are all the same. There are no nails to drive. A single pattern of hook-bolt is used for every fastening. The lining is tongued and grooved, and however green the wood is or however much' it may shrink owin<* to the heat in the hut there are no draughts. You simply keep knocking it down tight to the sides of the hut (where the men's heads are when they sleep), and the shrinkage is represented by an open space along the middle of the roof which gives ventilation into the air space between roof and ceiling, which is so valuable a feature of the hut. It keeps the heat in in winter and out in summer. KINDLY DOMES)PIC BEAST. These are the new homes for which many a soldier on the Sommo front is thanking hie stars in this bitter weather. Twenty-four men sleep warm and dry on their bods on the floor. By day the beds are rolled up against the'sides and ■ the whole middle space (which as a mess would seat 52 men) is available for work, games, messing, writing, or reading. The hut is warmed by the ordinary Canadian stove—an iron drum with two holes in it and a emoke-pipe—which is the only portable furnace that you can make red-hot on green wood fuel. 1