AMERICAN ARMS

New Zealand Herald, Volume 79, Issue 24178, 21 January 1942, Page 9

AMERICAN ARMS

PART IN GREAT WAR SLOW TO BECOME EFFECTIVE TRAINING AND EQUIPMENT In view of the outbreak of hostilities between the United States and Japan, it is interesting to recall some of the outstanding dates of American intervention in the Great War. It was on April 6, 1917, that the United States declared a state of war to exist with Germany; the .first American division to go into the line as a whole did so on October 23 of the same year; and the first American soldiers to lose their lives were three who were killed on November 3. The first troops to leave America for France comprised a detachment of 280 men who sailed on May 8 and went to Liverpool. The first actually to land in France were 5625 who arrived on June 26. By the end of 1917, the arrivals numbered 194,000; by the end of the first quarter Of 1918 they had increased to 375,000; by June 30 there were over 1,000,000; and at the Armistice 2,063,000 had been landed. No Adequate Artillery It would be useless to deny that when the great German offensive was started in March, 1918, there was great impatience among the Allies over what seemed like American slowness in taking an effective part in the struggle. After arriving in France the Americans had to be carefully trained to the standard demanded by the war and time was also lost in equipping them. The American army had no adequate artillery and had to draw upon French factories; >it was not until August, 1918, that the first American air force squadron, completely equipped by American production, made its first flight across the German lines; and such tanks as were used by the Americans were of French manufacture. In the Great War, however, there were factors affecting the immediate flow of large numbers of men and vast quantities of. materials which do not now operate to nearly the same extent. One is that when the United States declared war in 1917 British and French military missions which visited Washington placed money at the top of Allied needs, and by the end of June, something over 1,000,000,000 dollars had already gone to Europe. Food was next, help against the submarines third, men fourth. Position Better Now There was no delay in initiating measures to effect the supply of each, but in 1917 the United btates had to start almost from rock bottom. For instance, its regular army then consisted of only about 86,000 effectives and a National Guard, or sort of State militia, with a paper strength of about 200,000. This time the American war machine was in a much more advantageous position than it was in 1917. It did not have to be initiated more or less at the very moment when hostilities started, but was already vastly superior in productive power. National defence steps have received increasing attention. For instance, what was a skeleton army at the outbreak of war had been raised to a paper strength of 1,400,000 men by the middle of last year.