DUMPS.

Star (Christchurch), Issue 12393, 10 August 1918, Page 7

DUMPS.

A FEATURE OF MODERN WARFARE.

(By GAIT. H. B. C. BOLLARD.) A dump is a store, reserve or pile of any kind uf war material, and it may rnngo in. size from a shellhole full of reels of barbed wire and picket posts to a carefully laid out engineer store ' dump covering acres of ground. The word dump is one of those simple expressive terms Hint automatically convoys its own meaning—dump, a place where things arc dumped down. Dumps are a very lug feature in modern warfare, for as the mechanical and engineering side of war has developed, the consumption of material has become enormous. The infantry, the gunners, and particularly the Royal Engineers, spend much of the lime' in which they are not actually lighting in duties connected with the dumps. That is to soy, they are for ever replenishing these stores from larger stores, or fhev are carrying away the material from the dumps For consumption in the firing Hue. VARIOUvS KINDS OB DUMPS. Stores of war material are assembled at the Rase, and moved up the linos of communication to meet the local demands of the larger dumps nr Engineer parka. One finds timber dumps where all the wood lor .hutments, Ireimh boards, tin gouts and battery positions is kept, .special dump of mining stores, peculiar timbering for Hu] shafts, fans and ventilating gear, windlasses and miners’ tools. “ Then there are ammunition dumps, where shells ol all kinds and calibres are stored in piles, A.&.C. ration dumps whore, mountains of foodstuffs are accumulated for emergency distribution, fodder dumps of bales of compressed hav for the horses. Dumps are endless in their variety. The officer in charge of a big dump or park of engineering stores”has to supply the wants of all his thousand clients, who demand picks and shovels, sandbags by the million, tons of barbed wire, a variety of tools, special fancy loses and explosives for mining, guncotton for demolitions, macadam and sand for road repairs, pipes and pumps for water supply, corrugated . iron sheets known as “baby elephants, M and all kinds of gear that is used in war. JOE NO SINECURE, Ihe demand for a. particular article j- occasionally in excess of The supply, and tlharassing spectre of economy is constantly overshadowing the keeper of the dump, who is bound by rigid rules as to what lie may give to, different. brandies of the service. 11 is job is no sinecure. It may happen that the Labour Companies want aU the store, he has got for repairing shellholes in the roads, whilst the artillery demands an equal supply with which to make horse standings; in order to keep the horses’ feet high and drv out, of the mud of Flanders. The. O.C. Dump has to effect a. compromise, 'for, however great his regard for the homes’ feet, it is certain that no supplies of any sort will get up to infantry or artillery unless, the toads are navigable by the lorries. I n the same way corrugated iron, essential for advanced and support trenches, is apt to hud its way into reserve positions, where it it nut by any means a necessity, unless he is especially watchful. Timhe,-, too. needs careful guardianship during the winter, for nothing that will burn is , sacred to the old soldier who desires a .fire. BACKING FROM BACK AREAS. From these large stores in the back eroas the stuff goes forward into the 1 zptie where wheeled traffic cannot move. ‘ On men’s backs and on pack-saddled mules tho material is moved np toward ; the advanced dumps which lie just behind the trench line; and hero each battalion makes its little store, of all . essential gear—small-arm ammunition, 1 bombs and rifle grenades, sandbags, shovels and pickaxes, corrugated iron, 1 barbed wire and picket posts to boar , it. The store must be kept filled to , meet the needs of the unit, though the filling of it may cost the lives of bravo men. The-dumps, being for the. most partpiles of materials stacked in the open, are loss vulnerable to artillery fire or bombs than would be similar concentrations in buildings. Aviators of both sides pay great attention to ammunition dumps and these are usually hud out so that the explosion of one pile ’ of shell by a bomb does not necessarily discharge the reiumidor. Camouflage, too. plays no -unimportant part, and everv effort is made to conceal even thesmallest dumps from observation. For n,ofc only is there the risk of destruction of material, but even a casual bombardment may catch a large working narty and inflict heavy casualties upon it.