The New York Times/1918/11/11/Thousands Needed for Ordnance Work
THOUSANDS NEEDED FOR ORDNANCE WORK
Department's Training Schools to Provide 10,000 Officers and 120,000 Enlisted Men.
WASHINGTON, Nov. 10.―With the American forces in France rapidly increasing, the Ordnance Department is confronted with the colossal task of supplying and maintaining the 2,000,000 and more men with war implements and ammunition. The larger the army grows in France the bigger the task becomes. It is estimated that the Ordnance Department will need a total of 10,000 commissioned officers and 120,000 enlisted men, many of whom have been obtained and yet others are now needed.
Since the Ordnance Department has been reorganized this task has been met with a remarkable degree of efficiency. Thousands of experts in various lines of industry have been taken into the service. Thousands of others have been trained for their special task.
When the titanic task of placing the Ordnance Department on a basis where its machinery would work in unison developed, steps were taken to train officers and men for their work. To give the men taken into the department a technical and mechanical training was put up to Colonel W. W. Gibson. A division was created, known as Ordnance Training, of which Colonel Gibson was director and Major Thompson was his executive assistant. These two men rounded into shape a problem under which thousands of men were fitted for the work.
Colonel Gibson is one of the older men in the Ordnance Department. He was instructor at West Point for four years and was also in command of the Watervilet Arsenal betfore coming to Washington.
An idea of the work performed by officers in charge of ordnance training may be had from a glance at their program for the next six months. The Ordnance Department must keep up a never-ending stream of all kinds of equipment, such as light horse-drawn, motorized, heavy, tracor-drawn and railway artillery, anti-aircraft guns, rifles, pistols, machine guns, trench mortars, trench knives, hand grenades, tractors, tanks, all kinds of ammunition, certain kinds of horse equipment for the artillery, artillery vehicles and carriages, and in addition a certain amount of personal equipment for the soldiers.
The personnel of officers and enlisted men may be divided into the following groups:
(1.) Those engaged in the United States and overseas in the design, purchase, manufacture, and inspection of ordnance and ordnance stores.
(2.) The commissioned and enlisted members of the ordnance personnel serving with the troops in the field.
The first group's duties are of a highly technical nature, covering design, experimental work, testing, inspecting, and placing of large contracts. The second group is engaged mainly in the distribution and maintenance of ordnance equipment and may be divided into main classes, supply and repair work and those attached to troops moving in the field.
The Ordnance Engineering School at Aberdeen, Md., where a three-month course covering all proving group activities has been given, will be continued. Originally having a capacity of 150 men and with a graduation list of fifty officers a month, the school will be able to give courses and commissions to 1,000 officers within the next six months. Several small specialist schools at Carney's Point and other places will also be conducted. An ordnance maintenance and repair school at Raritan Arsenal, Metuchen, N.J., and an ordnance concentration camp at Camp Hancock, Georgia, have also been established.
All applications for entrance into the schools should be sent to the personnel section of the Ordnance Department. Applicants must be graduates of a recognized engineering or technical college or have had five years' responsible engineering experience, which would be equivalent to an engineering education. Various types of engineers are eligible to enter the schools―mechanical, automotive, civil, mining, structural, architectural, metallurgical, chemical, and sanitary. Mechanical engineers are most desirable.