CANADA'S HUGE FORESTRY CORPS

Of the special corps, outside the regular classifications into which all armies are subdivided—infantry, cavalry, artillery, etc., special emphasis and more detailed description should be accorded the Canadian Forestry and the Canadian Railway Corps. The extraordinary dimensions which these arms of the service acquired must be considered when the number of Canadian troops on the actual field of battle is compared with those who did not reach the front. No general history of the war can ever be written without devoting considerable space to these two corps as factors which assumed much importance in the defeat of Germany.

In the production of lumber, and in the building of railways, to keep up with the rapid westward progress of the Canadian population, Canada stands forth preeminent. It was only natural that the special skill and knowledge acquired in these industries should be in strong demand by the Allied forces in general, and it was Canada which could supply it in the greatest measure. Hence the unusual number of Canadian recruits who were diverted to these particular branches of military service.

The formation of the Forestry Corps came about through the growing shortage of shipping. In February, 1916, the British Government issued a proclamation restricting certain imports, for the sake of economy in shipping. One of the chief commodities affected was timber, of which six million tons was being brought into the country annually.

The Secretary of State for the Colonies called on the Governor General of Canada for assistance in the production of timber for military purposes from the home forests in England and Scotland. A special force of Canadian lumbermen was asked for.

The result was the formation of the 224th Canadian Forestry Battalion, which was sent over to England in the early part of the year. The first unit to arrive in England carried with it all the machinery necessary and immediately established a lumber camp and saw mill in Surrey. Within three months after the first call for this special assistance the battalion had been organized, transported across the waters, and had sawn and delivered its first lot of sawn English lumber. The battalion eventually reached a working force of over 1,500, detachments from which were distributed over various parts of England and Scotland.

So big a success was the work of the 224th Lumber Battalion that further and continuous demands were made on the Canadians for lumbermen to cut the trees of Britain into lumber for the allied armies on the western front. From this battalion gradually developed the Canadian Forestry Corps, which later came to supply cut lumber to the military forces of all the nations participating in the operations against the Germans in France and Belgium.

Not long after the first contingent of Canadian lumbermen had arrived in England, another cablegram was sent by the British authorities to the Governor General of Canada, asking for more lumbermen. "His Majesty's Government again turns to Canada for assistance," the cablegram concluded.

This was the occasion for the formation of the 238th Canadian Forestry Battalion, which arrived in England a few months later, in September, 1916. But even before it had arrived the French Government's grant of extensive forests to the British forces had brought about the necessity of putting the timber-cutting activities of the British Government on a much broader basis, and some of the Canadian lumber detachments were sent across to France.

In October, 1916, authority was granted for the formation of the Canadian Forestry Corps, under the command of Major General Alexander McDougal, who was then a Lieutenant Colonel, commanding the 224th Battalion. By the British Government he was appointed director of the timber operations for France and Great Britain. The two battalions already in France and England thus became the nucleus of the corps.

Meanwhile enough machinery and other equipment was being prepared and shipped from Canada to afford employment to 10,000 men. For by this time it had been decided that timber imports would have to bear 60 per cent of the total reductions decided upon, as three and a half million tons of shipping could thereby be saved.

The first detachment of the Forestry Corps to arrive in France began work in the Bois Normand. Later three other centers were established: one in the Jura Mountains, one near Bordeaux, and another in the Marne district. But the work of the corps spread over a wide area, reaching out to the frontiers of Switzerland, Spain, and Germany.

The corps headquarters was established at Paris-Plage, in the neighborhood of Boulogne, the supply department for equipment being at Havre.

In so far as it was possible the methods of the Canadian lumber camps were employed in cutting lumber in the corps' camps, but certain differences in physical conditions caused many obstacles to present themselves. In the absence of the waterways facilities, so common in the Canadian forests, a great many miles of railways had to be built for the transportation of the logs to the sawmills.

In the mountainous districts, however, conditions, especially during winter, more closely representing those to which the men were used in their native forests, and Canadian methods could therefore be more closely applied.

The officers and men of the corps were recruited from all parts of Canada, from the Atlantic to the Pacific seaboards. Special effort was made to allot men to forests more nearly resembling those they were used to at home. As an instance, the men from eastern Canada, not used to the giant logs of the West, were assigned to the medium-sized timber in the level portions of France, while the Westerners were sent to the Jura and the Vosges Mountains, where logging engines, heavy steel cables, and modern railway construction were involved in the work of getting the logs out.

Most of the detachments worked in stationary camps, but there were also a great number of mobile camps which, together with their equipment, moved about from place to place, supplying timber to those points at the front where a demand happened to develop to an acute degree. Often detachments would be working within range of the enemy artillery fire and at considerable risk to men and equipment. The degree of efficiency which some of these detachments acquired in their movements is illustrated by the following extract from an official report:

"This, the record transfer, was in the case of a sawmill where the last log was sawn at nine o'clock on the day the move was to take place. By seven o'clock the next day the mill had been moved to a wood three miles away and was in full operation. The following day the product of this mill exceeded 18,000 board feet, and the day after the total output was 23,000 board feet, much more than the guaranteed capacity of the mill."

The largest output by any one stationary camp, according to the official report, was registered by the group operating in the Jura Mountains. Here a total of 156,000 board feet was cut in ten hours in a mill which was only registered to turn out 30,000 feet in that time.

Across the Channel, in Great Britain, the operations of the Forestry Corps extended over six districts—four in England and two in Scotland. Forty-three detachments were spread over these areas, totaling 12,533 men at the end of the war, though of this number about 3,000 were attached labor or prisoners of war. In England the corps did especially noteworthy service in supplying the Royal Air Force, more specially for the defense wing. In a letter of appreciation written by Lord Derby, Secretary of State for War, it was indicated that on several occasions the men of the Forestry Corps had worked at the rate of ninety hours a week to supply timber needed in the construction of aerodromes for the aeroplanes used to repel hostile air raids.

In November, 1918, at the conclusion of hostilities, the total strength of the Canadian Forestry Corps stood at 31,447, divided as follows: In France, regular officers, 425; attached officers, 53; other ranks, 11,702; attached, 1,039; prisoners of war, 5,021; giving a total of 18,240. In Great Britain there were: Regular officers, 343; attached officers, 49; other ranks, 9,624; attached labor, 1,926; prisoners of war, 1,265; making a total of 13,207.

When hostilities ceased over 70 per cent of the timber in use on the western front by all the Allied armies had been supplied by the Forestry Corps. Up to December, 1918, the corps had supplied nearly 814,000,000 board feet of sawn lumber.

"It is largely due," wrote Lord Derby, in the spring of 1918, "to the operations of the units of this corps in France that we have practically stopped the shipment of British-grown timber to France, thus saving cross-channel tonnage, while we are also able to save the shipment of foreign timber by having the production of the corps in England to meet the various national demands."