meets were, therefore, not overencouraged. On the other hand, games employing large numbers were encouraged. So superior seemed the British system of physical training to anything which we had employed in our own army that with slight modifications it was adopted and given over almost wholly to the charge of Major John B. Sharp, the Buffs Regiment, British Army, who was one of the able officers sent to the division by the British Military Mission to aid in the training of the troops.

Major Sharp established and maintained a high standard of disciplined efficiency, not only in the work of physical training, but also in all branches of instruction conducted by the British personnel. He was ably assisted by Company Sergeant-Major William Tector of the Leinster Regiment, who was one of the experienced instructors of the British Army Gymnastic Corps.

It was the theory of the British system of physical training that the war had shown the necessity for something more than mere muscular development in the physical training of soldiers. Raids and local combats conducted by groups and detachments of the British Army early in the war had indicated the desirability of some form of physical training which would stimulate the attention of the men, as well as develop their muscles and at the same time tighten the relation between the mind and muscle, so that the latter would become automatically and instantaneously responsive to the former and the former instantaneously resourceful in applying methods to aid the latter when hard pressed. British combat experience had indicated that groups of fighting men are most effective when their training is such that at the height of the noise and confusion of local combat they are, as a team, automatically responsive to commands.

The character and diversity of the specialty schools may be understood by enumerating them and giving an outline of their work. They were:

GRENADE SCHOOL (Hand and Rifle). All foot soldiers were put through the hand grenade course and a very large percentage through the course in the use of rifle grenades. The course covered an understanding of the make-up and of all details affecting grenades and their uses, with practice in throwing and firing dummy grenades, finishing with practice with live grenades.

BAYONET FIGHTING AND PHYSICAL TRAINING

SCHOOL. This was the course through which non-commissioned officers and others specially selected to serve as instructors in platoon were schooled in these subjects.

MUSKETRY SCHOOL. The course provided by this school was for the purpose of developing expert instructors in musketry training. The course included theory and practice of rifle fire, methods and effects of fire, and the relation of rapidity, accuracy, distance, cover, shelter, visibility and control, to fire effectiveness in battle.

AUTOMATIC ARMS SCHOOL. Here were trained the automatic riflemen of the Infantry companies in the technical use of automatic arms. These included the Lewis gun, later used by the division with the British army, the light Browning, used by the American army, and the Chauchat, used by the French

army.

MACHINE GUN SCHOOL. This school constructed its own machine gun range and provided constant training of a practical character in the solution of machine gun problems and the development of machine gun non-commissioned officers.

ONE POUNDER SCHOOL. No one pounder cannon were furnished the division until after its arrival in France and, accordingly, the instruction in this field was confined to theoretical work.

STOKES MORTAR SCHOOL. This school was in charge of Captain A. N. Braithwaite, General List, British army, who had considerable experience in combat with the Stokes mortar.

No Stokes mortars were furnished the division until about sixty days before its departure from Camp Wadsworth. In the absence of these weapons mortars were improvised. Light mortars of three-inch gas pipe were constructed by the men, while bombs were made of milk cans and other containers. A great amount of practical experience was had in the selection of primary and alternative Stokes mortar positions, the construction of shelters and dugouts and generally in the work of trench and Stokes mortar detachments in combat.

GAS DEFENSE SCHOOL. This school was in charge of Captain Harold H. Deans, of the King's Own Scottish Borderers, British army, an exceptionally able and industrious officer, who knew from practical experience and suffering the importance of efficient gas defense, he having been badly gassed during active service with the British army. Just prior to the departure of the division for France this officer was returned

to active service with his regiment and was subsequently killed in action. At Camp Wadsworth great attention to the subject of gas defense was insisted upon and all the officers and men of the division were constantly practiced in all phases of this specialty. Officers and men were required at stated periods to drill and work while wearing the box respirator. They were tested practically in detecting various kinds of gas and by constant attention to this important subject were impressed with the dire consequences following inefficiency of defense against gas. Every officer and man of the division was subjected to the effects of both chlorine and tear gas, while wearing the respirator, in order that his confidence in its effectiveness might be stimulated by actual test. This was done in gas chambers erected for the purpose. Demonstrations were also given outdoors of cloud gas. While occupying the trench system at the camp, battalions were subjected to light clouds of lachrymal gas. The excellence of the training of the division in gas defense accounts for the small number of gas casualties sustained by the division during active operations, although most of these operations involved long and violent enemy gas bombardments.

CAMOUFLAGE SCHOOL. The school featured the importance of utilizing natural cover with or without modification for securing invisibility of troops, rather than to attempt to construct wholly artificial cover and freak objects concerning which so much had been written in the newspapers. This school was most successful in developing throughout the division an appreciation of the security to be gained by invisibility and the readiness with which invisibility may be attained by imagination, resourcefulness and skill, in the selection of natural features of the ground supplemented by the use of available planks, earth, stones, hedges, netting, weeds, etc.

ENGINEER SCHOOL.

SNIPING, PATROLLING AND SCHOOL.

RECONNAISSANCE

TRANSPORTATION SCHOOL. The course in this school covered the transportation by rail and ocean transport of troops and material and, as well, the care and supervision of motor cars and wagons.

LIAISON AND COMMUNICATION SCHOOL. This course covered theoretical and practical instruction and training in the maintenance of relations between units in battle, both laterally and between front and rear, and an understanding of

and practice with the equipment employed in the maintenance of such relations. These included the buzzer, the telephone, pigeons, flares, rockets, panels, radio, runners, message bombs, wigwag, semaphore and balloon observation.

SCHOOL OF EQUITATION. This school was intended primarily for such officers and non-commissioned officers of infantry and engineers as were not skilled in horsemanship. The officers and enlisted men of mounted units were generally good horsemen, and where they were newly commissioned or enlisted, their training in horsemanship was provided for in their own units.

SCHOOL FOR BANDS AND FIELD MUSIC.
SCHOOL FOR TEAMSTERS,
PACKERS.

HORSESHOERS AND

Reference has been made to the trench system at Camp Wadsworth. It covered a front of 700 yards, while the linear length of trench excavation totaled eight miles. It was complete in every particular. It was occupied by the troops, a battalion of infantry at a time, supported by one or more machine gun companies, and sanitary detachments. The system included shelters and bomb-proof dugouts. It afforded opportunity for every unit to engage in practical instruction in the use of the pick and shovel, revetment, trench sanitation, the construction of listening posts, barbed wire entanglements, saps, mines, machine gun emplacements and lines of communication. At first, battalions occupied the trench system in turn for a period of twenty-four hours. Later the practice was extended to seventytwo-hour periods. Much of this service was during the hardest kind of winter weather. An improvised trench, representing an enemy front line, faced the front of the system. This trench was occupied at unexpected times during the night by small detachments of troops representing enemy front line forces. These detachments were occasionally formed of parties from the Snipers and Reconnaissance School, which conducted minor operations in no man's land for the purpose of wire cutting, gaining information by raids and listening in. These operations served to keep the troops occupying the trenches in a continued state of readiness. The result of this very practical character of trench warfare training was that the units of the division after their arrival in France were enabled to take over trenches from British forces with little difficulty.

An improvised rifle range was established on the Snake Road immediately outside of camp limits. This range was used by the Automatic Arms School, by the Snipers' School and for the target practice of recruits.

The main rifle range was at Glassy Rock, about twenty-five miles distant from the camp. It was constructed on a tract of 30,000 acres of land, which included facilities for the fire training of the field artillery. The advantages afforded by this great training tract were many. It covered a very diversified terrain, including small villages, woodland, cotton fields and farms as well as rugged mountain sections. It enabled the fire training of infantry machine gunners and of the field artillery to be supplemented by field firing exercises employing the combined arms in action, and it is believed that the field firing exercises carried out there shortly before the division left for France were the most advanced exercises ever executed in this country by so large a body of troops.

Two complete infantry ranges of 100 targets each were constructed by means of soldier labor. The range included firing lines, both open and trench, up to 1,000 yards. All commands armed with the rifle practiced on this range, as well as all officers and enlisted men armed with the pistol.

The machine gunners of the division having completed their elementary course of theoretical and practical training, were sent to the Glassy Rock range, where they worked out many problems in indirect machine gun fire. On one occasion, although using the obsolete guns referred to earlier in this chapter, they struck 84 per cent of the targets representing enemy forces. These targets were 600 in number and indicated an enemy assaulting in three waves of two lines each. The range to these waves varied from 950 to 750 yards. There were 100 targets to a line, with ten yards' distance between lines, and approximately thirty yards between waves. Five machine gun companies, some with two and some with four guns fired the barrage. Five hundred and four of these 600 small targets, which were about two feet square, were hit. In all, 1,750 actual hits were registered on the targets struck. This problem was one covering distribution of fire.

In the spring of 1918, officers of the division received divisional practice in liaison during battle. Every company and higher