THE TWELFTH REGIMENT (PUBLIC WORKS) AT GREAT LAKES
By Commander Walter H. Allen (C. E. C), U. S. Navy
The entry of the United States into the World War found the navy with entirely inadequate facilities ashore. For the first time in its history it was realized that the navy had many and varied activities other than those afloat. The new developments in warfare required vast preparations on land before great numbers of ships could be sent to sea. Aside from the largely increased work of ship construction, tremendous amounts of stores had to be assembled in buildings not even planned before the war. Factories for airplanes and mines had to be built and equipped before these aids to successful warfare at sea could be furnished. The means for assembling and training the five hundred thousand men needed were non-existent and the providing of such means constituted one of the largest of the land problems.
Every subterfuge was resorted to in order to care for the rapid increase in personnel until that personnel was ready for transfer to sea duty. Old ships were utilized, state armories and municipal piers were requisitioned, open-air camps were set up, portable buildings were erected—and all proved insufficient. Those who were studying the subject, and on whom the responsibility for providing quarters for recruits rested, realized early in June of 1917 that the only solution of the problem was a great enlargement of existing training stations and the construction of new ones. Such stations should be designed and built with regard for the kind of training to be given there and each fitted for its peculiar work. This expansion was definitely started in June, and during the summer of 1917 there was great activity in camp construction for the navy. But the demands of the navy afloat and overseas, and the manning of merchant ships, caused a constantly increasing flow of recruits to the training stations. The beginning of 1918 showed that the new camps were still far too small to fulfill their purpose, and the following spring and summer, and even until hostilities ceased, camps were being enlarged and perfected with all possible speed.
Before the World War, few people in the United States had ever heard of the Naval Training Station at Great Lakes, Illinois. It was little known to the personnel of the navy itself. Situated near the center of the country and far removed from the coasts, naval officers seldom visited it unless official business required them to go there. The number of enlisted men who had been trained at Great Lakes was comparatively small.
All this was changed by the expansion of the navy during the war. The Mississippi Valley was found to be a splendid field for recruiting and a large proportion of the recruits from this section gained their first knowledge of the navy at Great Lakes. From a population of a few hundred the station grew in a year and a half to a camp of nearly 50,000 men. It was the Mecca for all those ardent spirits in our Central States whose patriotism impelled them into the navy.
Among the many interesting features at the Great Lakes Station during the war was the Public Works Regiment. It was an organization that was little understood by the navy at large. This lack of understanding has been the source of many groundless statements in regard to the work and purpose of the organization. It has been intimated even that this unit was primarily concerned in keeping men away from the fleet, whereas this regiment probably furnished more men, and more trained men, for ship and overseas work than any other regimental organization at any naval training station. It is the object of this paper to show the origin, growth, work accomplished and advantages to the service of the Twelfth Regiment (Public Works) at Great Lakes.
The Naval Training Station at Great Lakes experienced the growth common to the other camps. Tent cities sprang up all around the original station. Open-air mess halls and shanty galleys were improvised 10 meet immediate demands. Yet the great influx of recruits fairly swamped all facilities. There was an urgent demand for more barracks, mess halls and instruction buildings, for great increase in the water supply and sewage disposal systems, for buildings for storage of all classes of supplies, for roads and trackage to make the new parts of the station accessible, and for increased hospital facilities to care for patients far greater in number than anyone had ever anticipated.
All these additions were started almost simultaneously, throwing a great burden of work on the Public Works Department of the station. Draftsmen and surveyors had to be found at once, material checkers and work inspectors for contracts were immediately necessary, clerks to keep track of cost accounts on contracts were needed; and to meet these demands with civil service employees was an impossibility. The very best way to meet them was to commission or enlist the personnel for this work. Men most suitable were not desirous of holding civilian positions. The uniform, the opportunity to do their bit as part of the navy and the chance of transfer later to more active war operations, made possible the assembling by the Public Works Officer of a very capable force to handle the new construction.
As camps were completed, power houses put in operation, railroad rolling stock and auto trucks increased in numbers, and other new constructions approached completion, the problem of maintaining and operating the station, with a capacity ten times that of pre-war days, assumed serious proportions. Again the Public Works Officer was called upon to assemble an enlisted force to carry on the operation and maintenance work of the station.
The organization at Great Lakes differed from that at most other training stations in that the Public Works Officer was not only charged with all construction of public work and the providing of all public utilities, but also it was his duty to repair, maintain and operate all these facilities. The organization, decided upon early in the war, had the advantages of centralizing this special work under trained supervisors and of relieving the regular training regiments from work that would only hinder the rapid training of men. It had exactly the same advantages that resulted from having one commissary officer provide and prepare the food for all the regiments and one paymaster handle all the recruit rolls.
Such was the origin of the Public Works force, a force composed largely of technical men, construction specialists and artisans. These men had navy ratings conforming as nearly as possible to the work that they were doing or to the previous training that they had received. But the emergency that had made their services necessary had prohibited their receiving at first the preliminary rudimentary naval training given to other recruits and many of them carried on their duties in the Public Works Department from the day of enlistment and even while passing through the detention camp. They worked hard, often ten or twelve or fourteen hours each day, and for months some of them had no Sunday or any other liberty.
By December of 1917 this Public Works force comprised nearly a thousand men, a number so large as to require special organization for purposes of housing, muster, pay, discipline and proper distribution to the work. Accordingly this force was organized into the Twelfth Regiment (Public Works) and put upon a basis similar to other regiments of the station. The regiment was under the command of a line officer, assigned by the Public Works Officer from the force under him. This military organization was known as the "Regimental Division" of the Public Works Department and it controlled the whole Public Works force in all military matters. It had its own staff of officers and men purely to perform the regimental duty. The rest of the men in the regiment were assigned for purposes of work to other divisions of the Public Works Department, such as the Contract Division, the Clerical Division, the Projects Division or the Station Labor Division, and reported to these divisions for work each morning. The Regimental Division had no further control of them until their daily work was done. But, except for such day work, the Regimental Division had entire charge. It handled all questions of discipline, liberty, pay, clothing, barracks, messing, recruiting, transfers and drafts; in these matters the heads of other divisions had no jurisdiction, though they consulted freely with the regimental officer and made recommendations to the Public Works Officer in regard to the part of the personnel working under them. This organization of the Public Works Department was not attained in its complete form until the summer of 1918. Minor changes to perfect it were made as found necessary. But the plan instituted in December of 1917 worked smoothly from the start and handled successfully the Public Works force to the end of the war and throughout demobilization, a force that in August of 1918 numbered about six thousand two hundred men.
The Public Works regiment occupied five different camps, and the last one, built for its permanent home, was not completed until after the armistice. But as the great area and long distances of the station made it impracticable to carry on all the work from the main regimental camp, maintenance barracks to hold two or three companies were established in two other parts of the station. For operation and maintenance purposes there was a shop and a public works office located in each regiment and in each was a detail from the Twelfth Regiment. This detail handled all repairs of buildings and of water and heating installations and the operation of power plants within the regiment to which it was assigned.
Some of the new construction done by this regiment was of considerable magnitude. One regimental camp was built and later remodeled and enlarged to a capacity of 2000 men. Two other camps were doubled in size by the construction of detention barracks. The regiment erected one of its own maintenance barracks with a capacity for 450 men with mess halls, galley and power plant. The baseball and football fields and running track were filled in, graded and sodded almost entirely by men of the Twelfth Regiment. They built the grandstand and bleachers, seating fifteen thousand people, in eighteen working days. Small parties under competent junior officers did considerable work at other places in the naval districts, such as the erection of barracks at the St. Clair River Canal. The construction work performed by contractors but supervised by the Public Works force amounted to seventeen million dollars and included all kinds of camp constructions, not only buildings, but power plants,, water, sewer, heating and electric distribution systems, installations for water filtration and sewage disposal and roads. With only two or three exceptions all plans and specifications for these works were prepared at Great Lakes.
But construction and maintenance of the station was not by any means the sole function of the Twelfth Regiment. On the contrary, this regiment proved to be the greatest training regiment of the station. If the Navy Department called for a draft of firemen, the draft was filled from those who had been tried out in firing at the many power plants of the station. If carpenter's mates were needed, men found efficient on actual construction work were selected. This same policy was followed in all the regular artificer ratings, for practically all recruits with artificer experience ashore were assigned to the Public Works Department. There each was tried out, his ability was determined, the examinations for promotion in ratings were conducted and the selections for drafts were made from those found skilled in their ratings. The Training Station was called upon to furnish certain fixed weekly or monthly drafts in the artificer branches. All such drafts were filled from the men in the Public Works Department. Many drafts of men with special qualifications were sent out. Organized surveying parties were sent for work along the Atlantic Coast; draftsmen were sent to the Bureau of Yards and Docks; and inspectors were selected for the construction of the new Navy Department and War Department office buildings in Washington and for construction work at other places.
In March, 1918, the station was called upon to supply 200 men for the construction of aviation stations on the coast of France. Not only were these men supplied but the station informed the Bureau of Navigation that it could furnish from the Public Works Regiment a construction party of four or five hundred men, already trained and experienced in this class of work, together with their chief petty officers and officers—a completely organized construction unit. Three hundred and fifty men from Public Works formed half of a party sent overseas to build and operate an aviation station at Poillac. Many men were selected and sent for the building of the 820 ft. radio towers in France. Perhaps the best known of these special drafts from the Twelfth Regiment was the railroad party that assembled and operated the trains for the fourteen-inch naval guns that did such good work on the battle line in France. In addition to the selection of men from the Public Works Department to fill drafts, the regiment was called upon to select from the whole station men suitable for certain classes of training. It searched all regiments to obtain men to fill the drafts for the listener's school, the oil burner's school, the optical school, the various schools for machinists, and in fact for all such special technical training.
In order to help men to a better understanding of their duties at sea, an artificer's school was started in the Public Works Department under the Regimental Division. This school offered day courses for firemen, machinist's mates, plumbers and fitters, carpenter's mates and electricians. Night courses were given in mathematics, geography and history. In all courses seamanship was taught. About 800 men were trained in the day courses and night courses gave instruction to more than 2000 men. All attendance was voluntary and in addition to the regular duties.
Meanwhile military instruction was not being neglected. Twice a week after supper drill was held for two hours for all men in the regiment; no liberty was granted until the drill period was over. Every man in the regiment could march and handle his rifle. A course for officers was started, first in rifle, pistol and machine-gun firing and mechanism, and later in larger guns and torpedoes. Though attendance was not compulsory, all officers of the Public Works Department gave two nights a week to this work.
Some of the officers and men taken into the service for special construction work remained with the Public Works Department to the end of the war; many others were transferred to other regiments of the station; a large number of the enlisted men obtained commissions, for the proportion of technical and educated men in the regiment was very high; but aside from all these changes in personnel, the regiment sent from the station for duty in the East, or aboard ship, or for transfer to France, more than 16,000 men, practically all of them skilled in some trade or profession.
This account of the Public Works Regiment would be incomplete without some mention of the characteristics of the regiment. The men averaged several years older than the ordinary recruits. A large part had had several years trade experience before enlistment. Many were married. They were not boys, but men, and this characteristic was particularly noticeable in parades because of their better physique and more mature carriage. They did not appear like a battalion of recruits but as a body of men who had found themselves. They looked businesslike. The spirit in all they did was most commendable. Though they worked long hours and received little liberty, yet at all times, no matter how prosaic and uninspiring the task, they seemed to realize that they, too, were contributing something of value toward ultimate victory. The greater the urgency of the job, the more they seemed to enjoy it. A strong regimental pride and esprit de corps developed. The discipline was excellent. The device of the Civil Engineer Corps, which the men wore on the left sleeve, meant to them a standard of work and living that must be kept high.
The Twelfth Regiment (Public Works) at Great Lakes demonstrated certain points worth noting. A brief summary of these points and the lessons to be drawn from them may perhaps be of future value, should a like occasion arise.
The first and most important point demonstrated is the great need of thorough military organization and control of men engaged on such construction and maintenance work. This need was not appreciated while the number of men was small. The great advantages of such organization were not foreseen nor were they half realized until the Regimental Division had demonstrated that by such organization the discipline, welfare and contentment of the men were vastly improved, and the efficiency of the Public Works Department was greatly increased.
Another point clearly brought out was the possibility and great advantage in time of war of doing certain construction and maintenance work with the enlisted force, such work as would ordinarily be done at other times by civil service employees or by contract. The troubles everywhere experienced throughout the United States with civilian employees, especially on contract work, were avoided by using enlisted men. Strikes, demands for increased pay, labor union control and jurisdiction, overtime work, were all eliminated. Concentration of force on the more urgent jobs was easily effected. Even questions of supply of labor and housing were simplified.
No attempt was made to do with the Twelfth Regiment work that might as well be done by contract, but that enlisted personnel can compete successfully with contractor's labor was shown by several works constructed. Some of these constructions would have cost well over the hundred thousand dollar mark. No claim is made that the use of enlisted artisans effects a saving in cost; in fact, construction by civilian force may be cheaper, when the cost of enlisting and caring for naval men is considered. But certainly in time required for construction and in quality of work done, the enlisted force does not suffer by comparison, under war conditions.
If this was true in construction work, it was even more true in the work of maintaining the station, in preparing plans and specifications for new work, in contract inspection, and in much of the clerical work. The quality of the specialists obtained by enlistment and commission was far superior to any civilian force that could have been brought together through the civil service.
The results obtained in such construction work as was done demonstrated the entire feasibility and perhaps great advantage of having a large part of the construction work of the navy carried on by enlisted force in time of war. If this is true of work within the United States at such a place as Great Lakes, it would be even more true of work to be done in isolated localities or on a foreign shore. The absolute control of the force, the freedom from all labor agitations, the splendid morale as compared with contractor's labor, are points that go far toward gaining efficiency and speed.
The many times that Great Lakes was called upon to furnish construction parties and draftsmen, inspectors and engineers, showed that some provision should be made in any future war for regularly recognized sources from which such men can be obtained. The assembling and training of such a force should receive recognition and careful study. There might well be in the Naval Reserve a corps of technicists enrolled for this special work. These men would be among the first called in a crisis, for it would be their task to prepare the old camps for the influx of the main body of the reserve, or to plan and build the new camps. With such a body of technicists available at the outbreak of war, not alone the camp constructing, but also the maintaining and operating force, many valuable days could be saved in preparing to assemble and train the great body of the enlisted men of the navy.
The supply of skilled mechanics in the section of the country from which Great Lakes received most of its recruits was plentiful and it was not difficult to secure efficient workmen. As only tried artisans were sent on drafts, there was a saving in training of poor mechanics, and an assurance of the ability of men to do the work required in their ratings, and that the rating of each man was in accordance with his ability. The amount of weeding out aboard ship was reduced because it was possible to give a thorough tryout on land. Money and time were not wasted in transporting poor mechanics; and in the process of selecting qualified men much productive work was done.
The close of the war was the signal for the rapid decline and ultimate complete elimination of the Public Works Regiment. The cessation of camp construction and the reduction of the station personnel made possible a quick demobilization of this force. Civilian personnel took the place of officers and enlisted men. In a few months the regiment ceased to exist. It had done its work. It had no place in a peace organization. Its record of accomplishment remains as a proud memory for those whose names were enrolled on the roster of the Twelfth Regiment (Public Works) at Great Lakes.