Salt Lake Tribune | 1918-11-30 | Page 7 | 8 Months to Get Boys Home

b rams to GET BOYS II Estimates Based on the Physical Difficulties to Be Overcome. Troops Will Be Landed at Four Different American Ameri-can Ports. WASHINGTON, Nov. 29. Boston, New York, Newport News, Va., and Charleston, S. C, are the ports the war department now plans to use for the return of the army from overseas. Even with this wide distribution of the strain on port facilities and transportation, however, and with German ships now ! idle in German harbors employed on the ! task, estimates show that the last of the army could not possibly reach the United States in less tlian eight months. Conservative Con-servative calculations upon which preparations prep-arations by the department probably will be based fix ten months as the minimum. At Natural Gateways. These estimates have been made wholly whol-ly on the basis of the. physical difficulties difficul-ties to bo overcome and do not taka into consideration the question of the retention reten-tion in Europe for some time of an American force which may be agreed upon at the peace conference. If the return re-turn movement already In progress Is continued at full speed, the last division in all -probability could not reach the United States before October 1919. Decision to route the troops to their homes through the four ports mentioned ; is understood to have been barfed on two ; main considerations. First, they have been equipped to handle the transports and the men, and, second, they are the natural gateways to the country, eaeh fed by an Independent rail system ramifying rami-fying bank through geographically inde- , pendent sections of the United States. jA'.y loading the ships as far as possible wTth men from the same general section, It will be possible, army officers pay, to avoid cross-carrying and disruption of normal traffic In getting the soldiers from the ships to their homes. Use German Ships. In estimating for transport tonnage available for the movement, officials have not only looked ahead to the new ships whirh will be delivered during the demobilization period by the shipping board, but also upon Idle German ships, Including two new and large liners reported re-ported to , have been completed, except for some details of equipment. Among the known German steamers Is the Im- ! perator, almost as large as the Vater- land, now the Leviathan. The two new German liners are of approximately the same size as these craft. Each of these four could carry nearly 10.000 men a trip. The German vessels, eastbound after unloading American troops, would carry food supplies to be alloted Germany.