| OCR Text |
Show ' FRANK Mil IS . HELPING MAKE ' AEROPLANES In a Letter From First Lieutenant Frank W. Denting He Describes How Uncle Sam Gets the Spruce For Making the Airships With Which We Will Whip the Kaiser. The following letter was received v by the editor of The Herald recently f from Lieutenant Frank Deming, who Is now located at Camp No. 3, Coates Fordney iLogglng Company, near Aberdeen, 'Washington. Mr', Deming Is first lieutenant in the headquarters 413th Squadron of the A. S. IS. C, Dear Sir: ' As you will note by the above ad- - dress, I am located in the wilds of the woods of Washington. As soon as I received my commission at the Presidio Pre-sidio I was ordered to Portland for duty with the Spruce Production Division Di-vision of the Avtxtion Section Signal -w'v Corps. 1 was stationed at Vancouver Cji Barracks until Jan. 7th, when I was r-l ordered to this camp for duty with a squadron of soldier woodsmen. The mission of our division is the production of atroplane spruce which is needed in large quantities by the army at the present time. We are doing do-ing all we can In every way possible to accomplish our ends. The principal , trouble has been a shortage of labor in the logging camps. This is being met by bringing men from the National Nation-al army camps who are experienced in this line of work and taking them into the woods, where they work for civil-Ian civil-Ian companies and receive the regular civilian pay for the work they do. This camp and several others in this district are operated entirely by soldier sol-dier labor, even to the railroad crew on the logging railroad, which is operated oper-ated between the woods and tidewater. The officers' work in conjunction with the managers and superintendents of the companies for the maximum pro- duction of spruce, and at the same time look after the welfare of the men in their command, with a view to Improving Im-proving living conditions in the camps and the general conduct and peace of mind of the soldiers. A medical offi-' offi-' cer is sent out with each detachment to look alter the health of the men. This seems to be a long way from actuel warfare, but we feel that we are doing our bit just the same as if we were in the trenches of Flanders. If spruce will lick the Kaiser he is a dead one. We expect to remain here as long as we are needed in this work and then go over and kill some Ger-J0 Ger-J0 mans ,rst hand. I was rather disap-"Tf disap-"Tf pointed at not being sent directly to the work of preparing soldiers for the trenches, but a few months as an army officer teaches one to do whatever V.l duty he is assigned to and smile. The officers of this division were selected for their qualifications along some line connected with the logging or lumber Industry, such as engineers, etc., so that most of us as well as the men feel quite at home in a camp of a, this kind. ' Mrs. Deming Is a good soldier and is staying as close to me as she can. At present she is living In the town of Aberdeen, about 15 miles from this camp, and is enjoying herself very well considering that it is war time. She has met some very fine people and is beginning to like the place. The weather here Is much different from anything that we Utahns have ever seen that at first it is hard to get accustomed to. There is a common com-mon saying that there are two seasons in this country, namely, the rainy season sea-son and the last half of the month of August. We have not yet rcen the latter, but can vouch for the first. The rain seems to come every day as a matter of course. I have seen the sun three times in two months; so you can see how it compares with our Utah climate. |
