SALVAGE CONTROL IN THE ARMY

Dominion, Volume 12, Issue 87, 7 January 1919, Page 8

SALVAGE CONTROL IN THE ARMY

■WHERE-THOUSANDS 'STERLING ARK SAVED. (By Lieutenant B. .S M. Sturges, author of "On the Remainder ot the l'ronl. ) Owing to the ever-increasing Jang ß and importance of salvage, work in the. Butish Army in France, it has recently been found necessary to appoint a staff of otucore, which may devote its whole attention to the subject. The duties of the . Controller of Salvage and his staff are in the main advisory rather than executive, i The controller does not command tie salvage personnel which is responsible for the carrying out of Toutine work in tho' field; it is only where a special organisation is serup to clear a particular area, which has passed altogether out of the zone of active operations, that the the Controller of Salvage assumes executive authority. . . , Tho main duty 01 salvage control is to co-ordinate the salvage work which is carried on in the Departmental workshops. One workshop, for example, may have a surplus of scrap metal for which it has no use, whereas another may/be snort of scrap metal. The. Salvage Controller s Department, by keeping in constant touch with the different workshops, and noting what materials they require,, and what they possess in excess of their requirements, is able to,step m and put them into touch with one another. J.he .Department also keeps in touch with French manufacturers ami with :tne French Government, and it is therefore able to advise the Quartermaster-General as to the disposal of surplus material in this direction. . ~ Apart from;this most important branch of the work of salvage control which is rnrried on by representatives ot the controller in the different base tow;is, there-is also a permanent staff at general Headquarters,, which deals with the rnrioup other duties of.the Department. There lire, 'for example, the collection of statistics and the keeping 1 of accounts. Each corps and each headquarters on the linos of communication receives weekly accounts from the salvage ofheers in its •own area; these accounts are summarised and forwarded to the Controller ot Salvage in the form of a weekly return ThU -latter shows the number and nature of articles received and disposed ot at the salvage dumps in the area concerned.' Statistics are also collected from ■the base depots as to the amount of material received, and the matter of its disposal. Bv calculating the cost of repair of the different articles and balancing it against the cost of replacing such articles, it is possible for the controller-to discover in what directions the greatest savin- can be effected. By this means, therefore, he is able to offer valuable advice to tho Quartern* ster-General as to tho most productive and most profitable methods of dealing with salvage in all its, forms. '. ' . ■\ second branch of the Salvage Control Department is concerned'with the prosecution of the salvage campaign among the troops. It is on the co-operation of the troops in the field that the success of the work in 1 its initial.stages (i.e., the recovery of waste material from the battlefields)' ultimately depends, and it is of the grentest importance that the men should realise of contributing to the work. Pamphlets are 'therefore written and distributed among the troops, explaining briefly and clearly the importance of salvage work and ot the advantage to be derived therefrom. This branch is also responsible for the manv notices and posters on this, subject which are to he seen in the canteens and . bv the roadside in France, such as, "What have vou salved to-day? and tho poster depicting.a foaming glass of beer inscribed. "Salve now and keep the price of beer down." . ■ . • But perhaps the most interesting branch of the Salvage Controller s Be'partment is the experimental one, which deals mainly with, the discovery of byproducts in apparently waste material and with the most economical, methods by which thov may be extracted. On this work a chemical expert and a skilled engineer are constantly engaged, and on the experimental ground some of the results or their researches may be seen in actual operation. There are for instance, samples of the simplest forms of receptacles in which bones may be boii ed for .tho recovery of fats, .and of easilyconstructed devices for the extraction of solder from tins. The former consist merely of tanks raised above a brick fireplace'; tfie latter include brick kilns ot a beehive pattern in which the tins are burned and the solder run off: or again a length of expanded metal raised above a sloping trough of corrugated iron in such a wav that the solder drips from fl>e burning tins through the expanded metal, on which they rest, into the trough prepared for it. OH'flr exhibits include an ingenious but simple device for cutting the ends off biscuit tins for the sake of the solder contained in the joints: a tin straw-lined canister made' from old biscuit tins for carrying hoi; food up to the line; a stno of hut. flooring, not unlike asphalt, made from a mixture of pitch from unserviceable smoke candles and sawdust; a pot of - fireproof paint made ' from sodium silicate, which is a by-product of the manufacture of hydrogen for military balloons, etc. According to the results nf these experiments the' Controller of Salvage is able to advise the, Ouartermnstor-General of the- uses to which various kinds of waste material can at once most profitably and most eeonomicnllv be put; and stens we taken to ensure that the .different processes and devices are made known to and used bv the units in the field. Thus 'in overv one of its branches the. Snlvogs Control' Donartment is of prartical ' assistance to the Onnrtermaster-General in ■the campaign that is being carried on n'raii'st everv form of. waste throughout the British'armies .in France. It is in no small measure due to the activities nf this department that the phrase "Wastage of war" is losing much of tho significance that it once possessed.