The Water Supply Problem in a Combat Division

Abstract

It was the good fortune of the author to have participated in the World War as Water Supply Officer for the famous 42d or Rainbow Division, as well as to have been Commanding Officer of the Divisional Field Laboratory, and later, the Water Supply Officer for the American Third Army, the Army of Occupation in Germany. It is upon experiences gained during this service that he is able to coordinate his impressions of the task of supplying water to an army division in active service. A brief resume of the life of the Rainbow Division may not be amiss, for from it can be judged the experience of practically all other American units which served at the front. This division was the third complete divisional organization to land upon French soil. It was organized at Camp Mills, Long Island, N. Y., in August and September, 1917. It sailed for Europe in the middle of October, and all the organizations of the division had been debarked in France early in November. Then came several months of training, until the early part of February, mastering the finer points of modern warfare under the instruction of the French. After this the real work commenced, with 110 days without relief in the trenches of the Luneville and Baccarat sectors. On March 20 the Germans had commenced the desperate and enormous effort to reach the French capital, and the British and French armies shook under the strain. On the 3d of July the 42d went into its first major operation in the chalk-fields of the Champagne. Here the division remained in the trenches until the morning of the fifteenth of July, when the last great offensive of the German army broke against the French and the Americans. After