Colonel Harrison of the British Royal Engineers was in charge of the British manufacture of masks and it is desired here to express appreciation of his uniform courtesy and great helpfulness. He exhibited their methods and facilities and assured us they could meet any requirements of ours for masks up to a half million, or even more if necessary, provided they were given time to establish additional facilities. Finally after a further exchange of cables the masks were obtained. During December, 1917 and January, 1918, when every effort was being made to hurry a lot of masks from Havre—Havre being the British supply base in France from which the masks were issued to the United States, the severe cold and snow had so disorganized French traffic that it was extremely difficult to get cars moving at all. In an effort to get the masks, priority of shipment was obtained and two or three officers were assigned to convoy the cars. Notwithstanding convoying, one carload of 4,000 masks, mainly threes and fours, became lost and only turned up five weeks later. To make matters worse the British were sending us very many more of the small sized No. 2 masks than we could use. The loss of this carload of 4,000 number threes and fours was all but a tragedy. Indeed, in order to get the First Brigade of the First Division equipped in time it was necessary to take a large number of masks already issued to men of the Second Brigade. These masks were first thoroughly washed and disinfected and then re-issued. This all emphasizes the great difficulties that are encountered when a new and vital service must be organized in war 4,000 miles overseas without material, home supplies, or men to draw from. This struggle to get sufficient masks to keep all men fully equipped remained very acute until in July, 1918, when the arrival of hundreds of thousands of masks from the United States made the situation entirely safe. Even then the necessity of weakening the elastics and shortening the rubber tubing of the mouthpieces on some 700,000 masks, doubled up our work tremendously, and added enormously to our troubles in getting masks to the front in time. Notwithstanding these troubles the Chemical Warfare Supply Service never failed and finally forged to the very forefront of all American supply services. Its method of issuing supplies to troops at the front has been adopted as the standard for American field armies of the future. TECHNICAL