By the late spring of 1919 most of the combat divisions, except those on active duty with the Army of Occupation, had crossed the ocean or had started for home. By that time the facilities at the base ports had been developed to a capacity that enabled them to handle all further embarkations, and the command of the expedition closed and abandoned the embarkation center at Le Mans. All of the physical equipment there went to the French Government under the terms of the general sale consummated in August of that year. On June 30 Bordeaux was closed as a port of embarkation. It had embarked 258,000 troops. St. Nazaire officially ceased to exist as a port of embarkation on July 26, although thereafter it embarked a few casuals. Approximately 500,000 American soldiers said farewell to France at St. Nazaire. A million and a quarter American expeditionary soldiers departed from Brest for the United States. Brest was the last of the ports to close. The embarkation of the millionth American at Brest seemed almost as momentous as the arrival of the millionth American in France a year earlier. In August General Pershing and the historic First Division sailed from Brest, and the last of the combat troops had gone. On October 1 American troops were stationed in France only at Brest and in Paris, but Brest continued in operation as the port of embarkation until the last American had departed. On October 1 there were a few thousand men still to sail, but the A. E. F. no longer existed in France. Its headquarters had moved to Washington. The great task was done. CHAPTER III THE TRANSATLANTIC FERRY On the first day of the armistice, before Washington knew its exact terms or could form an estimate of how great a force we should have to maintain in France pending the conclusion of permanent peace, General Frank T. Hines, the Chief of the Embarkation Service, which had administered the great work of transporting the 2,000,000 men of the A. E. F. to France and had carried nearly half of them across the ocean in its own ships, placed before the Secretary of War a plan for the return of the troops. It can be said that the outlook for the speedy repatriation of the overseas soldiers was not bright. It had taken nearly seventeen months to transport the expedition to Europe, and more than half of the men had crossed in the ships of other nations. England had been the chief contributor of tonnage to our overseas movement prior to November 11. To build up on the western front the numerical superiority that was the chief factor in the victory, the British Empire combed the seas for suitable passenger ships, cut her own civilian requirements to the minimum, and devoted to our transport service every ton of troop-carrying capacity she could procure. France and Italy had each supplied a few vessels. [Illustration: _Photo by Signal Corps_ KITCHENS AT LE MANS] [Illustration: _Photo by Signal Corps_ STREET IN LE MANS AREA NO. 5]