After it was decided to organize an engineer regiment in the 92nd Division, considerable discussion arose in the War Department over the question of officers to command it. Negro officers who had graduated at the training school for infantry in Des Moines were suggested, but engineer officials opposed this plan because these men had had no special training for the work. Letters in the War Department files pointed out that from 15,000 applicants to serve in this branch of the service only one Negro, a graduate of Harvard University, had qualified. Although it had been found expedient to have trained engineers as officers in engineer labor battalions, thirty Negro infantry officers with no engineering experience were assigned to the 317th Engineers. White captains were also assigned to the regiment, but were soon transferred and sent to France. During the winter of 1917-18 a War Department inspector investigated the organization and reported that the Negro officers did not have sufficient knowledge and experience to train the regiment, and he recommended that they be replaced by white officers with engineer training. In March, 1918, accordingly white captains replaced the Negro captains, but the Negro lieutenants were retained. In spite of the unrest caused in the regiment by the change in the personnel of the officers, the training continued. On June 1 the regiment left Camp Sherman for Hoboken, whence it sailed on June 8, reaching Brest on the 19th. Thence it was sent to the Pontenazen barracks, which consisted of stone buildings erected by Napoleon Bonaparte on the site of an old Roman camp. Heavy working details, comprising 85 per cent of the regiment’s strength, loaded baggage and constructed roads and barracks. On June 25 the regiment left for the Bourbonne-les-Bains area, arriving on the night of June 27. Here it was given intensive training for four weeks, and in the area it constructed mess halls, bath houses, warehouses, stables, and railroad yards.