No branch of the army took up its war-task under such discouraging conditions as the Ordnance Department. It had 97 officers; it needed 10,000. But where were they to come from? It was and is impossible to improvise ordnance experts, like those of pre-war times, who were required to possess a thorough knowledge of all phases of ordnance work from design and development through procurement, production, and inspection to the supply of troops. But upon the outbreak of hostilities thousands of engineers, graduates of the world’s most famous technical institutions and many of them with wide experience in their respective branches of the engineering profession, offered their services to the Ordnance Department, and it is very largely due to their ability, experience, and devotion that the solution of many of Ordnance’s most perplexing problems is due. The industrial field, too, yielded a generous contribution of its best ability. To these men were often given strange tasks. They were called upon to procure materials with which they were unfamiliar in markets where no readily available supply existed. They had to design and erect complete manufacturing plants and to teach manufacturing methods which they themselves often had first to learn. Time after time they were ordered to manufacture articles of which they had never so much as seen a specimen before they entered the army. A huge personnel had to be organized to care for the inspection of this enormous volume of varied material, to prove it by means of firing tests at Aberdeen and elsewhere, and to develop it from the first rough model through all the interminable stages to the point of successful quantity production. The advice, wishes, and requirements of our allies were given full consideration, often at a sacrifice of natural national pride. On their advice or at their formally expressed desire, we in many cases undertook the manufacture of components instead of complete assembled units: powder for propelling charges and high explosives for bursting charges of ammunition, instead of assembled shell complete in smaller quantity; black or rough-machined forgings for cannon, projectiles or recuperators in place of the corresponding finished articles; motors and structural steel work for standardized tanks for joint use in lieu of a smaller number of complete units for the use of our armies alone. We yielded priority on raw material sorely needed to make our own programme a success, but even more desperately needed by our allies to stave off defeat until we should arrive in force.