The necessity for a separate organization to handle motor transportation was first recognized by the A. E. F., and in December, 1917, General Pershing issued a general order creating a Motor Transport Service. The new service was described as a part of the Quartermaster Corps, and an assistant to the Chief Quartermaster was detailed as its chief. For all practical purposes, however, it became a separate organization. In the United States the transition was more gradual, it not being until August, 1918, that the Secretary of War authorized the creation of a Motor Transport Corps as a separate and distinct branch of the military establishment, Colonel Charles B. Drake, who was later made a brigadier-general, being named as its first chief. The new organization was built up along the same lines as the Motor Transport Service, the officers and men of the latter being transferred to similar positions in the new corps, thus enabling them to continue the performance of their duties without interruption or confusion. The effect was as though the Motor Transport Service was lifted bodily out of the Quartermaster Corps, renamed, and made completely independent, the only visible sign of the change being, however, that the officers and men changed their Quartermaster insignia for the winged helmet superimposed upon a motor-wheel which was adopted as the device of the new corps. Under the new order all the motor transportation of the army, save only tractors used for artillery purposes, was embraced in the Motor Transport Corps. The Medical Corps, the Engineer Corps, the Quartermaster Corps, the Signal Corps, and the Department of Military Aeronautics, all of which had developed special types of vehicles for their respective needs, immediately turned over their equipment to the new organization. The designing of bodies was left to the several branches, but the designing of all types of chassis was included in the functions of the Motor Transport Corps. Among the duties of the new corps were the design, procurement, storage, maintenance, and replacement of all motor vehicles, though a few weeks later procurement was assigned to the Purchase, Storage, and Traffic Division of the office of the Quartermaster-General, with the proviso, however, that the Motor Transport Corps should prescribe the type and design of the vehicles supplied to it. The corps was thus enabled to insist that it be supplied only with the standardized military truck, the design of which had been achieved by the Motor Transport Service in spite of much opposition and after untiring effort. This arrangement also effectually prevented the purchase and use of vehicles of many different designs and put an end to the complicated and extravagant system of spare parts and supplies inseparable from the use of a multiplicity of types.