When the history of the great conflict comes to be written, the story of the achievements of the telegraph and field battalions of the Signal Corps will form one of its most fascinating chapters. Working under the most trying conditions, in a land with whose customs they were unfamiliar and whose language they did not understand, with equipment and material frequently improvised from whatever was at hand, they covered France from the seaboard to the Rhine with the network of their wires; they made it as easy for Great Headquarters to communicate with a remote outpost in Alsace or the Argonne as it is for a brokerage house in Wall Street to communicate with the manager of its Chicago branch, and it established a standard of speed and efficiency which will make the French dissatisfied with their own services for years to come. Their work was, in the words of General Pershing, “a striking example of the wisdom of placing highly skilled technical men in the places where their experience and skill will count the most.” [Illustration: LAYING A FIELD TELEGRAPH LINE. They established a standard of speed and efficiency. _Photograph by Signal Corps, U. S. A._] [Illustration: SIGNAL CORPS MEN ERECTING A FIELD TELEPHONE. Working under the most trying conditions, these men covered France with the network of wires.] [Illustration: SIGNAL CORPS MEN AT WORK REPAIRING THE TANGLE OF COPPER WIRES WHICH LINK THE INFANTRY IN THE FRONT-LINE TRENCHES WITH THE GUNS.] Despite the unending stream of men which constantly flowed Europeward for work on the “A. E. F. Tel. & Tel. Co.,” as our military telegraphs and telephones were familiarly known, more were ever needed, and it was finally decided, though, I believe, with considerable reluctance on the part of certain old-fashioned officers in the War Department, to replace the men operators, wherever possible, with girls. Again the American systems were called upon, this time to furnish young women who possessed the necessary technical experience, and to give them a working knowledge of French. Imagine the furor of excitement that swept through every telephone-exchange in the country when it was learned that girls were wanted for service in the A. E. F.! Where was the red-blooded, adventure-loving American girl who could resist such a call? Soon the company officials as well as the Signal Corps itself were almost swamped by the flood of applications that poured in. Then the Signal Corps found itself confronted by the necessity of educating the applicants; to do this it had to operate a whole system of boarding-schools for girls. Such schools were established in New York, Philadelphia, Chicago, San Francisco, Jersey City, Atlantic City, and Lancaster, Pa., the candidates for overseas duty being given intensive courses in military telephony, French, and European geography, together with lectures on French manners and customs, and, I might add (this in a whisper), on their own behavior,