To receive, care for and handle the army in France made necessary prodigious works that, like everything else in the prosecution of the war, had to be planned and executed at the highest possible speed. While the making of the army, the building of cantonments, the development of flying fields, the creation of an industry for the supplying of munitions, the building of shipyards and ships, the expansion of the navy, and all the multitude of wartime tasks to which the nation at once turned its energies were being pushed breathlessly forward, a vast development of facilities had to be begun and carried on in France before our army and its supplies could even be landed upon French shores and transported to the front. The chief ports of France were already being utilized to their utmost capacity by France and England, and for either of these nations to give up any portion of the port facilities they were using would have meant a serious detriment to their war effort. Therefore it was necessary for the United States to develop sufficiently for our needs the smaller and more backward harbors and port towns. Our shipments of troops and supplies began to land in France at the end of June, 1917, and at once the ports it was possible for America to use became badly congested because of the lack of unloading facilities. In response to the sore need of our war associates and their urgent request our khaki-clad men were sent over in a constantly increasing stream that grew month by month to ever larger proportions. With each 25,000 men it was necessary to dispatch simultaneously enough supplies of every sort to maintain those men for four months. And at the same time had to be shipped the varied kinds and immense amounts of material for the development of the ports, the building of storehouses, the making of camps, the providing of railways and rolling stock, and all the rest of the work to be done. As the vessels carrying all these war necessities crowded into the small and undeveloped French ports in the summer of 1917 they had to wait their turns at the docks. It often happened that a ship would discharge the most needed part of its cargo, give up its place to some other ship which also carried sorely needed supplies and wait for another turn to land the rest of its load. Sometimes, so great was the congestion because of the lack of berthing and unloading facilities, a ship would find it better, rather than wait for another opportunity, to return to the United States with part of its original cargo still aboard, reload and cross the ocean again, when it would appear at the French port by the time its next turn came around.