St. Nazaire, through which poured immense numbers of American troops and vast quantities of supplies, in the early summer of 1917 was a sleepy little fishing village with a good natural harbor which was used only by occasional tramp steamers and coastwise shipping. The berthing and unloading facilities were meager, small, old and dilapidated. The harbor basin was dredged and enlarged, piers were built affording three times the former berthing capacity, the unloading facilities were multiplied by ten. At Bordeaux, in June, 1917, there were berths for seven ships and no more than two ships per week could be unloaded. Dredging and construction made it possible for seven ships at the existing pier to discharge their cargoes at the same time and inside of eight months docks a mile long, which the French told the American engineers could not possibly be finished in less than three years, were built on swampy land, concrete platforms, railroad tracks, and immense warehouses were erected and huge electric cranes were set up for lifting cases of goods from ships to cars. Approximately 7,000,000 cubic feet of lumber were used in this construction, nearly all of it shipped from the United States. In less than a year it was possible to unload, instead of two ships in a week, fourteen ships all at the same time. The amount of development, of dredging and construction, that had to be done at these two ports alone indicates the size of the task which awaited the United States Government overseas before our men and their supplies could even be landed in France.