 Behind the speed-up in our factories, behind the ceaseless drive of around-the-clock labor, is the great military need to keep the men on the fighting front fighting. From the factory to you is no longer just an advertising slogan. It's the key to our determination. It's our country's promise to its soldiers. And while most of our equipment travels first on the high seas, or even by air freight, eventually it must be transported on roads, roads that feed the combat zone, roads that carry the guns and machines from that factory in Detroit to the men who need it when they need it. But remember this, the enemy doesn't care very much for our guns and machines, and he'll stop at nothing to destroy our lines of communication to blow up our roads. That's where you come in. We use road expedients to keep roads open and to get vehicles across country where there are no roads. When we haven't the time, the material, or the equipment to build a permanent road, we use an expedient. This means fitting the material you have to the conditions you face. And no matter what the situation is, you must do something. You may have to improvise a detour around a shell hole or a bomb crater. The next time you may have to construct a stretch of temporary roads through a swamp or through a wood. But whatever your job, knowing how to do it properly, knowing how to do it quickly, may save the lives of the men just up ahead, or even win a battle. Suppose that a new railhead has been set up here, and as yet no road connected to the supply road. Now we don't want supplies piling up at the railhead. We want them at the front, immediately, where they'll do some good. To get them there, we may need some kind of road expedient. In this case, we've run into some soft, muddy ground. Luckily, there's enough lumber nearby to build an elevated plank tread road, and that'll get us past it all right. First of all, large timbers, 12 feet long and 6 by 6 inches, are brought up to the site. Place these timbers crosswise in the roadway, at right angles to the direction of traffic. Space them 3 feet apart, center to center. The NCO uses some sort of marker to see if you get the proper distance. There may be interruptions, but you must keep at the job. So, back to building the road. On top of the cross ties, place the tread. These are 3 by 12 inch planks. Place them lengthwise along the roadway in 2 strips. There are 3 planks to each strip. Stagger the joints. That way, you avoid concentrating all the weak spots in one place. Spike the planks to the cross ties. Use 2 60 penny spikes to fasten each plank. If you have a pneumatic nail driver, it'll save you a lot of time and keep you from getting an engineer's back. Maybe. The curbs can be timbers the same size as the cross ties. In any case, they should be at least 6 inches high. Fasten them to the cross ties with drift pins. Reinforce each curb joint with a fish plate. Figure the distance between the curbs so that the truck with the smallest clearance can drive over the road without trouble. And remember, it might be your mess truck. But building the road isn't your only problem. You have to keep it in good shape all the time. You'll have to tighten the spikes that loosen under traffic. And if necessary, drive more of them to hold the treads in place. Try out the broken planks, get rid of them and put down new ones. There's patchwork to be done, sure. But don't get the idea of plank tread roads just a flimsy makeshift. If the material's around, you can build yourself a good, tough road. When you're in a stand of natural timber, the problem is simple. Chop the trees down, trim their branches, and use them to build the dependable old standby, a corduroy road. It's easy to lay down if the ground is fairly firm. The ground can be muddy, but it has to offer a reasonable amount of support. The logs should have a diameter of about 6 inches. Their length varies according to the width of the road you're building. Whatever the length, place them side by side at right angles to the direction of traffic. Notice that the butt and tips of the logs alternate. If that weren't so, there'd be wide spaces between logs at the tip ends. And you want the straightest logs you can find. Then they won't be so liable to snap under the pounding of heavy trucks. See to it that they bear on the ground over as much of their length as possible. Logs at least 6 inches thick form the curbs on each side. These are held in place by pickets spaced every 10 feet. Drive one picket at the edge of the road. And don't try using a sledgehammer. A mall's the tool for this job. Drive another one between the logs on the inside of the curve. When there's timber at the site, you can build an unsurface corduroy road quickly. But if it's at all possible, take extra time and cover the logs with a top surface. Cover them with gravel if you can get it. If not, earth will do. But in any case, spread a layer of brush as a base to keep whatever material you use from seeping through the gaps between logs. Then dump the gravel or earth on top of the base layer and spread it out evenly. There are good reasons for going to this added trouble. The road can be used without the surfacing, but it's rough on both the trucks and the road itself. And in wet weather, it's as slippery as GI shoes on grass. The earth or gravel gives a smoother riding surface, better traction in wet weather and doesn't call for so much maintenance. Now in softer ground, a corduroy road needs the added support of stringers. These stringers should be at least six inches in diameter. Lay them firmly on the ground lengthwise along the line of the road. Space them about three feet apart, center to center. Place the corduroy on top of them instead of directly on the ground. Then spike the corduroy and the stringers together, each log to each of the stringers. That'll keep them from slipping out of position and tearing the roadway down. While you're doing this, another crew should be laying additional corduroy. The road may be needed sooner than you think. There's no time to swap latrina grams. Next, of course, you lay the curbs and spike them to the corduroy. Retaining pickets alone won't hold them in place in ground as soft as this. But you still use the retaining pickets since spiking by itself isn't strong enough. As before, spread a layer of brush over the log, then cover the brush with earth or gravel. When you're forced to use stringers, you'll find it takes about twice as long to build 100 yards of road. Now, in a swamp or in marshy ground, even stringers aren't enough support for a corduroy road. You'll have to reinforce it still further with a foundation of heavy logs. You lay these heavy logs crosswise in the roadway under the stringers. They give the road added strength, make it strong enough to withstand heavy traffic over wet and sloppy ground. Place the stringers three feet apart as before, criss-crossing the heavy logs. Then spike the two layers of timber together. Now you're ready to lay the corduroy. And from here on, the method is the same as before. Here it is, the flush carpet for our tanks. But you can't just stand around and look at it. Maintenance is a big item. With a corduroy road, it's mostly replacing broken logs, logs that can cause a breakdown if you don't catch them. To get to them, of course, you have to dig away the top surface of gravel and the base layer of brush. You have to get rid of the broken logs and slide new ones into their place. Whenever you use stringers, be sure to keep the spikes driven down. They have a tendency to loosen. Then after the repairs are made, cover the logs again with the surfacing material and the roads as good as it ever was. There's still another expedient for moving troops and equipment over marshy ground. It's nothing more than a variation of the corduroy road. And it consists of prefabricated corduroy mats, which you make up in advance. Use four-inch logs about 10 feet long and weave them together with wire. As with all corduroy, the logs should be butt to tip. Once completed, each mat or section can be rolled up and carried to the truck or trailer which will take it to the road site. These mats are a handy method for laying a road in a spot where there isn't enough timber. You can carry them without too much trouble and place them in a hurry. Lug them over to where the road is being built. Then unroll them one after another along the side of the proposed roadway. The logs in this type of road tend to loosen under traffic. That's what you can counteract at by wiring each mat to the ones on either side of it. With these mats, you can build an expedient that's just about the same as corduroy. It won't stand up as well, but it'll get us where we want to go. In emergencies, corduroy tread mats may come in handy. The dimensions for these smaller mats run in threes. Three-inch logs approximately three feet long. You weave them together exactly as you do the larger mats. One advantage they have is that the sections are light enough to be handled by a single mat. Suppose you get stuck on a sloppy road. Well, a tread mat'll get you out. Spread it in the mud in front of the wheel. Make sure that it's in place firmly enough to give you traction. Start the truck and there you are on your way again. While we're still in the corduroy department, let's look at another expedient made to order for marshy ground. It's the steel landing mat which is normally used for temporary runways. Lay a foundation of brush or saplings first. Then lay the landing mats on top of them. These mats come in sections. Each mat has its own special type of connector, and you can see how easy it is to fasten them together. If the material's on hand, use two layers of landing mat sections. The second layer forms treadways to distribute the load over the bottom one. Here's the completed roadway, made from material designed for an entirely different purpose. The desert, with its sandy waste, gives you special problems all its own. Of course, with a ground surface as hard and firmly packed, there's no trouble. But you can't rely on that. Desert terrain is tricky. Sometimes you'll run up against loose sand that bogs down our trucks, makes their wheels spin helplessly, gets us nowhere at all. Loose sand prevents us from getting water, gas, and ammunition on time. It's your ability to build expedience in this kind of country that'll help us pay off. One possibility is to build a wire mesh road. Plain chicken wire is a simple and effective expedient. Load the material onto trucks and drive as close to the site as possible. Then carry the road to where you're actually going to lay the stretch of road. Unroll the wire in overlapping strips. That takes little enough time, and two men can handle the job. Then wire the overlapping strips together. When that's done, you'll have a road that's wide enough for traffic. If cloth or sandbags are handy, use them to cover the chicken wire. If there's not enough of either, you can use brush, anything to stop the sand from filtering. Remember, these are road expedients, and that means you've got to use whatever's handy and make it fit your needs. Next, lay a second layer of chicken wire on top, and after you wire the top strips together, dig trenches along the sides of the road. Drive pickets in these. Set them at about six foot intervals. Pass in both layers of wire. That's to keep the wire netting taut. Be sure that the connecting wire sloped down into the bottom of the trenches so that there'll be a downward pull on the edges of the wire mesh. And naturally, you'll have to tighten the connecting wire, otherwise it would serve no purpose. Then run other strands at an angle to the wire mesh at points midway between the pickets. This adds to the tension of the netting. Here's a diagram of the roadway. Notice how the wires fastened to the pickets exerted downward pull on the wire netting. Now to hold the roadway in place even more securely, use a diagonal wire system that you string across the top. Fasten the wire to the first picket at one side of the road. Then string it over to the next picket down on the opposite side. Tie it. And then keep on zig-zagging. This diagram of the diagonal wire system should give you a good idea of how it works. After you've finished all the wiring, refill the trenches. You don't need them anymore. And some GI drivers will be sure to find them if you don't cover them up. Of course, you're not finished just because the roadway is. You'll have to keep on the go to maintain it after traffic starts moving. You'll have to repair brakes and the netting for one thing. You'll have to keep the tie wires taught. No sense kidding ourselves, this material needs constant maintenance. Light chicken wire is okay for ordinary sand, but if the terrain is hilly, then you need more substantial stuff. Take this light landing mat, for example. It's called Summerfell Track, and it's simple enough to hold in place. All you have to do is stake the wire at the top of the hill. This road is not only easier to build than the one made of chicken wire, but it will stand up much better. Now another way of getting over steep sandy grays is to use what we call Army Track. Start preparing it back at the base depot. You need 10-foot timbers, 6 inches by 6 inches. Pre-board to fit a one-half inch wire rope. Bore the holes at an angle. That's so the wire rope will lock in the holes and keep the timbers from slipping. At the site, your first step is to place the pre-board timber crosswise to form the roadway. Allow an 18-inch space between each one. Then thread the wire rope through the hole. You'll have to anchor your roadway to keep it from slipping around under traffic. So fasten the wire rope to strong picket hold fast to keep the track in place. Then, last of all, fill the spaces between the timbers with sand. It's just as if you were ballasting railroad ties. This is no magic carpet. It gives you a bumpy ride, but it gets you up the hill, and that's what counts. You've seen how to build many kinds of road experiences, and just as important, you've seen where and when to build them. We need these roads. The enemy will try to tear them down. You'll have to build them up again. The President has said there are many roads to Tokyo. The chances are the engineers will have to build all of them.