It is difficult to describe in exact figures what the American expeditionary forces have done in the construction and improvement of dockage and warehouses since the first troops landed.  This work has been proportionate to the whole effort in other directions.  Ten steamer berths have been built at Bordeaux, having a total length of 4,100 feet.  At Montoir, near St. Nazaire, eight berths were under construction with a total length of over 3,200 feet.

Great labor had been expended in dredging operations, repairing French docks and increasing railway terminal facilities.  Warehouses having an aggregate floor area of almost 23,000,000 square feet had been constructed.  This development of French ports increased facilities to such an extent that even if the Germans had captured Calais and other channel ports, as they had planned, the allies’ loss would have been strategically unimportant.

So largely were facilities increased that the English armies could have had their bases at the lower French ports, if necessary.  In other words, American work in port construction lessened to a material degree the value to the Germans of their proposed capture of the channel ports.

These figures serve in a measure to show the magnitude of American accomplishments, and the great machine is in operation today as the American Third army moves forward into German territory.

During the second stage of the Argonne operation a captured German major, while in casual conversation with an American officer said:  “We know defeat is inevitable.  We know your First and Second armies are operating and that your Third army is nearly ready to function.  We know there are more and more armies to follow.  We can measure your effort.  The end must come soon.”

AMERICAN FORCES AND CASUALTIES

At the opening of November, 1918, the United States armies on all fronts numbered about 2,200,000 men, and was being increased at an average rate of 250,000 a month.  In transit from home ports to ports in Europe and Siberia, only one transport ship was lost, and of its complement of troops 126 men were drowned.  The sinking was caused by collision with another ship in the same convoy, not by an enemy submarine.  The United States has not lost one man in transport, by an act of a hostile ship or submarine.

Army and marine casualties reported by the commanders of overseas forces to the government at Washington up to November 27th, 1918 (after the seventeenth month of our participation in the war), were as follows: 

Killed in action, 28,363; died of wounds, 12,101; died of disease, 16,034; died of other causes, 1,980; wounded, 189,995 (of this number 92,036 only slightly wounded); missing in action and prisoners, 14,250; making a total numbering 262,723.

War Department reports show that over-seas Air Service Casualties to October 24th, 1918, were 128 battle fatalities and 224 killed in accidents.