Building barbed wire entanglements, training camp, Fort Sheridan, Ill.

On May 14, 1917, the United States set in motion a plan for swiftly enlarging the size of the military forces of the nation ; namely, the opening of training camps for officers for the new National Army. Three months of intensive training were required. Among the hundreds of necessary things to be learned in practical fashion was the item of trench warfare which plays so important a part in modern fighting. You see here a section of barbed wire entanglement set up in front of a system of trenches built at Fort Sheridan, Illinois. These trenches were constructed entirely by the candidates in training there, and are exact duplicates of a section of trenches which were the scenes of the hardest battles of the war on the Somme front. Just beyond the entanglements, where some of the candidates are still working, can be seen the edge of a deep narrow ravine. On the other side of this ravine are the trenches which have been so skillfully built that, even at such a short distance as this, it would be hard to imagine that the open field in front of us was honeycombed with zig-zagging six-foot furrows and underground dugouts. During the last month of the training course the men saw active service in night attacks on these trenches, as well as in night work in defending the trenches. The work done at Fort Sheridan attracted state-wide attention, and during the three months more than one hundred thousand visitors came to the Fort. The most interesting experience to these visitors was the close inspection of the trenches and barbed wire entanglements because they were copies of the original trenches in France