I've seen this in a lot of World War II photos, especially of Pacific
Theater airfield runways.  I've also seen smaller amounts of it, in person,
on U.S. Army installations, such as Fort Riley, Kansas, where (early 1990s)
there were a few low spots in less-used tank trails that had this material
laid down across the direction of traffic, roughly like logs across a
corduroy road.  In dry weather, driving across a section of this pavement
makes an ungodly clatter.  I never new what it was called, and always
thought of it as that "World War II Airfield Stuff."  I'll take the
education, and now know it as "Marston Mat."  I figure the U.S. produced
trainload lots of it for World War II, then stored some and surplus-ed the
rest, when they were left with said trainloads in 1945.  It was probably
the go-to item for a quick road improvement at any DoD facility, through
the 1970s.

D. Babson.


On Mon, Apr 25, 2016 at 8:28 PM, David Parkhill <[log in to unmask]> wrote:

> We used these steel plates in Korea to build airfield landing strips.
> Reason. Simple to put together, low cost, repaired broken strips in a very
> quick time.
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: HISTORICAL ARCHAEOLOGY [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of Mike
> Polk
> Sent: Monday, April 25, 2016 5:12 PM
> To: [log in to unmask]
> Subject: Re: Artifact Identification
>
> A suggestion is that this represents portable vehicular pads. During the
> Vietnam war steel mesh squares which could be snapped together were used to
> make portable helicopter pads and roads through areas which could not
> otherwise be landed on or driven across.
>
> When I was running the field portion of the Tombigbee waterway Historic
> Townsites Project in 1980, I got permission to purchase enough of this to
> build a road over very muddy soils. We ended up using gravel, but if that
> had not worked, purchase of a portable road from a surplus guy in Oklahoma
> was our next move.
>
> Mike Polk
> Commonwealth Heritage Group
> Ogden, Utah
>
> Sent from my iPhone
>
> > On Apr 25, 2016, at 9:04 PM, Hannah Russell <[log in to unmask]>
> wrote:
> >
> > Hi All,
> > I found this material at a 1960's military complex in southeast Utah
> > and am looking for some ideas of what it might be.  Funny story,
> > within a week of recording this site, I was at a bar in Salt Lake City
> > and there was a room divider made out of the same material.  The
> > pictures of the material in situ and at the bar can be found at the link
> below to a google photo album.
> >
> > Thanks in advance for your help.
> >
> > https://goo.gl/photos/3HfR3xJiqtUBiqDQ7
> >
> >
> > Thanks in advance for you help!
> >
> >
> > --
> > Hannah Russell, RPA
> > Cottonwood Archaeology, LLC
> > [log in to unmask]
> > (435) 210-0414
>