Repairing a Damaged CylinderFrom a photograph copyright by International Film Service.Repairing a damaged cylinder of a German ship for federal service.
It would appear that explosives were not used in the process of demolition by the Germans, but at the time the engineers could not be sure of this, and as a consequence as they worked they were conscious of the danger of hidden charges which might become operative when the machinery was put to the test, or even while the work of dismantling and inspection was being carried on. There were, however, discovered, as a result of this rigid investigation of every mechanical detail, many artful casesof pipe-plugging, of steel nuts and bolts concealed in delicate mechanical parts, of ground glass in oil-pipes and bearings, of indicators that were so adjusted as to give inaccurate readings, of fire-extinguishers filled with gasoline—in fact, the manifold deceits which the Germans practised would make a chapter of themselves.
Suffice to say, that through painstaking investigation every trick was discovered and corrected. On each vessel there was no boiler that was not threaded through every pipe for evidence of plugging, no mechanism of any sort that was not completely dismantled, inspected, and reassembled. On one ship the engineers chanced to find a written record of the damage inflicted. In every other case the search for evidence of sabotage was blind. This memorandum in the case of the one ship was evidently left on board through an oversight, and written in German, was a veritable guide-book for our engineers. In order that the reader may have some idea of the sort of damage done, the following extracts from that memorandum of destructiveness is herewith presented:
"Starboard and port high pressure cylinders with valve chest; upper exhaust outlet flange broken off. (Cannot be repaired.)"
"Starboard and port second intermediate valve chest; steam inlet flange broken off, (Cannot be repaired.)"
"First intermediate pressure starboard exhaust pipes of exhaust line to second intermediate pressure flange broken off. (Cannot be repaired.)"
"Starboard and port low pressure exhaust pipe damaged. (Cannot be repaired.)"
Naval officers are pleased to recall that every single one of these supposedly irreparable injuries was not only repaired, but speedily repaired. Patching and welding were the answer to the problem they presented. Both these valuable methods had never been employed in marine engineering, although they had been used by the railroads for some fifteen years. There are three methods; or, rather, three methods were employed: electric welding, oxyacetylene welding, and ordinary mechanical patching. After repairs were effected tests of the machinery were first made at the dockswith the ships lashed to the piers, the propellers being driven at low speed. Later each vessel was taken to sea for vigorous trial tests, and everything was found to be perfectly satisfactory. Indeed, it has been asserted that several knots were added to the best speed that theVaterland—renamedLeviathan—ever made.
Of course the crew of theVaterlandhad spared no pains in fixing that great ship so that she could not be used; even so they had less to do than the engine forces of other craft, for the reason that the vessel was in extremely bad repair as she was. As a consequence, she was one of the German ships that were least mutilated. When repairs were completed and it was time for her trial trip, her commander, a young American naval officer, was ordered to test the big craft in every way, to utilize every pound of steam pressure, and to try her out to the limit. For, if there was anything wrong with the vessel, the navy wished to know it before she fared forth with troops on board.
TheLeviathanstood the test. And to-day we all know what a great part she has played in carrying our soldiers to France. She is in fact,a far better boat than on her maiden trip, for our engineers were surprised to find how sloppily she had been built in certain respects.
In preparing her for sea the engineers found it necessary to overhaul, partially redesign and reconstruct many important parts of theLeviathan'sengines. As in her case, the most serious typical damage was done by breaking the cylinders, valve-chests, circulating pumps, steam and exhaust units in main engines; dry-firing boilers, and thus melting the tubes and distorting furnaces, together with easily detectable instances of a minor character, such as cutting piston and connecting rods and stays with hack saws, smashing engine-room telegraph systems, and removing and destroying parts which the Germans believed could not be duplicated. Then there was sabotage well concealed: rod stays in boilers were broken off, but nuts were fastened on exposed surfaces for purposes of deception; threads of bolts were destroyed, the bolts being replaced with but one or two threads to hold them, and thus calculated to give way under pressure. Piles of shavings and inflammable material with cans of kerosenenear suggested the intention to burn the vessels, intentions thwarted by our watchfulness, while the absence of explosives has been accounted for purely on the ground of the risk which the crews would have run in attempting to purchase explosive materials in the open market.
No great amount of damage was done to the furnishings or ordinary ship's fittings. Destructiveness was similar in character throughout all the vessels and involved only important parts of the propulsive mechanism or other operating machinery.
We have spoken of the investigation of the vessels by Shipping Board engineers. They were appointed by the board not only to make a survey, but to superintend repairs. The collector of the port of New York also named a board of engineers (railroad engineers) to investigate the damage done the German ships, and to recommend repairs through the agency of welding. The railroad men, after due study, believed that their art could be applied to as great advantage on ships as upon locomotives. The Shipping Board engineers recommended, on the other hand, the renewal of all badlydamaged cylinders. The railroad engineers, on the other hand, set forth their opinion that all damaged cylinders could be reclaimed and made as good as new.
As a result of this difference of opinion, nothing was done until the larger German craft were turned over to the Navy Department to be fitted as transports, in July of 1917. It was then decided to use welding and patching on the vessels.
In no cases were the repairs to the propulsive machinery delayed beyond the time necessary to equip these ships as transports. Electric and acetylene welding is not a complicated art in the hands of skilled men; for patching a hole, or filling the cavity of a great crack in a cylinder, say by electric welding, may be compared to a similar operation in dental surgery.
Returning to theLeviathan'sfaulty German construction, be it said that the opinion of the navy engineers who overhauled her, was that inferior engineering had been practised in her construction. There are on this craft four turbine engines ahead, and four astern, on four shafts. All the head engines were in goodshape, but all the astern engines were damaged. But the main part of the damage had resulted more to faulty operation of the engines than to malicious damage. Cracks were found in the casing of the starboard high-pressure backing turbine, cracks of size so great as to make it certain that this engine had not been used in the last run of that vessel on transatlantic service in 1914. There was discovered on theVaterland, orLeviathan, documentary evidence to prove this, and it also appeared from this paper that on her last trip to this country the vessel had not averaged twenty knots. It may be that the German ship-builders had hurried too swiftly in their strenuous efforts to produce a bigger, if not a better, steamship than the British could turn out.
Forty-six of theVaterland'sboilers showed evidence of poor handling. They were not fitted with the proper sort of internal feed-pipes. All these defects, defects original with the steamship, were repaired by the Americans. In addition, evidences of minor attempts to disable theVaterlandwere found, such, for instance, as holes bored in sections of suction-pipes, theholes having been puttied and thus concealed. Things of the sort afforded ample reason for a thorough overhaul of the vast mass of machinery aboard the steamship. But eventually she was ready for her test and her performance on a trial trip to southern waters showed how skilful had been the remedial measures applied.
Aboard theLeviathanas other big German liners, such as theAmerika,President Grant,President Lincoln, (recently sunk by a German torpedo while bound for this country from France), theGeorge Washington, and other vessels fitted as troop and hospital ships, and the like, naval crews were placed, and naval officers, of course, in command. They have proved their mettle, all. They have shown, further, that when we get ready to take our place, after the war, among the nations that go in heavily for things maritime, we shall not be among the last, either in point of resourcefulness or intrepidity.
Civilian sailormen who have sailed on vessels commanded by naval officers have been inclined to smile over the minutia of navy discipline and have expressed doubt whether the navalmen would find a certain rigidity any more useful in a given situation than the civilian seamen would find a looser ordered system. We can but base judgment on facts, and among the facts that have come under the writer's observation, was the difficulty which the German officers of theVaterlandencountered in taking their vessel into her dock in the North River. The very last time they attempted it the great hulk got crosswise in the current in the middle of the stream, and caused all sorts of trouble.
Our naval officers, however, made no difficulty at all in snapping the steamship into her pier. She steams up the Hudson on the New York side, makes a big turn, and lo! she is safely alongside her pier. Any seafaring man will tell you that this implies seamanly ability.
Following is a list of the larger German ships which were repaired by the navy engineers, with the names under which they now sail:
[1]Is not this rather a reflection upon a perfectly good American city?
[1]Is not this rather a reflection upon a perfectly good American city?
Camouflage—American System of Low Visibility and the British Dazzle System—Americans Worked Out Principles of Color in Light and Color in Pigment—British Sought Merely to Confuse the Eye—British System Applied to Some of Our Transports
While our naval vessels, that is to say war-ships, have adhered to the lead-gray war paint, the Navy Department has not declined to follow the lead of the merchant marine of this country and Great Britain in applying the art of camouflage to some of its transports, notably to theLeviathan, which, painted by an English camoufleur, Wilkinson, fairly revels in color designed to confuse the eyes of those who would attack her. A great deal has been written about land camouflage, but not so much about the same art as practised on ships. Originally, the purpose was the same—concealment and general low visibility—at least it was so far as the Americans were concerned. The British, on the other hand, employed camouflage with a view to distorting objects and fatiguingthe eye, thus seriously affecting range-finding. The British system was known as the "dazzle system," and was opposed to the American idea of so painting a vessel as to cause it to merge into its background.
The American camouflage is based on scientific principles which embody so much in the way of chromatic paradox as to warrant setting forth rather fully, even though at the present time, for good and sufficient reasons relating to German methods of locating vessels, the Americans have more or less abandoned their ideas of low visibility and taken up with the dazzle idea.
A mural painter of New York, William Andrew Mackay, who had long experimented in the chemistry of color (he is now a member of the staff of navy camoufleurs), had applied a process of low visibility to naval vessels long before war broke out in Europe. The basis of his theory of camouflage was that red, green, and violet, in terms of light, make gray; they don't in pigment.
The Mackay scheme of invisibility will be easily grasped by the reader if we take the exampleof the rainbow. The phenomenon of the rainbow, then, teaches us that what we know to be white light, or daylight, is composed of rays of various colors. If an object, say the hull of a vessel at sea, prevents these rays from coming to the eye, that hull, or other object, is of course clearly defined, the reason being that the iron mass shuts out the light-rays behind it. Mr. Mackay discovered that by applying to the sides of a ship paint representing the three light-rays shut out by the vessel's hull—red, green, and violet—the hull is less visible than a similar body painted In solid color.
In a series of experiments made under the supervision of the Navy Department after we entered the war an oil-tanker ship was so successfully painted in imitation of the color-rays of light that, at three miles, the tanker seemed to melt into the horizon. The effect was noted in the morning, at noon, and in the evening. In the case of various big liners, more than 500 feet long, no accurate range could be made for shelling at from three to five miles—the usual shelling distance—while at eight miles the vessels melted into the ocean-mists.
But the first trials of the system were conducted at Newport, in 1913, in conjunction with Lieutenant Kenneth Whiting, of the submarine flotilla. After a period experiments were continued at the Brooklyn Navy Yard. In 1915 Commander J. O. Fisher, U.S.N., painted the periscope of his submarine—the K-6—with the colors of the spectrum. Mr. Mackay got in touch with this officer and explained the work he had done with Lieutenant Whiting. Fisher, deeply interested, invited the painter to deliver a series of lectures to the officers of the submarine flotilla at the Brooklyn Navy Yard.
With the aid of a Maxwell disk—a wheel upon which colored cardboard is placed and then revolved—he demonstrated the difference between paint and light, as set forth in a book on the chemistry of color by the late Ogden N. Rood, of Columbia. He showed, for example, that yellow and blue in light make white, while yellow and blue in pigment make green. The bird colored blue and yellow will be a dull gray at a distance of 100 feet, and will blend perfectly against the dull gray of a tree-trunk at, perhaps, a less distance. The parrot of red, green, andviolet plumage turns gray at 100 feet or more, the eye at that distance losing the ability to separate the three color-sensations.
It is upon this principle, then, that ships painted in several varieties of tints and shades form combinations under different lights that cause them to waver and melt into the sea and sky. Theyseemto melt, to be more explicit, because the craft so painted is surrounded by tints and shades that are similar to those employed in painting the craft.
Vessels thus painted, as seen at their docks, present a curious aspect. At their water-lines, and running upward for perhaps twenty feet, are green wave-lines, and above, a dappled effect of red, green, and violet, which involve not only the upper portions of the hull, but the life-boats, masts, and funnels.
This, then, as said, was the American idea as first applied by Mr. Mackay, and which would have been greatly amplified had not listening devices been so perfected as to render it unnecessary for the Germans to see until their quarry was so near, say a mile or two, that no expedient in the way of low visibility wouldserve. It was then that our navy, which had been following experiments in camouflage, accepted the dazzle system for some of its transports, while retaining the leaden war-paint for other transports and for fighting craft.
The dazzle system as applied on theLeviathanand other vessels under jurisdiction of the navy, has for its idea the disruption of outline and deception as to the true course a vessel is following. The writer saw theLeviathanunder way shortly after she was camouflaged, and at a distance of two miles it was utterly impossible to tell whether she was coming or going; and the observer could not tell whether she had three funnels or six, or only one. It was noted that as her distance from the observer became greater the vessel assumed a variety of effects. Once it seemed as though both bow and stern had dropped off, and finally the big craft suggested in the morning haze nothing so much as a cathedral set in the middle of the bay.
Effects of this sort are produced by vertical stripes of black and white at bow and stern, by long, horizontal lines of black and blue, and by patches of various hues. One funnel isgray, another blue and white, another all blue. There can be no question that the sum total of effect offends the eye and dazes the senses. Submarines have been known to make errors of eight degrees in delivering torpedoes at dazzle boats even at close range.
In addition to camouflage experiments on one of our great inland lakes, the Navy Department also investigated other ideas relating to the self-protection of craft at sea. Among these was a device by which a vessel zigzags automatically as she proceeds on her ocean course. The advantage of such an invention when the war zone is filled with submarines waiting for a chance for pot shots at craft is obvious.
The Navy Department, in short, has neglected nothing that would tend to enhance the safety of our ships on the sea, and many valuable schemes have been applied. But when all is said and done these defensive elements are and, it seems, must remain subsidiary to the protection as applied from without, the protection of swift destroyers with their depth-bombs, their great speed, and their ability quickly to manoeuvre.
The Naval Flying Corps—What The Navy Department Has Accomplished And Is Accomplishing in the Way of Air-Fighting—Experience of a Naval Ensign Adrift in the English Channel—Seaplanes and Flying Boats—Schools of Instruction—Instances of Heroism
In writing of aviation in the navy an incident which befell one of our naval airmen in the English Channel seems to demand primary consideration, not alone because of the dramatic nature of the event, but because it sets forth clearly the nature of the work upon which our flying men of the navy entered as soon as the United States took hostile action against Germany. Our navy aviators, in fact, were the first force of American fighters to land upon European soil after war was declared. Here is the story as told by Ensign E. A. Stone, United States Naval Reserve, after he was rescued from the Channel, where with a companion he had clung for eighty hours without food and drink to the under-side of a capsized seaplane pontoon. "I left our station in a British seaplane aspilot, with Sublieutenant Moore of the Royal Naval Air Service as observer, at 9 o'clock in the morning. Our duty was to convoy patrols. When two hours out, having met our ships coming from the westward, we thought we sighted a periscope ahead, and turned off in pursuit. We lost our course. Our engine dropped dead, and at 11.30 o'clock forced us to land on the surface of a rough sea. We had no kite nor radio to call for assistance, so we released our two carrier-pigeons. We tied a message with our position and the word 'Sinking' on each. The first, the blue-barred one, flew straight off and reached home. But the other, which was white-checked, lit on our machine and would not budge until Moore threw our navigation clock at him, which probably upset him so that he failed us.
"Heavy seas smashed our tail-planes, which kept settling. I saw that they were pulling the machine down by the rear, turning her over. We tore the tail-fabric to lessen the impact of the waves. It wasn't any use. The tail-flat was smashed and its box filled with water.
"This increased the downward leverage andraised her perpendicularly in the air. At 2.30 P.M. we capsized. We climbed up the nose and 'over the top' to the under-side of the pontoons. Our emergency ration had been in the observer's seat at the back, but we had been so busy trying to repair the motor and save ourselves from turning over that we didn't remember this until too late. When I crawled aft for food Moore saw that I was only helping the machine to capsize. He yelled to me to come back and I did, just in time to save myself from being carried down with the tail and drowned.
"From then on for nearly four days, until picked up by a trawler, we were continually soaked and lashed by seas, and with nothing to eat or drink. We had nothing to cling to, and so to keep from being washed overboard we got upon the same pontoon and hugged our arms about each other's bodies for the whole time. We suffered from thirst. I had a craving for canned peaches. Twice a drizzle came on, wetting the pontoon. We turned on our stomachs and lapped up the moisture, but the paint came off, with salt, and nauseated us. Our limbs grew numb. From time to time thewreckage from torpedoed ships would pass. Two full biscuit-tins came close enough to swim for, but by then in our weakened state we knew that we would drown if we tried to get them. We did haul in a third tin and broke it open; it was filled with tobacco.
"Every day we saw convoys in the distance and vainly waved our handkerchiefs. We had no signal-lights to use at night. Our watches stopped, and we lost all track of time. We realized how easy it was for a submarine out there to escape being spotted. On Sunday night we spied a masthead light and shouted. The ship heard and began to circle us. We saw her port light. Then when the crew were visible on the deck of the vessel, she suddenly put out her lights and turned away.
"'She thinks we are Huns,' said Moore.
"'I hope she does,' said I. 'Then they'll send patrol-boats out to get us. 'We couldn't be worse off if we were Germans.'
"But no rescue came. The next afternoon a seaplane came from the east. It was flying only 800 feet overhead, aiming down the Channel. It seemed impossible that she could notsight us for the air was perfectly clear. She passed straight above without making any signal, flew two miles beyond, and then came back on her course.
"'Her observer must be sending wireless about us,' I said.
"'Yes, that is why we get no recognition,' said Moore, 'and now she's decided to go back and report.'
"But that plane hadn't even seen us. Our spirits fell. We had been afraid of two things, being picked up by a neutral and interned, or captured by an enemy submarine. Now we even hoped that the enemy—that anything—-would get us, to end it all.
"We sighted a trawler about 6 P.M. on Tuesday. She had been chasing a submarine, and so did not seem to take us very seriously at first. We waved at her half an hour before she changed her course. We were both too weak to stand up and signal. We could only rise on our knees. Moore's hands were too swollen to hold a handkerchief, but I had kept my gloves on and was able to do so. The trawler moved warily around us, but finally threw a life-preserverat the end of a line, I yelled that we were too weak to grasp it. She finally hove to, lowered a boat, and lifted us aboard. Then we collapsed.
"I remember asking for a drink and getting water. The skipper would let us take only sips, but he left a bottle alongside me and I drained it. He gave us biscuits, but we couldn't chew or swallow them. We felt no pain until our clothing was ripped off and blood rushed into our swollen legs and arms. Moore lost six toes from gangrene in the hospital. My feet turned black, but decay did not set in."
When the pigeon released by Stone and Moore returned to the base every machine from that seaplane-station, as well as from a station on the French coast, was sent out to search for the missing seaplane, while destroyers and patrol-vessels were notified to be on the lookout. Which shows, after all, how difficult the job of detecting such small objects as submarines is. Stone had enlisted as a seaman, and was trained in aviation. On December 11, 1917, he was detached from the air-station at Hampton Roads and ordered to France for duty, arrivingthere January 21, 1918. In February he was ordered to report to the commander of the United States naval forces at London for patrol duty in England.
Which shows the way the Navy Department worked in with the French and British Admiralties, using either our own planes or those of our allies.
When the navy's plans concerning the American Naval Flying Corps are completed, it will have an air service of fully 125,000 men, of which 10,000 will be aviators. There will be 10 ground men for every aviator. Observers, inspectors and specialists of various sorts will fill out the total. These seaplanes are of immense value in the war zones. They leave bases for regular patrol duty, watching the ocean carefully, and locating submersibles at a great height. Once a submarine is thus located the seaplane descends to the surface and notifies vessels of the patrol-fleet of the location of the craft, or in cases when the undersea craft is on or near the surface, the aviator will drop bombs upon the vessel. Seaplanes are also sent from the decks of naval vessels to scoutthe waters through which a fleet may be travelling, while large vessels serving as parent-ships for the smaller seaplanes—from which they fly and to which they return—ply the infested waters. The service is a valuable one, and a thrilling one, and only the best types of men were selected by the Navy Department to engage in it.
In 1917 Congress appropriated $67,733,000 for aviation for the navy, a sum which permitted the department to proceed on an extensive scale. And right here it may be said that the navy has fared much better than the army in the progressive development of air service. Within a year the flying personnel of the navy had grown to be twenty times greater than it was when we went to war, and where a year ago we had one training-school, we now have forty naval aviation-schools.
The navy has not only strained every nerve to turn out aviators and to produce airplanes, but the development of improved types of planes has not been overlooked, and we now have abroad several fine types of seaplane as well as airplane. The seaplane is merely an airplanewith pontoons, It starts from the ground or from the deck of a vessel.
Then there is the flying-boat, developed under naval auspices. This boat takes wing from the water, and is regarded as the most desirable form of aircraft for sea purposes. It is a triumphant instance of our ingenuity, and is built in two sizes, both effective under the peculiar conditions which may dictate the use either of one or the other. The navy has also developed a catapult arrangement for launching seaplanes from the decks of war-ships. This is a moving wooden platform, carrying the seaplane, which runs along a track over the ship's deck. The platform drops into the sea, and the seaplane proceeds on its course through the air.
Aviation StationCopyright by Committee on Public Information. Scene at an aviation station somewhere in America, showing fifteen seaplanes on beach departing and arriving.
The progress of the navy was so great in arranging for the home coast-defense aerial service that Secretary Daniels agreed to establish air coast-patrol stations in Europe, and it was not long before our naval aviators were rendering signal service both along the French and the British coasts. There is the understanding that the United States has alreadytaken the lead in naval aviation, not in quantity, to be sure, but in quality and efficiency, as to which the presence of foreign experts studying our new improvements may be regarded as confirmatory evidence.
The Navy Department now has an aircraft factory of its own at Philadelphia, and there flying-boats are now being turned out. Also, five private plants throughout the country are working on navy aircraft exclusively.
The Aircraft Board, which succeeded the Aircraft Production Board, is made up in three parts: a third from the navy, a third from the army, and a third civilian. This board is under the joint direction of the Secretaries of War and the Navy.
The naval flying-schools are located at Pensacola, Fla., Miami, Fla., Hampton Roads, Va., Bay Shore, L.I., and San Diego, Cal. Some of the aviators are drawn from the regular naval forces, but the great majority are of the reserves, young men from civil life, college men and the like, who have the physical qualifications and the nerve to fly and fight above tumultuous waters.
The men training in the naval aviation-schools are enrolled as Second Class Seamen in the Coast Defense Reserve. Their status is similar to that of the midshipmen at Annapolis. Surviving the arduous course of training, they receive commissions as ensigns; if they do not survive they are honorably discharged, being free, of course, to enlist in other branches of service. The courses last about six months, the first period of study being in a ground school, where the cadets study navigation, rigging, gunnery, and other technical naval subjects. Thence the pupil goes to a flight-school, where he learns to pilot a machine. Here, if he comes through, the young cadet is commissioned as an ensign. All pilots in the Naval Reserve Flying Corps hold commissions, but not all of the pilots in the regular navy are commissioned officers, a few rating as chief petty officers.
The men who act as observers—who accompany the pilots on their trips, taking photographs, dropping bombs and the like—are not commissioned. They are selected from men already in the service, regular seamen, marines, reserves, or volunteers. Of course, these menhave their opportunities of becoming pilots. The United States seaplanes carry extremely destructive weapons, which will not be described until after the war. The Germans, it may be assumed, know something about them.
The spirit of our naval pilots, both students and qualified graduates, is of the highest, and foreign naval officers have been quick to express their appreciation of their services. When Ensign Curtis Read was shot down in February, 1918, while flying over the French coast, his funeral was attended by many British army and navy officers, and by representatives of both branches of the French service. Besides the company of American sailors there were squads of French and British seamen, who marched in honor of the young officer. The city of Dunkirk presented a beautiful wreath of flowers.
"Nothing," wrote Ensign Artemus Gates, captain-elect of Yale's 1917 football eleven, and a comrade of Read's in France, to the young officer's mother, "could be more impressive than to see a French general, an admiral,British staff-officers, and many other officers of the two nations paying homage."
The death of Ensign Stephen Potter, who was killed in a battle with seven German airplanes in the North Sea on April 25, 1918, followed a glorious fight which will live in our naval annals. Potter was the first of our naval pilots to bring down a German airplane, and indeed may have been the first American, fighting under the United States flag, to do this. His triumph was attained on March 19, 1918. Between that time and his death he had engaged in several fights against German airmen, causing them to flee.
And in this country our course of training has been marked by many notable examples of heroism and devotion, none more so than the act of Ensign Walker Weed, who, after his plane had fallen in flames at Cape May, N.J., and he had got loose from his seat and was safe, returned to the burning machine and worked amid the flames until he had rescued a cadet who was pinned in the wreckage. It cost Weed his life, and the man he rescued died after lingering some days; but the act is none theless glorious because the gallant young officer gave his life in vain.
Related to the aviation service, to the extent at least that they observe from an aerial post, are the balloon men of the navy, officers who go aloft with great gas-bags, which, when not in use, are carried on the decks of the larger war-ships engaged in work. From the baskets of these sausage-shaped balloons the observers, armed with telescopes and binoculars, the ocean and the ships of the convoy lying like a map below, sweep the surface of the water for lurking submarines and enemy raiders. The balloons are attached to the war-ships, and are towed along through the air. Just how effective this expedient is, is known only to the Navy Department, but the fact that it is retained argues for its usefulness.
Convoyed merchant vessels steam in a wedge or V-shaped formation. At the apex is a destroyer, following which is an armored cruiser of theColoradoorTennesseetype. Astern of the cruiser is another destroyer, which tows the captive balloon at the end of a very light but strong steel wire. This balloon-towing destroyerreally forms the point of the wedge formation. Behind it are placed the two diverging lines of merchant ships, which follow one another, not bow to stern, but in a sort of echelon position. Down through the centre of the wedge is a line of armed trawlers, while armed vessels steam outside the V. Somewhat astern of the convoy is another destroyer, which tows another captive balloon. As a final means of protection, destroyers fly about on each wing of The convoy.
Organization Of The Naval Reserve Classes—Taking Over of Yachts For Naval Service—Work Among The Reserves Stationed at Various Naval Centres—Walter Camp's Achievement
In expanding the navy to meet war conditions, the regular personnel was increased, naval militia units of various States were taken into the service under the classification National Naval Volunteers, and volunteers were accepted in the following classes:Fleet Naval Reserve, made up of those who had received naval training and had volunteered for four years.Naval Auxiliary Reserve, made up of seafaring men who had had experience on merchant ships.Naval Coast Defense Reserve, made up of citizens of the United States whose technical and practical education made them fitted for navy-yard work, patrol, and the like.Volunteer Naval Reserve, made up of men who had volunteered, bringing into service their own boats. And finally, theNaval Reserve Flying Corps.
It is from these classes that have come the men to put our navy on a war footing; for while the reserve classifications brought thousands and hundreds of thousands of men into the service, the permanent enlisted strength was kept at the specified figure, 87,000, until last June, when Congress increased the allowance to 131,485. This action was regarded as one of the most important taken since the country entered the war, inasmuch as it gave notice to the world that the United States in the future intends to have a fleet that will measure up to her prominent position in the world's affairs. It means, too, that the number of commissioned officers would be increased from 3,700, as at present arranged, to some 5,500, which will no doubt mean an opportunity for officers who are now in war service in the various reserve organizations.
When we entered the war, a decision to send a number of our destroyers to France imposed upon the Navy Department the necessity of protecting our own coast from possible submarine attack. We had retained destroyers in this country, of course, and our battle andcruiser fleet was here; but a large number of mosquito craft, submarine-chasers, patrol-boats, and the like were urgently demanded. Several hundred fine yachts were offered to the Navy Department under various conditions, and in the Third (New York) District alone some 350 pleasure craft adapted for conversion into war-vessels, were taken over. Some of these were sent overseas to join the patrol-fleet, more were kept here. Besides being used for patrol-work, yachts were wanted for mine-sweepers, harbor patrol-boats, despatch-boats, mine-layers, and parent-ships. They were and are manned almost exclusively by the Naval Reserves, and operated along the Atlantic coast under the direction of officers commanding the following districts: First Naval District, Boston; Second Naval District, Newport, R.I.; Third Naval District, New York City; Fourth Naval District, Philadelphia; Fifth Naval District, Norfolk, Va.
Hundreds of sailors, fishermen, seafaring men generally, and yachtsmen joined the Naval Coast Defense Reserve, which proved to be an extremely popular branch of the service withcollege men. Most of the reserves of this class—there were nearly 40,000 of them—were required for the coast-patrol fleet, and they had enlisted for service in home waters. But when the need for oversea service arose the reserves made no objection at all to manning transports and doing duty on patrol, mine-laying, mine-sweeping, and other craft engaged in duty in the war zone.
In the course of taking over yachts by the Navy Department, Franklin D. Roosevelt, who has been so efficient and untiring in his capacity as Assistant Secretary of the Navy, charged that yachtsmen were not helping the government, and were holding their craft for high prices. Probably this was the case in enough instances to make Mr. Roosevelt impatient, but it would seem that the large body of yacht-owners did their best, not only donating their yachts to the government or selling them at a fair price, but by themselves enlisting in the service.
There were yachtsmen who, in addition to giving their boats, defrayed the cost of maintenance. Great craft such as G. W. C. Drexel'sAlcedo(already noted as sunk by a torpedo),A. Curtiss James'sAloha, J. C. and A. N. Brady'sAtlantic, A. C. Burrage'sAztec, I. T. Bush'sChristabel, H. A. Loughlin'sCorona, J. P. Morgan'sCorsair, Robert T. Graves'sEmeline, E. P. and J. W. Alker'sFlorence, Edgar Palmer'sGuinevere, George F. Baker, Jr.'sWacouta, W. L. Harkness'sCythera, Robert Goelet'sNahma, J. G. Bennett'sLysistrata, John Borden'sKanawha, Henry Walter'sNarada, Howard Gould'sNiagara, Horace G. Dodge'sNokomis, Vincent Astor'sNoma, Mrs. E. H. Harriman'sSultana, Morton F. Plant'sVanadis, P. W. Rouss'sWinchester, Aphrodite, the O. H. Payne estate; F. G. Bourne'sAlberta, and Edward Harkness'sWakiva—these great yachts among other steam-driven palaces, passed into the hands of the Navy Department in one way or another, and have performed valiant service. Some of them, indeed, have ended their careers violently in service.
The government ripped out the costly interiors and converted these panelled floating abodes of the wealthy into serviceable fighters, and no doubt will retain those that survive when the war is ended. There were instances where theowners of yachts and the Navy Department could not agree on prices to be paid. The naval authorities finally suggested that the owners should name one representative, and the Navy Department another, and terms thus agreed upon. It was not, however, until the Department appointed a special board, whose duty was to secure suitable boats without further delay, that affairs began to proceed smoothly. The first move was to have the International Mercantile Marine Company's shipping experts act as agents of the special board, and from that time on there was no further trouble.
The Mercantile Marine experts not only brought about the transfer of yachts to the navy, but superintended alterations above and below deck, arming, outfitting, coaling, painting, and provisioning the converted war-ships. While this was in progress the Navy Department was having built a fleet of submarine-chasers of the 110-foot class, which, together with the yachts taken over, offered abundant opportunities for oversea service, which the sailors enrolled in the Coast Defense Division were not slow to accept after they were requestedto transfer their enrollment from Class 4 to Class 2, under which classification they were eligible to be sent abroad. Thus thousands of young men who had enlisted for coast-patrol duty, were sent aboard transports, submarine-chasers, and war-ships generally, for service in the European war zones.
And with this constant outflow of trained men from the various naval training-stations of the country, the influx of newly enlisted reserves into these schools gives assurance that the Navy Department will never be embarrassed for lack of material wherewith to man its boats. And there is the likelihood that as our new merchant vessels are launched and put into commission, they will be manned by reserves from the navy training-schools with officers furnished by the Deck School at Pelham Bay and the Engineers' School at Hoboken. The government, of course, is in complete control of the merchant marine; but in our present condition many American ships have to be manned by aliens. It will be surprising if this state of affairs will not be corrected as swiftly as the Navy Department is able to do so, and thus wemay expect to see our young seamen diverted in ever-increasing numbers to merchant vessels, the precise degree, of course, to be dependent upon the needs of the fighting vessels. Young officers, no doubt, will receive commands, and in general a thriving mercantile marine will be in readiness for operation when war ends.
Our naval training-stations are models of businesslike precision and well-ordered proficiency. Herein are taught everything from bread-baking and cooking to engineering, gunnery, and other maritime accomplishments. Long before we had entered the war a determination had been reached by individuals and organizations external to the Navy—and Army—Departments, to bring to the naval stations as many and as complete comforts and conveniences of civilization as possible.
Almost immediately after the American declaration of war, the purposes of the authors of this scheme were presented to Congress, and permission for them to carry out their mission was given through the formation of the sister commissions, the Army and the Navy Commissions on Training Camp Activities.
Although entirely separate in their work—one dealing entirely with the men in the army, the other with those in the navy camps—the same authority on organized humanitarian effort, Raymond B. Fosdick of New York City, one of the original group with whom the plan originated, was chosen chairman of both. Each commission's work was divided among departments or subcommissions.
In the Navy Commission, one group, the Library Department, supplied the enlisted men of the navy stations, as far as possible, with books, another with lectures, another with music, vocal and instrumental, another with theatrical entertainments, including moving-pictures, and another subcommission directed the recreational sport.
Mr. Walter Camp, for thirty years the moving spirit, organizer, adviser, and athletic strategist of Yale, was chosen chairman of the Athletic Department, with the title General Commissioner of Athletics for the United States Navy.
Taking up his task in midsummer, 1917, three months after declaration of war by the United States, Mr. Camp at once brought hisability, experience, and versatility into play in organizing recreational sport in the navy stations. By this time every naval district was fast filling with its quota of enlisted men, and the plan of the Navy Department to place an even hundred thousand men in the stations before the close of the year was well along toward completion.
Swept from college, counting-room, professional office, and factory, often from homes of luxury and elegance, to the naval stations, where, in many cases arrangements to house them were far from complete, the young men of the navy found themselves surrounded by conditions to which they pluckily and patiently reconciled themselves, but which could not do otherwise than provoke restlessness and discomfort.