surrender to Great Britain of all German submarines, November 20; therefore, a number of them, one column led by U-155, the old Deutschland, and the other by the U-152 with her former prisoners, Lieutenants F. L. Muller and J. H. Fulcher of the United States Navy on board, set off for Harwich.

Since April, 1917, our navy which then consisted of three hundred and forty-four vessels fit for service and sixty-eight thousand officers and men had been increased to two thousand vessels of all sorts and more than five hundred and forty thousand officers and men. The Marines numbered nearly seventy-three thousand and the Coast Guard more than six thousand officers and men. Vessels of the navy had been in the White Sea, on the Moravian coast, in the North Sea, off the British Islands, in the Mediterranean, in the Adriatic, in the Caribbean Sea, off South America, had covered the Atlantic and had been on the Pacific from our own coast to Vladivostok. The little fleet of destroyers, which twenty-eight days after the declaration of war reached Queenstown under Admiral Sims, had been added to until he now commanded more than three hundred vessels of all sorts and more than seventy-five thousand men.

Six battleships under Rear Admiral Rodman crossed in December, 1917, and became part of a division of the British Grand Fleet. Others under Rear Admiral Rodgers had their base at Berehaven, on the coast of Ireland. Vice Admiral Wilson at Brest commanded the American forces on the French coast; Rear Admiral Niblack at Gibraltar commanded our vessels in the Mediterranean; and Rear Admiral Dunn was in charge of our naval base in the Azores. Naval air stations were established on the coasts of England and Ireland and in France from the Spanish border to the Channel at out of the way places and on uninhabited islands and the whole line covered by seaplanes and dirigibles. Naval aviators bombed the German submarine bases at Ostend and Zeebrugge, and fought enemy seaplanes over Heligoland Bight.

No piece of work done by the navy during the war surpasses the laying of the mine barrage from the Orkneys to Norway,

across two hundred and thirty miles of the North Sea. Suggested by Rear Admiral Earle in the early days of the war, the plan was carried out in 1918. One hundred thousand mines of a new type were made; a fleet of mine layers and transporters was built and manned; bases were established in Scotland at Inverness and Invergordon, and Rear Admiral Strauss placed in charge. Of seventy-thousand two hundred mines used more than fifty-six thousand six hundred were laid by our Navy. The transportation of more than two-million men with the loss of but a few hundred, and the transportation of supplies to the army and navy overseas with the loss of but a few cargo-carrying ships was another well-done task and greatly to the credit of the navy. During the height of the movement of troops and supplies in July and August, 1918, American destroyers convoyed into French ports two hundred and sixty thousand troops, and furnished three-fourths of the escorts for more than three hundred vessels to British ports, steaming nearly sixteen thousand hours and covering two hundred and sixty thousand miles.

Concerning the work of the battleships, Rear Admiral Rodman said, "In our operations in the North Sea we were frequently attacked by submarines, and our battleships had numerous escapes, often only by prompt and skillful handling. On one occasion a submarine rammed the flagship New York, dented the bottom and demolished the starboard propeller. But there is every reason to believe that the blows from the propeller sank the submarine. En route to drydock to make repairs and instal a new propeller three torpedoes in rapid succession were fired at her by hostile submarines, but again she avoided them by clever maneuvering and escaped." On another occasion, off the Norway coast in midwinter, six torpedoes were fired at her; but again she escaped them. In April, 1918, when the Italians destroyed the Austrian naval base at Durazzo, American submarine chasers took part in the bombardment, sank one submarine and, it was said, probably damaged another.

CHAPTER II

WAR WORK AT HOME

LONG before the submarine had finished its work of destruction, in June, one of the many effects of its depredations was clearly shown in the eagerness of young men to help win the war. Day after day enlistment stations were crowded with men seeking service in the army, the navy, the merchant marine. None of draft age were accepted for the army; yet each day in the great cities scores of men under 21 or over 31 joined the colors. No such restriction applied to the navy, or to the marines, and in these branches of the service hundreds enlisted. Reports from the Sea Service Bureau showed that even the Merchant Marine had felt the good effects of the German challenge to merchant shipping, and that all previous records of enlistments had been broken during the first week in June. "The enemy is at our gates," one applicant was reported to have said, "and it is up to us to hit back." To these volunteers were now added all men who came of age between June 5, 1917, and midnight of June 4, 1918, for they had been summoned to appear, June 5, before their respective boards and register. On the eve of registration Provost. Marshal General Crowder addressed to them a message.

On the 5th of June, 1917, just one year ago to-morrow, occurred one of the most memorable events in the history of democratic institutions.

On that day 10,000,000 self-governed young Americans marched quietly to the polls, and in a voice that was heard around the world, registered their invincible determination to preserve for themselves, and their posterity, the blessings of the liberty with which they have been so richly endowed.

A year has passed. Many of these men are now on the battlefields

of France, and on to-morrow, the 5th of June, that voice will have found its echo when 1,000,000 more will rally to their support.

The nation is engaged in a struggle for its existence. Our activities have been diverted from the normal peacetime channels, and the energy of those who remain at home is being directed more closely, every day, toward the accomplishment of the things upon which our armies must depend, and without which success is impossible.

Every American must do his duty in this great crisis, even though he remains at home. Those who are of such an age, and condition in life, that they may, without detriment to the economic support of the army, actively oppose themselves against our enemy on the European battlefields, are indeed privileged.

Most of the men who register to-morrow will be so classified, and I have no hesitancy in predicting that their services will win for them the undying affection of a proud and grateful nation.

At least 1,011,598 men, it was expected by the Census Bureau, would register; but when returns from the eight and forty States and the District of Columbia were received the number was found to be 744,868, or 266,724 short of the estimate of the Census Bureau. But the number of men, twenty-one years old, who, during the year, enlisted in the army, navy, and marine corps was 208,588, and when to these was added the number of aliens who need not register, the figures rose to 998,551, or but 13,000 below the Census Bureau estimate.

June 27 was the day fixed for the draft, which was conducted in the same manner as the great one of 1917. The place was again a room in the Senate Building, where, in the same glass jar used the year before, were deposited 1200 master numbers concealed in black capsules. As each was drawn from the bowl it was broken by an attendant, the number announced and verified by two men, and then written on tally sheets, and on a blackboard of which, in time, a photograph was taken and kept as a record.

Since the great registration of June, 1917, a new system of classification of registrants had gone into effect. In November a questionnaire had been sent out, and in accordance with his sworn answer each registrant had been placed in one of five

classes. The effect of classification in Class I was to make him liable to be called for service at an early day, for in it were included single men without dependent relatives; married men who habitually failed to support their families; married men dependent on their wives for support; married men supported by income independent of labor; unskilled farm laborers; unskilled industrial laborers; and registrants who did not claim deferred classification, or did not answer the questionnaire, or were not included in any other class. Classification in Class II granted the draftee temporary discharge from draft until Class I, in the jurisdiction of his Local Board, was exhausted. Class III became liable only when Classes I and II, in the jurisdiction of their Local Boards, were exhausted, and Class IV when Classes I, II and III were spent. Classification in Class V was equivalent to exemption, or discharge from draft, and in it were included, legislative, executive and judicial officers of the United States, the States, the territories, and the District of Columbia; ministers of religion; students of theology on May 18, 1917; all in military, or naval service of the United States; alien enemies; resident aliens claiming exemp tion; all permanently physically unfit for military service; all morally unfit to be a soldier of the United States, and pilots actually engaged in their vocation.

Nearly every man drawn on June 5, 1918, was able bodied, unmarried, without dependents and not engaged in an essential industry. It was announced, therefore, that they would be placed at the bottom of Class I, now almost exhausted. Day after day thousands of the old registrants were moving into the cantonments to take the place of those already sent across the sea.

That men in Class I should be trained to fight, while those in the deferred class should be free to follow occupations which counted for nothing in our effort to win the war, seemed neither just, nor good policy. Provost Marshal Crowder, therefore, with the approval of the President and the Secretary of War, issued what was popularly known as his "work or fight" order,