officers. The merchant marine was so small at the beginning of the war that it could furnish to the navy few officers qualified for the duties of the bridge and engine-room. Fortunately there were in the country thousands of young men who had had experience in operating small boats of all kinds, and others whose training at our technical schools had given a sound basis for education in the special branches of naval work. They went to the classes at the Naval Academy and to officers' schools in the camps, and in a year of intensive training fitted themselves for commissions in the reserve and for service at sea. Certain vessels have been used as schools in gunnery and engineering, and through them hundreds of young men have been passing to active duty on our war-ships, and as armed guards on our merchantmen. The task of arming our merchantmen has added greatly to the work of the department. Before we had declared war we were arming our merchant ships as a defense against the submarine, and short though the navy was in men, thousands of gunners and hundreds of guns had to be provided for this new service.

A special armed guard division of the navy was formed, and its work has been steadily increased by the output of new vessels, which must have this protection.

Another division that has seen a tremendous increase in personnel and equipment is the Naval Aviation Corps. A year ago this department of our naval work was not greatly developed. At the outbreak of the European War it was, in fact, but little developed in any other navy. The flying-boat, however, early proved its value, not only for scouting purposes but as a weapon against the submarine. As has been said, the first of our armed forces to land in France were naval aviators. Since that time this branch of the service has been greatly augmented. The flying sections of the regular navy, Marine and Reserve Corps now number more than 30,000 men, including flying officers, mechanics, and others. One great plant for the construction of hydroairplanes has been built, and it is turning out machines rapidly.

The foregoing facts give some idea of the vast work entailed on the Navy Department by the war. That the great increase in fighting ships.

in personnel and supplies has been secured so rapidly and smoothly speaks well for the officers who have had charge of the task. First of these is Admiral William S. Benson, Chief of Naval Operations. He is responsible for the operation of the fleet and for its preparation for battle; he has to co-ordinate every phase of naval work so as to secure the greatest effectiveness against the enemy. We have legally no general staff in the navy. The Chief of Operations and the heads of the various bureaus, meeting with the secretary, constitute a war council, which can act quickly on any important question that arises. The country has been fortunate to have, in these trying times, able men at the head of these important naval bureaus. They had a magnificent machine ready for war, and steadily they have increased its power and efficiency. The one thought of these men, long trained in the high traditions of the navy, is the good of the service, and the good of the service is the good of the country.

CHAPTER VIII

OUR NAVY IN ACTION

UR allies were hard pressed when we joined them in the war on Germany. The collapse of Russia had freed great German armies for service in the west instead of the east. The unrestricted submarine warfare was in the heyday of its success, and the steadily declining merchant tonnage was threatening disaster to Great Britain. Our own shipbuilding programme was being delayed, and month after month showed more vessels lost than built. Two things had to be done at once: the submarine had to be met in its own haunts, and fighting men sent to the front with all speed and in all possible numbers.

The most troublesome weapon which America had to combat, the cause, in fact, of our entrance into the war, was an American device. As a newspaper man, the writer watched with interest the early development of the submarine. In the fall of 1897, with the assistance

of John Holland, he wrote in the New York Evening Sun a page giving an account of the then known experiments in underwater navigation, and including prophecies of some naval men of vision as to its future development. Since then volumes have been written on the subject. If he remembers correctly, the first known experiment with a submarine was made in a Spanish harbor some two hundred years ago, and it ended disastrously for the inventor. In our Revolution, Bushnell, an American inventor, contrived a hand-propelled underwater boat, which navigated from Tarrytown to Fort George, Staten Island, and there attempted, unsuccessfully, to blow up a British war-ship with a crude bomb. A keg of powder was carried in the top of the submarine, and it was purposed to attach this to the hull of the warship by means of a screw, cast loose, and let a timed clock explode the bomb. The warship's hull so resisted the turn of the screw that the operator had to abandon the enterprise, but he got safely home. Robert Fulton devised a submarine of much the same type, and offered it to Napoleon for service against the