CHAPTER XV

Scope Of The Navy's Work In Various Particulars--Food--Fuel--Naval Consulting Board--Projectile Factory--Expenditures--Increase Of Personnel

In the way of progress in naval construction or appliance, it is not the opinion of our naval technicians that the war from its inception to the present time has developed any hitherto unknown feature. Guns and ships, to be sure, have increased in size, and details of the submarine and airplane have vastly improved these weapons of offense, but substantially no weapon hitherto known has been discredited by use in this war, and even all classes of war-ships built before the war have withstood the test of new conditions as to their usefulness along the lines for which they were originally designed.

Germany has not improved the submarine, except in detail. Undersea craft of that country which have been recently captured show little deviation from the original lines of the submarine as used in the German Navy four years ago. They are larger--the new ones, that is--but the principle of their construction is fundamental, and the development not unnatural.

Our modern submarine-chasers are merely a modified form of the torpedo-boat destroyer. The depth-bomb was known before it was employed as one of the most effective weapons against the submarine.

Naval authorities join in defending the big battleship which has come into action but little in the course of the war thus far. There is to be considered, however, the moral effect of Great Britain's big fleet, which has maintained control of the seas for four years. Similarly our American fleet is regarded as the first and decisive line of defense on our shores.

Battleships, it is true, do not figure frequently in the official communiques, but none the less they are playing their part. Battleships are absolutely a necessary and vital element to every nation at war. They constitute the last great line of defense, and in this war they have succeeded in keeping the seas practically free of enemy menace save under the water.

In this final chapter may be included various details, facts, and figures which are necessary as giving further point to the enormous scope of the war activities of the Navy Department. In 1916, then, the officers and enlisted men of the regular navy and the Marine Corps totalled 82,738. In March, 1918, the strength of the naval forces, including regular navy, marines, naval reserve force, national naval volunteers, and coast guard, was 349,997, and at this writing is more than 400,000. The total expenditures of the navy from the date of its establishment in 1794 to 1916, inclusive, were $3,367,160,591.77, only about $34,000,000 in excess of the appropriations real and pending since August 26, 1916. For the specific purposes of new construction appropriations totalling $295,000,000 have been made.

On April 1, 1917, there were building 15 battleships, 6 battle cruisers, 7 scout cruisers, 27 destroyers, 61 submarines, 2 fuel ships, 1 supply ship, 1 transport, 1 gunboat, 1 hospital ship, and 1 ammunition ship. Since that date contracts have been placed for 949 vessels, including 100 submarine-chasers for co-belligerent nations. The Board of Construction and Repair has also prepared in co-operation with the Shipping Board, a number of preliminary designs of simplified merchant vessels, varying in length from 400 to 800 feet.

In June of 1917, 180 acres of land were secured at South Charleston, W. Va., for a projectile plant, which is now in operation. An armor-plate factory will be constructed. In one plant manufacturing steel forgings the output was increased 300 per cent within two months after government managers were installed.

The expansion of the naval establishment has necessitated a great increase in facilities for the assembling, housing, and distribution of stores, and these needs have been largely met at Boston, Philadelphia, and Hampton Roads by large emergency and permanent constructions.

In the Commissary Department the effort has been to see that the naval forces continue to be what the surgeon-general has stated they are: the "best fed body of men in the world." Sailors are no poison squad, and all efforts to try upon the officers and seamen of the force any experimental or test food have been rigorously suppressed. The high cost of living has been reflected in the cost of the navy ration, but the price has been met. There were clothing shortages during the early weeks of the war, but prompt and efficient action by the Bureau of Supplies and Accounts has remedied all this.

Fuel for the navy has been handled by means of allotments placed with the principal operators in coal-producing States, the prices being fixed by the Fuel Administrator. The navy's stocks of fuel have been maintained to capacity, and shipments have been made to the fleet within the time required in all cases. Fuel oil has been obtained in similar manner at the prices fixed by the Federal Trade Commission. The Medical Department of the navy passed quietly from a peace to a war footing on April 6, 1917, and has since continued to give adequate and satisfactory service. With the completion of a hospital ship now building, the navy will have four hospital ships as against one when war began. Prior to the war there were about 375 medical officers on duty. There are to-day 1,675 medical officers in active service, and 200 more on reserve. Where 30 dental surgeons were formerly employed there are now 245. The number of female nurses has increased from 160 to 880.

The President at the outbreak of war directed the Navy Department to take over such radio-stations as might be required for naval communications, all others being closed. Fifty-three commercial radio-stations were thus taken into the Naval Communication Service. Because of duplications, twenty-eight of these stations were closed. Thousands of small amateur radio-stations were closed. At present no radio communication is permitted on United States territory (not including Alaska), except through stations operated by the Navy Communication Department or by the War Department,

With the need of operators apparent, a school for preliminary training in radio-telegraphy was established in each naval district, and when the need for a central final training-school developed, Harvard University offered the use of buildings, laboratories, and dormitories for this purpose. The offer was accepted, and now the naval-radio school at Harvard is one of the largest educational institutions in the country. There is another final training-school at Mare Island, Cal. The navy supplies the operators for the rapidly increasing number of war vessels, and has undertaken to supply radio operators for all merchant vessels in transatlantic service.

At Harvard and Mare Island the radio students are put through four months' courses, which embraces not only radio-telegraphy and allied subjects, but military training. Some 500,000 men have been undergoing courses at these two schools alone.

When war occurred the Coast Guard was transferred from the Treasury Department to the Navy Department, and the personnel now consists of 227 officers and 4,683 warrant officers and enlisted men.

In the work of examining and considering the great volume of ideas and devices and inventions submitted from the public, the Naval Consulting Board has rendered a signal service. Beginning March, 1917, the Navy Department was overwhelmed with correspondence so great that it was almost impossible to sort it. Letters, plans, and models were received at the rate of from 5 to 700 a day. Within a year upward of 60,000 letters, many including detailed plans, some accompanied by models, have been examined and acted upon. To do this work a greatly enlarged office force in the Navy Department was necessary, and offices were established in New York and San Francisco. While a comparatively small number of inventions have been adopted--some of them of considerable value--the majority has fallen into the class of having been already known, and either put into use or discarded after practical test.

And thus the Navy Department is carrying on its share of the war, a share significant at the very outset as one of our most important weapons in the establishment of the causes for which the United States entered the great conflict.