While construction was under way, the Navy had been selecting and training the personnel, 30 officers and 500 men, required to man and operate the batteries. Men were carefully chosen—some 20,000 volunteered for this detail—and were given an intensive course of training.
The approximate cost of the five mounts, locomotives, cars, spare parts and ammunition was $3,337,970.
As other artillery could accomplish with less expenditure of ammunition and expense the results desired at the shorter ranges the naval guns were used entirely for strategical purposes and were fired at ranges between 30,000 and 40,000 yards, shelling objectives that less powerful guns could not reach. The ammunition supply which was gauged by the estimated "life" of the gun—that is, the number of times it could fire with accuracy—consisted of 300 rounds for each gun, and this quantity proved adequate. Battery No. 3 made a record for guns of this size in firing 236 rounds without serious deterioration.
From beginning to end, this entire enterprise was so well planned and carried out, that we may well consider it one of the most successful operations in which the Navy ever engaged.
CHAPTER XX
THE NAVY THAT FLIES
NAVAL AVIATION WATCHED OVER SHIPS AND SEARCHED THE SEAS—FIRST OF U. S. ARMED FORCES TO LAND IN FRANCE—FOUGHT ENEMY AIRCRAFT FROM HELIGOLAND TO POLA—ATTACKED U-BOAT BASES IN BELGIUM—NAVAL AVIATORS, IN TRAINING AND SERVICE, FLEW FIFTEEN MILLION MILES.
The first of the armed forces of the United States to land in France were naval aviators—seven officers and 123 men, under command of Lieutenant Kenneth W. Whiting. One group, sailing on the Neptune, arrived June 5, 1917, at Pauillac, the port from which Lafayette sailed for America to join the struggling colonists in their war for independence. The other, on the Jupiter, reached St. Nazaire June 9, sailing through the very waters in which John Paul Jones operated in the Revolution. Eight miles up the river Loire lies Paimboeuf, where Jones in the Ranger arrived November 30, 1777. Fifteen miles away is Quiberon Bay, where the French, February 14, 1778, fired the first foreign salute to the American flag.
Naval aviation stations were erected at both Pauillac, which is on the Gironde river near Bordeaux, and at Paimboeuf, so the operations of America's flying navy in the World War were over the very waters where the name and fame of the first American navy were established 140 years before.