When, a few days later, he visited Washington, the Archbishop told me that the outstanding thing he had seen in America was the Great Lakes Training Station. "If I had not seen it," he said, "I could not have believed it possible that such a training camp for seamen could be conducted a thousand miles from the ocean."
Like expressions came from members of the various missions and naval officers who came to the United States. That station, situated in the heart of the country, far from the ocean, trained and sent into the navy during the war over one hundred thousand men. It was the vitalizing spirit of the Navy in the Middle West; a center of the patriotic inspiration which swept like a prairie fire and brought young men into the Navy more rapidly than we could house them. Two thousand five hundred enlisted men were under training there when war was declared and in that month 9,027 recruits were received. But Great Lakes never was swamped. No matter what strain was put upon it, the authorities were equal to any emergency.
Between April 6, 1917, and March 11, 1919, 125,000 men were received; 96,779 trained and sent to sea duty, and 17,356 graduated at its special schools. The camp grew to 1,200 acres, with 775 buildings. Nine great drill halls were built in which thousands could maneuver in regimental formation. But bigger than the number of men enrolled or the buildings erected or the great schools conducted was the spirit of the place. From the inspiring leadership of Captain Moffett, who was a genius at organization, to the youngest boy fitted out in naval uniform, pride in the station and the naval service was so contagious that it reached back into the homes from which the youths had come and stirred the whole Middle West with enthusiasm for the Navy.
In the early days of the war, Captain Moffett, who had come to Washington to discuss plans for enlarging the station, said to me: "Mr. Secretary, I have here a requisition for $40,000 for instruments for the Great Lakes band."
It had not been very long since $40,000 was the entire appropriation for the station. The captain's request seemed to me like extravagance.
"Do you expect to win the war, as the Israelites did?" I asked, "by surrounding Berlin and expecting the walls to fall as every man in your band blows his trumpet?"
I demurred at first, but he pleaded for it with such eloquence that I signed the requisition. This enabled John Philip Sousa, enrolled as a lieutenant in the Reserve Force, to train fifteen hundred musicians, the largest band in the world. Bands were not only sent to ships and stations overseas, but toured the country, giving the greatest impetus to the Liberty Loan campaigns. These bands were an inspiration to the entire service. I found later that a British commission had reported that only three things were more important than music. These were food, clothing and shelter.
The three other great permanent training stations, Hampton Roads, Va., Newport, R. I., and San Francisco, were animated by the same spirit as Great Lakes. Their officers and men vied with each other in efficient training of recruits. The same was true of the temporary stations along the coast which came into being to give quarters and instruction to youths who enlisted so rapidly that provision had to be made for them at every available point.
Approximately 500,000 men and 33,000 officers were in the Navy when hostilities ended, and nearly nine-tenths of them had been trained after war was declared. Naval administration did not wait until hostilities began to increase its force. Recruiting was pressed in the closing months of 1916, immediately after Congress authorized a substantial increase, and 8,000 men were enlisted. In January 1917, enlistments went up to 3,512, and there was a larger increase the next month. In March, when the President signed the order raising the Navy to emergency strength—87,000 regulars, plus 10,000 apprentice seamen, and hospital attendants and others, a total of 97,000—we began a vigorous campaign that covered the entire country. When war was declared there were in the Navy 64,680 enlisted men and 4,376 officers, commissioned and warrant. Some 12,000 reserves had been enrolled, the 10,000 Naval Militia were mustered into service and 590 officers and 3,478 men of the Coast Guard were placed under the Navy. This gave us a total force of approximately 95,000.
Within little more than a month after war was declared there were 100,000 regulars, and by June 1st the total force had grown to 170,000. By January 1, 1918, there were 300,000 officers and men on the rolls, including reserves and the Coast Guard. By August we had passed the half-million mark, and when the armistice was signed there was a naval personnel of approximately 533,000. The actual figures of the Bureau of Navigation for November 11, 1918, were 531,198, and for December 1, 532,931. But practically all those shown in the latter report had been enlisted before hostilities had ended. Figures of various branches varied slightly before and after the armistice, but there were in the naval service at its maximum: