Another larger type of chaser, corresponding to the destroyer, is the patrol-boat of the Eagle class built at the plant of Henry Ford in Detroit.
The most recent battleships laid down by the navy are the largest ever attempted. The biggest British battleship of which we have knowledge displaces 27,500 tons; the largest German, 28,448 metric tons (28,000 American tons), while the largest Japanese battleship displaces 30,600 tons. These may be compared with our Arizona and Pennsylvania, 31,400 tons; Idaho, Mississippi, and New Mexico, 32,000 tons; California and Tennessee 32,300 tons, Colorado, Washington, Maryland, and West Virginia, 32,600 tons, while six new battleships authorized early in the present year are designed to be 41,500 tons. Our new battle-cruisers of 35,000 tons and 35 knots speed will be the swiftest in the world, having a speed equal to the latest and fastest destroyers. They will also be the largest in the world with the exception of the four British battle-cruisers of the Hood class, which are 41,200 tons.
On April 1, 1917, the total number of civilian employees in the nine principal navy-yards was 29,708. On March 1, 1918, the total number of employees in the same yards was 58,026. The total number of mechanics now employed at all navy yards and stations throughout the country is more than 66,000.
The Navy Powder Factory at Indianapolis, Ind., manufactures powder of the highest grade for use in the big guns; it employs 1,000 men and covers a square mile. Additional buildings and machinery, together with a new generating-plant, are now being installed. The torpedo-station at Newport, a large plant where torpedoes are manufactured, has been greatly enlarged and its facilities in the way of production radically increased. Numerous ammunition-plants throughout the country prepare the powder charge, load and fuse the shell, handle high explosives, and ship the ammunition to vessels in the naval service. Among recent additions to facilities is an automatic mine-loading plant of great capacity and new design.
Schools of various sorts, ranging from those devoted to the teaching of wireless telegraphy to cooking, were established in various parts of the country, and from them a constant grist of highly specialized men are being sent to the ships and to stations.
In these, and in numerous ways not here mentioned, the Navy Department signalized its entrance into the war. While many new fields had to be entered—with sequential results in way of mistakes and delays—there were more fields, all important, wherein constructive preparation before we entered the war were revealed when the time came to look for practical results.
CHAPTER III
First Hostile Contact Between the Navy and the Germans—Armed Guards on Merchant Vessels—"Campana" First to Sail—Daniels Refuses Offer of Money Awards to Men Who Sink Submarines—"Mongolia" Shows Germany How the Yankee Sailorman Bites—Fight of the "Silvershell"—Heroism of Gunners on Merchant Ships—Sinking of the "Antilles"—Experiences of Voyagers
In the way of direct hostile contact between the Navy Department and Germany we find the first steps taken in the placing of armed naval-guards on American merchantmen. While this was authorized by the government before war was declared, it was recognized as a step that would almost inevitably lead to our taking our part in the European conflict and the nation, as a consequence, prepared its mind for such an outcome of our new sea policy. Germany had announced her policy of unrestricted submarine warfare in February, 1917, and on February 10 of that month two American steamships, the Orleans and the Rochester, left port for France in defiance of the German warning. Both vessels were unarmed and both arrived safely on the other side—the Rochester was subsequently sunk—but their sailing without any means of defense against attack aroused the nation and spurred Congress to action.