Our Navy in the War

by Lawrence Perry

The government ripped out the costly interiors and converted these panelled floating abodes of the wealthy into serviceable fighters, and no doubt will retain those that survive when the war is ended. There were instances where the owners of yachts and the Navy Department could not agree on prices to be paid. The naval authorities finally suggested that the owners should name one representative, and the Navy Department another, and terms thus agreed upon. It was not, however, until the Department appointed a special board, whose duty was to secure suitable boats without further delay, that affairs began to proceed smoothly. The first move was to have the International Mercantile Marine Company's shipping experts act as agents of the special board, and from that time on there was no further trouble.

The Mercantile Marine experts not only brought about the transfer of yachts to the navy, but superintended alterations above and below deck, arming, outfitting, coaling, painting, and provisioning the converted war-ships. While this was in progress the Navy Department was having built a fleet of submarine-chasers of the 110-foot class, which, together with the yachts taken over, offered abundant opportunities for oversea service, which the sailors enrolled in the Coast Defense Division were not slow to accept after they were requested to transfer their enrollment from Class 4 to Class 2, under which classification they were eligible to be sent abroad. Thus thousands of young men who had enlisted for coast-patrol duty, were sent aboard transports, submarine-chasers, and war-ships generally, for service in the European war zones.

And with this constant outflow of trained men from the various naval training-stations of the country, the influx of newly enlisted reserves into these schools gives assurance that the Navy Department will never be embarrassed for lack of material wherewith to man its boats. And there is the likelihood that as our new merchant vessels are launched and put into commission, they will be manned by reserves from the navy training-schools with officers furnished by the Deck School at Pelham Bay and the Engineers' School at Hoboken. The government, of course, is in complete control of the merchant marine; but in our present condition many American ships have to be manned by aliens. It will be surprising if this state of affairs will not be corrected as swiftly as the Navy Department is able to do so, and thus we may expect to see our young seamen diverted in ever-increasing numbers to merchant vessels, the precise degree, of course, to be dependent upon the needs of the fighting vessels. Young officers, no doubt, will receive commands, and in general a thriving mercantile marine will be in readiness for operation when war ends.

Our naval training-stations are models of businesslike precision and well-ordered proficiency. Herein are taught everything from bread-baking and cooking to engineering, gunnery, and other maritime accomplishments. Long before we had entered the war a determination had been reached by individuals and organizations external to the Navy—and Army—Departments, to bring to the naval stations as many and as complete comforts and conveniences of civilization as possible.

Almost immediately after the American declaration of war, the purposes of the authors of this scheme were presented to Congress, and permission for them to carry out their mission was given through the formation of the sister commissions, the Army and the Navy Commissions on Training Camp Activities.

Although entirely separate in their work—one dealing entirely with the men in the army, the other with those in the navy camps—the same authority on organized humanitarian effort, Raymond B. Fosdick of New York City, one of the original group with whom the plan originated, was chosen chairman of both. Each commission's work was divided among departments or subcommissions.

In the Navy Commission, one group, the Library Department, supplied the enlisted men of the navy stations, as far as possible, with books, another with lectures, another with music, vocal and instrumental, another with theatrical entertainments, including moving-pictures, and another subcommission directed the recreational sport.

Mr. Walter Camp, for thirty years the moving spirit, organizer, adviser, and athletic strategist of Yale, was chosen chairman of the Athletic Department, with the title General Commissioner of Athletics for the United States Navy.

Taking up his task in midsummer, 1917, three months after declaration of war by the United States, Mr. Camp at once brought his ability, experience, and versatility into play in organizing recreational sport in the navy stations. By this time every naval district was fast filling with its quota of enlisted men, and the plan of the Navy Department to place an even hundred thousand men in the stations before the close of the year was well along toward completion.

Swept from college, counting-room, professional office, and factory, often from homes of luxury and elegance, to the naval stations, where, in many cases arrangements to house them were far from complete, the young men of the navy found themselves surrounded by conditions to which they pluckily and patiently reconciled themselves, but which could not do otherwise than provoke restlessness and discomfort.