The "Recruit"— Our Only Land Battleship 



It is New York's recruiting center for en- 

 listment in America's first line of defense 



The battleship in Union 

 Square, New York city, 

 on Memorial Day 



Two hundred American 

 Junior Naval and Marine 

 Scouts on the Recruit 



WHEN Rear Admiral Bradley A. 

 Fiske published his great article 

 on "If Battleships Ran on Land," 

 in the Popular Science Monthly for 

 November, 191 5, showing, as it did, the 

 tremendous energy of a battleship on land 

 and the destruction it would work while 

 crashing down Broadway, New York city, 

 he little dreamed that a real 

 battleship would be anchored 

 close to the subway in Union 

 Square in the year 191 7. Need- 

 less to say, the land man-o'-war 

 that now overlooks Broadway 

 is the antithesis of the land 

 monster conceived by Rear Ad- 

 miral Fiske. Although it looks 

 formidable enough, it is simply 

 the headquarters for Naval re- 

 cruiting in the New York city 

 district of America's first line of 

 defense. It has been aptly 

 christened the U. S. S. Recruit. 

 It is a fully-rigged battleship. 

 On the starboard side of the 

 ship flies the flag of the Navy, 



while from the port side flies the emblem ol 

 the Marine Corps, the "Soldiers of the 

 Sea." At the present time the ship houses 

 thirty-nine bluejacket guards from the 

 Newport Training Station — young fellows 

 who have seen from two to six months' 

 service. Their duties on board 



the Recruit I will not hinder their 



The Recruit in process of construction. It was sev- 

 eral days before she resembled a superdreadnought 



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