THE PROPELLING MACHINERY OE THE U. S. S. LEVIATHAN 235 



DISCUSSION. 



The President: — I am sure that we have been much interested in this presentation of 

 Mr. Anderson's paper, "The Propelling Machinery of the U. S. S. Leviathan." It is hardly 

 necessary tO' say that the repairing of the Leviathan's engines was really one of the most 

 notable mechanical achievements of the war. The presentation by Mr. Anderson has been 

 most interesting, and I trust that there will be those here who will desire to supplement 

 the information he has given. I was hoping that there might be present someone who had 

 actually been on the ship at sea since the repairs were made, but apparently there is no one 

 with that exp€rience present 



Mr. W. H. Mackay^ Member: — There is a lot of detail in reference to the Leviathan 

 that it would be impossible to put in the paper as presented by Mr. Anderson. I happen to 

 be one of the men and the chief engineer in charge of the work under Captain Jessup, U. 

 S. N., and I wish to relate to the members of the Society some of the difficulties we ran into. 



In the first place, the vessel was taken over on the 7th of April, 1917. I was assigned 

 to her by Captain Jessup on the 12th, after she had been turned over to the Shipping Board 

 by the Collector of the Port of New York. I was under the authority of the U. S. Ship- 

 ping Board. When we went aboard that vessel all of the lights wei'e out, everything was 

 dark, and the ship was as cold as an iceberg. It was necessary tO' gO' through the ship very 

 carefully with flashlights. After we had made an inspection and ventilated the ship, which 

 took us seven days, we started to trace out the piping. There was not a scrap of paper oif 

 any kind on board that would give us any information as to her equipment. 



I mention these items because it is only fair that the engineers of the American Mer- 

 chant Marine who were engaged on the work on that ship should be remembered. Every 

 man in charge of the work under me was a licensed engineer under a license issued by the 

 British or the American government, and every one of those men was heart and soul in 

 his work, due to the fact that it was said by the Germans in Hoboken that that ship would 

 never leave the dock, that she was 27 feet in the mud and had 10,000 tons of water in her, 

 and they would never move her, but nevertheless these engineers completed the work, and 

 in three months and twelve days we had steam on her and did not have a scrap of paper to 

 guide us. 



We searched the ship night and day for fourteen days before we started repairs, and 

 in opening and closing doors we did not know when we might bid good-bye to this world and 

 visit some other place. There was one instance, which I recall, when our friend Mr. Ander- 

 son disappeared for four or five hours in the afternoon. I became worried about him, and 

 after calling him for an hour and searching for him with a flashlight, I heard a voice com- 

 ing from under the engine-room platform answering, "Billy, I am. here." He was down 

 under the turbine searching with a flashlight, tracing out the piping, and it v/as half past 

 six that evening before he came up. (Applause.) 



In connection with that work there are three other things which should be remem- 

 bered. This is the first time that anything has been permitted to come out about the ship. 

 Captain Jessup said to me one afternoon in my cabin : — "What are we going to do about 



