January lo, 1918 
LAND & WATER 
has been the way the problem of the personnel has been met. 
The shortage of men was admitted to be serious on the pre- 
i\ar programme of construction. But, as we have found in 
jur own service, highly efficient seamen can be turned out 
with great rapidity where the candidate is not only willing 
but desperately anxious to qualify, when tiie right kind of 
effort is made to train him, and when every step in the training 
is made hi the' atmosphere and under the stimulusof real war. 
In America, where practically all' of the seamen are not 
only short service men, but are sent almost untrained into 
ships to transmogrify in the ordinary routine of naval work, 
tlic thing was expected to be easier still, for the reason that 
the whole officer personnel was well broken to the task. 
As a <Jimple matter of fact, the conversion of 170,000 landsmen 
into seamen of pretty high quality, has been achie\ed with 
even greater success than could have been expected. This 
has been made possible, partly by the work on the main 
training stations, partly by turning the battle fleet into a 
gigantic training squadron. A year ago the training stations 
at Newport, Norfolk, Great Lakes and Verba Buena, had a 
nominal capacity of 6,000 men. Within very few months 
they were expanded to take in 48,000. New stations have 
been set up at half a dozen other places with a capacity of 
25,000, and reserve stations at half a dozen more to take in 
13,000. If the aviation centres are included, 20,000 more 
have been provided for at new marine centres, submarine 
bases, universities, etc. 
The normal course on shore before going to sea is four to 
five months, but few men have been so fortunate as to get ' 
the benefit of so long a preparation. For the 700 ships that 
used to be yachts, traders, liners, coasters and the Uke, and 
arc now patrol boats, transports and so forth, have had to be 
manned somehow, so that in the majority of cases, not much 
more than the rudiments of drill and discipUne, of gunnery 
and the simpler forms of ship's technique have been learned 
on shore. But notwithstanding the hurried character of the 
training, I learned from many quarters that there is no 
grouijid whatever for complaint against the newly enlisted 
persdnnel. At the only camp I was able to study in any 
detail, namely, that of Great Lakes, the explanation of this 
was not difficult to see. For military service, men are not 
taken in America under the age of twenty-one. The navy 
will take them three years younger. The navy has, I believe, 
under the draft act, a right to its quota of the compulsorily 
selected men. But it will never have to' draw on this quota for 
the sufficient reason, that every recruiting station was, quite 
early swamped by volunteers. For some months after the 
war began, it was still an assumption in the East of America 
that the Middle West was largely indifferent to the war. 
The indifference could never have extended to the boys of 
eighteen and under. For at the great camp near Chicago, 
they had passed many thousands through by the middle 
of November. When I was there, 18,000 were in camp at 
the time, and from the first they had refused as many recruits 
as they had taken. In judging of the rapidity with which they 
had been thrned into seamen, it is the essence of the matter 
to recognise the quality of the material to which a highly in- 
tensive system of training has been apphed. At Great Lakes 
this quality leapt to the eye, nor could I help reflecting on the 
irony of things, when I remembered that here was a body of 
young men training for fighting, from which probably as many 
as fit as they had been excluded. We can apparently pool 
e\ery thing in war except the most important thing of a\\, our 
man-power ! But to return to our subject. 
Making 10,000 OflGcers 
The main factor in this almost tropical production of sea- 
men has been the work of the officers and warrant officers 
of the Atlantic fleet. My visit to the squadrons composing 
i t was brief. But it sufficed to show the scale on which the 
process of training men was being undertaken. The ships 
were an extraordinary sight. I came on board the Flag-ship 
at 5 a.m. on a glorious June morning. It looked as if 500 men 
had been sleeping on the deck of every Dreadnought. Literally 
I believe the bulk of the ships carried double complement, 
and the whole of each working day seemed to be some con- 
tinuous effort, wonderfully strenuous, still more wonderfully 
rliecrful, to teach the newcomers the accomplishments of their 
older messmates. It was to tlie battleships that the men from 
the camps were sent, and from the battleships that the 
yacht, transport and patrol crews were chosen. 
The imagination reels a Uttle at contemplating what all 
this work must have meant to the comparatively small num- 
of regular officers on whom tlie sole responsibihty for it fell. 
l'"or these, in addition to turning out 170,000 seamen, had also 
to do their share in creating more than 10,000 midshipmen, 
ensigns and lieutenants. A couple or more thousand of these 
were sent in batchers of 600 or 700 at a time through 
the Naval College at Annapolis. These were all. college 
graduates, many of them accomplished yachtsmen, a large 
proportion of them men well started in their professions in 
civU life. The medical and pliysical tests were, however, severe, 
and the examination tests severer still. But here, as in the 
case of the enlisted man, the number of volunteers greatly 
exceeded the capacity of the Department to take and train. 
A thousand or more officers were got by promoting those 
of warrant rank, a process on which the United States navy 
will seemingly rely- still more largely in the future. 
Mr. Daniels' Achievement 
The report of the Secretary is silent on the two points as tc 
which public curiosity is undoubtedly greatest. Accorduig 
to the 1916 three-year programme, at least eight capital ships 
were to have been laid down at once. The report tells us that 
one battleship and three battle cruisers had not been laid 
down at the outbreak of war. We are not told, however 
whether the construction of those that were laid down is still 
proceeding or whether the labour allocated to these ships has 
been freed for destroyers and so forth which are much more 
greatly required. Nor does the report tell us what, if any, 
changes have taken place in the Chief Command — by the addi- 
tion of a General Staff or otherwise — to facilitate its functions 
of strategical guidance of the naval forces in war. But 
it does contain passages relating to both these matters that 
suggest sound policy has been or will be followed. 
As to new capital ships Mr. Daniels will ask Congress to 
continue their authorisation with a proviso that they shall be 
proceeded with " as rapidly as the (shipbuilding) facihties 
of the country will permit." When the extra votes were passed 
in 1917, special powers were taken to vary the usual form of 
contract because " it was necessary to accelerate the progress 
of. construction or to delay certain vessels to allow other 
vessels to be speeded up." It seems to be a fair inference 
to connect " the urgent demand for destroyers and merchant 
vessels " with the delaying pf ships already under construc- 
tion and to uppose that it is the less necessary' vessels — 
namely, battleships and battle cruisers, whose construction 
has been suspended. If this is so, we have a very practical 
instance of national pride being put behind national duty. 
P"or, undoubtedly, the 1916 programme was pushed through 
Congress more on its capital ship than on its Hght craft 
features, and it was intended to be a first effort towards getting 
the largest and most powerful fleet in the world. 
That this ambition is now relegated to a second place, and 
the work of defeating the submarines put first, is highly 
satisfactory and illustrates the extremely practical turn Mr. 
Daniels has given to the administration of his Department. 
The Report is, as I have said, silent as to the creation of a 
General Staff. But it is not silent on a development which 
must necessarily precede its creation. I mean the Secretary's 
full realisation that the war efficiency of his Department 
depends upon its being guided by the best naval thought. 
On page 72 occurs a passage, unfortunately too long to quote, 
in which he bears tribute to " the spirit of tmwearied dihgence 
and expert efficiency " of every one of his bureaus. He 
names the chiefs seriatim, and declares that the Repubhc 
has been fortunate in their capacity for " hearty co-operation 
and perfect team work." " These men," he adds, " and their 
associates and the other officers and civihans, whose rare 
devotion and ability have been equalled only by their 
patriotism, have made possible the recognised power of the 
Navy to-day. In the stress of war work it has been a deUght 
to serve one's country in such comradeship as exists in the 
Navy Department. To it and to the well-known ability of 
these experts the chief measure of naval preparedness is due." 
It is not every civilian chief of a professional service who 
is at once clear-headed enough to perceive and generous 
enough to acknowledge the absolute dependence of that 
service on the skilled efforts of professional colleagues. In 
Mr. Daniels' case the recognition is ample and acknowledg- 
ment noble— and neither has been limited to words. Never 
before has a better choice of American naval officers been placed 
in the bureaux : never have they been given a freer hand ; 
never has such rapid effective action been taken on so wide a 
scale. In this, at least, Mr. Daniels has earned uncommonly 
well of his country. Before the war no Cabinet Minister at 
Washington was more criticised. Since the war no Cabinet 
Minister can point to a greater achievement. Whether he 
will go further— orll would prefer to say, the date when he; goes 
further— and gives American sea power that organised intel- 
lectual command which a General Staff only can confer, 
must wait on circumstance. For the moment, the general 
strategy of the American Navy is necessarily that of America's 
Allii^, so that the main staff problem is not American, but 
international. The point of Mr. Daniels' Report is that he 
very obviously 'appreciates the funjdamcntal necessity of 
which a Staff "is the ultimate expression. 
Arthur Pollen. 
