Great Atlantic Ferry Company, Incorporated, But Unlimited--Feat of the
Navy in Repairing the Steamships Belonging to German Lines Which Were
Interned at Beginning of War in 1914--Welding and Patching--Triumph of
Our Navy With the "Vaterland"--Her Condition--Knots Added to Her
Speed--Damage to Motive Power and How It Was Remedied--Famous German
Liners Brought Under Our Flag
In an address delivered not long ago, Admiral Gleaves,
commander-in-chief of the United States Cruiser and Transport Force,
referred to "The Great Atlantic Ferry Company, Incorporated, but
Unlimited." He referred to our transport fleet, of course, a fleet
which, under naval supervision and naval operation, has safely
transported more than a million of our soldiers to France. When the
history of the war finally comes to be written, our success in the
handling of oversea transportation will not be the least bright among
the pages of that absorbing history.
When the European nations first went to war in 1914 I happened to be at
the Newport Naval Training Station, and I asked an officer what would
happen if we went into the war.
"Not much," he said. "We would stand on our shores and the Germans on
theirs and make faces at each other."
Events have proved that he was not looking into the future wisely, not
taking into account the enormous energy and get-things-doneness of
Secretary Daniels and his coadjutors. Not only did the Navy Department
send our destroyer fleet to the war zone--the Allied officers, believing
co-operation of the sort not feasible, had neither requested nor
expected this--but performed many other extraordinary feats, among them
the equipping of transports to carry our men to France, and the conduct
of the service when they were ready.
We had only a fair number of American steamships adapted for the
purpose, but lying in our ports were interned German and Austrian
vessels aggregating many hundreds of thousands of tons. From 1914 until
we entered the war commuters on North River ferry-boats seemed never
weary of gazing at the steamships lying in the great North German Lloyd
and Hamburg-American line piers in Hoboken. There was a small forest of
masts and funnels appearing above the pier sheds, while many a graceful
stern protruded out beyond the pier lines into the river.
Among them was the great _Vaterland_, the largest vessel in the world,
and the outward and visible expression of that peaceful maritime rivalry
between Great Britain and the German Empire, which in the transatlantic
lanes as in the waters of all the seven seas had interested followers of
shipping for so many years. There was, so far as passenger traffic was
concerned, the rivalry for the blue ribbon of the sea--the swiftest
ocean carrier, a fight that was waged between Great Britain and Germany
from the placid eighties to the nineties, when the Germans brought out
the _Deutschland_, and later the _Kaiser Wilhelm der Grosse_, the
_Kaiser Wilhelm II_--all champions--whose laurels were to be snatched
away by the _Mauretania_ and the _Lusitania_--the two speed queens--when
war ended competition of the sort.
But the contest in speed had, to an extent, been superseded by the
rivalry of size, a struggle begun by the White Star Line when the great
_Oceanic_ slipped past quarantine in the early 1900's, and carried on by
that line, by the Atlantic Transport Line, and by the German companies
with unceasing vigor. Great carrying capacity and fair speed were the
desiderata, and the studious Germans were quick to see that it was a far
more profitable battle to wage, since speed meant merely advertising,
with a more or less slight preponderance in the flow of passenger
patronage to the line which owned the latest crack greyhound, whereas
size meant ability to carry greater cargoes, and thus enhanced earning
capacity.
So great hulls were the order of the years preceding 1914. There came
the new _Baltic_, the new _Cymric_, the new _Adriatic_ of the White Star
Line, and for the Germans there came the _Amerika_ and other craft of
that type. Finally there was the _Titanic_ and her ill-fated maiden
voyage; the Cunarder _Aquitania_, and the _Vaterland_, and the
_Imperator_, which bore the German ensign. These facts, presented not
altogether in chronological order, are necessary to give the reader an
idea of the manner in which the Americans were taking back seats in the
unceasing fight for commercial maritime supremacy. It is quite likely,
so far back was our seat, that the Germans held little respect for our
ability, either to man or to fit the immense number of German vessels in
our harbors. In truth, the events that followed our entrance into the
war showed just how supreme the contempt of the Germans was for our
knowledge of things nautical.
We are about to record just how erroneous that attitude of the Germans
was, but wish first to point out that they had failed to take into
consideration the fact that at Annapolis is situated a school of the sea
that asks nothing of any similar school in the world, and that they had
also failed to note that, while we had not gone in heavily for shipping,
we have been rather effective in other lines which in event of emergency
might be brought to bear upon the problem of correcting such
deficiencies as might exist in our store of modern nautical tradition.
Well, while the German waged their unrestricted warfare on the sea,
those German vessels lay at Hoboken and at other ports of the country,
gathering the rust and barnacles of disuse. Then one day Congress spoke
definitely, and the next morning North River ferry voyagers saw lying
off the German docks a torpedo-boat destroyer flying the American flag.
Some days later the American flag floated over the taffrails of the
_Vaterland_, the _Kaiser Wilhelm II_, and other Teutonic craft. Their
employment in the way of providing transportation of our soldiers, of
course, was contemplated. In fact, the accession to our marine of such a
large number of hulls seemed to provide for us all the necessary means
which otherwise we would have lacked.
But not so fast. When our officers began to look over these German craft
they found that they were in a woful condition, not so much because of
disuse as because of direct damage done to them by the German crews who
had been attached to the ships ever since they were laid up in 1914.
There is evidence in Washington that the German central authorities
issued an order for the destruction of these ships which was to be
effective on or about February 1, 1917--simultaneous, in other words.
with the date set for unrestricted warfare. There is not the slightest
doubt that the purpose of the order was to cause to be inflicted damage
so serious to vital parts of the machinery of all German vessels in our
ports, that no ship could be operated within a period of time ranging
from eight months to two years, if at all.
But the Germans miscalculated, as already set forth. We took over the
109 German vessels in April, and by December 30 of that year, 1917, all
damage done to them had been repaired and were in service, adding more
than 500,000 tons gross to our transport and cargo fleets. In general
the destructive work of the German crews consisted of ruin which they
hoped and believed would necessitate the shipping of new machinery to
substitute for that which was battered down or damaged by drilling or by
dismantlement.
To have obtained new machinery, as a matter of fact, would have entailed
a mighty long process. First, new machinery would have had to be
designed, then made, and finally installed. These would have been all
right if time was unlimited. But it was not; it was, on the other hand,
extremely limited. The army wished to send troops abroad, the Allies
were pleading for men, and the only way to get them over in time to do
anything was to do quick repair jobs on the damaged vessels. But how?
Investigation revealed how thorough the work of the German seamen--now
enjoying themselves in internment camps--had been. Their destructive
campaign had been under headway for two months, and they had thus plenty
of time in which to do all sorts of harm, ranging from the plugging of
steam-pipes to the demolition of boilers by dry firing.
The Shipping Board experts were the first to go over the German craft,
and as a result of their survey it was announced that a great deal of
new machinery would have to be provided, and that a fair estimate of the
work of remedying the damage inflicted would be eighteen months. But
this was too long, altogether so. The officers of the Navy Bureau of
Steam Engineering took a hand, and finally decided that it would be
possible to clear the ships for service by Christmas of that year. (As a
matter of record, the last of the 109 ships was ordered into service on
Thanksgiving Day.)
To accomplish the purposes they had in mind, the Navy Department engaged
the services of all available machinery welders and patchers, many of
whom were voluntarily offered by the great railroad companies. Most of
the time that was required was due not so much to actual repair work as
to the devious and tedious task of dismantling all machinery from bow to
stern of every ship in order to make certain that every bit of damage
was discovered and repaired. In this way all chance of overlooking some
act of concealed mutilation was obviated.
[Illustration: _From a photograph copyright by International Film
Service._ REPAIRING A DAMAGED CYLINDER OF A GERMAN SHIP FOR FEDERAL
SERVICE.]
It would appear that explosives were not used in the process of
demolition by the Germans, but at the time the engineers could not be
sure of this, and as a consequence as they worked they were conscious of
the danger of hidden charges which might become operative when the
machinery was put to the test, or even while the work of dismantling and
inspection was being carried on. There were, however, discovered, as a
result of this rigid investigation of every mechanical detail, many
artful cases of pipe-plugging, of steel nuts and bolts concealed in
delicate mechanical parts, of ground glass in oil-pipes and bearings, of
indicators that were so adjusted as to give inaccurate readings, of
fire-extinguishers filled with gasoline--in fact, the manifold deceits
which the Germans practised would make a chapter of themselves.
Suffice to say, that through painstaking investigation every trick was
discovered and corrected. On each vessel there was no boiler that was
not threaded through every pipe for evidence of plugging, no mechanism
of any sort that was not completely dismantled, inspected, and
reassembled. On one ship the engineers chanced to find a written record
of the damage inflicted. In every other case the search for evidence of
sabotage was blind. This memorandum in the case of the one ship was
evidently left on board through an oversight, and written in German, was
a veritable guide-book for our engineers. In order that the reader may
have some idea of the sort of damage done, the following extracts from
that memorandum of destructiveness is herewith presented:
"Starboard and port high pressure cylinders with valve chest; upper
exhaust outlet flange broken off. (Cannot be repaired.)"
"Starboard and port second intermediate valve chest; steam inlet flange
broken off, (Cannot be repaired.)"
"First intermediate pressure starboard exhaust pipes of exhaust line to
second intermediate pressure flange broken off. (Cannot be repaired.)"
"Starboard and port low pressure exhaust pipe damaged. (Cannot be
repaired.)"
Naval officers are pleased to recall that every single one of these
supposedly irreparable injuries was not only repaired, but speedily
repaired. Patching and welding were the answer to the problem they
presented. Both these valuable methods had never been employed in marine
engineering, although they had been used by the railroads for some
fifteen years. There are three methods; or, rather, three methods were
employed: electric welding, oxyacetylene welding, and ordinary
mechanical patching. After repairs were effected tests of the machinery
were first made at the docks with the ships lashed to the piers, the
propellers being driven at low speed. Later each vessel was taken to sea
for vigorous trial tests, and everything was found to be perfectly
satisfactory. Indeed, it has been asserted that several knots were added
to the best speed that the _Vaterland_--renamed _Leviathan_--ever made.
Of course the crew of the _Vaterland_ had spared no pains in fixing that
great ship so that she could not be used; even so they had less to do
than the engine forces of other craft, for the reason that the vessel
was in extremely bad repair as she was. As a consequence, she was one of
the German ships that were least mutilated. When repairs were completed
and it was time for her trial trip, her commander, a young American
naval officer, was ordered to test the big craft in every way, to
utilize every pound of steam pressure, and to try her out to the limit.
For, if there was anything wrong with the vessel, the navy wished to
know it before she fared forth with troops on board.
The _Leviathan_ stood the test. And to-day we all know what a great part
she has played in carrying our soldiers to France. She is in fact, a far
better boat than on her maiden trip, for our engineers were surprised to
find how sloppily she had been built in certain respects.
In preparing her for sea the engineers found it necessary to overhaul,
partially redesign and reconstruct many important parts of the
_Leviathan's_ engines. As in her case, the most serious typical damage
was done by breaking the cylinders, valve-chests, circulating pumps,
steam and exhaust units in main engines; dry-firing boilers, and thus
melting the tubes and distorting furnaces, together with easily
detectable instances of a minor character, such as cutting piston and
connecting rods and stays with hack saws, smashing engine-room telegraph
systems, and removing and destroying parts which the Germans believed
could not be duplicated. Then there was sabotage well concealed: rod
stays in boilers were broken off, but nuts were fastened on exposed
surfaces for purposes of deception; threads of bolts were destroyed, the
bolts being replaced with but one or two threads to hold them, and thus
calculated to give way under pressure. Piles of shavings and inflammable
material with cans of kerosene near suggested the intention to burn the
vessels, intentions thwarted by our watchfulness, while the absence of
explosives has been accounted for purely on the ground of the risk which
the crews would have run in attempting to purchase explosive materials
in the open market.
No great amount of damage was done to the furnishings or ordinary ship's
fittings. Destructiveness was similar in character throughout all the
vessels and involved only important parts of the propulsive mechanism or
other operating machinery.
We have spoken of the investigation of the vessels by Shipping Board
engineers. They were appointed by the board not only to make a survey,
but to superintend repairs. The collector of the port of New York also
named a board of engineers (railroad engineers) to investigate the
damage done the German ships, and to recommend repairs through the
agency of welding. The railroad men, after due study, believed that
their art could be applied to as great advantage on ships as upon
locomotives. The Shipping Board engineers recommended, on the other
hand, the renewal of all badly damaged cylinders. The railroad
engineers, on the other hand, set forth their opinion that all damaged
cylinders could be reclaimed and made as good as new.
As a result of this difference of opinion, nothing was done until the
larger German craft were turned over to the Navy Department to be fitted
as transports, in July of 1917. It was then decided to use welding and
patching on the vessels.
In no cases were the repairs to the propulsive machinery delayed beyond
the time necessary to equip these ships as transports. Electric and
acetylene welding is not a complicated art in the hands of skilled men;
for patching a hole, or filling the cavity of a great crack in a
cylinder, say by electric welding, may be compared to a similar
operation in dental surgery.
Returning to the _Leviathan's_ faulty German construction, be it said
that the opinion of the navy engineers who overhauled her, was that
inferior engineering had been practised in her construction. There are
on this craft four turbine engines ahead, and four astern, on four
shafts. All the head engines were in good shape, but all the astern
engines were damaged. But the main part of the damage had resulted more
to faulty operation of the engines than to malicious damage. Cracks were
found in the casing of the starboard high-pressure backing turbine,
cracks of size so great as to make it certain that this engine had not
been used in the last run of that vessel on transatlantic service in
1914. There was discovered on the _Vaterland_, or _Leviathan_,
documentary evidence to prove this, and it also appeared from this paper
that on her last trip to this country the vessel had not averaged twenty
knots. It may be that the German ship-builders had hurried too swiftly
in their strenuous efforts to produce a bigger, if not a better,
steamship than the British could turn out.
Forty-six of the _Vaterland's_ boilers showed evidence of poor handling.
They were not fitted with the proper sort of internal feed-pipes. All
these defects, defects original with the steamship, were repaired by the
Americans. In addition, evidences of minor attempts to disable the
_Vaterland_ were found, such, for instance, as holes bored in sections
of suction-pipes, the holes having been puttied and thus concealed.
Things of the sort afforded ample reason for a thorough overhaul of the
vast mass of machinery aboard the steamship. But eventually she was
ready for her test and her performance on a trial trip to southern
waters showed how skilful had been the remedial measures applied.
Aboard the _Leviathan_ as other big German liners, such as the
_Amerika_, _President Grant_, _President Lincoln_, (recently sunk by a
German torpedo while bound for this country from France), the _George
Washington_, and other vessels fitted as troop and hospital ships, and
the like, naval crews were placed, and naval officers, of course, in
command. They have proved their mettle, all. They have shown, further,
that when we get ready to take our place, after the war, among the
nations that go in heavily for things maritime, we shall not be among
the last, either in point of resourcefulness or intrepidity.
Civilian sailormen who have sailed on vessels commanded by naval
officers have been inclined to smile over the minutia of navy discipline
and have expressed doubt whether the naval men would find a certain
rigidity any more useful in a given situation than the civilian seamen
would find a looser ordered system. We can but base judgment on facts,
and among the facts that have come under the writer's observation, was
the difficulty which the German officers of the _Vaterland_ encountered
in taking their vessel into her dock in the North River. The very last
time they attempted it the great hulk got crosswise in the current in
the middle of the stream, and caused all sorts of trouble.
Our naval officers, however, made no difficulty at all in snapping the
steamship into her pier. She steams up the Hudson on the New York side,
makes a big turn, and lo! she is safely alongside her pier. Any
seafaring man will tell you that this implies seamanly ability.
Following is a list of the larger German ships which were repaired by
the navy engineers, with the names under which they now sail:
FORMER NAME PRESENT NAME
_Amerika_.................._America_.
_Andromeda_................_Bath_.
_Barbarossa_..............._Mercury_.
_Breslau_.................._Bridgeport_.
_Cincinnati_..............._Covington_[1] (sunk).
_Frieda Lenhardt_.........._Astoria_.
_Friedrich der Grosse_....._Huron_.
_Geier_...................._Schurz_.
_George Washington_........name retained.
_Grosser Kurfurst_........._Aeolus_.
_Grunewald_................_Gen. G. W. Goethals_.
_Hamburg_.................._Powhattan_.
_Hermes_...................name retained.
_Hohenfelde_..............._Long Beach_.
_Kiel_....................._Camden_.
_Kaiser Wilhelm I_........._Agamemnon_.
_Koenig Wilhelm II_........_Madawaska_.
_Kronprinz Wilhelm_........_Von Steuben_.
_Kronprezessin Cecelie_...._Mount Vernon_.
_Liebenfels_..............._Houston_.
_Locksun_.................._Gulfport_.
_Neckar_..................._Antigone_.
_Nicaria_.................._Pensacola_.
_Odenwald_................._Newport News_.
_President_................_Kuttery_.
_President Grant_..........name retained.
_President Lincoln_........name retained (sunk).
_Prinzess Irene_..........._Pocahontas_.
_Prinz Eitel Friedrich_...._DeKalb_.
_Rhein_...................._Susquehanna_.
_Rudolph Blumberg_........._Beaufort_
_Saxonia_.................._Savannah_.
_Staatsskretar_............_Samoa_.
_Vaterland_................_Leviathan_.
_Vogensen_................._Quincy_.
[Footnote 1: Is not this rather a reflection upon a perfectly good
American city?]