Organization Of The Naval Reserve Classes--Taking Over of Yachts For
Naval Service--Work Among The Reserves Stationed at Various Naval
Centres--Walter Camp's Achievement
In expanding the navy to meet war conditions, the regular personnel was
increased, naval militia units of various States were taken into the
service under the classification National Naval Volunteers, and
volunteers were accepted in the following classes: _Fleet Naval
Reserve_, made up of those who had received naval training and had
volunteered for four years. _Naval Auxiliary Reserve_, made up of
seafaring men who had had experience on merchant ships. _Naval Coast
Defense Reserve_, made up of citizens of the United States whose
technical and practical education made them fitted for navy-yard work,
patrol, and the like. _Volunteer Naval Reserve_, made up of men who had
volunteered, bringing into service their own boats. And finally, the
_Naval Reserve Flying Corps_.
It is from these classes that have come the men to put our navy on a war
footing; for while the reserve classifications brought thousands and
hundreds of thousands of men into the service, the permanent enlisted
strength was kept at the specified figure, 87,000, until last June, when
Congress increased the allowance to 131,485. This action was regarded as
one of the most important taken since the country entered the war,
inasmuch as it gave notice to the world that the United States in the
future intends to have a fleet that will measure up to her prominent
position in the world's affairs. It means, too, that the number of
commissioned officers would be increased from 3,700, as at present
arranged, to some 5,500, which will no doubt mean an opportunity for
officers who are now in war service in the various reserve
organizations.
When we entered the war, a decision to send a number of our destroyers
to France imposed upon the Navy Department the necessity of protecting
our own coast from possible submarine attack. We had retained destroyers
in this country, of course, and our battle and cruiser fleet was here;
but a large number of mosquito craft, submarine-chasers, patrol-boats,
and the like were urgently demanded. Several hundred fine yachts were
offered to the Navy Department under various conditions, and in the
Third (New York) District alone some 350 pleasure craft adapted for
conversion into war-vessels, were taken over. Some of these were sent
overseas to join the patrol-fleet, more were kept here. Besides being
used for patrol-work, yachts were wanted for mine-sweepers, harbor
patrol-boats, despatch-boats, mine-layers, and parent-ships. They were
and are manned almost exclusively by the Naval Reserves, and operated
along the Atlantic coast under the direction of officers commanding the
following districts: First Naval District, Boston; Second Naval
District, Newport, R.I.; Third Naval District, New York City; Fourth
Naval District, Philadelphia; Fifth Naval District, Norfolk, Va.
Hundreds of sailors, fishermen, seafaring men generally, and yachtsmen
joined the Naval Coast Defense Reserve, which proved to be an extremely
popular branch of the service with college men. Most of the reserves of
this class--there were nearly 40,000 of them--were required for the
coast-patrol fleet, and they had enlisted for service in home waters.
But when the need for oversea service arose the reserves made no
objection at all to manning transports and doing duty on patrol,
mine-laying, mine-sweeping, and other craft engaged in duty in the war
zone.
In the course of taking over yachts by the Navy Department, Franklin D.
Roosevelt, who has been so efficient and untiring in his capacity as
Assistant Secretary of the Navy, charged that yachtsmen were not helping
the government, and were holding their craft for high prices. Probably
this was the case in enough instances to make Mr. Roosevelt impatient,
but it would seem that the large body of yacht-owners did their best,
not only donating their yachts to the government or selling them at a
fair price, but by themselves enlisting in the service.
There were yachtsmen who, in addition to giving their boats, defrayed
the cost of maintenance. Great craft such as G. W. C. Drexel's _Alcedo_
(already noted as sunk by a torpedo), A. Curtiss James's _Aloha_, J. C.
and A. N. Brady's _Atlantic_, A. C. Burrage's _Aztec_, I. T. Bush's
_Christabel_, H. A. Loughlin's _Corona_, J. P. Morgan's _Corsair_,
Robert T. Graves's _Emeline_, E. P. and J. W. Alker's _Florence_, Edgar
Palmer's _Guinevere_, George F. Baker, Jr.'s _Wacouta_, W. L. Harkness's
_Cythera_, Robert Goelet's _Nahma_, J. G. Bennett's _Lysistrata_, John
Borden's _Kanawha_, Henry Walter's _Narada_, Howard Gould's _Niagara_,
Horace G. Dodge's _Nokomis_, Vincent Astor's _Noma_, Mrs. E. H.
Harriman's _Sultana_, Morton F. Plant's _Vanadis_, P. W. Rouss's
_Winchester, Aphrodite_, the O. H. Payne estate; F. G. Bourne's
_Alberta_, and Edward Harkness's _Wakiva_--these great yachts among
other steam-driven palaces, passed into the hands of the Navy Department
in one way or another, and have performed valiant service. Some of them,
indeed, have ended their careers violently in service.
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.
[Illustration: _From a photograph copyright by International Film
Service_. CAPTAIN'S INSPECTION AT NAVAL TRAINING STATION, NEWPORT, R.I.]
Under these conditions the work of the Navy Commission was particularly
timely and important, and that of Mr. Camp was of conspicuous value
through the physical training and mental stimulus which it provided for
patriotic, yet half homesick young Americans, from whom not only
material comfort and luxury, but entertainment of all kinds, including
recreational sport, had been taken.
Mr. Camp defined the scope of the Athletic Department of the Commission
as follows, in taking up his duties:
"Our problem is to provide athletics for the men in order to duplicate
as nearly as possible the home environment, produce physical fitness
with high vitality, and in this we feel that we shall have the most
generous and whole-souled co-operation from the Y.M.C.A., the Knights of
Columbus, the War Camp Community Service, and all the agencies that are
established in and about the camps."
Launching the movement to "duplicate home conditions" in recreational
sport, Mr. Camp appointed athletic directors in the largest districts
during the fall, and in every one the programme of seasonal sport was
carried out, comparable in extent and quality with that which every
enlisted man in the stations would have enjoyed as participant or
spectator in his native city or town, school or college, had he not
entered military service.
The athletic directors who were chosen were, in every case, experienced
organizers of all-round sports, and several of them were former college
coaches or star athletes. In the First District at Boston, George V.
Brown, for thirteen years athletic organizer for the Boston Athletic
Association, was named; in the Second at Newport, Doctor William T.
Bull, the former Yale football coach and medical examiner; in the Third,
Frank S. Bergin, a former Princeton football-player; in the Fourth, at
League Island, Franklin T. McCracken, an athletic organizer of
Philadelphia; and at the Cape May Station Harry T. McGrath, of
Philadelphia, an all-round athlete.
In the Fifth District, Doctor Charles M. Wharton, of Philadelphia, a
prominent neurologist and University of Pennsylvania football coach,
took charge late in the fall, resigning in April, 1918, to become
field-secretary of the Navy Commission on Training Camp Activities, and
being succeeded by Louis A. Young, of Philadelphia, a former University
of Pennsylvania football-player, captain, and all-round athlete.
In the Sixth District, at Charleston, S.C., Walter D. Powell, a former
University of Wisconsin football-player, and later athletic director at
Western Reserve University, was placed in charge of the programme, and
at the Great Lakes Station, Herman P. Olcott, who had been football
coach at Yale and athletic director at the University of Kansas, began
his work in October.
Arthur C. Woodward, formerly interscholastic athletic organizer in
Washington, was placed in charge of the Puget Sound Station in
Bremerton; and Elmer C. Henderson, athletic director in Seattle high
schools, was appointed to the Seattle Station.
David J. Yates, of New York City, an all-round athlete and athletic
supervisor, was appointed director at Pensacola, combining the work of
athletic organization with the physical training of the aviators in that
station.
Intensely practical and stimulating as well as picturesque and almost
fascinating programmes in their attractiveness were carried out during
the fall at the larger stations. The Newport football eleven, captained
by "Cupid" Black, the former Yale gridiron star, and containing such
all-American players as Schlachter, of Syracuse; Hite, of Kentucky;
Barrett, of Cornell; and Gerrish, of Dartmouth; the Boston team,
including in its membership Casey, Enright, and Murray, of Harvard; the
League Island eleven, captained by Eddie Mahan, the former Harvard
all-round player; and the Great Lakes team, largely composed of
representative Western gridiron stars, played a series of games on the
fields of the East and the Middle West, which lifted, temporarily, the
curtain which seemed to have fallen on the college football heroes when
they passed into naval service, and allowed the sport-loving public of
America to again see them in athletic action.
During the winter the value of the athletic department of the Commission
on Training-Camp Activities to the Navy became clearer as the indoor
programmes, which were organized by Commissioner Camp and his
lieutenants, the athletic directors, were carried out. Boxing,
wrestling, swimming, hockey, basket-ball, and other athletic instructors
were appointed to develop every kind of indoor sport until there were no
nights when, in the large auditoriums of the navy stations, some
programme of winter sport was not being given for the entertainment of
the thousands of young men in camp. Mass sports were favored, the
general rule being laid down that the chief value of every game lay in
accordance with its ability to attract a larger or a smaller number of
participants or spectators.
Among the sports which were tried, boxing proved its value as the chief.
Attracting crowds limited only by the size of the auditoriums, the
boxing-bouts which were held, usually semi-weekly in all the stations,
were a most diverting feature of winter life in camp. One reason for
their popularity can be directly traced to their enforced use in the
physical training of the stations. Lending themselves ideally to mass
instruction, the boxing exercises were taught to classes usually
numbering between 150 and 200 persons, and the fact that every marine
studied boxing contributed to the size and the interest of the crowds
that packed the ringsides at the frequent bouts.
The teaching of boxing was also emphasized for its life-saving value in
a military sense. The maxim is taught that "every move of the boxer is a
corresponding move by the bayonet-fighter." Thus, the "jab" corresponds
to the "lunge," and the "counter" to the "parry." To illustrate this
boxing instruction, and to apply it to bayonet-drill, a set of admirable
moving-pictures was made, such clever pugilists as Johnnie Kilbane,
Bennie Leonard, Kid McCoy, and Jim Corbett posing for the boxing, and
Captain Donovan, the eminent English bayonet instructor, for the bayonet
films, which were exhibited for instruction purposes in every navy
station. Boxing tournaments, station championships, and army-navy
championship bouts were given with crowded houses everywhere.
Early in the winter Commissioner Camp gave directions for standardized
sets of instruction in both boxing and wrestling, and as a result, in
every camp in the country the groups of navy men were taught the same
methods of rudimentary boxing for their value in a military sense, as
well as their value as recreational sports.
Soon after the thousands of young men began gathering in the navy camps,
the discovery was made that not half the number was able to swim. For
men destined for sea life, this was a vital handicap, and early in the
spring of 1918 a campaign was launched to increase the number of
swimming instructors and the facilities which were available for the
instruction of the young men both in sea and river, as well as in pools
and tanks, and it was decided to hold station tournaments, races, and
all varieties of swimming events during the season, in conjunction with
such individual instruction as it was necessary to give novices in the
art of swimming.
Rowing was developed during the season of 1918 to the extent which was
made possible by the presence of cutters in the different stations.
Wherever possible, crews were coached in the rudiments of rowing by old
oarsmen. Racing between the cutter crews in whatever station was ordered
for every available date, and sometimes as many as twenty boats were
lined up abreast, and were shot away for the brushes between the cutter
crews in some of the larger stations, furnishing a variety of sport
comparable only with the brilliant scenes at the inter-collegiate races
over the Thames course at New London, or the Hudson at Poughkeepsie.
As football reigned supreme in the fall programme of recreational sport,
and boxing in the winter, baseball furnished the greatest solace for the
men of the navy marooned from city and college games. Scattered through
the stations were former major and minor league and college players in
abundance, and nines, vying in their intrinsic strength with
major-league champions, were organized in every station. Jack Barry in
the Boston District, "Toots" Schultz in the Newport, Phil Choinard in
the Great Lakes, Davy Robertson in the Norfolk, Jack Hoey in the
Charleston, and Paul Strand in the Seattle Districts, were a few of the
stars of national reputation who headed the teams. More valuable,
however, to the true purpose of the organization of recreational sports
than the individual stars and the district teams were the leagues which
were formed in the respective stations, for they kept every naval base
engrossed in a wholesome athletic interest, and furnished natural
relaxation from the exacting drill and drudgery of every-day routine.
Track athletic stars of college and amateur athletic organizations were
scattered through every station, and the organization of track meets was
begun as soon as the men of the navy reached the camps. In October,
1917, before some 15,000 people, the track men of the Boston Station
took part in games on Boston Common, a track carnival was held in the
Harvard Stadium a month later, and in every station of the country track
tournaments were held during the season of 1918.
For April 19, the anniversary of the battle of Lexington, a patriotic
team relay race was ordered for every station in the country by
Commissioner Camp. In the First District the route lay over the historic
Marathon course from Ashland into Boston, and most of the teams
represented either the army cantonment at Camp Devens or the First Naval
District. In most instances the races were run from an army to a navy
camp, messages being carried from the commanding officer in one to the
similar officer in the other. Secretary Daniels of the navy witnessed
the First District event.
In most cases the races were conducted as a feature and auxiliary in the
Third Liberty Loan campaign, which was nearing its height, and proved a
valuable factor in promoting the success of the drive. It is believed
that this is the first national race which was ever held in every
section of the United States at the request of one individual, and it
was appropriate that the first of a series of such athletic events
should be of a purely patriotic scope and a part of the national
military service.
Closely related to the work of Commissioner Camp in the naval stations
was his successful attempt to secure for the aviators the use of skilful
flight surgeons and college trainers to safeguard the physical condition
of the airmen. At the annual conference of the National Collegiate
Association, which was held in New York City in December, 1917, Mr. Camp
called attention to the fact that the conditioning of the aviators was
similar to that of college athletes, and was just as vital; and,
inasmuch as the physical safety of football-players and other college
athletic contestants was successfully guaranteed by experienced
trainers, he recommended that several of the best be selected from
leading American universities to go to the aviation-fields and take
charge of the conditioning of the fliers. Two months later,
recommendation was made by the aviation department that from ten to
fifteen such trainers be named by Mr. Camp to go at once to the
aviation-stations and pass judgment on the condition of the fliers
before they were allowed to leave the ground. An unusually large number
of deaths took place in the United States during practise flights of the
aviators early in the spring of 1918, and in May the government
authorized the appointment of an adequate number of college trainers to
carry out the work of conditioning the airmen. Before this time reports
of conditions in England and France established the fact that more
deaths of aviators had been caused by the flight of the airmen when in
poor physical condition than by any defect in the flying-machine.
In all, Mr. Camp's work has been adequately recognized by the Navy
Department as of the greatest benefit, and the constant stream of
testimony from the reserve seamen attached to the various stations that
"there is no place like the navy," is, in some part due to the
activities of this veteran Yale athlete and his associates.