THREE HUNDRED THOUSAND STRONG
VAST OPERATIONS COULD HARDLY HAVE BEEN CARRIED ON WITHOUT NAVAL
RESERVES AND NATIONAL NAVAL VOLUNTEERS--MANNED HUNDREDS OF VESSELS
PLYING TO FRANCE--SERVED ON TRANSPORTS, DESTROYERS, SUB-CHASERS
AND EVERY KIND OF CRAFT--NAVAL AVIATION COMPOSED MAINLY OF
RESERVISTS--THIRTY THOUSAND MADE OFFICERS.
"We are coming, Uncle Samuel, three hundred thousand strong!" That
was the spirit if not the song of the reservists who besieged the
recruiting stations and flocked into the Navy at the call of war.
They came from every walk of life--mechanics and millionaires, farm
boys and college students, clerks and merchants, yacht owners and
boatmen, fishermen and firemen. There was hardly a trade, profession
or calling that was not represented. Ninety-nine out of every hundred
were landsmen, knowing nothing of the sea. But they took to the naval
service like ducks to water, and the rapidity with which they learned,
and the efficiency with which they served, amazed the old sea-dogs.
Never again will men dare to ridicule the volunteer, the reservist,
the man who in a national crisis lays aside civilian duty to become a
soldier or sailor, to shoulder a gun or take his place in the turret.
The splendid body of young men from civil life who quickly adapted
themselves to military service astonished the old timers, who believed
that long service was absolutely necessary to make one efficient.
On every ship in the Navy were found young men who, without previous
training, had enrolled for the war, and in a short time were performing
well the duties of naval service. Moved by a zeal and patriotism which
quickened their ability to learn, the ambitious young men who responded
to the call in 1917-18 mastered military knowledge so rapidly as to
astonish naval officers, as well as the country. The most capable were
placed in command of small naval craft, and the commendation of older
officers was hearty and enthusiastic.
Before 1917, responsible naval officials knew that the chief need
when war came would be trained leaders. There was never any doubt
that patriotic young men would enroll by the thousands and tens of
thousands. But you cannot make a naval officer in a day. It is easier
to secure good officers on land than on sea. It was leadership, a
quality indefinable, that the Navy needed.
There was need for many more officers. After promoting many capable
regulars, we turned for officer material to the apt and alert young men
in colleges and schools, in shops, in professions and on the farms.
Most of them were given their intensive training on board ship, but
the Navy was able to give 1,700 a special course at the Naval Academy.
Securing that assignment by competition with all other reservists, they
came with the imprimatur of approval from ships or shore stations.
After the thorough course at Annapolis they went immediately to
service afloat, and from admirals and captains I received reports that
gave proof of their efficiency. Some did so well that they were keen
competitors, in the special duties they performed, with those who had
enjoyed a full four-year course at the Naval Academy.
Over 30,000 reservists were made commissioned or warrant officers,
nearly three times as many as the total, 10,590, in the regular Navy.
They served on vessels of every type, from submarine chasers to
battleships. On the transports the larger percentage of the officers
were reservists. The usual plan was to have the duties of the captain,
executive officer, chief engineer, gunnery officers, senior supply and
medical officers performed by regulars, the others being of the reserve
force. Out of a total of, say, thirty officers on board a transport,
twenty-four of them would be reservists. They were on duty on deck, in
the engine room, in the sick quarters, in the supply office, and in
practically every part of the ship.
The idea of some who thought in the early days of 1917 that family or
political influence would get them a commission was the subject of not
a little good natured ridicule in the service, which found expression
in verses like these:
I never thought I'd be a gob--
You see, dad owns a bank--
I thought at least I'd get a job
Above a captain's rank.
But woe to me, alack, alas!
They've put me in white duds;
They don't quite comprehend my class--
They've got me peeling spuds.
It was not easy work, this learning to be a seaman and studying to
be an officer. But it made men of those youngsters. The fact that
promotion depended on their own efforts, that there was a fair field
and no favor, inspired them to effort as nothing else could have done.
Men of all trades and professions were in the reserve. Millionaires
from New York and graduates of Princeton served alongside young fellows
who a year before had been plowing behind Missouri mules. An heir of
one of the country's largest fortunes was a seaman gunner, and his mate
in the same crew was a strapping youngster who had been working in a
factory.
An officer who went out for a run on a sub-chaser from Brest thought
there was something familiar about the grimy seaman who was testing the
forward gun. As the man turned the officer recognized him.
"Well, of all things!" exclaimed the officer. "You're the last man in
the world I'd ever expect to find here. The last time I saw you, you
were the ladies' favorite, engaged in photographing every debutante and
stage celebrity in New York. How did you get into the Navy?"
"Well, it is funny, even to myself," he laughed, and told his story.
He had made a picture of a well-known actress and her baby, and was on
his way back to the studio when he struck a recruiting party holding a
meeting in the street. Aroused by the enthusiasm, he felt he ought to
do his part. He enlisted on the spot, turned over his studio to others,
and in a month was shooting a gun on a sub-chaser instead of a camera.
He stayed on that boat until the last horn blew, and the boys were
ordered home. One of his mates at the gun was a former actor, another a
clerk in a store.
[Illustration:
© Great Lakes Recruit
THE LIVING FLAG
Ten thousand blue-jackets, at Great Lakes, the largest naval training
station in the world. Inset: Captain William A. Moffett, Commandant.]
[Illustration: PANORAMA OF THE UNITED STATES NAVAL ACADEMY AT ANNAPOLIS
Inset: Rear Admiral Edward W. Eberle, Superintendent, who guided the
destinies of the Naval Academy during the trying days of the War.]
One day in New York four young fellows suddenly walked out of a
motion-picture studio and enlisted. Two of them were high salaried
photographers, but they said nothing about that and went in as seamen.
Several months afterwards a call was sent out for a few men experienced
in photo work. One of these four was found shoveling coal at Pelham. He
had been for three years the photographer for Sidney Drew, but he was
plugging along at coal passing, and doing a good job until found fitted
for other work.
"Captain, I'd like to get a transfer," was the request a young
reservist made of his commanding officer in 1918. The captain was
surprised. The youngster had rendered service in the armed guards and
was doing well on a cargo transport.
"What is the trouble with your present duty?" the Captain asked.
"Well, sir," he answered, "I've been going across on merchantmen. I
have been torpedoed three times, but I'd like to get on a destroyer or
a submarine-chaser, where I can see a little real action."
That was the spirit of the reservists. Willing to perform any duty,
they wanted to get into action, to be sent where the fighting was.
Naval aviation was made up largely of reservists, and the Naval Reserve
Flying Corps grew during the war into a force of more than 26,000, with
1,500 qualified pilots and 4,000 student officers in training. Not only
were hundreds of bright young men enrolled as prospective aviators, but
thousands of skilled mechanics were enlisted in the ground personnel.
Looking over the list of officers of the Cruiser and Transport Force,
I find that eight reservists were on Admiral Gleaves' staff, eighteen
on that of Admiral Jones. Of the 166 officers who served on the
_Leviathan_, the largest of all transports, 93 were reservists. On the
_George Washington_ there were 63 out of the total of one hundred.
Thirty-five served on the _President Lincoln_, 46 on the _President
Grant_, 69 on the _Mount Vernon_, 51 on the _Great Northern_, 43 on the
_Orizaba_, 28 on the _Pastores_, 33 on the _Pocahontas_, 24 on the
_Powhatan_, 30 on the _Princess Matoika_. Of this large force, there
was not a transport or cruiser which did not have a large proportion of
reservists in its officers and crew. In carrying the American Army to
France and bringing it home, the reservists did their full share of the
work.
They played an even larger part in the Naval Overseas Transportation
Service. Five thousand officers and thirty thousand men were required
to man this vast fleet of cargo ships carrying munitions and supplies
to France. Of the officers all but twelve were reservists, as were a
large majority of the enlisted men. Thousands more were in training to
furnish crews for the hundreds of vessels being built by the Shipping
Board which the Navy was preparing to man.
Of our 350 submarine chasers, which were on patrol duty in French and
English waters, in the Adriatic and all along the American coast, the
large majority were manned by reservists, who performed this hard and
often monotonous duty with a cheerfulness that was unfailing. These
sturdy little 110-foot boats stayed at sea in all kinds of weather, and
braved storms that even the largest vessels did not relish.
The record shows that the reservists could have done anything required
at any time anywhere. At the aviation assembly and repair base at
Pauillac, France, during an inspection by members of the Naval Affairs
Committee, one of the party, Congressman Peters, of Maine, remarked:
"My watch is broken and I have tried both in Paris and at Bordeaux to
get it repaired, but was told that it would take two weeks to do so."
Lieutenant Commander Briscoe, in command of the repair base, told the
Congressman that it could be fixed right there at the station.
"But," said Mr. Peters, "I have only an hour to spend here."
"All right," said Briscoe, "we can do it."
An instrument repair man was sent for. He took the watch, and fifteen
minutes later handed it back to the astonished Congressman, who found
it running and set at the correct hour.
"Well, well, I didn't think that you had such skilled mechanics in the
service."
"That's nothing," said Briscoe. "We can build a locomotive here--and
run it, too."
It was a fact. The mechanical personnel of the Flying Corps was
competent to manufacture, overhaul, repair and operate almost any
mechanical device made in America.
The United States had no naval-reserve legislation until Congress
authorized the creation of a reserve in 1915. It did have the nucleus
of a naval militia prior to the act of February 16, 1914, when Congress
coördinated these distinct and scattered branches into a cohesive real
naval militia organization, subject in time of war to the call of the
President. In pursuance of that act a division of Naval Militia was
organized in the department, and a board named by the Secretary of the
Navy to formulate standards of professional examinations for officers
and enlisted men, and also to strengthen the militia as an effective
arm of naval power. That board, which pioneered the organization so
well that it met the test of war with credit, was composed of Captains
W. A. Gill, Edward Capehart, and Harold Norton, and Commanders J. J.
Poyer and F. B. Bassett, of the Navy, and Commodore R. P. Forshew,
Captain C. D. Bradham, Captain E. A. Evers, Commander J. M. Mitcheson,
and Lieutenant J. T. McMillan, of the Naval Militia.
Cruises covering several weeks in the summer were organized for
training and were continued until 1917, when these short cruises merged
into war service. In encouraging and training these reserves we were
carrying out the wise counsel of Jefferson given in 1807: "I think it
will be necessary to erect our seafaring men into a naval militia and
subject them to tours of duty in whatever port they may be." The act
of August 29, 1916, provided that the militia in Federal service be
designated as "National Naval Volunteers." The force grew to twelve
thousand by 1917, and when war was declared this body of men, who had
enjoyed practical training, were at once available for duty. They were
given important assignments, ashore and afloat, in the fighting zone on
ships of all types, in administrative positions; and, as leaders and
instructors of newly enlisted reserves they rendered timely and useful
service. During the war the National Naval Volunteers and Reserves were
amalgamated along lines largely worked out by naval militia officers.
But for the naval reserve legislation of 1916, I do not see how we
could have promptly provided naval personnel for the war. It will
always be a monument to the wisdom of the then Chief of the Bureau of
Navigation, Admiral Victor Blue, who was again called to that post
after serving as captain of the _Texas_ under Rodman in the North Sea
Fleet, that the legislation was made ready and prepared against the
day which we hoped would never come, but which did come, with all
suddenness, upon us.
It was the act of August 29, 1916, that created a Naval Reserve Force
of six classes--the Fleet Naval Reserve, of former officers, and
enlisted men who had completed as much as sixteen years' service in
the Navy; the Naval Reserve of men of seagoing experience; the Naval
Auxiliary Reserve, men employed on merchant vessels suitable for naval
auxiliaries; the Naval Coast Defense Reserve, in which civilians
without previous sea experience could be enrolled; the Volunteer Naval
Reserve, whose members obligated themselves to serve in the Navy in
any of the various classes without retainer pay or uniform gratuity in
time of peace; and the Naval Reserve Flying Corps, composed of officers
and student flyers and enlisted men qualified for aviation duties. At
the same time a Marine Corps Reserve of five classes was authorized,
corresponding to the Naval Reserve Force.
This was the basis upon which was built up the vast reserve force of
more than 300,000 which was enrolled, trained and put into service
during the war. Beginning with a few hundred the force grew rapidly
after the break with Germany. Upon the declaration of war the Naval
Militia were mustered in, and from 977 officers and 12,407 enlisted
militiamen and reserves in service April 6, 1917, the reserves grew in
six months to 77,000, in a year to 123,000, and eventually reached a
total of 355,447--30,358 officers and 305,089 men.
Except for a few thousand ex-service men and merchant seamen, this
immense force was made up of men who had had no seagoing experience,
men who had to learn the game from the beginning. And the rapidity
with which they were turned from landsmen into sailors reflected great
credit on instructors and apprentices.
There is no page of the war more illustrative of what the colleges
did, in addition to the college spirit of lofty patriotism which sent
educated youths into the service by the thousands,
"Who took the khaki and the gun
Instead of cap and gown,"
than preparing students for all branches of the service. The college
campus became a national training ground. Institutions of learning were
converted into naval schools where young men were given instruction
in branches fitting for service in the Navy. Harvard became a radio
school; Massachusetts "Tech" taught aviators, Princeton specialized
in cost accounting, Yale's units were commanded by a retired admiral,
Stevens Institute had its engineering school. Scores of other colleges
and universities in all parts of the country extended their facilities
in whatever way was most needed. There was not a rating in the Navy,
from the new duty in connection with listening devices to the oldest
calling of cook, without special schools. Intensive courses sent men
afloat with the best instruction possible in the brief period allotted.
College men did everything from peeling spuds to commanding ships.
Trained minds, plus work and courage in the test of war, forever
answered in the affirmative the question whether college education is
worth what it costs. The college man mastered navigation more rapidly
because he had mastered mathematics. His ability to learn readily
paid his country a large dividend upon its investment in educational
institutions.
Though colleges and universities were giving instruction and nearly
all our ships and stations engaged in training reserves as well as
regulars, the typical reserve camp was at Pelham Bay. We needed a
training station near New York. We had to have a good waterside
location with plenty of space, well drained and wholesome, and we found
it in the park at Pelham, which the municipal authorities generously
tendered for temporary use. Ten miles from the heart of the city, with
water on two sides, Pelham Bay was an ideal location, and there we
built a station capable of providing for 25,000 men. It was efficiently
commanded by Captain W. B. Franklin, a former officer in the regular
Navy, and a fine type of the reservist of mature years.
I made it a habit during the war, whenever my duties called me to New
York, to run over to Pelham. Being myself in the reserve class, called
from civilian life to service with the naval forces for a period, the
chance to touch elbow to elbow with these men was always embraced, and
after every visit I returned to Washington with new inspiration and
new zeal. Many young reservists trained there won promotion--I say
won, because commissions were not handed out. They were awarded by
demonstration of fitness. The course was so thorough that the reserves
called Pelham the "Reserve Naval Academy."
Eighteen reservists were commended for acts of personal bravery, 110
for courageous and heroic action. Four Medals of Honor were awarded
reservists; eleven received Distinguished Service Medals; the Navy
Cross was awarded to 265 officers and 50 enlisted men, and special
letters of commendation for exceptional performance of duty were sent
to 171 officers and 20 men of the Naval Reserve Force.
This is the record that glorified all the reservists, not alone those
marked for special distinction but the thousands who were of the same
stuff and spirit. They fought well. They died well. They have left
in deeds and words a record that will be an inspiration to unborn
generations. As illustrating their spirit I recall a legacy left by a
valorous young aviator for whom I named a destroyer.
Kenneth MacLeish, of Glencoe, Ill., was enrolled in the Reserve Flying
Corps in March, 1917. In October he went to France and became a member
of the bombing group, taking part in many air raids over the enemy's
lines. While on a raid his squadron was attacked by a dozen enemy
airplanes. Fighting desperately, to enable his fellows to escape,
MacLeish's plane was shot down and he was killed. His daring, his
fortitude, his Christian spirit were a trinity which make him immortal.
Writing to his parents, just before he was killed, MacLeish penned this
classic that will live in the annals of the Naval Reserves:
In the first place, if I find it necessary to make the supreme
sacrifice, always remember this; I am firmly convinced that the
ideals which I am going to fight for are right, and splendid
ideals, that I am happy to be able to give so much for them. I
could not have any self-respect, I could not consider myself a
man, if I saw these ideals defeated when it lies in my power to
defend them. * * * So you see, I have no fears, I have no regrets.
I have only to thank God for such a wonderful opportunity to serve
Him and the world. * * * And the life that I lay down will be my
preparation for the grander, finer life that I take up.
I shall live! * * * you must not grieve; I shall be supremely happy
* * * so must you--not that I have "gone west," but that I have
bought such a wonderful life at such a small price, and paid for it
so gladly.