Evening Republican, Volume 14, Number 310, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 30 December 1910 — The AUTOMOBILL IN THE U.S. NAVY [ARTICLE+ILLUSTRATION]

The AUTOMOBILL IN THE U.S. NAVY

° man y persons it might, at first thought, appear K' strange that the navy— A which is supposed to J have to do with nothing much but ships and sea craft —should find use for the automobile. Yet, as a matter of fact, the United States navy department is finding extensive and in-

creasing use for this up-to-date mode of locomotion. And just here it may be noted that for all that our army may be a trifle behind the military establishments of some foreign powers In the use it has made of the autoinobile, no such disparaging comparison is possible in the case of Uncle team’s navy. The latter is quite Abreast any other nation in the uses that have been found for the self-pro-pelled vehicles. As may readily be surmised, the chief sphere of usefulness for motor cars in the navy service lies in the assistance they cap render at shore stations, such as navy yards, and at the naval workshops which have to do with supplying the ships with Iguns and ammunition and other inidlspensible classes of supplies. The best evidence of what these new helpers can accomplish in this way is to be had at the United States naval gun .factory, the big industrial plant which\ manufactures all the heavy guns for"our armorclads. Here four electric trucks of varying capacities are in constant service, each performing the work of not less than half a dozen horse-drawn carts. Indeed, these four trucks perform the entire work of transferring from shop to shop all the material of every description entering into the manufacture of the big guns. i One of these trucks has a capacity of 2,000 pounds; a second is capable of carrying 2,500 pounds; the third can transport two tons, and the fourth, designed for the heaviest class of work, is capable of toting around a tidy five tons. These horseless trucks can travel with maximum load at 18

to 20 miles per hour, and they can keep going for a total of 30 to 35 miles on one charge of electricity—that is on one charge of the storage batteries, which are stocked with energy each night for the next day’s work. Perhaps the most in-

teresting function performed by an auto in the navy is in the role of a pay car at this self-same naval gun factory. __ Once a week this pay car makes a two-hour trip of the various shops of the plant paying out to the 3,000 employees an aggregate of between $55,000 and $60,000 each week. The medical department of the United States navy has introduced motor ambulances. Both electric and steam cars have been tested for such service and such has been the success of the Innovation that ere long we may expect to find auto ambulances at every naval hospital of any size. The approved style of motor ambulance is an 18 horse power machine capable of carrying 12 persons at a speed of 15 miles per hour. Space is provided for four litters, two being placed side by side on the floor of the ambulance and two above it. It is the work of but a moment to convert the ambulance from a sort of omnibus car with seats along the sides to a miniature moving hospital ward with four beds as above mentioned. The United States Naval academy at Annapolis, Md., bids fair to become

in time a field wherein the fullest usefulness of the automobile will be developed. Already commercial cars are in use at Uncle Sam’s great university, being employed for the transportation of freight and supplies of all kinds and for the handling of mail and express matter —and there is a plenty of such work in this little naval community of several thousand people. Many of the officers stationed at the naval academy—there are more than 100 on duty there —have adopted motor cars for their personal use, and one of the impressive sights at this naval center —typical of modern progress —is found in the spectacle of a naval officer stepping ashore from ship or cutter and grasping the steering wheel of a motor car that has been awaiting him at the dock. Secretary Meyer, the present head of the navy department, is, personally, an enthusiast on the subject of motoring. He owns several cars of different types, and is heartily in favor of the scheme to make the fullest possible use of the self-propelled vehicles in the naval world.