Evening Republican, Volume 15, Number 32, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 7 February 1911 — How Our Bluejackets Get Their Mail [ARTICLE+ILLUSTRATION]

How Our Bluejackets Get Their Mail

- iI3LjLl| ■» matter of handling Incomin 8 1111(31 outgolag mail on a United IB | Btat«#s battleship or other ■ large naval vessel is one M of the fbost interesting of the minor features of life afloat in a warship community, and yet it is one of which the general public on its visits to the floating fortresses sees little or nothing. The activities of a "ma■Hae poet office” on one of Uncle Sam’s flrnt class fighting ships have broadened considerably within the past few yean for the reason that one of the nation's up-to-date battleships or armored cruisers carries anywhere froth tOO to l,ovo officers and men. This is half as many again as were enrolled on the battleships in our fleet prior to a tew years ago, and when the new battleships now building are in commission each will have considerably mors than 1,000 souls aboard. Now, as everybody appreciate?, a community of 1,000 people op land can keep a post office pretty busy, and a floating community of the same number of people represents vastly more postal business, because its patrons are all adults, and moat of them are great letter writers —being far more addicted to the letter writing habit than the same number of people picked at randan on shore. In explanation of this it may he cited that the navy men are away from home and consequently thair only means of communication with relatives and friends is by mail. Furthermore, they have, during their evenings aboard ship, in the ’’off duty” periods on Sunday and at other times plenty of leisure for writing letters, and they improve the opportunity, ofttimes, ao doubt, because “there is nothing else to do.” The officers aboard ship must needs handle a heavy volume of official correspondence as well as their private correspondence, and many of the bluejackets write almost dally to the girls they left behind. So that all told there Is a really abnormal volume of postal business to be attended to on the average warship. For handling the mails aboard ship a nook below decks is set apart as the ship’s post office and this Is the headquarters of the “mail orderlies,” or the postal clerks and assistant postal clerks. Enlisted men In the navy, upon selection by the secretary of the navy, are designated by the post office department as navy mail clerks and assistant navy mall clerks, and these man take the oath of office prescribed flor employees of the postal service and give bond in the sum of SI,OOO, Just as do the postal clerks who work on railway trains or in post offices ashore.

These naval postal clerks have authority to receive and open all pouches and sacks of mall addressed to naval vessels; to deliver mall; to receive mall for transmission; to receipt for registered mall; to sell postage stamps, and. In fact, to discharge all the duties of a post office clerk, a mall collector and a letter carrier In one. On many of the warships there are on duty Instead of or in addition to the naval postal clerks, what are known as “mail orderlies." The duties of a mall orderly are much the same as a naval postal clerk and indeed to the layman all naval postal employees are “mail orderlies," as he sees them landing from the ships with their bulging mall sacks and later returning on board with other pouches, similarly swollen with letters, papers anti packages. There are letter boxes at convenient places on ship board, just as there are on street corners on shore, and the mail orderlies or clerks make collections from these at stated times each day, just as collections of mail are made in the city streets. Two or three times each day the accumulated mall having been sorted and postmarked is sent ashore in pouches that It may be dispatched by rail or steamer to its various destinations. Mail is thus taken ashore by one of the steam cutters or motor boats, several of which are attached as “tenders" to every naval vessel. Often one of these little vessels makes the trip specially to convey the mall. On the return trip this little postal ferry brings the mall for the ship that has accumulated at the nearest post office ashore since the last

previous visit of the naval postman Each ship's mall is, of course, kept entirely separate and is transferred in a special pouch that goes direct to the vessel for which the mall matter It contains is destined. , Much of the mail for the officers and men aboard our warships is sent "Care of the Postmaster, New York,” or “Care of the Postmaster Sap Francisco.” The vessels move about so much that correspondents ashore find it difficult to keep track of them or to gauge their letters so as to reach them at any given place. But the postmaster at New York, for instance, is advised by telegraph of the whereabouts of each vessel every day and a lettpr sent in his care is sure to reach a naval destination in the shortest possible time. The distribution of the mail for the officers on shipboard is usually left to the officer of the deck. The master at arms is supposed to distribute the mail to the crew but at Christmas time, when the mail is heavy or when a ship at the end of a long cruise finds dozens of bags of mall awaiting her,' the mall orderlies or postal clerks are likely to pitch in and help distribute the mail after they have sorted it. The providing of sufficient United Statei postage stamps to supply the wapts of the bluejackets on a prolonged cruise in foreign waters is one of the responsibilities of the naval postal service that the captain of the ship i§ required to keep an eye on, for letters “for home” if bearing United States stamps, may be dispatched direct to America in “closed bags” instead of undergoing the routine of for* ejgn mall service.