Evening Republican, Volume 20, Number 187, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 5 August 1916 — LANDLUBBERS TO BE TRAINED FOR NAVAL SERVICE [ARTICLE+ILLUSTRATION]

LANDLUBBERS TO BE TRAINED FOR NAVAL SERVICE

Hundreds of Civilians to Be Given Chance to Learn the Sailor’s Life. WILL HAVE MONTH AT SEA Amateurs Will Be Taken Aboard Nine Battleships and Given Course of Traini/ig—No Menial Labor for the Rookies, Says Secretary Roosevelt. New York.—Ye, ho! My lads! For the naval Flattsburg! Aboard nine United States battleships many, hundred enthusiastic young luudlubbets will learn something about the gay sailor’s life off the Atlantic coast next month. Like their brothers In the military training camps for citizens, they will partly fit themselves ta volunteer for Service in Uncle Sam’s defense when war comes. ■ And incidentally, from all signs, they will have a jolly good time, a bracing vacation and a month of exercise and salt air which will put them back Into civil life ready for almost anything that comes along. The amateur tars at this point will assemble and go aboard the Maine, now receiving ship at the New York navy yard, and the Kentucky on August 15. On the same day the Virginia will pick up its contingent at Portland, Me.; the Kearsage at Boston; the Illinois at Newport, R. I.; the Rhode Island at Philadelphia; the Alabama at Philadelphia; the Louisiana at Norfolk, Va., and the New Jersey at Charleston, S. C. All will then proceed to Gardiner’s bay, at the other end of Long Island sound, holding ship drills on the way. At the bay they will participate in department strategic maneuvers with

other vessels of the Atlantic fleet. Division drills will take place. On August 27 the nine training ships will set sail (or steam, if you like it better) for Tangier sound, a part of Chesapeake bay, where they will hold target practice and some of them will coal at Hampton Hoads. About September' 5 they will start for their ports of embarkation and here they will be joined’by flotillas of motor boats owned by citizens who have patriotically offered to train for coast defense in time of war. The motor boats and training battleships will hold joint maneuvers, studying problems in the defense of naval districts. The disembarkation will take place September 12. Bunch of Landlubbers. » Some of the men enlisted for the cruise are the veriest landlubbers. There are bankers, brokers, lawyers, ministers, mechanical, mining and civil engineers, business men of various sorts, artists and several bona fide newspaper men in the New York detachment. Readers of salt water fiction know that the first thing a newcomer aboard ship has to do is to holystone the decks, in land parlance, scrub the floor. But not this time. There will be no menial labor for the rookies. They aren’t above it. They have promised -and are willing to do anything they are ordered to do. But Assistant Secretary of the Navy Franklin D. Roosevelt, who has the cruise under hiS particular wing, has decided it would be a waste of time. He decided the men going on the cruise, mostly above the average in intelligence, training and education, need no lessons in pealing potatoes and shoveling coal. Instead, they will get work just as hard, but more informative. They will be trained intensively, as the naval officers say, to take jobs as petty or commissioned officers in time of crisis. *■ In general, according to Mr. Roosevelt, they will be-organized, messed and berthed after the methods employed with the midshipmen of Annapolis Naval academy on practice cruises. The object will be to get them Into the habits of ship life and to drill and Instruct them at the lighter guns of the ship batteries. They will be taught signaling, boating of all kinds,

fire control and torpedo defense station work, quartermaster’s duties and marine electrical engineering. Including radio work. There will also be frequent emergency drills, such .as fire quarters and general quarters. Besides this they will have field artillery and naval drills on shore to give them a rudimentary knowledge of the handling of arms. Lectures will also be a feature of the end of the cruise. Between August 29 and September 5 some of the best schoolmasters In the navy—and army and navy life Is mostly teaching school in some manner 6r other—will talk to the volunteers on subjects bearing on the navy’s work. Limit the Volunteers. • Secretary Roosevelt also promised to cut down the number of volunteers allowed on different ships so that there will be no overcrowding or discomfort in the way of hammock room, or delay in serving food. * As at the army training camps, there will be optional courses lasting a portion of each day. The subjects will include navigation, signaling, radio work, steam and electrical engineering. The cruise will have several important advantages over Plattsburg. No mosquitoes, no sleeping on the - wet ground, no trench digging! Thomas V. Slocum, a well-known yachtsman, Is head of the civilian committee in this city which has charge of getting recruits for the cruise. Mr. Slocum, whose ideal is Paul Jones, for whose ship Ranger he has named his yacht, is very enthusiastic when talking about the cruise. “Think of the advantages,” he said recently. “A summer vacation at sea on vessels that cost millions of dollars, the sea air, the wholesome food, the healthful exercise. Besides the gainful experience, everyone will come back with a larger knowledge of the navy and what our sea defense means and will come back with a rudimentary training In that defense, an increased pride in his country —and a better patriot.” No obligation to fight Is incurred by going on the cruise, except the duty every American citizen has to defend his country when called upon. However, at the end of the cruise the recruit will have a chance to announce his intention to volunteer for service in the navy in case of war occurring within the next four years, and most of the men will do this. To Be Given Certificates. At the end of the course a recruit will get a certificate signed by the commanding officer of his ship specifying the nature of the duties he has performed, the efficiency he has displayed and the rating he is best qualified to fill. The expenses of the cruise are very small. The recruit must pay his own transportation to and from the points of embarkation. Once aboard tlie ship he must make a deposit of S3O to cove? board and clothes, but part of this will be returned to him if it is not all used up. Each man must take with him two pairs of black shoes, underclothes, toilet articles and other necessaries. Washable uniforms will be handed out aboard ship. The recruits can’t spend much money on the cruise. However, there is a ship’s store, where they can purchase soap, tobacco, stationery, toilet accessories and a few, other things. The motor boat mobilization is stirring up much interest in this city and more men will take part in it than in the sea cruise. The “mosquito fleet” of several hundred chuggers will be inspected and classified by navy officers. Harold Vanderbilt has shown his interest by having a scout cruiser built just for the purpose of the mobilization. Many other young men of wellknown families are actively interested in the cruise and the boat mobilization. These include Vincent Astor, Hermann Oelrichs, Paul Hammond, William Greenough, Orsun Munn, Thomas Lamont, Harry B. Hollings, Jr., Robert Jacob, B. H. Borden, Stewart Davis and Charles H. Jackson. Young men from the same community or the same school or college may enlist as a sort of club and be assigned to the same ship. However, enlistments are closed now, but they will open again next spring. The civilian cruise is to be a permanent annual fixture.

Franklin D. Roosevelt.