Jasper County Democrat, Volume 12, Number 34, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 11 August 1909 — TO USE TORPEDO BOATS AS MARKS [ARTICLE]

TO USE TORPEDO BOATS AS MARKS

Small Craft Are to Bo Targets For Nary's Big Rifles. SHIPS READY FOR PRACTICE The Men Behind the Gun* of the Battleships Will Try to'Shatter Little Vessels as They Speed Through the Waves—Tour of the Dreadnoughts of the United States Fleet Now on Their Way to Maneuvering Grounds.

Old Point Comfort, Va.. Aug. 10.— When the giant battleships of the North Atlantic fleet, now lying in Hampton Roads near by, steam out for their deep sea drill, thirty miles off the Virginia capes, they will take two little torpedo boats, probably to be shot to pieces. These tiny craft, the Nicholson and the O’Brien, among the oldest in the navy, are to serve as targets toward which the massive guns of the fifteen battleships are to hurl their tons of projectiles. Four of the ships, the Wisconsin, the Kansas, the Georgia and the Mississippi are now on their way to the drill grounds. With these four out of the roads, preparations for the drill will be completed on the other vessels, the coaling and the taking on of water already being in progress. The torpedo boats will be carried to the drill grounds on mammoth barges, from which they will be launched. A piece of canvas stretched between two towering masts, erected recently on the torpedo boats at the Norfolk navy yard, will be the bull’s eye for the gunners on the battleships. Every precaution has been taken to keep the targets afloat, even after projectiles have hit them.