FLEETS IN THE MAKING

The navy was not exempt from the searchlight Congress cast upon the manifold war preparations of the Government. But nothing was adduced before the investigating subcommittee to indicate that the Navy Department had not met the abnormal situation produced by American belligerency. The outstanding development disclosed was that the navy had more than 1,000 ships commissioned in the winter of 1917, as against 300 two years ago; that 425 vessels were under construction, exclusive of 350 submarine chasers; and that contracts had been let for building hundreds of other small craft.

The expansion of the navy occasioned by the war was notable in other directions. Since January 1, 1917, the naval force increased from 4,500 officers and 68,000 men to 15,000 officers and 254,000 men; the number of stations operated by the navy from 130 to 363; the number of civil employees from 35,000 to 60,000; the strength of the Naval Reserve from a few hundreds to 49,246 men; the average monthly expenditures from $8,000,000 to $60,000,000; the Hospital Corps from 1,600 to 7,000; the National Naval Volunteers from zero to 16,000 men; the Marine Corps from 344 officers and 9,921 men to 1,197 officers and 30,000 men.

The navy placed great reliance on destroyers to fulfill the part allotted to it in the sea warfare against German submarines. A formidable fleet of these vessels was planned at a cost of $350,000,000, and contracts for the construction were placed with five shipbuilding concerns in October, 1917. Their actual number was guarded as a military secret. It was the largest project the navy department had undertaken, and would probably give the United States a destroyer fleet exceeding those of all other countries. The expenditure embraced the expansion of existing shipbuilding plants and the building of additional engine and boiler factories, as the destroyer program taxed the full capacity of the shipbuilding industry.

The destroyer had proved to be the deadliest weapon utilized against the submarine, and was superior to the submarine chaser, even for harbor and in-shore patrol work, besides having better seagoing qualities. Submarine chasers were regarded as a necessity, but the navy evinced little enthusiasm for them as a weapon of permanent effectiveness, and rather pinned its faith to an overwhelming destroyer armada to combat the U-boats.

In aviation the Government made no less impressive strides. The building of 20,000 aeroplanes, for which Congress had voted $640,000,000, was undertaken for the creation of a great American aerial force to operate against Germany. Their types covered the whole range of training machines, light, high-speed fighting airships, and powerful battle and bombing planes of heavy design. The training of aviators, the building of motors, and the assembling and framing of the wings proceeded uniformly so that men and equipment would be ready for service simultaneously.

Numbers of American aviators were already abroad undergoing intensive training behind the battle fronts. The thousands in training at home were coached by a corps of Allied air experts of various nationalities, forming virtually an international aviation general staff for organizing the American aerial force.

The United States had set out resolutely to do its part in wresting the air spaces over the western front from Germany. The arrival in France in the autumn of 1917 of a group of American aviators with American-built airships brought an administration announcement which viewed the event as of signal importance. The opportunity rested with the United States to give its Allies such a great preponderance of airships that the enemy would be driven from the skies altogether, impotent either to give battle or defend himself. With this aim in view, Congress was asked for further funds for developing aviation during 1918 and 1919 to the amount of $1,138,000,000, of which it was proposed that $1,032,294,260 be expended on aviation: $553,219,120 on extra engines and spare parts, $235,866,000 for airplanes and hydroaeroplanes, $77,475,000 for machine guns, $8,050,000 for schools for military aeronautics, and the balance for stations, depots, equipment, upkeep, and pay for instructors, inspectors, mechanics, engineers, accountants, &c.

There was an army of aviators to meet all this development in equipment, numbering, at the beginning of 1918, 3,900 officers and 82,120 men.

Perhaps the shipping situation called most for legislative investigation. The paramount need of the Allies was for 6,000,000 tons annually, and the British Shipping Controller warned that if the United States could not produce this tonnage to replace the losses by submarines the Allies' military and naval efforts would be crippled. The construction of new tonnage in American shipyards had been beset by personal conflicts in the shipping administration, resulting in reversals of policy and retarded operations. Edward J. Hurley, chairman of the Shipping Board, told the Senate investigating committee that one obstacle to the expeditious pursuit of the vast program of ship construction was that it had been superimposed on an equally extensive naval program. When war was declared 70 per cent. of the eighteen prominent shipyards then in existence were overtaxed by the naval program, while only the remaining 30 per cent. of the yards could be utilized to proceed with the mercantile ship program. The task was to bring an adequate merchant marine into being to assist the Allies and he assured the committee (December, 1917) that it was being accomplished with the utmost dispatch despite past dissensions and many obstacles. The number of ships under construction or contract was 1,427, representing 8,573,108 dead-weight tons. Of this number 431 were ships embracing 3,056,000 tons which were in course of building in the yards for private and foreign owners and had been commandeered for war service under Government order. The rest were composed of 559 steel ships of 3,965,200 dead-weight tons, 379 wooden ships of 1,344,900 dead-weight tons, and 58 composite ships of 207,000 tons. The main need in proceeding with this huge program was shipyard space. New yards constructed and tonnage contracts awarded to each called for a constant expansion in the shipping organization, so that by the end of 1917 the Shipping Board controlled 132 yards, of which only 58 were old establishments, the remainder, 74, being new.

The burden imposed on American shipyards can be realized by contrasting their output in the prewar period with the total tonnage under construction for both the navy and the Shipping Board. The navy program was the equivalent in value, and therefore in shipbuilding effort, of 2,500,000 tons of merchant shipping. The mercantile marine program represented a tonnage of over 8,500,000. Here was 11,000,000 tons being produced by American shipyards whose greatest previous output in one year had only amounted to 615,000 tons according to Mr. Hurley. For 1918 he promised an output of 6,000,000 tons. Of the vessels under contract a good proportion were of 7,500 tons or more, classified as cargo steamers, and of these a number were designed specially for transports.

Tonnage being the immediate need, the Shipping Board did not wait for the completion of the new construction to supply it. As a war emergency measure it requisitioned all American ocean cargo and passenger-carrying vessels over 2,500 tons. This step was taken as a means to control freight rates as well as to enable the Government to command the tonnage it needed for war purposes. American merchant vessels for oversea traffic exceeded 2,000,000 tonnage. Some had already been requisitioned by the army and navy. With the exception of craft taken over for Government service, the vessels were left in their owners' hands for operation on Government account as the Shipping Board directed.

Between 600,000 and 700,000 tons of German shipping seized in American ports had already been utilized as troop transports and freighters for reenforcing the American army in France. These vessels included the Leviathan, formerly the Vaterland, which was capable of carrying 10,000 troops on a single voyage, but the number was limited to 8,000 to insure comfort. In January, 1918, it was disclosed that the Leviathan, with fifteen other former German ships, had safely reached Entente ports laden with men and supplies. The announcement was made from the American army headquarters in France to disprove false reports circulated in Germany belittling the assistance rendered the Entente cause by the use of these vessels. They had, on their first voyage, escaped the submarines, a feat which was not palatable to Germany, who sought to bolster up a waning popular confidence in the U-boat campaign. The German vessels which had run the gantlet, besides the Vaterland, were the Covington (ex-Cincinnati), America (ex-Amerika), President Grant, President Lincoln, Powhatan (ex-Hamburg), Madawaska (ex-KÖnig Wilhelm II), George Washington, Mount Vernon (ex-Kronprinzessin Cecilie), Agamemnon (ex-Kaiser Wilhelm II), Aeolus (ex-Grosser KurfÜrst), Mercury (ex-Barbarossa), Pocahontas (ex-Princess Irene), Huron (ex-Friedrich der Grosse), Von Steuben (ex-Kronprinz Wilhelm), De Kalb (ex-Prinz Eitel Friedrich).

A further step to expedite the shipment of men and supplies to Europe was the formation of a Committee of Shipping Control, composed of American and Allied membership. Its chief object was to endeavor to fulfill Secretary Baker's expectation that 1,500,000 American troops and their requisite equipment could be landed in France in 1918 if sufficient shipping was available. It was endowed with power of absolute control in the allocation of all tonnage on both sides of the Atlantic, and aimed to end the complications and delays that had hitherto prevented the fullest use of American shipping for war purposes.

The Shipping Board had succeeded in turning over to the War Department over 1,000,000 tons of ships on the bare board basis for the transportation of soldiers, live stock, and munitions. Much of this tonnage was commandeered by the Government for that purpose, the shipyards not being sufficiently advanced in their work to provide much new construction. To facilitate the production of the enormous amount of new tonnage under way the Board sought a further appropriation of $800,000,000, increasing the amount Congress had authorized for the shipping program to $2,100,000,000.