THE COMING FLEET

Evening Post, Volume CX, Issue 35, 10 August 1925, Page 7

THE COMING FLEET

AMERICAN BLUEJACKETS

YOUNG AND ACTIVE

NOT TRAINED TO THE SEA.

The following article is written for "Th« Evening Post" by Captain Francis M'Cullagh, a British journalist on the Pennsylvania, and tha only British correspondent with the American fleet.

The American bluejacket is extremely well looked after. His quarters are cool in simmer and well-heated in winter, and always w*ell ventilated. His food is very good and plentiful. His time is so well divided up between naval exercises, physical drill, study, gport, concerts, and cinema performances that his four-years' engagement passes very rapidly. Some men are given a sound course of general education; but, apart from this, the level of education in the lower-deck personuel Is remarkably high. Formerly somewhat of a "roughneck," the American sailor is now a good type with, a higher school education; and he takes an intelligent interest in the history, agriculture, industries, and current politics of the lauds he visits. The ignorant and brutal old sea-dog of the type ao frankly depicted by Smollett seems, in companson, as far removed from us as th* cave-man. Indeed, in all the qualities which constitute civilisation, the ordinary seaman of an American battleship is distinctly above the ship's captain of 200 years ago. He is cleaner, morally and physically. He is better educated. He reads more. He has greater self-respect and self-restraint.

SEEING THE WORLD

I met this morning on the deck of the Pennsylvania a young seaman who is not above the average level of the men aboard this vessel, but who would, in many respects, be considered as distinctly above the level of Rodney's captains. He comes from a farm in Montana, and has a practical as well as a theoretical knowledge of the mqai up-to-date and complicated agricultural machinery. He is going back to his farm after this cruise, as by that time his four years' term of enlistment will have expired. "I wanted to see thi3 world," he said to me, "and, after I have been in Australia and New Zealand, I shall have seen most of it. I like this life afloat, but I'm twenty-one now/ and must get back to work."

The questions he asked- me about Australia and New Zealand were searching and to the point. He is anxious to see the interior, of those countries, so as to get an idea, of the fanning methods used. The big town has no lure for him at all. He likes it once in a. while, as a change; but as a place of permanent residence, "No, sir." He sketched me the plan of development he proposes to put into operation as soon as he gets back to tho farm, and it struck me as, extremely sound and practical. Then, he went on to talk with real enthusiasm of the splendid mountain scenery _ around his home in Montana. He was born in Western America, but his father came from Belfast and his mother from Southern Ireland.

I must say that he. struck me as a move valuable type of citizen than the "iibs^it-miiided beggar" type which Mr. Kipling so much'admires; and, unfortunately, that type exists in real life :'.a wull ns on paper on the other side 01 the Atlantic. Une of the most popular marching songs in Kitchener's Army at the beginning of the Great War contained this line, "Where the wind blows there blow I," and I regret to say that this accurately expressed the vague and undisciplined mentality of many among those who sang it.

YOUNG MEN AND "LIVE WIRES"

Of course, the Yankee bluejacket has a deep fund of romance in him, othoi'wise he would not fall to the brilliant posters of the recruiting department and to tho wiles of the recruiting officer; but less than a fourth of the bluejackets enlist for a second term of four years, and very few decide to make the navy a career and to retire eventually on a pension. Officers tell me that this condition of affairs leads to the average bluejacket being a "live wire." . Having made up his mind to return to civil life as soon as his four years are up, he kept fit and interested, and generally learns a trade ao that, when he does leave, he has no difficulty in finding work ashore. Sometimes he becomes a skilled artisan, sometimes ho becomes an electrical engineer, a "movie" picture expert, a first-class photographer. His' officers contend that, even though be does not remain, in the navy, such a man is more valuable than a heavyweight of forty would be—a heavyweight who looked forward to automatic promotion and retirement, and whose ambition was the negative one of keeping out of trouble. '

VERY FEW FOREIGNERS

I have often heard it stated by for-, eigners that many of the Yankee bluejackets are not American at all. It is true that, until tho Spanish-American War, a considerable proportion of them were American citizens, born abroad, in Great Britain, Scandinavia, Germany, and other parts of. Europe, and that there were among them a good many foreigners who had, on joining, signified their intention of becoming citizens.

■But since the beginning o! tho Great War there have been very few foreigners aboard American ■. warships. On Hie Pennsylvania there is, I think, only one foreigner, a sailor who %vas born in England. "But we don't, of course, regurd him as a foreigner," said one of his officers to me; and, as a matter of fact, Englishmen, New Zealanders, and Canadians are never regarded in the American Navy as foreigners. They are in a different category from recruits • hailing from -any part of the European Continent, especially from those countries which are occupied by the Latin races.

Our solitary English sailor's nickname is, by the way, "Limey," 'a word formed from "limejuice," -which beverage is supposed by the American bluejackets to be added to the drinking-water aboard all British ships. Thosa ships are consequently called "limejuicers" ; and the use of this' term of contempt is a good instance of how illogical sailors sometime! are, for limejuice and other temperance drinks are move common to-day in United States ships than in English ships. As is well known, the American seaman divides the inhabitants of the European Continent , into two great classes, the Dagoes on the- south and the Dutchmen on the north/ To give precise statistics on the composition of the American Navy, the latest naval rosters show the percentage of foreigners to be only 0.16, against 95.61 of nativeborn Americans, while naturalised citizens are 2.37 and natives of colonial possessions 1.68.

MUST THE BLUEJACKET BE A SEAMAN ?

Many peopln say that (h* American bluejacket is inferior to the British and the Japanese because ha is not, as n rule, a seafaring man, whereas un Brit-

ish and Japanese warships there are always men who have been trained-to the sea aboard fishing smacks.or mercantile marine vessels. The Americans admit this, but their naval officers tell me they don't want the seafaring man, and that the modern battloehip does not want him. They could get large numbers of the famous Gloucester fishermen from the New England coast if they wished, but they do not wish. As it is, they have got as many sailors as are necessary. They maintain that seafaring men are not needed in a superDreadnought, which is, after all, only a huge, complicated fortress that happens to be afloat. In modern naval warfare the ancient mariner who can tie sailor's knots ia of much less importance that the educated mechanic who understands all about machinery and a good deal about electricity and gunnery; and the American Fleet is manned by just such young mechanics.