AMERICAN SAILORS.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXII, Issue 19092, 10 August 1925, Page 10

AMERICAN SAILORS.

BOTH YOUNG AND ACTIVE.

NOT TRAINED TO SEA.

CREWS WELL LOOKED AFTER

The following nrticlo is from the pen of Captain h rancis McCullagh, a British journalist on the Pennsylvania, and the only British correspondent with the American lieet.

The American bluejacket is extremely well looked after. His quarters are cool in summer and well-heated in winter, and always well ventilated. His food is very good and plentiful. His time is so well divided up between naval exercises, physical drill, study, sport, 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, tho level of education in tho lower-deck personnel is remarkably high.

formerly somewhat of a "roughneck," the American sailor is now a good typo with a higher school education; and he takes an. intelligent interest in the history, agriculture, industries and current politics of tho lands ho visits.

Tho ignorant and brutal old sea-dog of the type so frankly depicted by Smollett seems, in comparison, as far removed from us as the cave-man. Indeed, in all the qualities which constitute civilisation, tho ordinary seaman of an American battleship is distinctly above the ship's captain of 200 years ago. Ho is cleaner, morally and physically. He is better educated. Ho reads more. He has greater self-re-spect and self-restraint. Seeing tho World.

I met this morning 011 tho deck of the Pennsylvania a young seaman who is not above tho average level of tho men aboard this vessel, but who would, in many respects, be considered as distinctly abovo the level of Rodney's captains, ife comes from a farm in Montana, and has a practical as well as a tlieoretrical knowledge of the most 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 havo expired. " I wanted to see the world," he said to me, " and, after I havo been in Australia and New Zealand, 1 shall have seen most of it. I liko this life afloat, but I'm twenty-one now, and must get back to work." The questions lie asked ine about Australia and Now Zealand wero searching and to the point. Ho is anxious to see tho interior of those countries, so as to get an idea of the farming 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 mo tho plan of development he proposes to put into operation as soon as 110 gets back to the farm, and it struck me as extremely sound and practical. Then he went 011 to talk with real enthusiasm of the splendid mountain scenery around his home in Montana. He was born in Western America, but his father, camo from Belfast and his mother from Southern Ireland.

I must say that he struck mo as a more valuable type of citizen than the '"absent-minded beggar" type which Mr. Kipling so much admires; and, unfortunately, that type exists in real life as well as on paper on the other side of tho Atlantic. One of the most popular marching songs in Kitchener's Army at the beginning of the Great War contained this hue "Where tho 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, otherwise he would not fall to the brilliant posters of the recruiting department and to the 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 mo that this condition of affairs leads to the average bluejacket bei»<r a "live wire." Having made up his mind to return to civil life as soon as his four years aro up, ho keept fit and interested, and generally learns a trade so that, when he does leave, ho has no difficulty in finding work ashore. Sometimes he becomes a skilled artisan, sometimes he becomes an electrical engineer, a "movey" picture expert, a first-class photographer. His officers contend that, even though ho does not remain in the navy, such a man is moro valuable than a heavyweight of forty would be—a heavyweight who looked forward to automatic promotion and retirement, and whose ambition was tho negative one of keeping out of trouble. Very Jew Foreigners.

I have often heard it stated by foreigners th»t 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 of tho Great War there have been very few foreigners aboard American warships. On the Pennsylvania there is, I think, only one foreigner, a sailor who was born in England. "But we don't, of course, regard him as a foreigner," said ono of his officers to mo; and, as a matter of fact, Englishmen, New Zealanders and Canadians are never regarded in tho American Navy as foreigners. Thoy aro in a different category from recruits hailing from any part of tho European Continent, especially from those countries which are occupied by the Latin races.

Our solitary English sailor's nickname is, by tho way, "Limey," a word formed from* "liniejuice," which beverage is supposed by tho American bluejacket to be added to tho drinking-water aboard all British ships. Thoso ships aro consequently called "limejuicers"; and tho use of. this term of contempt is a good instance of lipw illogical sailors sometimes arc, for liniejuice and other temperance drinks are moro 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, tho Dagoes on the south and the Dutchmen on the north. To give precise statistics on the composition of tho American Navy, the latest naval rosters show the percentage of foreigners to be only 0.16 against, 95.61 of native-born* Americans, while naturalised citizens aro 2.37 and natives of colonial possessions 1.68. Must the Bluejacket be a Seaman? Many people say that the American bluejacket is inferior to the British and the Japaneso because he is not, as a rule, a seafaring man, whereas on British 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 tho seafaring man, and tliat tho modern battleship does not want him. They could get large numbers of the famous Gloucester fishermen from tho 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 bo afloat. In modern naval warfare tho ancient mariner who can tie sailor's knots is of much less importance than the educated mechanic who understands all about machinery and a good deal about electricity and gunnery; and the Fleet, is manned by 'just such young mechanics.