AMERICAN NAVY.

Wanganui Herald, Volume LI, Issue 15387, 19 December 1917, Page 5

AMERICAN NAVY.

“BECOMING THE STRONGEST IN THE WORLD.” ' WASHINGTON, October 20. The United States Navy is rapidly becoming the most efficient and powerful in the world. Secretary Daniels declared to-day. Statistics of the work being done by the Navy Department cannot be made public in detail because they might be of value, to the eneffij, out it is permissible to say, in general, terras, what our fleets are accomplish*, ing. , , In the first place, the great reduction in the U boat toll is drectly to Admital Sims’ destroyer fleet cooperating with the British ships, and because of the efficiency of our naval gun crews now aboard armed merchantmen. American destroyers are sinking. German submarines almost daily. TORPEDO-BOATS ACTIVE. A San Francisco Chronicle correspondent talked to-day with a junior lieuten* ant just back from European waters. This lieutenant is one of 600 chief warrant officers recently commissioned temporary ensigns and junior lieutenants. He commanded a torpedo-boat destroyer in Sims’ fleet, and, through his story, it was learned for the first time that our torpedo-boats have been active, not only in the waiters around the British Islands, but also in the Mediterranean. The torpedo-boat commanded by this young officer had two encounters with German submarines, and drove them both under by gunfire, it being believed one of them was destroyed. inotuor submarine was destroyed by ,a depth torpedo dropped over the place whcrs the U boat submerged in a hurry a« the American raced to ram the undersea boat. - This officer says that the German submarines sail in* terror of torpedo-boat destroyers, and as soon as we have several hundred of these ships in commission the U boat \ losses will shrink to practically nothing , ' SHIPS BEING RUSHED. Within nine months- the United States will hav<y the greatest fleet of torpedoboat destroyers in the world. These, ships are now being rushed for launching in Government yards and private yards on both coasts, including the Union Works at San Francisco, By next June every one of these vessels will be in the water ready to combat the submarine menace. The battleship programme approved by the last Congress, under .‘he fouryear plan of construction, is being carried out, and our great Dreadnoughts are being built as rapidly as possible Secretary Daniels said to-day: By early spring the naval training stations at San Diego, Cal., Gulfport, Miss., and Jamestown, Va., wilt be completed. These stations will train at one • time 15,000 navy recruits. “Several thousand civilian seamen and officers of the fleet reserve are now , being trained to take commissions in * the United States Navy. All warrant officers in Navy can now take nations for commissions. There is a shortage of officers amounting to about 3000, but these will soon be secured from the warrant officers who win com- . missions and from the best seamen in / the fleet reserve.” As far as enlisted forces are, concerned, the Navy is recruited up to full strength, and only skilled mechanics' and the most promising young men are uow being enlisted. 1 “Members of the House and Senate Naval Affairs Committees are prepared at the next ssession to grant the greatest appropriations ever made for the Navy, and it is the desire of these Congressmen to see our Navy not second in strength in the world, -but overwhelmingly first. The war has opened the eyes of many of the so-called ‘little Navy’ men in Congress, and some of these Congressmen who objected four years ago to. building two battleships annually are now ready, even anxious, to vote to appropriate the money to construct a dozen capital ships each year. There are mapy Congressmen . who want to appropriate enough money limit of the bu#ding capacity of every shipyard in th,e country.”