Complex sentence: After receiving his commission, he continued to serve at sea aboard the gunboat, the wooden screw sloop and as chief engineer of the gunboat, before returning to the Naval Academy in 1904 to be an instructor in the Department of Engineering.
Split into simpler sentences: After receiving his commission, he continued to serve at sea aboard the gunboat, the wooden screw sloop, and as chief engineer of the gunboat. In 1904, he returned to the Naval Academy as an instructor in the Department of Engineering.