Sequachee Valley news. (Sequachee [Sequatchie], Tenn.) 1896-1952, 1909-05-20
The Seaman Gunner
School, U. S. Navy
ByR.E.L. sEHoN, OF Knoxville, Tenn.

Though the United States Navy is a
great school where every officer and
man is kept trained to the highest de-
gree by constant drill, study and tar
get practice of one kind or another,
there are special courses of instruc-
tion through which the most efficient
of the enlisted men are put to tit them
for special duties and higher ratings.
Two large Electrical Schools are
maintained in the Navy, one at New
York and the other at Mare Island,
California, for men who prove them
selves likely and ambitious and who
desire to qualify for the rating of
Electrician. In these schools the men
are taught THE Use of Electricity on
Shipboard' from the care of bells and
batteries, to winding the largest arm
atures and operating and caring forthe
Wireless Telegraph.
A machinist's school is kept going
all the year round at Norfolk Navy
Yard to train men, who have complet-
ed one enlistment in the engine or fire
| room, to handle and repair the mighty
engines that propel the ships and their
auxiliary machinery. At several
Training Stations the recruit (appren-
tiee seaman) is taught, drilled, and
acclimated for weeks before he is sent
to a sea going ship, versed, more or
less completely in handling of small
arms and in seamanship, to say moth
| ing of the tailor made sea going YER
nacular he has acquired from associa-
tion with the older sailors, and with
which he is prone to please and mys-
tify the home folks when he writes
home or goes on furlough.
Men are trained for nurses, others
taught the gentle art of cooking (Un-
Gle Sam wants the boys to feel at
home) and still others are taught book
keeping and the clerical duties requir-
ed on board ship. And every man gets
his regular pay and allowance while
going to school, too, the same as if he
were doing regular routine on board
ship.
But the school that is most to be da-
sired by the man who really aspires to
advancement and recognition is the
Seaman Gunner School. This school
is the enlisted mans chance to qualify
for billet aft, in other words to be-
come an officer. However, not all men
who are sent to the school go with the
intention or expectation of being pro-
noted the majority are possessed of a
desire to be more efficient in the minor
ratings, to get knowledge of Ordi
nance which cannot be gained entirely
by even the most painstaking study
on board ship.
The school has two homes, one at the
Naval Torpedo Station at Newport, R.
l., and the other at Washington Navy
Yard. At Newport the men are
taught the care and handling of torpe
does, and during the course of study
learn how to correctly assemble ant
disassemble the thousand and ont
parts, how to adjust the mechanism
, and to fire the torpedo at an imaginary
enemy. They get course of instruct
ion in electricity, the use of electric
ity for firing torpedoes, mines and 9th
er agents of destruction; are trained
to ''mine" harbor land that by ac
tual practice) so that an enemy would
only get blown up for his pains SHOULD
he try to enter unawares they get /
r few weeks at "deep sea diving" dur
ing which time they go down ant
t walk about for half an hour, spearin,
, founders and feeling bit lonesome
: while two comrades in launch a
bove sweat at the air pump whicl
! forces the atmosphere into the helme
4 through strong rubber tube, and an
5 other pair watch the life line and al
, hose, ready to give or take the slack a
: the diver walks to and fro, or hau
= him TO the surface at an instant
!. warning should he give the DANCE
signal of three sharp pulls on his lif
= line. The diving is done in shalloy
water at first, then at greater depth
: until man thinks nothing of hal
d hour at sixty feet, and would as 500
do hundred as not.
Then air cOmpressors, some severa
. makes and types, are studied an
n worked over. Air compressors are a
IS necessary to the torpedo as is the tw
n hundred odd pounds of gun cotton i
: the warhead, for the torpedo once fiji
!. ed over the side must propel itself fo
!. perhaps three or four thousand yard
i at % to 40 knots speed straight at th
:, enemy and keep itself few feet uI
. der the water, out of the way of hos
!. tile shells All this it does by NEAR
Il of an air engine which uses sewers
t- cubic feet of air at 1000 to $500 lb
,, per square inch, and a steering ms
= chanisn worked by gyroscope and
a piston which is so connected to Il
j rudders as to make the torpedo rise {
|. dive, according as the water pressuI
le gets greater or grows less. Once Il
y torpedo reaches the enemy it fires I
~ means of a primer situated in Il
5. nose and exploded by impact with sis
Of the doomed vessel