The Washington herald., 1914-01-04
Commander Of the American
Fleet OF the Coast Of Mex
leo Is Possesser Of Varied
Talents.

An inventor, really great inventor,
directs the United States feet on the
Auantic coast Of Mexico. Also Frank
Friday Fletcher, rear admiral. is a law
yer, diplomat. and a gentleman. Be-
SIDES which. he is an excellent sea COM
mander and a fighter of acknowledged
ability. With Fletcher on the bridge of
the nagship, Washington does not worry.
The navy demands considerable OF
man today. He must be sailor. mechanic.
student OF international law. society man.
olplomatist, sanitarian, and few more.
VI course, some naval officers are def
cient in certain Of these points, but make
up for this by excellence in others.
Fletcher is great in all these lines and In
addition he has added to the efficiency
of our navy by a series of remarkable
inventions. Some OF the most valuable
contrivances in use aboard craft of our
fleets originated in his fertile brain.
He long will be known among navy
men for the Fletcher breech-closing
mechanism. The device is a wonder of
efficiency. 1t shuts the breech of a
rapid-fire gun in the quickest imaginable
time and with the fewest possible mo-
tions.
Then he has invented a gun mount. an
arrangement OF truncated cones on a
roller path, by which friction Is reduced
to such a point that a weapon weighing
thousands of pounds can be trained liter
ally with one finger and clamped instantly
to fix II upon the target. He also has
revolutionized the use of torpedoes with
his research into the behavior OF these
dread messengers of the sea. He has
corrected many grievous errors of range
All these things will count heavy when
the successor of Rear Admiral Badger.
in command of the Atlantic feet, comes
In hsA
Cameron MGR. Winslow might succeed
him, but few stirring events in Mexican
waters may change the plans and hand
the plum over to Fletcher.
Five Years at Annapolis.
1t is remarkable that a man of such
t-uly great attainments as scientist
should have taken five years to go
through the Naval Academy at Annapo-
lis. Yet such is the case.
His middle name. by the way, is half
nickname He was born in Oskaloosa,
Iowa. on November %. 1856. which was
Friday On this account his father used
to dub him my little man Friday" His
father died when he was seven. but the
name stuck. He was appointed to An
napolis at the age of fourteen and es-
corted to the Academy by an elder
brother. The latter when called upon to
put the youngsters name down on the
roster of boys entering the Naval Acad-
amy wrote Frank Friday Fletcher" And
so the name was carried along into the
Academy. The bearer never has been
able to shake il off.
Friday Fletcher, as he was now called.
graduated from Annapolis June q, 1875, |
after a course in which he had shown no |
special brilliance. His first job showed |
the kind of talent that was in him. He |
was assigned to duty on board the United |
States steamer Tuscarora, engaged in |
surveying a submarine route for pro- |
jected cable to connect California with |
Japan. This involved an exploration of /
the ocean depths. Just east of Japan the |
Tuscarora discovered the deepest hole |
that exists anywhere in the world. This |
marine abyss, called the "Tuscarora |
Deep" goes down at least five and a |
quarter miles. The soundings went that |
deep and failed to touch bottom.
Began ms Inventor.
OF the navy, Fletcher started right out |
in the invention line He sandwiched |
periods of invention between cruises
which brought him most varied sea serv-
ice
In 1S79-1SS1 he was aboard the Ticon-
deroga, steamship commanded by Com
modore r. W. Schufeldt. which Congress
sent around the world on a commercial
and diplomatic cruise. The vessel sought
especially treaty with Corea, which
would protect the lives and property of
Americans. When the Ticonderoga en-
tered the harbOr of Fusan, May IA, 1880.
the officials would not receive a letter
from Commodore Shufeldt because the
King of Corea had not been correctedlyi
designated as King of Cho-Sen-"King
OF the Land of the Morning Calm" With
derisive salute from the Corean forts
the Ticonderoga departed. She proceeded
to China, Corea's suzerain. and spent a
year there in diplomatic work which re-
suited in a triumphal return to Corea.
pavilion erected on point of land op-
posite the ship. Young Fletcher learned
valuable lessons about dealing with ma
tions which cannot be depended upon to
observe the canons of international law.
Longitude and yellow fever now en-
gagged Fletcher's attention. They were
closely Joined. Fletcher was assigned to
an expedition which had IN view the
determination of the longitude of a series
of points in South and Central America.
The task was extremely difficult Using
only mules as means of transportation,
the naval officers had to penetrate dense
jungles, cross dangerous rivers, and scale
high peaks. On his way back from the
Peruvian Andes Fletcher reached the