The Birmingham age-herald. [volume] (Birmingham, Ala.) 1902-1950, 1916-08-23
NAVAL WAR GAME
IS Being PLAYED
BY SHIPS OF FLEET
U. S. Sailors Are Learning
How to Defend Atlantic
Shore From Invasion
From East

Washington, August 22.-Two mighty
fleets were graphing for each other in
the dark tonight somewhere off the At
lantic coast, in the opening phase of the
most realistic and elaborate war game
ever undertaken by the American navy.
The navy department, on war footing,
Admiral Helm. commanding the Blue"
defending fleet. (which was sweeping sea-
ward behind a line of scouts nearly 600
miles long, to meet and repulse Admiral
Mayo's Red battle fleet and its convoy
of transports
GAME BEGINS
The game began at o'clock this Morn
ing when Admiral Helm on his flagship,
the Rhode Island, received word that an
agent of the state department aboard a
ship bound from New York to Gibraltar
had reported that the Is battleships of
the Red fleet had been sighted 600 miles
due east of Cape Hatteras. The report
said 80 transports were following the en-
emys fleet bringing an army of inva-
sion TO De ldnueu at some point DetWeGI
Cape Hatteras and PASSPORT, Me.
An hour after the report came the y
batteships of Admiral Helms fighting
fleet manned in part by civilian volun-
teers and naval militiamen. were headed
seward from Nara gansett. Ahead of
them nearly score of swift destroyers
were speeding eastward to get in touch
NTH tho apopou follouyo1 opd cupporfad
by a cruiser squadron headed by the areo-
plane ship North Carolina. Rear Admiral
Gleaves commands the scouting force,
which is converging on the point where
the enemy was known to be at daylight
this morning.
MAYO'S PROBLEM
Admiral Mayo's problem is to force a
way through the "Biue' fleet for his
transports. The game board within which
operations must be confined is virtually
600 miles square and with the Is active
battleships of the Atlantic feet as his
main fighting unit, Admiral Mayo con-
trolls a force that Admiral Helm must
employ strategy to defeat. Rear Admiral
Knight head of the navy war college
ship Pennsylvania.
The radio signals of the enemy fleet
mean nothing to the operators on Ad-
miral Gleave's scouting ships. The mes
sages are in a cipher code known only
to the officers and men of the Red
fleet. Even the navy department does not
know it, for the department is on the
side of the defending Blue fleet and is
using every" means to aid in repelling the
invader before he sights American soil.
INTERCEPTED MESSAGES
Intercepted messages of all sorts We're
being picked up tonight by Blue scouts
and sent back through the radio relay
ships stationed astern of the advancing
line. The big wireless towers at Airing
ton received them and sent them prompt
ly to the navy department, where code
experts struggled over them through the
night seeking the key to the cipher. The
whole department blazed with light, with
officers on duty in every bureau. prepared
to meet any demand Admiral Helm might
make upon them for ammunition. men,
repairs. additional ships or other support
Through its officers along the Atlantic
coast the department searched eagerly for
reports brought by inbound ships as te
Admiral Mayos movements. ready &c
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