The Jasper news., 1917-09-27

! their yarn here and there and putting
on the final varnish in the letters to
the folks at home, making the censor
work overtime reading the dope.
But chewing it over among them
selves, the lads suddenly discovered
that they had been cheated. SO they
organized delegation to wait on the
gunnery officer of the ship. In the
eyes of the young bluejackets who had
just come In and are new to the game,
the gunnery officer stacks up highest,
for he is in charge of the shooting irons
Of the dreadnaught and is the whole
thing-like the angels rolled into one,
and enameled at that. With the KIDS
he has the muzzle velocity of 15-inch
gun, and to the youngsters the skip
per, In comparison, is just myth
some invisible power in gold lace.
Now, the training given Is most in
tensive in character; each man is
made to specialize rs far us possible,
and every effort is made to perfect
each member of the crew in the work
to which he Is assigned. The most
likely youngsters, even those who have
never seen anything larger than 12-
bore shotgun, are assigned arbitrarily,
to start with, rs gun pointers and gun
captains; the hefty, strong, well-built
lads are made shellmen and leaders;
men of quick minds are assigned as
slght-setters and telephone operators;
and these men are trained, trained,
trained, and instructed, cautioned. AL
| ways drilled together, they are made
to feel that If any one of them falls
down in his particular job, the work
Of the others is spoiled. 1t Is all team
work, like on the diamond.
So this gang laid aft and waited on
the gunnery officer and presented their
! case thus wise: "Of course, mister, we
are going to be the next fellows In the
gun crew to go abroad, uin't WEI"
"Certainly not; you had your trip;
you nave just come back"
mo, sir, we didn't just come back;
we never got there. You know when
we left you said we were going to Eng
lpnd, and we never saw England mt
all. We amt going back home and
have all the fellows guy us and say
that we didn't finish the job and that
the U-boat ditched u.s." They went
back all right.
Here you have sample of the met
tie of these youngsters, some barely
month In the outfit, but getting the
punch and absorbing the spirit of the
service, the willingness to do the job,
the desire to play the game.
1t is now tolerably well known that
picked men from our battleship fleet
have been sent to man the guns Of the
armed American merchant vessels that
90 abroad. This started first several
months ago and gun crew and their
officer in command would make a
round trip over and back across the
ocean and then return to their ship.
You know how well these men have
done their duty, and truthfully their
exploits have been reported In the
public press.
But H. hunting the U-bOat little has
been sai0 abont the long, untiring
watches and the ceaseless vigil that
| theSe Ineh ihusl hScp "ihic Ni"'Sih6
the sea, and particularly when nearing
the danger zone. And these calls from
the fleet have been so great that raw
recruits have been specially trained to
man the comparatively small-caliber
guns which our merchant vessels carry.
Intensive training has been the order
of the day, and the fleet is full of bully
stories of how these young and COM
paratiyely inexperienced men have
tnken to the game.
There is such n thing as being gun
! shy, and even old-time men might an