Connecticut western news., 1917-07-05
Take a Chance Boat Goes Down
Experience of One Vessel Which Was Trapped by the Enemy
 and Finally Escaped

! the type WHO are WulLlS IO ldhe d sporting chance. Not only must they be devoid of nerves; they must be ut terly destitute of ina agination. No one who cannot go peacefully to sleep in subsea quarters and all needless, as the 1 testers say, as to what minute may 1 be his next is wanted in submarines.
 Therefore the men must not have the mental habit of imagining disaster. In short, men with imagination are not l wanted in the submarine service. Moreover, they must be the kind of men who set no store by physical com fort. With all this they must be men who have been proved by experience to be practically immune from seasick- ness-that Is to say, proved in subma- rine craft, which of all vessels are the ! most trying on the stomach in seaway.
 In a trip of 2,000 miles made by certain submarine all hands were at | first totally incapacitated except the 1 commanding officer and one man, though the bulk of them recovered aft CT certain time. The thing is that the crew must be trained by actual ex- perience in rough weather to resist sea- sickness. This is, of course, particu- larly true of the cook.
 1 There is no record of any sickness or ailment due to the sense of being con- fined in submarine. This is not like ] ly, however, to occur with men of the type indicated. Members of a subma- rine crew cannot tell after the coming tower hatches close whether the boat remains on the surface or goes down POO feet except by looking at the depth indicator. And therefore if they do not let their ina ginations impress them with what might happen in case any thing went wrong they will not Le likely to be bothered by their position.
 The selection for this service is very close. Every one who serves in sub marine must be highly technical and highly trained man. Every man must either be very competent ma chinist or an electrician or a gunner's mate for gun for torpedo work. There must also be a radio operator in case the vessel carries wireless.
 In addition to all these technical qual- ifications, the men must have distinc- tive moral attributes. They should be men who have volunteered for this duty and not men who have simply been assigned to 1t on account of their technical Knowledge a- gaa @s
 What the Destroyers Undergo.
 Now for a glimpse of destroyers tout Ton high explosive spree" There was a combined fleet operation down Ca | nil in rr.hi oh Ino 1uI,E ,Ec, and destroyers were involved. Officers from the battleshijs fleet were detailed as observers on beard the destrCyers. They had come fro?,r vessels steady as castles and did not realize until it came on to blow that night what life on destroyer means.
 '"These," according to the official re- port of the commander of the destroy CT division, "did their usual stunts" They plunged and reared until you could see under their forward keels They scooped up forecastles full of water, shook 1t off like Newfoundland dogs, and they rolled fully 90 degrees The result was that practically all the battleship "observers'' died an unnat- ural death long before the problem be- gan and remained dead, at least to any interest to torpedo tactics, until the vessels got back into port the next morning. However, they acquired some experience and a certain measure of sympathy for those who go down to the sea in torpedo craft.
 When the civilian volunteers went on their battleship cruise Lieutenant F. M. Roberts one day told them about service with the. destroyers, a lecture delivered upon the quarterback of the battleship Rhode Island and which, if delivered today, would carry the same message.
 'No special attempt" he told the vol unteers, 'is made in selecting the men to serve in torpedo craft, whether they be fat men or lean men, short men or tall men, The character and spirit are developed by association after their arrival. AS rule, they are older than the men (or bOys) on the battleships. "You know that one of the charac- teristics of a destroyer is ability to make high speed. To this end it has always been the policy of the naval constructors to keep the fittings of the vessel strong, but of light weight. No chances were ever lost by the navy constructors in Tightening the destroy CTS by removal of any fittings that they considered unnecessary"