New Britain herald., 1917-04-06
WOODEN FLEET TO
 REFURNISH SEAS
'. s. Shipping Board Would
 Equip it With College Boys

New York, April GA fleet of 1000 wooden vessels, replenished monthly by the addition of 100000 Idditional tons of shipping, all of them armed and their guns manned by boys from the semi-military 6chools of the United States, Is the plan of the United states Shipping board in aiding the Entente govern s1nents in the reorganization of trans porta4ion facilities between their countries and this. William Denman Of San Francisco, chairman of the board. guest of honor of the Cham 6er of Commerce at its lunchean here, told some of the details of arrange ments now being made by the board ah co-operation with the National De- tence council to aid in crushing Ger many.
 ssswe must rsmember,'' said Mir. s13ennran. 'that % per cent. of the as- 1lstance we will be called upon to lend to the Allies will be semi-com- li:ercial in nature. I cannot imagine our major fleet being called into op-. eration, at least immediately. Our Transportation system must be reor- eanixed to the end that our enemy De quickly crushed.
 ..'Thc United States Shipping board Is ot the belief that the vessels now baing constructed of steel need not be disturbed, but we have reached the ecnclusiou to turn to the old-fash. Ened wooden vessels. Under normal circumstAnces they cannot compete with steel vessels, but under this pressure they probably will be our sat- vatiola.
 "Our plans call for turning to our forest .rcsourcea. our small ma chine shops and our smaller boiler 1actories. Under proper organisation and with some such man as Major General Goethals in charge, we can produce z0u.o00 tons of wooden ves- cells monthly. this maximum to be reached In seven to eight months af- ter the start These vessels will be Of 5000 to 3. 500 tons dead weight ca pacity, with . speed Of 10. to 12 Knots. In fourteen to sixteen months we can have a fleet of 800 to 1000 Of these vessels in commission.
 Gunners From Colleges.
 2 Tt b the plan to call on the young Soldiers of the semi military colleges and academies of the United States to man the guns with which the ships lDf this fleet will be armed. It Is the plan to call, say 1000 to 2,600 of these college boys and give them six to eight months preliminary training un- der competent gunners
 If this fleet of vessels, augmented sby the steel steamships under con- s4truction and now in commission, can sconvince the Central Powers of the, a,selessness of it's submarine campaign against our vast resources of timber. of machinery and labor then we can write of the entire cost, which will be more than the $s0.OO0. 900 that has already been allotted to us, as having been spent at a profit.
 "Germany's hope is based on the destructive powers of the submarines. The time has come when she must un- derstAnd that massed forces of the world, under unit impulse. cannot be beaten down. Our ship production must keep pace with the destructivity of the submarine. Germany will then be brought to the realization that her ruthless campaign Is hopeless
 MT. DNnman asserted that the greatest drawback to the building of an American merchant marine had been the ihdifIerences of the middle states, a district generally without knowledge of the industry and with out interest in its affairs.
 Recently" he said. "a great inter eAt has been awakened. It will be tho duty of the shipping board to keep in touch with industry in every part of tho country. We must make the man in the central states who plants a row of corn realize that his work is but one of the steps in the marketing of the worlds supply. and that as such :, 1t is tremendously important