The Pensacola journal. (Pensacola, Fla.) 1898-1985, 1918-05-19

the English Officers Association. We
! haN, 'elt from the very beginning thai
we ought to develop our own material
here TO the utmost before we call on
| any foreign officers, but it looks now
as if it might be necessary to call on
/, the foreign officers, TO have a reserve
/ force on hand to meet any emergency
that may arise.
! We have started training ships for
! training sailors, firemen. cooks and
: stewards, oilers and water tenders. We
have in operation the Governor Ding
! ley at Galveston and the Governor Cobb
! is at sea. Our program calls for Civ
! ing these ships five days out Of the
seven each week at sea, so as to give
| the men their sea legs. The old army
transport Meade is being used as re-
ceiving ship.
| I'VE divide the men into squads of
| ten each, under an able seaman as in
structor. One of the principal Things
is to teach them lifeboat work. With
training every day for thirty days we
feel that these men are probably as
good in handling a lifeboat as the aver
age sailor on board a steamer
One rather interesting incident DEM
.onsirated that fact. A training ship
was being lowed, boilers and engines
out of commission, to Boston by a
navy tug in a heavy gale. The tug
ran short of coal and was obliged toj
put to port. They felt that there was
danger of the ship going ashore during
the night, so the captain ordered the
men to abandon the ship. 1t was get
ting along towards dark. but they
launched their lifeboat with the wind
blowing 60 miles an hour, took nearly
COG men off and transferred them to-
the navy tug. All of this work was
done by our recruits, who had only had
arout five weeks training, without any
casualty of any kind, which was a
pretty good demonstration as to what
framing means.
The fleet that l have outlined viii
hold 3n0o men. We plan to put that
number through each month. We have
a receiving ship now in New York Har-
Dor. the Dorothy Bradford, TO KEEP al
reserve lumber of men there all the
time to meet any emergency. We bopol
10 have a similar ship al Newport
News. similar receiving station shIE
at San Francisco, ana similar station,
at Seattle. The 81 maEd for men would
appear to be about $4,000 on the Vest
Coast in the next eighteen months. Wei
also have under consideration al
reeiVing ship at New Orleans.
For getting men, we have made use,
of chain of drug stores throughout
the country. The drug store, especial
ly in country town, is . sort of C
social center, open every day, and
every evening, which makes them AM
ideal enrolling station. These stores
have given us nearly 1000 enrolling
stations. The cost to the Shipping
Board has been almost nothing
AS to the special training of fire
men. in the district around Chicago,
including Wisconsin, Illinois, Indiana
Ohio and Michigan, we are making a.
special drive to get men who have att
| least six months experience in firing
stationary boilers, feeling that mem
with that experience would make ex-I
ceedingly good material from which toI
develop firemen at sea. We will, oil
course, put those men on board our
training ships and give them actual
firing experience there.
we have established an advisory
committee to the recruiting service,
made up of the president of every as
ISOLATION or union that has anything TO
do with the manning of the merchant
marine. We have had the heartiest CO.
operation from them. so that the men
that we have been putting on boardl
ships have been well received by their
fellow workers, and the unions haveI
youched for the fact that they will con-