The Miller press. [volume] (Miller, S.D.) 190?-current, 1918-09-19
THE SILENT NAVY
BEATS SUBMARINE
Long, Gray D~estroyers r Surely De-
feating the U.Boat Sea
Bandits

The submarine is beaten.
This is the son OF every sailor
coming into this port.
Submarine beating In the navy's
first and biggest job, and nothing else
can matter SO very much as long as
this is accomplished. There will be
sinking aplenty, and, as they will tell
you up in the great stone building
overlooking Place President Wilson,
where the pulse of the navy is cen
tered, any day the German sharks
may stab a trooper and crash it to
the bottom--yet they are whipped.
Even a great troop ship may go--and
senior naval officers with wide gold
braid on their sleeves and two silver
stars on their collars are taking no
chance at deceiving either themselves
or the public.
Navy Silent, Selfsuficient
1t is a wonderful game this navy OF
ours is playing, and to American peo-
pie 1t has somehow always been
shrouded and hidden with the eternal
mists and far away of the
sea. War has brought it a little into
the spotlight, and for the first time
these, long slim d~estroyers on their
t~ireless hunt for the outlaws and pi-
rates of the ocean have cast II IN a
new and spectacular role. But 1t re-
mains the silent navy, going about its
business and doing its job without
fuss or feathers or publicity.
Somehow this American navy seems
to be entirely selfsufficient. The fact
that 1t is masterfully accomplishing
it's difficult task, whipping the sub
marines and helping win the war. Is
| plenty; 1t doesn't have to be popular
lied, your navy men will tell you.
No matter where you may live, you
| can bring yourself around to think it
| and believe it, but when you've gone
| through such a base as this and talk
| ed with hundreds of navy men. from
the gray haired admiral down 10 the
| 16 year old apprentice seamen, and
see these efficient, fignting ~destroyerS,
and their crews. and their guns, and
their ash can depth bombs. then you
know that it's true-the submarine Is
beaten. They're fighting a losing
! fight. They're being hunted and
bounded and destroyed. We're send
ing them to the bottom faster than
| Germany can make them( and were
building more troop and cargo ships
| than she is sinking.
Sea wasps Driven From Ports
With mines and traps and nets and
hydroplanes and dfrigibles and ce-
stroyers, we've already chased them
pretty much from the harbor mouths
and channel ports. Farther and Tar
ther out to sea they are being driven
and there their job of locating con-
VOWS and sinking them is a dozen
times more difficult, while ours Is
only increased by the varying size OF
the danger zone established.
The submarine is beaten.
Go up to the busy, efficient Offices
where the headquarters for the Amer
lean Navy in France are located. and
you grasp some Of the reasons. Here
is the heart OF the Nays activities
the center of the vast spiders wen
that brings in the prey. Woven with
infinite care, 1t stretches from u END
Of Frances sealine TO the other, and
then reaches away out to SEA. Moth
ing escapes it.
4Giye Us Dcstroyers,, the Plea
Then talk to the men who thought
II out-the quiet, unassuming, oo'it'
masters of fighting ships who planned
II all.
"Give us plenty of destroyers an'
they'll not get a single ship tneyi
tel, YOU. Then they'll probably adj
that these needed d~estroyers are on
the way-or rather on the ways-an
that some day the German submarine
will be no longer even q boat.
Sing 1t; It's Music
The submarine is beaten.
They will tell you that In Americs
: Here. in the heart of the danger zons
where the lighting is. they Will swea
to it-and prove 1t. And. II you Wis
, II. you can hear the tugs and iauncne
darling about the harbor chugsing
ioyously. You can hear the LiDer'
motors in the American hydropiane
humming it; you can hear deep tnroa
ed engines whistle It; you can nea
sailormen who are young ana ciea'
I eyed and strong, sing It. It's swe
: music for tired ears, too--ths 90