New Britain herald., 1918-03-09
AMERICAN NAVY AND ITS BRIGHT RECORD

lIdultlOllS 0l O6rYlCt WllDOul
 Equal in History Of Wars ! 'Threc ships of war had Prebe when
 he left the Naples shore.
 And the knightly king of Naples lent
 him seven galleys more. 1 And never since the Argo 1oated in
 the Middle Sea,
 Such noble mon and valiant have
 sailed in company
 As the men who went with Preblc to l the siege of Tripol.
 Stewart, Bainbridge, Hull, Decatur how their names ring out like 1 gold!
 Lawrence, Porter, Trippe, MacDon-
 ough, and d score as true and bold.
 i Prom Reuben James, by James Jeffrey Roche.
 At half-past one the squadron 1 stood for the batteries; at two they cast off the gunboats; at half past two the signal was given for the homb-Vessels and boats to advance and attack. and in fifteen minutes after the signal was given, general action was begun by the bomb Ves- sc1s throwing shells into the city,
 Thus was begun in 1903 one of the most brilliant engagem ents in the history of war,-an engagement that astounded the world powers because it was instituted by the infant United States, and because it ended forever the paying of tribute to the piratical harbary nations.
 With Commodore Prcble sailed a of irotr officers whose names and deeds then and later furnished the traditions that have in a large measure made the navy of the United States invincible: Stewart, Bainbridge, Hull, Decatur
 --how their names ring out like Lawrence, Porter, Trippe, MacDon-
 ough, and a score as true and
 boId.''
 Now one hundred and fifteen years since those men became famous, and the first time since then that an American fleet has been engaged in European vaters,--noW, in tho world war, the namcsakes of those naval heroes of a century past are engaged against a common foe. These name sakes, destroyers, are battling to clear the seas of the piratical submarines,  the destroyers arc named ended pi- racy on the high seas and stopped the paying of tribute.
 The record of the American navy throughout the years has been one Of heroic deeds and victory. The Rev o!ution, the war of 179S, that of 1912, the campaigns against the barbary powers, the Civil war, the Spanish American war-each produced it's naval heroes.
 And now the World war!
 Are the heroic deeds of naval his~ tory to be repeated?
 They are, without a doubt! Tho officers of the navy of today have de- voted their lives to study of the deeds Of their predecessors. They have trained themselves for the task of defeating the German navy, and Vlc- tory in the end is certain.
 Battleships and cruisers of the navy are named for states and cities The destroyers arc named for la nous naval officers and a destroyer hotil1a is on duty abroad The names Of the destroyers making up this ho- tilla arc withheld from the pub1c at the governments request; therefore in the articles to follow, giving brlet- ly some of the deeds of the men tor whom destroyerS are named, no men ton will be made of the whereabouts of the destroyer. It is safe to say that each destroyer named in these articles, if not now engaged, WILL within short time be doing US snare of the naVy's huge task.
 Traditions---how much they mean 10 everyone! Why should not new hls- tory be written by men commanding vessels whose very names mean the most self-sacrificing, most herolc' most glorious of naval deeds!
 An interesting fact in naval history is that seven of the nine men named in the above verse commanded the most famous ship in early naFal an nals In "The Romance of the Amer ican Navy" Frederick Stanhope Hill says:
 "It is very doubtful if the naval history of any nation can show more brilliant record, for vessel of her size, than was made during the first fifteen years of the past century by the little twelve e-gun schooner Enter prise. afterward rigged as brig.
 During her very active service in the West Indies in the war between the United States and France in 17aS-99 as well as later in the Med fterranean, where she took part in our conflict with the beys of Tunis and Tripoli, the Enterprise invariably gave a good account of herself, as might have been expected when we note the men, afterward famous in naval his tory, who, as lieutenants commanded her.
 Among these were the sturdy 1s- , aac Hull, ten years later the gallant commander of the Constitution, and Stephen Decatur whose heroic cX- ,alnit in thn deStructinn of the Phila-