The Nenana daily news., 1918-06-12


 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 Dingley at Galveston and the Gov ernor Cobb is at sea. Our program calls for giving 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 receiving ship.
 "We divide the men into squads of ten each, under an able seaman as instructor One of the principal things is to teach them lifeboat work, with training every day for thirty days we feel that those men are probably as good in handling lifeboat as the average sailor on board steamer
 "One rather interesting incident demonstrated that fact. A training ship was being lowed, boilers and engines out of commission, to Bos. ton by navy tug in a heavy gale The tug ran short of coal and was obliged to 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. It was getting along to- wards dark, but they launched their lifeboats, with the wind blowing 60 miles an hour, took nearly 60 men off and transferred them to the navy tug. All of this work was done by our recruits, who had only had about five weeks training, without any casualty of any kind, which was "a pretty good demonstration as to what that training means.
 "The fleet that I have outlined will hold 5000 men. We plan to put that number through each month. We have a receiving ship now in New York harbor, the Dorothy Brad ford, to keep a reserve number of men there all the time to meet any emergency. We also hope to have a similar ship at San Franciso, and a similar station at Seattle. The demand for men would appear to be about 18,000 men on the West coast in the next eighteen months. We also have under consideration a re- ceiving ship at New Orleans.
 "For getting men, we have made use of chain of drug stores through out the country. The drug store, especially in country town, is a sort of social center, open every day, and every evening, which makes them an ideal enrolling station. These stores have given us nearly 1000 enrolling stations. The cost to the Shipping Board has been al- most nothing.
 GAS 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 at least six months experience in firing stationary boilers, feeling that men with experience would make exceedingly good material from which to develop firemen at sea. We will, of 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 association or union that has any thing to do with the manning of the merchant marine. We have had the heartiest cooperation from them, so that the men that we have been put ting on board ships have been we'll received by their fellow workers, and the unions have vouched for the : fact that they will continue to be we'll received"