The Birmingham age-herald., 1921-04-20

nals of the war a better picture of American psychology-the psychology of American youth in the face of peril and will you find anything which illustrates better why Germany lost the war and the allies and America won it; why our hurriedly trained armies played the mischief with the morale and fighting front of the enemy's 5uper-trained dis ciplined and experienced troops.
 HAD FAITH AND HOPE
 The child-hearted attitude toward life which could go to war talking tho language of the nursery. using homely phrases and the songs of the cradle to conceal the serious messages of life and death and tragic action which compose the communications of war. was the at titude of faith and hope and cheerful comradeship which endured all deniale and pains without murmur, and faced all perils without flnching.
 In those days of hardship; in those days when men endured long vigil, whipped by wind and spray; in those days when sudden death lurlSed beneath the wave and every gob kissed his sweetheart's picture goodbye at least once in A hours you can imagine how it helped in the grimness and seriousness and deadly oppressiveness Of the Joo 10 have the comic relief which came when your sub-chaser scudded through the seas calling "Quack! Quack! Quack! Iigh-low-Jack!" from it's wireless; or when some bit of nursery lore sounded in your radiophone, such as @ reference to "Mary's little lamb" conveying infer nation that the enemy would have given all the beer in Munich to get
 This new code, the words or wnicnn n were familiar to every American. had | (, odx to nf heinz eaSflY re- nembered by those for whose use 1t had ! been devised. and of being utterly unde- 1 cipherahle by the enemy
 SYSTEM WORKED WELL | Numbers may be confused and are hard to keep in mind, but line, verse a combination of words closely associ- ated in familiar lingo cling to the mem- ory The submarine chasers did not have distinctive names, like the destroyers but were designated by numbers-S, c. 121. & C. 2S. S. c. 252 and so on. Wire less telegraphy takes numbers accurate ly. but those who use the wireless tele- phone at sea have the same trouble in | distinguishing numbers and letters as dc people using the telephone on land So. instead of numbers and letters words were used to designate submarine chasers when telephoning into the ether l The commander of one group named 1 his boats in jingles or phrases. Three l hoats constituted subnlarine-huntins unit. One set was known Gs "red-white- blue" another as "corn-r1eal-mush' and a third as "high-low-Jack."
 "Quacki Quack! Quack! meant "oper- ator at once!
 It became an amusement with the men to make parodies on Mother Goose and other well known rhymes Most or these narodies had to do with the risky job on which they were engaged. Here IS one of them, paraphrasing The Spider and the Fly"
 wont you come into my area?' said
 the chaser to the sub;
 "Tn treat you just as kindly as would
 tiger cub;
 I will listen to your motors, l will eaten
 you without fail,
 And then I promise 1 will put some salt upon your tail"
 : ALPHABET IN WORDS l The use of words instead of letters for the navy flag signals was followed by the subchasers generally. Those down at Corfu, for instance guarding the bar rage across the straits of Otranto ana chasing Austrian U-boats. had word for every letter in the alphabet
 The alphabet ran thus: Able, boy. cast, dog, easy, fox, George, have. item. jig, king, love- Mike, Nan, oboe. pup. auack, rot, sail, tars, unit, vice, watch, x-ray, yoke. Zed.
 "Able-boy!'' was the code to rake hunt formation-distance 300 yards.
 Almost any necessary order or infor- nation could be transmitted by radio phone by means of this code. Here IS typical instance of how it worked