Evening star., 1941-03-09

Three divisions of the 1st Bat
talon, District Naval Reserve, will
be poraded nightly before the public
this week at their armory on the
Eleventh street side of the Wash
ington Navy Yard. Every night dur
ing the week, except Saturday, the
reservists not only will hold open
house, but they will give a series
of continuous drills.
This demonstration is the open
ing gun in a campaign to attract
more young men to the battalion
to bring the divisions up to their
full war strength before they are
called into the service. The demon
strations will be given by two of the
Organized Reserve divisions, which
have not yet been called into the
service, and the division of young
seamen who will be candidates for
entrance to the United States Naval
Academy on July l next from the
Reserve.
These divisions are considerably
below the strength which has been
authorized by the Navy Department
They have been materially reduced
by the exigencies of the service.
When the Sd Division was ordered
to active duty men were sent from
the other two divisions to make up
its complement, because the outfit
was being sent to Panama to take
over the operation of the destroyer
j. Fred Talbot. Some of the men,
but none of the officers, were ordered
to active duty and sent to ship of
the battle feet train, which was
fitting out at Baltimore. Physical
examinations, when the organiza-
ton actually is called into the serv-
ice, also may eliminate some of the
others.
On each night during the week
the organized divisions will show
how a muster is conducted for a
checkup on the personnel and then
will 60 through the manual of arms
and close order drill. Loading and
gun-flring practice will be demon
strated, followed by signal COM
munication practice, fire and
casualty drill, and line splicing and
knots The Naval Academy Candi-
date Divisions will also show
muster, manual of arms and close
order drill, Butts manual and in
spection. These two classes of divi-
slons will drill on separate nights.
The first Naval Academy Division
will start the ceremonies tomorrow
at 8 pm, when the exercises will
begin on the other nights of the
week. Tuesday night the lst Di-
vision will give drill; Wednesday
night, the I'd Naval Academy Di-
vision; Thursday night the Balti-
more Naval Academy Division, now
assigned here, and Friday night, the
I'd Division.
In addition to the drills and ex-
ercises, the Naval Reservists have
been dressing up their armory. All
of the cups and plaques won by the
various divisions and individuals will
be on display. There will be at least
six warship models from the Navy
Department bags of signal flags,
Navy recruiting posters.
Such great demand has been made
by the Navy on the naval communi-
cations division here for personnel
to radio and signalling duty aboard
the cruising ships of the fleet that
the organization does not have
enough men each week to conduct
the regular over the air instruction
drills. For this reason, it was said,
they have been practically aban-
doned. Still, it was said, the Navy
is trying to get more men to send
them to one Of the naval schools of
instruction for radio men and sig
nalmen.
Although it was said that men
who enlist in this branch go in to
receive the necessary training to
make them naval radio operators
and signalnen, nevertheless, if they