Evening star., 1941-09-10
BY MARION WADE DOYLE,
star staff Correspondent.

ANNAPOLIS, Md, September 10.
If 40 men could eat and sleep and
live in street car, they would dis
cover what life on one of Americas
wartime destroyers is like.
Newspaper women found out yes
terday. 1t was on the first tour for
woman reporters conducted about
the United States Naval Academy
and on board a destroyer.
Forty of us piled out of a bus,
were escorted by white uniformed
officers through the academy
grounds and came out on long pier
swarming with midshipmen. In
Dewey Basin dozens of small sail
boats manned by eight midshipmen
each wheeled and tackled. Tucked in
one corner, silent and gray, was
the U. S. S. Noa.
Despite the smiling sun on the
Severn and the chain anchoring
the ship to the pier, the sailors were
almost grim at their posts as the
ladies of the press scrambled up
the gang plank.
Tiny Galley.
On deck waited 1t. Comdr. r. E.
AriSon, who told us he enjoyed duty
aboard the recommissioned destroyer
because he had spent IA years prior
to last December in a submarine.
First we were led forward on the
deck to a tiny cabin serving as a
galley, where two Filipino cooks pre-
pared veal outlets for the enlisted
mems mess and fried chicken for the
officers. The galley was more COM
pact than any modern kitchenette
| and three times as hot.
Next we tumbled down matches
only a foot across to a second level,
where a pantry, recording rooms and
officers quarters are located. Down
another precipitous ladder, and We
saw the crowded conditions to which
the enlisted men of Americas Navy
have become accustomed. Bunks
| three tiers high lined the sides of
room about as large as a streetcar,
and tables for 40 were set up in the
middle. A smaller compartment for
ward, where the petty officer used to
| sleep, has been converted into hunks
for six more enlisted men, and a
quartermaSter'S Office was somehow
fitted in back of that.
Dry Food i'm Rough Weather.
The tables were equipped with
inch-high ledges to keep food from
spilling, but in rough weather the
crew is generally forced to take dry
food. When it really blows, a gallon
of soup or coffee has to be prepared
in 10-gallon pot if it is not to spill
over.
The enlisted men had a radio, but
in accord with the Navy custom of
space saving, it was one of the
smallest models on the market and
teetered perilously between two
hunks and water pipe At first it
seemed nothing more could be put
into that one room, but down on the
floor were wooden lockers for each
mans personal belongings.
| We were told that 80 more men
are fed and sleep in a slightly larger
compartment aft, few always being
on watch. The maligned hammock
Comdr. Arison told us, has come into
its own since the beginning of the
national emergency.
Hammocks take up little space
and the enlisted men are beginning
to sleep in them again instead OF
using them just as clothes bags
They need the space aboard the Noa
he said, with 80 men added to the
original hundred.
Carries Plane.
Only 231 feet long and 81 feet
wide, the Noa has still been out
fitted with tiny seaplane for scout
duty. Reporters were so busy look
ing into refrigerators kept on the
deck to avoid the heat below that al
first they didn't see the plane
squeezed on the aft deck. A boom
folding beside the ship, the pilot
told us, lowers the plane into the
water in any kind of weather.
"If he can fly it," sailor said, 1--WE
can launch it."
A few of the more athletic report
ers descended again to the second
level, to see the officers mess anc
commanders quarters. A slightly
larger radio and bookrace were tn,
only businesslike touches in thu
quarters, and even the bookcase wal
full of seamanship tracts and inter
national law books.
The volumes, the captain said, ar,
part of the Navy's circulating librar!
for officers and men. Part of tn
books are kept in the officers mes
and part in the enlisted quarters
Every three months 25 books ar
replaced with new ones.
See Kitchens for Midshipmen.
Escorted off the ship, reporter
were taken to see an entirely differ
ent kind of feeding problem-thre