Building An Effective Naval Reserve

Toujours Pret

            Do we need a naval reserve? Can we develop reserve man-o’-war’s men who can man their stations on board ship and function promptly upon mobilization in a manner comparable with the regular navy? Is the civilian work of the average man similar to that which he would be called upon to perform on board ship, or is it so different as to make efforts to form an effective naval reserve a losing game? Granting that reserve organizations are formed, are they paper organizations or are they real sea­going divisions that will be able to furnish valuable men such as quartermasters and signalmen, radiomen, water tenders and firemen, machinist’s mates, and torpedo­men? Where will the supply of officers of sufficient training and experience to build up these organizations be found? These and many additional questions come to the mind of any one familiar with naval affairs when mention is made of the naval re­serve. In the space to follow the writer will endeavor to answer these questions and discuss them from the practical viewpoint obtained by superimposing eight years of experience with active units of the U. S. Naval Reserve upon four years at the Naval Academy and five years experience as an officer in the regular navy. It is the writer’s opinion that the U. S. Naval Re­serve, particularly Class F-l and Class V-l, more particularly Class F-l, are susceptible of development to a point where the personnel, both officer and en­listed, is comparable to that of the regu­lar navy.

In order to reach a standard of per­formance at all comparable with that ob­taining in the regular navy, it is necessary to have the unit located in a district where commercial and manufacturing activities are such that they attract skilled person­nel such as is represented by the younger graduates of the Naval Academy and simi­larly trained university men. At the same time, it is likely that the industries require a variety of men skilled in all of the me­chanical trades and arts. These will form the highly skilled nucleus necessary to pro­vide the well-prepared and experienced en­gineer’s force which every unit must have to be able to fulfill its mobilization mis­sion. It is quite obvious that no approach can be made to the standards of the regu­lar navy if all the time devoted to naval activities is the standard one and one-half hours per week, which is devoted to drill. In making this statement, I am not de­crying the use of the time devoted to drill and instruction; this is very necessary in order to lay the proper foundation for the work on the cruise and to co-ordinate the experience of the men in their civil pur­suits with what training is deemed de­sirable for their more efficient function as man-o’-war’s men.

It is almost essential that units of the naval reserve be located in large centers because there is little chance of obtaining the services of officers of the required training, experience, and education in the smaller towns. A case in point is that of a small town in an eastern state which is favorably located from every standpoint but, because of the limited facilities for employment of people of general experi­ence and education, there is but one officer attached to the fleet division and there seems to be little or no prospect of getting any additional officer personnel. It is ap­parent that this division is severely ham­pered in its efforts to attain a state of readiness to man a destroyer, with but one officer as compared with the four or five allowed the fleet division.

Fleet divisions which are located in communities far from any large body of water operate at a disadvantage as com­pared with those located on water fronts. This is particularly apparent in the amount of interest that can be developed among the crew of the fleet division. It is im­possible to hold interest for a very great length of time by artificialities in training, such as painting diagrams of destroyers on armory floors, having firemen tend oil burners attached to cardboard boilers, or drill continuously on 4-inch guns in ar­mories with no supplementary target prac­tice during the summer. If these artificialities of training were really effective, there is no doubt that the regular service would be quick to incorporate it into its activities. It is not of any lasting value and it accounts for the fact that some divisions, which have specialized in many ingenious but impractical forms of training, have failed to make good when called upon to perform on board destroyers during the 15-day cruise. In order to secure best results it is of the greatest importance (1) that units be located in large centers, that is, cities in excess of 50,000 population (exceptions being those towns having exceptionally favorable industries or some particular connection with the navy, such as Newport, R.I. or, Portsmouth, N.H.); (2) that consideration be given to the industries located in the town in deciding upon the location of a reserve unit therein; (3) that a location adjacent to a water front be obtained; (4) that reserve units be supplied with sufficient equipment to make their instruction on drill nights profitable as distinguished from a species of theatrical performance.

The officers responsible for the training of naval reserve units—the commanding officer of the battalion and the commanding officer of the fleet division—are confronted with the problem of how best to use the time available in fifty drills throughout the fiscal year. It is generally agreed that the schedule to be covered must be planned in advance and the resultant syllabus of instruction should be departed from as little as possible. The officers and men in the unit should know in a general way what the course of instruction is intended to accomplish and should be prepared to carry out the drill instruction for the coming drill prior to the sounding of assembly on that particular night. Announcements of special features such as week-end cruises should be made from five weeks to two months in advance, in order to allow the members of the naval reserve to arrange their regular outside activities to conform with their reserve training. The greatest difference between the training and administration of the naval reserve and that of the regular navy arises from the fact that the reservist’s naval work is secondary to his civilian occupation.

The fact that the naval reserve work is secondary to that of gaining a livelihood might be considered an insurmountable obstacle in reaching the desired state of efficiency. This is not the case, as experience with practically every employer in particular are more than anxious to co-operate with us and we are given priority in the assignment of vacations to conform to cruising periods allotted by the department to such an extent that practically 100 per cent of our officer and enlisted personnel have cruised with the division during the summer of 1929-30-31. Every effort is made to co-operate with the employer, and the Navy Department has been of great assistance in helping us furnish the employer with necessary information as to dates of cruising and other training requirements as much as six months in advance of the date on which the men are called upon to report.

It should be kept in mind that it is not well to impose upon the good nature of the employer to such an extent as to encourage too many men from one organization to join any single unit of the naval reserve. Should they join separate units the dates of their training may not cause a loss of too many people at one time any single employer. It is obvious that in recruiting, men should not be grouped from one commercial or industrial organization. On the contrary, it has been found by experience that a naval reserve organization can be readily built up by encouraging men whose social activities bring them together in groups to join the naval reserve in these groups. Both of the foregoing remarks are, of course, subject to the observation that standards, both mental and physical, should be the same in all respects as those of the regular navy. Nothing is gained by lowering the requirements and cutting down on the standards found desirable by the navy as a whole. Lowered standards are quickly reflected in an ultra-large turn­over and make the problem of progress much more difficult. Actual experience in­dicates conclusively that it is better not to recruit at all than to allow men of lower than the usual standard to join the re­serve unit.

The greatest differences between the naval reserve of today and the naval militia of pre-war days are accounted for by the payment of retainer pay to the per­sonnel at the present time in contrast to no such payment in pre-war days. The lack of retainer pay prior to 1925 resulted in activities becoming almost entirely of a social nature. There are many require­ments involving expense to the individual belonging to the naval reserve and without retainer pay the man is compelled to draw upon his own resources to carry out his part in the organization. The U. S. Naval Reserve regulations for 1929 require that men entering the reserve shall be between the ages of eighteen and twenty-eight. Like the navy, the majority of those en­tering are between eighteen and twenty- one-—an age when their earnings are at a minimum and when their personal re­quirements are probably higher in propor­tion to their earning than at any other period. Even in prosperous times it is noted that the enlisted personnel, particu­larly the younger element, have little or nothing to spare for naval reserve require­ments out of their civilian income. If the reserve organization is to exist it must do either of two things: recruit individuals whose financial and social position is not in line with the regular navy or make pro­vision for retainer pay such as is done at present to members of Class F-l. The first method was that followed by the naval militia of pre-war days, and a vast volume of criticism of their discipline, ap­pearance, and adaptability on board ship runs through every annual report of naval militia activities. Since 1925 the payment of retainer pay has resulted in the naval reserve being able to recruit men of a high type, whose civilian occupations have been more in line with those trades found on board ship and the result has been that comments such as those found in the Bureau of Navigation bulletin of Septem­ber 15, 1930, have marked reports on naval reserve activities. This bulletin reads as follows:

The Bureau notes with pleasure the favorable comments from commanding officers afloat and from officers of the reserve on the successful train­ing cruises which have been conducted this summer.

The amount of this retainer pay, as compared to the cost of maintaining ship keepers, overhead of naval districts, and salaries of regular officers attached to the naval reserve, is very small and it furnishes the means of giving these organizations something of the efficiency and precision which characterizes the regular navy. It amounts to approximately $6,000 per year per fleet division and it is believed every one will agree that this is insuring an effective crew for a destroyer at very small cost to the government.

The value to the Navy Department of having at its call 148 reasonably experi­enced fleet divisions to man the larger part of those ships out of commission at present is apparent. The function of Class F—1 of the naval reserve is to make pos­sible immediate commissioning of practi­cally all the combat vessels kept in a de­commissioned status in peace time.

There are fifteen states that maintain a naval militia at the present time. Some confusion seems to arise in the minds of many people ordinarily well versed in naval affairs as to what these naval militia organizations consist of. The naval militia is generally formed by commissioning of officers of naval reserve units in the state naval militia organizations in the grade they carry in the naval reserve. All enlisted men are enlisted in the naval militia under the same circumstances and in the same rating they enlist in the U.S. Naval Reserve. The laws of the states are in general made to conform with the Articles of War and Articles for the Government of the Navy and the respective regulations of the two services so far as they relate to the national guard and the naval militia. This place organizations whose efficiency is enhanced by the combined efforts and appropriations of the federal government and of the state, at the disposal of both the state and the federal government. That this policy is to the mutual advantage of the state and the Navy Department in the case of the naval reserve units is beyond question and the observation of the writer in seeing the results of co-operation between the Navy Department and the state of New Jersey is that such co-operation is vital to the formation of worth while naval organizations.

The advantage to the state is that the naval reserve fleet divisions are available as police units in case of emergency and their training makes them fully the equal of the national guard units. The splendid work of the two fleet divisions in Columbus, Ohio, acting as units of the Ohio Naval Militia in quelling a riot of prisoners in the Ohio State Penitentiary in 1930 fully illustrates the value of naval reserve units to the state.

The advantages of state service to the naval reserve are: (1) Adequate armories can be secured; (2) naval regulations can be written into state laws, placing the police power of the state behind a policy of necessary discipline; (3) three days’ additional active duty each year on the state rifle range; (4) appropriations which supplement federal money for many purposes—notably for additional week-end cruising; (5) state owned docking facilities; (6) state aid and funds available for ceremonies which are state wide as distinguished from those of a purely local nature and interest.

Of the above advantages it is well to clarify the question of armory facilities here. The Navy Department has no means for building armories for the naval reserve units. Any fleet divisions depending upon federal appropriations alone must rent quarters which may or may not be suitable. These rented quarters in no case that has been observed compare in any way with the local national guard facilities. The inevitable comparison places the navy in a much poorer light than the military service in the minds of the public. In New Jersey the state is building armories similar to those supplied the national guard, which has resulted in a great increase in local interest in the naval service and has been accompanied by a great advance in the effectiveness of the fleet divisions. The armories cost from $170,000 to $250,000, and in order to give the community a proper return on this investment the buildings are used on other than drill nights for community athletics, for gatherings of patriotic associations such as the American Legion, Veterans of Foreign Wars, etc. for local troops of sea scouts or boy scouts, and for many other social activities.

Drills are held one night a week except for the two weeks the unit is on active training duty. This gives the unit fifty drills a year, and in order that the 15-day cruise may be profitable to officers and enlisted men, the Navy Department requires that a certain number of drills be attended during the six months immediately preceding the cruise. It is the writer’s observation that without the preparation obtained at the drills it would be useless to spend the time and money involved in taking the unit on a 15-day cruise. The U. S. Naval Reserve Regulations require that the men be present in uniform and that the drill last for one hour and a half. This is, however, a minimum require­ment, and the drills of the units composing the Seventh Battalion of Jersey City commence, as far as the officers are con­cerned, at 6:00 p.m., at which time the officers gather in the wardroom for dinner. During the dinner period the problems affecting the drill of that evening are dis­cussed and the general plan for executing the drill is worked into a smooth form. Every officer becomes familiar with his part and the co-ordination with that of the other officers of the battalion. The officers are generally through with their part of the drill at about 10:45 p.m. This is in marked contrast with the require­ment of the regulations—four and one- half hours as compared with the one and one-half hour requirement. The enlisted men report at about 7:30 p.m. and are mustered at 8:30 p.m. They leave their stations at 10:45 p.m. In addition to the regular drill there are about seventeen week-end cruises during each fiscal year, which are over and above any require­ment exacted by the Navy Department.

The typical evening drill, which fur­nishes the bulk of the instruction, is as follows:

2030 Divisions muster at quarters 2035 Battalion commander receives division re­ports

2040 Divisions man stations for drill:

24th Fleet Division—marlinspike seaman­ship

25th Fleet Division—battle problem- general quarters

28th Fleet Division—first aid instruction Engineer’s force less those at battle sta­tion—practical work Radiomen—receive 3d Naval District broadcast

Signalmen, less those at battle station,— signal drill

2115 Classroom instruction 2150 Emergency drills

2200 Muster at quarters; publish orders, notices, etc.; and dismiss from drill

Schools of instruction provide for divid­ing the men of the battalion into groups for practical and theoretical instruction. These are conducted generally by a commis­sioned officer or in some cases by a chief petty officer. It is essential that those officers or petty officers detailed as in­structors should be regular and dependable in their drill attendance. The schools con­ducted in the Seventh Battalion are as follows:

(1)    Recruit school

(2)    A to N instruction for familiarizing seamen second class and firemen third class with work on board ship and the knowledge required to advance to the next higher rating

(3)    Advanced seaman school

(4)    Deck petty officers’ school

(5)    Fireroom school

(6)    Engine-room school

(7)    Engineering petty officers’ school

(8)    Gunner’s mate school

(9)    Signalmen and quartermaster school

(10)   Radio school

(11)    Yeoman school

(12)    First aid instruction by medical officer

As each fleet division is allowed a mini­mum of four officers, it can be seen that to conduct the instruction in the large num­ber of subjects required by the mission of the fleet division (its development into an effective destroyer crew) it is abso­lutely necessary to have all of the di­visions composing a battalion drill on the same drill night in order that all of the officers of the battalion may be available as instructors. In the classroom instruc­tion, as distinguished from the drills, it is highly advantageous to form battalion classes rather than classes limited to men of a single fleet division.

In connection with the instruction, the question of proper armory facilities again crops up. Little inspiration or interest can be had by drilling under the handicap of poor surroundings. Armories are fitted up with the 4-inch, 50-caliber gun standard on the destroyers, with signal searchlight, blinker tubes, knot and splicing board, an armory containing rifles, belts, and bayonets for eighty-four men, an office space, wardroom country, petty officers’ quarters, and berth deck quarters for the crew. In the case of the Seventh Battalion, the U.S.S. Newton, a former shipping board vessel, product of the wooden-ship program of 1917, has been housed over and gives excellent facilities for drill space for three fleet divisions.

In order to develop requisite experience and seagoing knowledge, it is the usual practice to have a vessel suitable for weekend cruising available to the naval reserve units. The Eagle type of patrol boat lends itself well to this purpose as it is, in its details, very similar to a destroyer. It carries two 4-inch 50-caliber guns, similar to those carried by the destroyer on which the reserve unit would mobilize. Its boilers are of the Bureau of Engineering type and are similar to the Yarrow express boiler installed on many destroyers. Its engineroom, while not exactly a miniature of the destroyer’s, contains all the essential features of a destroyer engineering plant. Since the Eagle boat engineering installation is much reduced in size as compared with that of a destroyer, it places an even greater premium upon alertness and an equal requirement upon expert knowledge. The crew’s living quarters are in all essential respects the same as those found on the ships the reserve man-o’-war’s man would man in case of mobilization. Galley and mess facilities are similar to those on vessels of the destroyer squadrons.

The greatest advantage gained from cruising on board vessels of the Eagle class is that the officer and enlisted personnel is thrown entirely on its own resources of knowledge and experience. There are no members of the regular navy present to rectify mistakes and the same degree of self-reliance which characterizes the personnel of the regular navy is developed in the reservist. Since no one in the regular service is responsible for any error of omission or commission, the reserve training is not hampered by the thought that some officer’s future career might be jeopardized.

The U.S.S. Eagle 55 has been used by the Seventh Battalion of Jersey City, N.J., over a period of ten years for weekend cruises. The ports visited include Block Island, R.I.; Greenport, L.I.; where a company of bluejackets and a machine-gun squad were landed and took a conspicuous part in the Decoration Day parade of 1931; Cape May, N.J.; Naval Operating Base, Hampton Roads, Va., where the battalion baseball team played the team of the U.S.S. Maryland on Decoration Day, 1930; New London, Conn.; Newburgh, N.Y.; and the maneuvering area southeast of Scotland Light Ship off Sandy Hook, N.J.

The week-end cruise is made to coordinate with the civilian activities of the officer and enlisted personnel. A typical week-end cruise commences at 3:00pm Saturday at the dock in Jersey City. The average crew consists of six officers and fifty-eight men, although on the cruise to Hampton Roads, Va., Eagle 55 carried ten officers and eighty-four enlisted men, besides four enlisted men stowaways who were discovered about two hours out. The usual procedure is to steam down New York Harbor standing our through Ambrose Channel to the maneuvering area. A short form of watch, quarter, and station bill has been developed, which permits of quick and ready assignment of all men to their stations. This is prepared immediately upon getting under way. At the maneuvering area the crew is exercised at general quarters, fire drill, collision drill, abandon ship stations, and last but not least, the drill which is inclusive of many important features of training and particularly suited to exercising naval reserve units—man overboard. This drill exercises the engineers’ force at bringing the ship to a stop and governing their steam to this requirement; it exercises the deck force at lowering the whaleboat, the use of the sea painter, oarsmanship in a sea way, standard procedure in recovering the man overboard including whistle signals common to the destroyer squadrons; sig­nals are exchanged between the life boat and the bridge and the boat crew is prac­ticed in bringing the boat alongside, hook­ing on and being hoisted aboard. After these drills it is customary to stand in to Gravesend Bay, Sandy Hook, or Atlantic Highlands and give liberty, to expire at 1:00 a.m., to the crew. Sunday it is usual to call all hands at 7:00 a.m., and get under way at 9:00. A special throttle drill has been developed to exercise the engine- room detail and this is carried out gener­ally at this time. In the afternoon the Eagle 55 is put alongside the dock at Fort Hancock, Sandy Hook, where the bat­talion ball team plays the team from the Coast Artillery Corps at the fort. The arrival in Jersey City is dependent upon the time of slack water and may be from 5:30 to 9:30 p.m. It is our experience that these week-end cruises, of which there are about seventeen during the cruising sea­son, have been the means of building up the seagoing experience and knowledge of the personnel of this battalion. Without the week-end cruises the men would have but fifteen days’ training a year whereas the week-end cruises provide approxi­mately twenty-five additional days of sea­going training.

Since 1926 the annual cruises have been on board vessels of the destroyer squad­rons. In 1931 the training squadron was organized, and during that summer cruises were conducted for nine fleet divisions on board the U. S. S. Wyoming, while the remaining divisions which cruised on the Atlantic and Pacific coasts were taken care of by destroyers. The Twenty-fifth Fleet Division of Jersey City reported for active training duty on board the U. S. S. Wickes. In reporting on board, the Navy Department insists that the division shall cruise as a unit, that is, the members of a naval reserve unit are required to cruise to­gether in order to develop that cohesion and teamwork necessary for their effective working together as the crew of their de­stroyer, if mobilized. Officers and enlisted men of the U. S. Naval Reserve who find it impossible to cruise with their own fleet divisions are permitted to make the cruise at another time, but must make it without pay. It is our experience that the foregoing procedure is a wise requirement and in every way justified.

There are fewer problems in getting the personnel of the fleet divisions off on a 15- day cruise than is generally thought to be the case. The most essential point is that the plans shall be announced at least five months in advance of the date on which the men must report. This makes it possi­ble for the employer to plan to let the man off and to give him priority in making application for his vacation within the dates scheduled for cruising. It is essential that the cruises shall start on a Saturday as the usual vacations commence on a Saturday and any other day would seri­ously derange the vacation schedule of any commercial organization. Experience has shown that employers are practically 100 per cent in favor of co-operating with the navy in arranging to let their men off to perform their active training duties. A vice-president of the New York Telephone Company told the writer that his com­pany considered the time spent by the employee in his naval reserve duty of value to the company since it generally re­sulted in broadening the employee’s men­tal horizon as well as making him more obedient and exact in the performance of his work with the company. This company sees fit to pay its employees their full salary while on leave to perform active training duty. The same procedure is true of the Standard Oil Company of New Jersey, the Western Electric Company, and many others from which the Seventh Battalion draws its enlisted personnel.

The daily routine on the 15-day cruise is as nearly as possible the same as that ordinarily carried out on vessels of the destroyer squadrons. Perhaps a greater emphasis is placed on emergency drills by conducting these with greater frequency than is ordinarily the case. Upon reporting on board, the reserve fleet division takes its place in the various stations set forth on the watch, quarter, and station bill and their training is along the lines of the experience and work assigned on their billet slip. Their broader and more general instruction, it will be recalled, has been covered during their fifty drills of the year prior to their coming aboard the destroyer, by their various week-end cruises, and further by their three to five days active state duty on the rifle range. The high light of the cruise training comes the day the ship stands down the range and the reserve gun crews fire their annual target practice. This takes the form of a special anti-submarine practice. As a check upon the report of the federal inspection board as to the mobilization efficiency of these reserve units, would it not be better for these reserve gun crews to fire a regular short-range battle practice, and be given a standing among the regular navy gun crews firing the same caliber of guns in this same practice? The question as to whether the reserve personnel of any fleet division is comparable with the regular navy in ability to perform its mobilization mission, could then be answered positively one way or the other. This comparison with the observations of the inspection board would furnish the Navy Department with more dependable and accurate information as to the value of the reserve than is available at present.

The usual drills on the cruise consist of battle stations and final training preparatory to target practice. The gun crews have received their preliminary training including a thorough drilling in safety precautions at their home armory. Frequent check telescope drills on week-end cruises develop the pointer group to a degree where the final training during the 15-day cruise makes it possible to fire a target practice with results beneficial to the gunnery experience of the division. The other drills emphasized are emergency drills, casualty drills in both fireroom and engine-room, and signal drills. Contrary to the opinion of many, the greatest difficulty in developing any single branch of the naval reserve seems to center, not in the engineer’s force, but in building an effective signal force. There is little work in civil life along the lines of the duties of quartermasters, and none whatever similar to the duties of signalmen. The subject of adapting armory training to the end that the division may carry efficient and experienced signalmen on its rolls has been given a very considerable amount of thought. Every opportunity has been grasped to obtain the help of signalmen from the vessels of the training squadron. The assistance of the enlisted personnel of the bridge forces in the training squadron has been very helpful and if some means could be developed of having their presence at drills, such as the payment of their traveling expense from their ship to the unit, the benefits of their knowledge and training could be had throughout the year instead of merely during the 15-day cruise. During the 15-day cruise certain days are spent at anchor. A very beneficial drill for the enlisted personnel at this time has been found to be that of “boats under oars.” Many of the units are not located on water fronts and the 15-day cruise affords the only opportunity for them to obtain that rudimentary training of a sailor—knowledge of how to handle a boar under oars. A great deal of interest in oarsmanship has been developed in the naval reserve by holding whaleboat races. Each fleet vision has its race-boat crew and places in this squad are at a premium. The standard race course is the usual one mile and the rules are those of the fleet athletic regula­tions.

From 1921 to 1930 inclusive, the liberty ports on the 15-day cruises were those of the New England coast. These ports are better suited as to climatic conditions dur­ing the cruising season (June to Septem­ber) than any others. However, continu­ous cruising in the one area was becoming extremely monotonous and the Navy De­partment authorized “deep-sea cruises” with liberty ports at such places as Hali­fax, Bermuda, Nassau, and the Chesa­peake Bay area. The beneficial effects of the change have been very apparent since the cruise of 1931. It is remarkable how such a comparatively insignificant change has stimulated interest in the navy and naval reserve in the home communities of the fleet divisions. It was generally ob­served that the reserve personnel left little to be desired as to their appearance and conduct ashore in the foreign ports. Should their conduct ashore in foreign ports not measure up to the standards of the naval service in general, it is quite obvious that they themselves are not up to those stand­ards and that such men are probably filling the places of desirable ones and should be gotten rid of. Through the co-operation of the commanding officer of the U. S. S. Wickes, the fleet division was enabled to cruise its entire class F-l strength, four officers and fifty-six enlisted men. It is well to record here that experience has shown that it is impracticable to develop a good division without the backing of the com­manding officer of the destroyer in which the 15-day cruise is made as his approval is necessary, under orders effective in 1931, to permit the division to carry with it in excess of fifty men.

The work of the federal inspection board, consisting of two captains and two com­manders in the regular navy, has been of the greatest importance in defining stand­ards of performance and measuring the ad­herence of the various reserve units to these standards. This board visits all of the 148 fleet divisions during the course of each fiscal year. A comprehensive report of their inspection states as clearly as is humanly possible the value of the division to perform its mobilization mission. A con­siderable number of the subjects in which our marks are assigned form a means of scoring. Such scores combined are the basis of the annual naval reserve division competition and the total possible of such scores is 100. Percentage cruising attend­ance has a possible score of 15; percentage attending inspection, Class F-l enlisted men, a score of 5; appearance counts 10; mobilization efficiency counts 25; turn­over of personnel carries a possible score of 15 as does drill and instruction and average drill attendance. In order that the same standard of marks shall apply to every fleet division, the same board visits and marks each fleet division.

The reports of the federal board tend to confirm the reports of the commanding officers of the vessels in which the reserve units cruise-—that the reserve has made a great amount of progress in its readiness to perform its mission, since 1925, and that it is forging ahead at a rapid rate in the current fiscal year.

It is apparent that the country does need a naval reserve in order to place all combat ships in the battle line at the out­break of hostilities. Since the end of the World War, the services of a large number of graduates of the U. S. Naval Academy have been available to the U. S. Naval Reserve, most of whom have had several years’ service at sea prior to their resigna­tion. In addition a number of officers are also obtainable from the ranks of the naval R.O.T.C. units at various universi­ties. The industries of the country, par­ticularly the larger ones, furnish a source of enlisted personnel more suited and with a background of experience more similar to the combatant navy—the battle fleet—than the merchant marine is able to, at present, or, as far as can be seen, in the future. The function of the merchant marine naval reserve is to provide for the manning of ships of the train and transports, for which duty they are more accustomed by experience. The naval militia of pre-war days had no definite mission such as the reserve of today. The reason for the more intense interest of the naval service in the present-day naval reserve is because parity of naval strength has a definite relation to the number and quality of reservists. Both Great Britain and Japan have good naval reserve organizations. A study of the British system of reserve organization indicates that the U.S. Naval Reserve is certainly its equal as far as manning combat vessels is concerned. As to auxiliaries it seems the British are probably in advance of us.

The total appropriation for the U.S. Naval Reserve has averaged $4,600,000 per year since 1925. This is but 1.5 per cent of the total annual cost of maintaining the navy. Surely this is not an excessive amount considering the naval reserve is part of the first line of the navy in the performance of the war-time mission of the navy. The naval reserve may be the fringe of the navy in peace time but this must have an adequate appropriation to be able to function as part of the first line in war time. The mission of the U.S. Naval Reserve, particularly Class F-1, U.S.N.R., makes its efficiency and readiness to perform its duty in national emergency of equal importance to the efficiency of the Destroyer Squadrons, Battle Fleet, whose duties in war time the U.S. Naval Reserve will supplement. The purpose of this article will be attained if it places before responsible officers of the navy the necessity and desirability of encouraging, developing, and increasing the strength and effectiveness of the U.S. Naval Reserve.