Naval reserve

“ Nothing, then, remains as a certainty but to turn towards the naval reserve as the best means of manning our fleet. In time of war not only would the men enrolled come forward willingly and be immediately available, but deserters would have the machinery of the law put in motion for their apprehension, and popular feeling would be as earnest in support of their arrest as it would be opposed to all attempts which enforced the arbitrary powers of draft or impressment.
No system exists abroad entirely suited to our necessities and our national instincts ”

“ Naval Reserve. In all the more important countries, in addition to the regular naval forces serving continuously with the fleet, there are others who are drilled and instructed in order to be able to supplement the regular naval forces in time of war. In times of peace these men are largely employed in the merchant marine, yachts, auxiliary government service, or are pensioners. ”

“ The organization of the Naval Militia has been a growth of the last eight years, and is due in large measure to the reconstruction of the navy and the revival of activity and interest in naval affairs in the United States.
It was seen that the new vessels of modern and intricate construction and (p. 1006) appliances should, in case of war, be manned by men skilled in the use of these appliances. The apprentice system brought to the navy a supply of apprentices, but the number would be totally inadequate in a naval war. A naval reserve force was an urgent necessity. ”

“ The Naval Militia forces are State organizations, and are trained for coast service, and in event of war they will constitute the inner line of defence. [584] They should receive hearty encouragement from the General Government.
But in addition we should at once provide for a National Naval Reserve, organized and trained under the direction of the Navy Department, and subject to the call of the Chief Executive whenever war becomes imminent. It should be a real auxiliary to the naval seagoing peace establishment, and offer material to be drawn on at once for manning our ships in time of war. ”

“ While mobilization of the Army Reserve drew men from all industries in a proportion that did not affect seriously any one employment, the calling-up of the Royal Naval Reserve strained our resources in men to the utmost. Seamen, naval or mercantile, are of one great trade: the balance of our activities being thrown suddenly and violently to one side of our engagement could not fail in disorganizing the other. Added to the outgoing of the retained Reserve seamen, recruitment of a new Reserve to man Auxiliaries and Special Service vessels was almost instantly begun. ”

“ We know that the Navy is the main defence of us all, and we know what great strides are being made abroad in regard to the navies of the different Powers, and it is our desire—and we have educated public opinion in Canada to that point—that there shall be a Royal Naval Reserve formed among our 70,000 hardy and vigorous sailors. We have got the people, Parliament, and the Government with us, and it will only take a little time and departmental work to have this matter carried out. That is one point. There is another. We are exceedingly [276] anxious about your food supply. ”

“ It is not peaceful work, either, in these days of promiscuous mine-laying and enemy submarines armed with guns and torpedoes ready to sink without warning.
The important work of the yachts, pleasure steamers, trawlers, and drifters used for mine-sweeping, patrol work, and other naval purposes need not be entered into here; but the Mercantile Marine proper, what, for want of a better term, we may call "the deep sea service," has supplied the Royal Navy with many thousands of splendid officers and men who are now serving their country in fighting ships as members of the Royal Naval Reserve. ”

“ Fleet Naval Reserve, made up of those who had received naval training and had volunteered for four years. Naval Auxiliary Reserve, made up of seafaring men who had had experience on merchant ships. Naval Coast Defense Reserve, made up of citizens of the United States whose technical and practical education made them fitted for navy-yard work, patrol, and the like. Volunteer Naval Reserve, made up of men who had volunteered, bringing into service their own boats. ”

“ From the merchant marine the personnel of the navy in war must come, and it is a fallacy to believe that by a small addition to our ordinary naval resources we would be able to cope with the navies of other maritime powers, or that in a long war an efficient and numerous reserve is not of greater importance than a few more seamen permanently maintained in the navy during peace. ”

“ We should establish depots for training our fishermen and sailors to supplement the royal naval reserve, and the guns with which to train them, the barracks in which to house them, and the permanent instructional staff necessary to drill them, if judiciously placed in batteries in front of St. ”

“ The increase of over 400,000 in the naval personnel came partly through expansion in the permanent strength of the navy, partly through the enlargement of the various naval reserves, fleet, auxiliary, coast defense and others, and to some extent through the national naval volunteers and the Marine and Hospital Corps. ”

“ If you would imagine our base as it was in the great days, better forget the port entirely and try to think of a great British and American naval base crammed with shipping flying the national ensigns, of waters thrashed by the propellers of oil tankers, destroyers, cruisers, armed sloops, mine layers, and submarines even. A busy dockyard clangs away from morning till night; a ferry boat with a whistle like the frightened scream of a giant's child runs back and forth from the docks to the Admiralty pier, little parti-coloured motor dories run swiftly from one destroyer to another. ”

“ Thus thousands of young men who had enlisted for coast-patrol duty, were sent aboard transports, submarine-chasers, and war-ships generally, for service in the European war zones.
And with this constant outflow of trained men from the various naval training-stations of the country, the influx of newly enlisted reserves into these schools gives assurance that the Navy Department will never be embarrassed for lack of material wherewith to man its boats. ”

“ The same principles that govern the selection of positions and the establishment of bases in the Atlantic apply in the Pacific; the same requirements that a base shall be near where the fleet will conduct its operations—no matter whether those operations be offensive or defensive, no matter whether they concern direct attack or a threat against communications.
In view of the great value of naval bases, one may be pardoned perhaps for a feeling of surprise that the United States has no real naval base, home or distant. Our large navy-yards are our nearest approximation to real bases. ”

“ Before we entered the war the Navy’s ship-building capacity amounted to ways for two battleships, two destroyers, two auxiliaries and one gun-boat. At once was begun a work of expansion which within a little more than a year added five ways and, when completed, would provide facilities for the simultaneous construction of sixteen war vessels, of which seven could be battleships. Three large naval docks, which can handle the largest ships in the world, were built. Camps were constructed for the training of 200,000 men. ”

“ Among the problems to be solved by an efficient naval administration there is none more difficult or of greater importance than the formation of reserves of seamen. Our late war exposed the nation’s weakness in sailors. At the beginning of hostilities the fleet, on paper, consisted of forty-two ships of all classes, mainly sailing-vessels, with a few paddle-wheel steamers, and less than ten screw-vessels with auxiliary power. Its personnel comprised seven thousand of all grades. ”

“ But while this process of separation, or specialisation, has been both inevitable and fruitful, the Mercantile Marine has, in every war, beenxxii called upon by the Navy to provide transports, auxiliary cruisers, hospital and munition ships, and, in the recent Great War, minesweepers, submarine chasers, ‘Q’ ships, and many other equally vital subsidiaries. Similarly, in the personnel of the Mercantile Marine, the Navy has always had a powerful reserve, not only of experienced sailors, but of actual navally-trained officers and men. ”

“ The influence of the government will be felt in its most legitimate manner in maintaining an armed navy, of a size commensurate with the growth of its shipping and the importance of the interests connected with it. More important even than the size of the navy is the question of its institutions, favoring a healthful spirit and activity, and providing for rapid development in time of war by an adequate reserve of men and of ships and by measures for drawing out that general reserve power which has before been pointed to, when considering the character and pursuits of the people. ”

“ For a reserve in time of war we rely on 20,000 merchant seamen, who, though they have never served on board a man-of-war, are annually drilled to guns and small arms at various depots round the coast. ”

“ According to this bill, it was to be lawful for States and Territories bordering on sea and lake coasts and navigable rivers to enroll and designate as the Naval Militia all seafaring men of whatever calling or occupation, and all men engaged in the navigation of the rivers, lakes, and other waters, or in the construction or management of ships and craft, together with ship-owners and their employees, yacht-owners, members of yacht clubs and other associations for aquatic sports, and all ex-officers and former enlisted men of the navy. ”

“ At no time shall any person, other than persons on public vessels of the United States, enter any of the naval defensive sea areas herein set apart and reserved, nor shall any vessel or other craft, other than public vessels of the United States, be navigated into any of said areas, unless authorized by the Secretary of the Navy. ”

“ There seems only one way in which to solve the problem of where and how to establish a permanent naval base at a distant point, and that is the way in which the world's preceptor—Great Britain—has solved it; and the solution is to select a place that has already the advantage of position, and then add to it the artificial advantages of resources and military strength. ”

“ Perhaps no country ever experienced more sudden and remarkable advantages from any measure of policy than we have derived from the arming for our maritime protection and defence. We ought, without loss of time, to lay the foundation for an increase of our Navy to a size sufficient to guard our coast, and protect our trade. Such a naval force as it is doubtless in the power of the United States to create and maintain, would also afford to them the best means of general defence, the safe transportation of troops and stores to every part of our extensive coast. ”

“ If the demand is made that the foreign service fleet shall be in a position (1) energetically to uphold German interests everywhere in time of peace, (2) to be adequate for warlike conflicts with oversea States without navies deserving of the name, an increase of at least five large and five small cruisers, as well as of one large and two small cruisers as material reserve, seems called for. The Navy Law foresees as ready for use three large and ten small cruisers, and as material reserve three large and four small cruisers. ”

“ If they are on a continent, like, for example, Gibraltar, attack on them by a land force, however improbable, is physically possible. Against an attack of the kind a naval force could give little direct help. Most of our outlying naval bases are really or virtually insular, and are open to attack only by an expedition coming across the sea. An essential characteristic of a naval base is that it should be able to furnish supplies as wanted to the men-of-war needing to replenish their stocks. ”

“ To obviate the difficulty as far as possible, to meet both of the opposing demands, resort is had to the system of reserves, into which men pass after serving in the active force for a period, which is reduced to, and often below, the shortest compatible with instruction in their duties, and with the maintenance of the active forces at a fixed minimum. This instruction acquired, the recipient passes into the reserve, leaves the life of the soldier or seaman for that of the citizen, devoting a comparatively brief time in every year to brushing up the knowledge formerly acquired. ”

“ As the United States possesses no island on the Atlantic side which is nearer to foreign countries than to our own, and as our interests for the immediate future lie mostly on the Atlantic side, it may be well now to apply the general principles just considered to the question of where is a naval base most urgently needed under actual conditions. ”

“ The difference in the duration of the ships of which the navy might be composed, if chiefly constructed of Southern wood, would be of signal importance, either in the view of naval strength, or of National economy. Some of the Southern and of the Middle States yield a greater plenty of iron, and of better quality. Seamen must chiefly be drawn from the Northern hive. The necessity of naval protection to external or maritime commerce, does not require a particular elucidation, no more than the conduciveness of that species of commerce to the prosperity of a navy. ”

“ With a fleet considerably less than half the size of that of the British navy, we have shipyards more than double the number, and there are several of these shipyards, expensively equipped with modern machinery, which after investigation the Secretary of the Navy believes to be entirely useless for naval purposes. ”