United States or Brazil ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
The officer of the day, during his tour of duty, paused to question a sentry who was a new recruit. "If you should see an armed party approaching, what would you do?" asked the officer. "Turn out the guard, sir." "Very well. Suppose you saw a battleship coming across the parade-ground, what would you do?" "Report to the hospital for examination, sir," was the prompt reply.
Consequently it was the practice, when the approach of convoys was expected, to throw forward from the defended area groups of powerful cruisers, and even battleship divisions, to meet them and reinforce their escorts. Outward-bound convoys had their escorts similarly strengthened till they were clear of the danger zone. The system was in regular use both for home and colonial areas.
There was a din and crash of breaking metal, two shocks which were felt throughout the vessel, and the shattered and crushed blades of the propellers of the great battleship were powerless to move her. The captain of the Adamant, pallid with fury, stood upon the poop. In a moment the crabs would be at his rudder!
I not only acted with justice, but with courtesy toward them. I put every battleship and every torpedo-boat on the sea under the American flag and Dewey, with instructions to hold himself ready in entire preparedness to sail at a moment's notice. That didn't mean that we were to have war. Dewey was the greatest possible provocative of peace.
A week previously the British battleship Natal, a vessel of similar character, was sunk by an internal explosion. The main battle fleets of both Britain and Germany remained "in statuo quo" up to March 1, 1916.
He had planned a history of the navy and when I had spoken of the battleship of Nelson's day, had said: 'Oh, that was the decadence of the battleship, but if his naval interests were mediaeval, his ideas about religion were pure Karl Marx, and we were soon in perpetual argument.
When the smoke and dust cleared away nothing stirred on the whole of that piece of ground. We looked for a long time, nothing stirred. One hundred to the right barrel nothing left for the second barrel! The tailor of the fairy tale with his "seven at a blow" is not in it with the gunnery Lieutenant of a battleship.
In the summer of 1917 Secretary Daniels announced that the Atlantic Fleet our Grand Fleet had been reorganized into two divisions, officially known as "forces." Battleship Force One had as commander Vice-Admiral Albert W. Grant, and Battleship Force Two was commanded by Vice-Admiral DeWitt Coffman. Admiral Henry T. Mayo remained as commander-in-chief.
On the 21st of April, Captain William T. Sampson was appointed to command the forces on the North Atlantic station. This included practically the whole fleet, except the Pacific squadron under Dewey, and the Oregon, a new battleship of unusual design, which was on the Pacific coast.
The elan and contempt of danger shown by the young French drafts of the last contingent, averaging, perhaps, 20 years of age, was much admired by all. During the fighting, the French battleship St. Louis did excellent service against the Asiatic batteries.
Word Of The Day