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HATCHING OUR "MOSQUITO FLEET" 393
department is thankful because she is
training men who could then be placed
in charge of boats like her. The men
are the great necessity and those who
have taken a craft like the Chingacligook
through heavy seas and fog at breakneck
speed, are the men about whom the
new anti-submarine motor boat service
will be built.
Half a dozen builders are constructing
standardized military cruisers under the
specifications laid down last summer by
the Navy Department. Four different
classes of patrol boats and hornets were
adopted. These are of varying lengths,
one class from forty to sixty feet long,
the other three sixty feet and more. The
boat squadron, learn the signals, brush
up on your navigating code and rules.
Learn to signal; know your gas engine.
Drive your dory through the worst sea,
in the blackest night, through the most
dense fog that your waters can produce.
That is the condition under wdiich you
will work when the Navy calls and puts
you in charge of a forty-mile boat and
sends you dashing fearlessly out into the
night to scout and to attack whatever
vessels of the enemy may appear.
In England they laughed at the idea
of motor boat defense but the leaders
called for just such workers to protect
the coast line. The yachtsmen thought
it could not be done, but they thought it
THE CH/XGACHGOOK'S GUN
When fighting submarines this linht piece is sufficient stintr for any "mosquito"
specifications were adopted to guide
builders in producing various priced
boats which would be at the same time
suitable for training the men upon whom
the Department lately has laid so much
stress.
The navy is the thing and you need no
thirty thousand dollar craft to be serving
your country. The Department
wants men to be trained. Join the power
was more to their taste than a night in
the trenches up to their waists in mud
and water. So it was done and when
the war is over the story will be written.
The deadly sameness, the machine character
of war will never touch the sea:
there, always, will lie the romance of
doing battle. Even w ireless-directed torpedoes
and guns that destroy foes beyond
the horizon, cannot change this.