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WHAT A TRANSPORT IS
LIRE
By RENE BACHE
THE War Department owns
below the main deck) and the corre­
fifteen big steamships and six sponding half of the orlop deck, immedi­
smaller ones, which compose ately beneath. The crew, numbering
a regular little navy in themselves.
But, when the time
comes for sending large numbers of
troops to Europe, many additional vessels
will be chartered or purchased. It
will take a large fleet to carry our
armies across the Atlantic, contingent
following contingent, and to transport
the immense quantities of munitions,
guns, and supplies of all sorts they will
require.
At present our four biggest transports
are the Logan, the Thomas, the Sheridan,
and the Sherman. They are of fiftyseven
hundred to fifty-eight hundred
tons' displacement, and each of them has
a cargo capacity of more than 5,000 tons.
Each of these four vessels can carry
comfortably 1,600 soldiers. At a pinch
two thousand might be crowded aboard
(a full-strength infantry regiment comprises
two thousand and fifty-five men
and officers) ; the problem is one of
bunk-capacity.
The bunks for troops occupy the forward
half of the 'tween deck (next
862
Cross-Section of a United States Transport