US Marine Corps - The Black Vault

In a Navy that was
drank hard liquor very
The First Thirty Yeuvs 35
officially wet, and unofficially dripping in spots, he
sparingly, he worked unceasingly, he had brains and
applied them, and he kept his eye on the true gunnery target—progress
of the Navy.
In a period of our Navy’s long history, when there was no selection for
promotion to any rank, when seniors were apt to spread the cold truth and
nothing but the truth on officers’ semi-annual fitness reports, when ship’s
companies were small, and every officer was well known to his captain, the
fitness reports of this young officer; while lacking the whipped cream topping
of the fitness reports of the ensigns of the 1960’s, were indicative of the
Navy’s best young officers of any year or age.
[1] A thoroughly good man and excellent officer, steady and reliable. [2}
Even tempered, energetic, active and painstaking. [3} Exceptionally able and
efficient .e~
As a makee learn officer, he was a captain’s dream of what a young officer
should have-interest, brains, and a willingness to work.
I haven’t told you about my new guns. . . . There was a new deal . . my
six 3-inch [Wns] were taken away and I got four 6-inch in their place. . .
I consider myself extremely lucky, as there isn’t another midshipman in the
Fleet, if indeed there is in the entire Navy, with so important a battery.g’
I’ll have to get a little sleep as I have averzged not more than five or six
hours a day for a couple of weeks.”
Everyday since we left the Golden Gate has been one brim full of interest
and hard work.’7
The Armored Cruiser Squadron, like the “Cruising, boozing boys of
SUBDIVNINE” (Submarine Division Nine) was always on the move. In
September 1909, they headed for New Guinea, but more particularly for the
Admiralty Islands, part of the Bismarck Archipelago about 400 miles north-
west of the Solomons. According to Kelly:
The trip down to Admiralty Islands was more in the nature of a reconnaissance
than anything else. Strictly on the qt., the United States Government
is on the lookout for more coaling stations in this part of the world,
and those islands seem to promise well, if we can only buy them from
Germany, which I doubt very much.
The Intelligence Board of the Fleet, of which I am, or was, one of the
assistants, gathered a lot of information without letting the trader there know
w Extracts from fitness reports, J!ISSWeft Virgitiia.
WRKT to Mother, letter. 3 Oct. 1909.
WRKT to Mother, letter, 2S Nov. 1909.
“ RKT to Mother, letter, 3 Oct. 1909.