. 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.

"There are," said Secretary Daniels in announcing the new
arrangement--July 18, 1917--"as many battleships in commission as we
ever had before; in fact, every battleship we have is in commission. The
whole purpose of the new organization is to keep our battleship fleet in
as perfect condition as possible, to put it in the highest state of
efficiency and readiness for action."

Eventually an appreciable number of our best fighters were sent to the
Grand Fleet--which, however, is by no means to be understood as implying
that our own coasts are unprotected. Not at all. The Navy Department has
a view-point which embraces all possible angles, and nothing in the way
of precaution has been overlooked. At the same time it has been the
theory of Secretary Daniels that the way to beat the submarine and the
German Navy in general was to go to the base of things, "to the neck of
the bottle," and this as much as anything--more, in sooth--accounts for
the hundreds of war-ships of various sorts that now fly our flag in the
war zone.

The orders dividing the fleet into two "forces" and despatching a
representation of our greatest fighters to the North Sea was preceded by
a period of preparation the like of which this country--perhaps the
world--never saw. The Atlantic Fleet was, indeed, converted into a huge
workshop of war, turning out its finished products--fighting men. A
visitor to the fleet, writing under date of May 14, expressed amazement
at the amount of well-ordered activity which characterized a day on
every one of the battleships. Here were men being trained for
armed-guard service on merchantmen, groups of neophytes on the after
deck undergoing instruction on the loading-machines; farther along a
group of qualified gunners were shattering a target with their 5-inch
gun. Other groups were hidden in the turrets with their long 14 and 12
inch guns, three or two to a turret. Signal-flags were whipping the air
aloft--classes in signalling; while from engine-room and fighting-tops
each battleship hummed with the activities of masters and pupils
teaching and learning every ph