demolition of boilers by dry firing.

The Shipping Board experts were the first to go over the German craft,
and as a result of their survey it was announced that a great deal of
new machinery would have to be provided, and that a fair estimate of the
work of remedying the damage inflicted would be eighteen months. But
this was too long, altogether so. The officers of the Navy Bureau of
Steam Engineering took a hand, and finally decided that it would be
possible to clear the ships for service by Christmas of that year. (As a
matter of record, the last of the 109 ships was ordered into service on
Thanksgiving Day.)

To accomplish the purposes they had in mind, the Navy Department engaged
the services of all available machinery welders and patchers, many of
whom were voluntarily offered by the great railroad companies. Most of
the time that was required was due not so much to actual repair work as
to the devious and tedious task of dismantling all machinery from bow to
stern of every ship in order to make certain that every bit of damage
was discovered and repaired. In this way all chance of overlooking some
act of concealed mutilation was obviated.

[Illustration: _From a photograph copyright by International Film
Service._ REPAIRING A DAMAGED CYLINDER OF A GERMAN SHIP FOR FEDERAL
SERVICE.]

It would appear that explosives were not used in the process of
demolition by the Germans, but at the time the engineers could not be
sure of this, and as a consequence as they worked they were conscious of
the danger of hidden charges which might become operative when the
machinery was put to the test, or even while the work of dismantling and
inspection was being carried on. There were, however, discovered, as a
result of this rigid investigation of every mechanical detail, many
artful cases of pipe-plugging, of steel nuts and bolts concealed in
delicate mechanical parts, of ground glass in oil-pipes and bearings, of
indicators that were so adjusted as to give inaccurate readings, of
fire-extinguishers filled with gasoline--in fact, the manifold deceits
which the Germans practised would make a chapter of themselves.

Suffice to say, that through painstaking investigation every trick was
discovered and corrected. On each vessel there was no boiler that was
not threaded through every pipe for evidence of plugging, no mechanism
of any sort that was not completely dismantled, inspected, and
reassembled. On one ship the engineers