ilding companies to enable them to
prepare their vessels while building with gun-emplacements, armed-guard
quarters, and the like, so that when the vessels were completed there
would be as little delay as possible in furnishing them. In all details
relating to the protection of these merchant vessels the navy has played
a most vital part and not least of the laurels accruing to this
department of the government war service for work in the present
struggle have been those won by naval gun crews on cargo-laden ships.

The administrative work in connecting many vessels of this class is a
not inconsiderable of itself. The romance of the armed merchantmen
affords material for many a vivid page, and when in its proper place in
this volume it is set forth somewhat in detail the reader will grasp--if
he has not already done so through perusal of the daily press--the fact
that all the glory of naval service in this war has not resided within
the turrets of the dreadnought nor on the deck of destroyer or
patrol-vessel.

The navy organized and has operated the large transport service required
to take our soldiers overseas. At this writing not a single transport
has been lost on the way to France, and but three have been sunk
returning. Transports bound for France have been attacked by submarines
time and again, and, in fact, our first transport convoy was
unsuccessfully assailed, as has been the case with other convoys
throughout the past twelve months. In the case of the _Tuscania_, sunk
by a torpedo while eastbound with American soldiers, that vessel was
under British convoy, a fact which implies no discredit upon the British
Navy, since it is beyond the powers of human ingenuity so to protect the
ocean lanes as to warrant assurance that a vessel, however well
convoyed, shall be totally immune from the lurking submarine. Again, it
should be remembered, that the British have taken about sixty per cent
of our expeditionary forces across the ocean.

In the line of expanding ship-building facilities the Navy Department
has in the past year carried on vigorously a stupendous policy of
increased shipyard capacity, which upon completion will see this country
able to have in course of construction on the ways at one time sixteen
war-vessels of which seven will be battleships.

In January, 1917, three months before we went to war, the Navy
Department's facilities for ship-building were: Boston, one auxiliary
vessel; New York, one bat