y the Quartermaster Department, which also had charge of the salvage
service and the thousand gargantuan household occupations, such as
laundering and incineration of garbage, that went with the maintenance of
the army in camp. The Signal Corps must produce wire, telegraphs,
telephones, switchboards, radio equipment, batteries, field glasses,
photographic outfits, and carrier pigeons.

Upon its navy the United States has always relied chiefly for defense and
in this branch of the service the country was better prepared for war in
1917 than in the army. Indeed when the nation entered the struggle many
persons believed that the sole practical fighting assistance the United
States should give the Allies would be upon the sea. Josephus Daniels,
the Secretary of the Navy, was a Southern politician, of limited
administrative experience and capacity. During the first years of his
appointment he had alienated navy officers through the introduction of
pet reforms and his frank advocacy of a little navy. Resiliency, however,
was one of his characteristics and he followed President Wilson in 1916,
when the latter demanded from Congress authority for an expansion in the
navy which seemed only prudent in view of international conditions.
Largely owing to the efforts of the Assistant Secretary, Franklin D.
Roosevelt, the months immediately preceding the declaration of war
witnessed strenuous preparations to render aid to the Allies in case the
United States should participate. Thereafter Secretary Daniels tended to
sink his personality and judgment in the conduct of the naval war and to
defer to the opinion of various officers, of whom Admiral William S.
Benson, Chief of Naval Operations was the most influential. When war was
declared two flotillas of destroyers were at once sent to Queenstown to
assist in chasing and sinking submarines, and were placed under the
command of Admiral William S. Sims. Battleships and cruisers followed,
though by no means with the expedition nor in the numbers desired by
Sims, who believed that by using practically the entire naval force at
once the submarine could be exterminated and the war ended.

At home, the Navy Department entered upon a process of expansion which
increased its personnel from 65,000 to 497,000 when the armistice was
signed. A rapid development in naval construction was planned, with
emphasis upon destroyers. The effects of this programme became visible
within a year; during the fir