ers, workshops and medical department.

Each base was under the command of an admiral and staff, many of the
former returning to duty, after several years of well-earned rest, as
captains and commodores, with salaries commensurate with their reduced
rank. Their staffs consisted of some six to twelve officers of the new
navy, with possibly one or two from the "pukka service," and their
command often extended over many hundreds of square miles of submarine
and mine infested sea.

Of these bases, which will be fully described in later chapters, there
were about fifty, excluding the great dockyards and fleet headquarters,
but inclusive of those situated overseas. When it is considered what a
war base needs to make it an efficient rendezvous for some hundreds of
ships and thousands of men, some idea of the gigantic task of
organisation which their establishment, often in poorly equipped
harbours and distant islands, required, not only in the first instance,
but also with regard to maintenance and supplies, will be realised,
perhaps, however, more fully when it is stated that the average ship
needs a month spent in docking and overhauling at least once a year, and
that the delicate and more speedy units of such a fleet need nearly four
times that amount of attention.

HEADQUARTERS STAFF

One of the first requisites of the auxiliary navy was the creation of a
headquarters staff at the Admiralty, London. This was formed from naval
officers of experience both in the regular service and in the two
reserves (R.N.R. and R.N.V.R.).

Forming an integral part of the great British or Allied armada, all
operations were under the control of the Naval War Staff, but for
purposes of more detailed organisation and administration additional
departments were created which exercised direct jurisdiction over their
respective fleets. The principal of these was known as the "Auxiliary
Patrol Office," under the Fourth Sea Lord and the Department of the
Director of Minesweeping. These formed a part of the General Staff--if a
military term is permissible--and both issued official publications
periodically throughout the war, which served to keep the staffs of all
the different war bases and the commanding officers of the thousands of
ships informed as to current movements and ruses of the enemy.

It is unnecessary to detail more closely the work of these departments,
especially as much has yet to be said before plunging into the maelstrom
o