ir place in
the new fleet, but with some it required a much longer period to enable
them to feel that perfect self-confidence when _alone_ in the face of
difficulties and dangers which is the true heritage of the sea.

To describe here the training of officers and men would be to repeat
what will be more fully and personally described in succeeding chapters.
It is sufficient to say that the aim was to bring them all to a
predetermined standard of efficiency, which would enable the officers to
command ships of specific types at sea and in action, and the men to
form efficient engineers and deck hands for almost any ship in the Navy.

The medical branches naturally required no special training and the
accountants merely a knowledge of naval systems of financial and general
administration. These two branches had their own training
establishments.

When the period of preliminary training in the cruiser _Hermione_ was
over the officers were passed on to the Royal Naval College at
Greenwich, and from there to one or other of the fifty war bases in the
United Kingdom, the Mediterranean or farther afield. Their appointments
were to ships forming the fleets attached to each of these bases and
generally operating in the surrounding seas.

In this way the whole zone of war was covered by an anti-submarine and
minesweeping organisation and general naval patrol, which operated in
conjunction with, but separate from, the battle fleets, squadrons and
flotillas, which were thus left free to perform their true functions in
big naval engagements.

FOOTNOTES:

[1] Extract from _Naval Demobilisation_--issued by the Ministry of
Reconstruction.

[2] The personnel of the new navy consisted of R.N., R.N.R. and R.N.V.R.
officers. The former came mostly from the retired list. The R.N.R.
needed training only in such subjects as gunnery, tactics, etc. The
training of the R.N.V.R. is here described.

CHAPTER II

THE NEW NAVY--TRAINING AN ANTI-SUBMARINE FORCE

HAVING described the _raison d'etre_ of the new navy, and how it became
a fleet in being, with its own admirals, captains, staffs, bases and all
the paraphernalia of war, I can pass on to a more intimate description
of the training of the officers and men, preparatory to their being
drafted to the scattered units of this great anti-submarine force.

Lying in the spacious docks at Southampton was the old 4000-ton cruiser
_Hermione_, which had been brought round from her na