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June, 1910 "TAE MARINE REVIEW A Straw Navy HE sériés of letters "on "Phe Naval Waste," published in THe Marine Review during the last half of 1909, exposed most thor- oughly the wastefulness, extravagance and -incompetence of the naval adminis- tration. For these THE RrEvirw was the subject of bitter abuse by friends and dependents of the department, but no single statement made therein was shown to be overdrawn, much less disproved. Those articles dealt chiefly with the navy yards and bureaus, but the conditions are even worse afloat. Especially. is this true as to the engine and boiler rooms, inexcusable stupidity and criminal ignorance periodically reap a harvest of death. where Shortly after the publication of the letters referred to above in February, 1910, reports began to be circulated regarding the condition of the en- gines and boilers of the Maryland and West Virginia, armored cruisers, at- tached to the Pacific fleet, and then recently arrived at San Francisco from the Orient. The reports stated that the machinery of these ships was in a demoralized and dangerous condi- tion, and that the ships were not fit to go to sea, and that the Maryland in particular, had to be towed for a considerable part of the homeward voyage because of the complete fail- ure of her engines and boilers. These reports were indignantly denied by naval officials, Admiral Barry going so far as to say that the Maryland was towed designedly '"'because he wanted some data on towing." The command- ant of the Mare Island yard also branded the reports as false, and stated that the ships were in condition to go immediately to sea, if' required, and that all that they needed was minor repairs and the customary overhaul- ing, Getting at the Facts. Tue Review said at the time that the denials might satisfy members of congress and laymen but no others, and took immediate steps to get at the truth. An expert was sent to in- vestigate with instructions to ascef- tain the exact facts and his report, dated May 12, is at hand. He visited the ships repeatedly, he talked with officers and men; he examined into the conditions in engine and boiler rooms, he saw the work of repair in progress, and his report demonstrates conclusively that the actual conditions were many times worse than the most highly colored of the published reports, It demonstrates what is even that the statements of the naval officiais only but made in plain defiance of the truth, and this Tur Review desires to make more important, counter- not suppressed the facts were as emphatic as possible. The full text of this report cannot be given here without identifying sources of information, which are giv- en and every. statement verified by the departments' own records, but the leading facts touched upon in the reports referred to are noted. When the Pacific fleet left Yoko- hama for Honolulu the admiral or- dered. a speed: of 15 knots: So far as the Maryland and West Virginia were concerned this speed was merely loaf- ing; .as, their contract trial were 2241 and 22.15 knots -respect- ively, and the power required was only about three-tenths of that developed on contract trials, which was 28,000 for the Maryland and 26,000 for the West Virginia. The Case of the Maryland. The chief engineer of the Maryland, coached by his warrant officers, re-: ported. that her boilers were in such condition that the Maryland could not make this speed with safety, (think of this for a: ship only four and a fialt years old) and an examination of the boilers was then made by Fleet-Engi- neer Clark, who in his infinite wis- dom and long experience -- as a line oficer--announced that the Maryland could: make 15 knets.. So the order stood. With boilers strained and leaking, joints spurting and fizzing and threat- ening to let go at any moment, the ship went to sea. In two days, con- ditions in the stokeholds became so serious that the engines were. shut down and the boilers eased for fear of an explosion and the Maryland was towed the rest of the way to Hono- lulu, "so that Admiral Barry could get some data on towing," and "to save coal." The latter had some slight basis of fact, since the coal consumption, even limping along in the effort to make 15 knots, was from 270 to 280 tons per day. The facts are that the engineer of- 'ficers knew nothing about their boil- ers; the men on watch knew, and one watch absolutely refused duty because speeds - of leaking tubes and the danger of explosion. They can scarcely be blamed for declining to leave their lives in the keeping of officers whose actual experience will be shown later. The Maryland arrived home at last, with her boilers practically wrecked, tubes sagged and dangerous, and her crew nervous and apprehensive, and with morale absolutely destroyed. And during all this time piles of new spare tubes lay in the bilges until they were ruined by salt water and corrosion, and had to be scrapped. The foregoing ate fiets been deliberately suppressed. and have Tue RevIEW's correspondent himself saw the ship's crew, together with some help from ashore, attempting to cut ° out the many defective tubes. The process was symbolic of navy meth- ods; men chipping ineffectually, and almost aimlessly, at tubes and _ nip- ples by hand with chisel and hammer, while pneumatic hammers lay unused in an adjoining compartment, and in a stokehold lighted by one dirty 16- candle-power electric lamp and several tallow candles.' Even the officers finally began to realize the serious conditions in the machinery spaces, and those on the West Virginia and Maryland filed a pretest against the ships going to sea for target practice March 1 without extensive repairs. An officer of the Maryland declared that the boilers and engines were "mere junk", that the crew was constantly in danger, and the men afraid to work below decks. The protest was unheeded at Wash- ington, and the ships were sent to sea. Record of a Few Explosions. Just to show that these fears were not unfounded, the following record of a few explosions is inserted. Feb. 14, 1910, a tube in the forward boiler room of the destroyer Hopkins pulled loose from -the header, killed one man and maimed five others. The boiler was carrying 200 Ib. of steam at the time and is designed for a' working pressure of 250 lb. March 25, 1910, a second explosion exactly similar to the first occurred on the Hopkins; by rare good fortune no one was killed the second time. The officers laid the trouble to faulty con- struction. Nevertheless thousands of water tube boilers of exactly the same type are in service today in every part of the world and accidents