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How the United States Shipping Board is Engineroom Officers and Crews for the New American Ships our merchant marine call for more than 8,000,000 tons of new shipping, to be completed within two Poa construction plans for years. At the beginning of the world war, August, 1914, seven nations were - credited with more than 1,000,000 tons of shipping each. Great Britain head- ed the list with 19,799,119 tons, 'the United. States stood next with 7,928,- 688 tons, Germany third with 4,892,- 416 tons, France 2,173,544 tons, Nor- way 2,425,476 tons, Sweden 1,114,048 tons and Japan 1,167,264 tons. Aus- tria had less than 1,000,000 tons, with only 998,130. Of the tonnage of the United States, something more than 2,000,000 tons was available for deep- water service in the Atlantic. The first year of the war was suff- cient to show the United States that. the. process of attritign in the world's supply of tonnage, due to normal war causes, and to the illegal use of the' submarine by Germany, was, creating a shortage of. ships. This shortage became acute when the United States entered the war in April, 1917, there- . by adding to the dlready pressing problem of logistics this country's vast needs of sea transportation for troops and supplies, and the quick- ened need of sending more and yet - more supplies to our allies. | Urgency of Measures Understood By the time this situation had de- veloped, the nation, as a whole, un- derstood the urgency of measures, long advocated by students: of mari- time conditions--residents mainly of the seaboard states--for developing our merchant fleets in accordance with the pressing demands of the times. Indeed, steps had been taken in that direction some months before, with the creation of the United States : shipping board, by act. of congress, in September, 1916. In the following winter months the shipping board had been duly organ- ized for business, and when the United States entered the war it was ready to exercise its functions as sponsor for a new, nationalized 'Merchant ma- rine. The Powers conferred on the board by congress were sufficiently broad to enable it to take sweeping steps toward the desired end, and to insure the accomplishment in a few months or years of war time of what would not, and probably could not, have been accomplished in genera- tions of peace. ee Immediately after the country had become a party of the war, sugges- tions poured in on the shipping board as to ways and means of adding largely and rapidly to the nation's tonnage in merchant ships. One plan early adopted called for the building Crews Supplied on Request HEN the . United. States entered the European war, serious doubts were held by those well versed in maritime affairs as to the country's ability to man quickly the new merchant marine which was planned. -- During the long period when the Umted States was content to lose her standing as a maritime nation, the number of American officers and sailors had steadily declined so that the task of finding enough men \to handle the thousands of new ves- ~ sels was a difficult one. The author -of this article is the man who worked out the plan under which thousands of recruits. have been trained for such service. He is now director of the recruiting service, United States shipping board. His article traces the inception and exe- cution of the plan followed by the government 1m overcoming the seri- ous Shortage of sailors. of 1000 wooden vessels, to carry car- go across the Atlantic, and offset, in large measure, the destructiveness of the German submarines. It was with the adoption of this plan that the shipping board took first steps in a construction program, afterward greatly enlarged, intended to produce several million tons of merchant ship- ping in record time. Coincident with the sudden awaken- ing of the nation to the vital need for more cargo ships, and the energetic initial steps: of the shipping board to produce them, came forward the im- 238 Training Deck ane" By Henry Howard Director of Recruiting, U. S. Shipping Board portant question of manning the new merchant marine so soon to come into being. The country as a whole not having been accustomed, in- recent times, to think in terms of shipping, -appeared doubtful of its ability to produce the mariners needed to handle its new fleets. We were' no longer a seagoing people, said the doubtful; we had lost the art of the sailor when the American square-rigged ship went out of use as a leader among the world's cargo carriers. Surely, our war need was pressing enough to . appeal to the patriotism of Americans with a liking for the sea, but would any considerable numbers come for- ward for service on merchant ships? - These questions reflected a natural condition in the public mind, which as. yet was unable to visualize the merchant tharine in true perspective as one of the primary arms of the country's new equipment for progress. Relatively few men having knowledge of maritime affairs and.a broad view of the trend of events .in the world war, were able to grasp both the needs of the hour and the means of meeting them, and to take an optimistic view of our country's ability effectively -to' turn back to the 'sea, where it won its first laurels in com- merce. Such men there were, how- ever, in the United States shipping board, as I learned on approaching that body with a plan for manning our new merchant fleets. Formulates Plan Early It had been my good fortune to be reared in a New England community in which shipping was a subject of. common knowledge, and to have made some study of cause and effect in the condition of our merchant ma- rine as it was at the opening of the war. By the time the United States cast its lot with the allies I had formulated a plan for manning the new ships that we must build to win, and when congress 'declared that a state of war existed I laid my plan before the shipping board. It provided, in brief, for a training system to. prepare Americans for service on American merchant ships; the work to begin with the training of officers and eventually to extend to the training of crews. I pointed