The Sunday Oregonian. (Portland, Ore.) 1881-current, July 18, 1920, Magazine Section, Page 5, Image 81

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    TIIE SUNDAY OREGONIAX, PORTLAND, - JULY 18, 1920
Victory At Sea
By Admiral William Sowden Sims
uinitiiMiituiimii(ifuiinMimiHmtWMiiHtfnitifltifiiiHtftnittfttiiinmnnniitits
PROTECTING THE AMERICAN TRANSPORTS
t ft Jh n V 1 - - ' h?W vM'r.fl - ' -
if I N -IW fLv-
MEANWHILE, on the other side
of the Atlantic, a great organ
ization had been created under
the able direction of Rear-Admiral
Albert Gleaves. As soon as war was
declared the work was begun of con
verting Into transports those German
merchant ships which had been in
terned in American ports. The suc
cessful completion of this work was.
In itself, a great triumph for the
American Navy. Of the vessels which
the Germans had left in our hands.
seventeen at New York, Boston, Nor- ,
lolk and Philadelphia, seemed to be
adapted' for transport purposes, but
the Germans had not intended that we
ehould make any such ule of them.
Conditions IndeHcribably Bad.
The condition of these ships, after
their German custodians had left, was
6omething Indescribable; they re
flected great discredit upon German
seamanship, for it would have been
impossible for any people which
really loved ships to permit them to
deteriorate as had these vessels and
to become such cesspools of filth. For
three years the Germans had evident
ly made no attempt to clean them;
the sanitary conditions were so bad
that our workmen could not sleep on
board, but had to have sleeping quar
ters near the docks; they spent weeks
scrubbing, scraping, and disinfecting,
in a finally successful effort to make
the ships suitable habitations for hu
man beings. Not only had the Ger
mans permitted such liners as the
Vaterland and the Kronprinzessin
Cecilie to ge neglected, but, on their
departure, they had attempted to in
jure them in all conceivable ways.
The cylinders had been broken, en
gines had been smashed, vital parts of
th machinery had been removed and
thrown into the sea, ground. glass had
been placed in the oil cups, gunpow
der had been placed in the coal evi
dently in the hope of causing ex
plosions when the vessels were at
ea and other damage of a more
subtle nature had been done, it evi
dently being the expectation that the
chips would break down when on the
ocean and beyond the possibility of
repair. ' Although our navy yards
had no copies of the plans of these
vessels or their machinery the Ger
mans having destroyed them all and
although the missing parts were of
peculiar German design, they succeed
ed, in an incredibly short time, in
making them even better and speedier
vessels than they had iver been be
fore. Renaming; the Boats.
The national sense of humor did not
tail the transport service when it
came to rechristening these ships; the
Prinzess Irene became the Pocahon
tas; the Rhein, the Susquehanna; and
there was also an ironic justice in the
ract that the Vaterland. which had
been built by the Germans partly for
the purpose of transporting troops in
war. actually fulfilled this mission,
though not. quite in the way which
ine oermans had anticipated. We
called in all available vessels from
the Atlantic and Pacific coast and
the Great Lakes; England stripped
her trade routes to Squth America.
Australia and the East, and France
and Italy also made their contribu
tions. or all the American troops
sent to France from the beginning of
the war. the United States provided
transports lor 46.25 per cent.. Great
Britain for 51.25. the remainder being
proviaea oy trance and Italy. Of
those sent between March, 1918, and
the armistice, American vessels car
ried 42.15 per cent.. Britain 55.40 per
cent. (These figures are taken from
the annual report of the secretary .of
secretary .o
7.) ;
lent In th
the navy for 1919. page 207
Tet there was one elem
aft transportation of trouya which
r?v1l . 1 - - '--"-vv:ii:;,rr;
was even more fundamental than
those which I have named. The basis
of all our naval operations were the
dreadnaughts and the battle cruisers
of the grand -fleet. It was this ag
gregation, as I have already . indi
cated, which made possible the oper
ation of all the surface ships that de
stroyed the effectiveness of the sub
marines. Had the- grand fleet sud
denly disappeared beneath the waves,
all these offensive craft would have
been driven from the seas, the allies'
sea lines of communication would
have been cut. and the war would
have ended in Germany's favor. From
the time the transportation of tfoops
began the United States had a squad
ron of five dreadnaught battleships
constantly with the grand fleet. The
following vessels performed this im
portant duty: The New York, Captain
C. F. Hughes, afterward Captain E.
Ii Beach; the Wyoming, Captain H.
A. Wiley, afterward Captain H. H.
Christy; the Florida, Captain Thomas
LIBERTY BELL, MOST REVERED OF AMERICAN
RELICS, MAY YET RING AS OF YORE
Modern Electrical Engineers Interested in Proposal to Close Great Crack
Disease, SI ow Disintegration.
SILENCED for more than three
quarters of a century since It
last tolled at the funeral of John
Marshall, chief justice of the United
States, in July, 1835; its once vibrant
voice completely hushed save for a
dull and feeble sound transmitted
across the continent by telephone and
transcribed by phonograph several
years ago when it was gingerly tap
ped by city officials, the Liberty bell,
most revered of American relics, may
yet speak again as it did in the days
of its youth. Modern science would
heal completely the treacherous break
that split it wide from rim well up
to crown, and make it ring again as
joyously as it did at the birth of the
young republic when it was made
to "Proclaim liberty throughout all
the land and to all the inhabitants
thereof."
Electrical engineers interested in
the proposition of welding would
piece the sacred old bell together.
Electricity, the magic power of mod
ern industrialism, would be the me
dium applied not alone to close the
breach in the bell, but to cure it of
ts chronic metallurgical disease
slow disintegration by applying the
latest developments in the therapeu
tics of mineral matters.
The project was discussed at a re
cent meeting of the American Weld
ing society. It remains for the guar
dians of ' the bell and the American
people, to whom it belongs, to say.
whether the invalid bell with its sup
posedly fatal wound shall be sum
moned into the electric clinic or left
to its' fate.
It is D. H. Wilson, the New York
engineer, who proposes the 'surgical
operation. You don't recall Wilson?
He is the man who fitted up anew
the damaged merchant marine. Re
member when the United States threw
down the gauntlet to Germany in
April three years ago, how the Hun
retaliated by putting out of commis
sion nearly every German merchant
liner tied up at American wharves.
Axes were swung, explosives were
used and intricate machinery with
which these ships were propelled was
"bashed in," In the belief that the
Yanks never would be able to repair
these ships in time to turn them
against the fatherland. Looking over
the "wrecks." some engineers said it
would take a year or mora to repair
i i
1 :
Washington, afterward Captain M. M.
Taylor: the Delaware, Captain A, H.
Scales: the Arkansas, Captain W. H
G. Bulliard, afterward Captain L. R.
de Steiguer, and the Texas, Captain
Victor Blue. These vessels gave this
great force "an unquestioned prepon
derance, and made It practically cer
tain that Germany would not attempt
another general sea battle. Under
Rear-Admiral Hugh Rodman. the
American squadron performed excel
lent service and made the most favor
able impression upon the chiefs of the
allied navies. But these were not the
only large battleships which the
United States sent to European
waters.
Despite all the precautions which
I have described, there was still one
danger which constantly confronted
American troop transports. By June
and July, 1918. our troops were cross
ing the Atlantic in enormous num
bers, about 300,000 a month, and were
accomplishing most decisive results
those ships and put them back in
commission. New parts would have to
be installed.
Then along came Wilson with his
electric welding needle. It is a matter
of history, of course, that in from
three to four months every single
German liner was ready to put to
sea again. Even while Yankee troops j
were wiping out the St. Mihiel salient
and sweeping clean the Argonne,
those German ships, led by the giant
Vaterland, were pouring American
men and munitions into England, Bel
gium and France. Not only did Wil
son and his crew weld the Vaterland
and her sisters as good as new, but
he made them so fleet that our "gobs"
were able to get three knots better
speed out of them than the Germans
ever had made!
This man "'ilson, along with
'Wake-em-up" Dudley of the Chester
Shipbuilding Co.; B. B. Chichester, the
Virginia who developed the science
of electric welding under water, and
other authorities on welding say the
grand old Liberty Bell can be re
deemed; that it may have "health
glands" transferred to Its body that
will do for it what the "Fountain of
Florida" was supposed to do for de
crepit Ponce de Leon. Transfusion
would be the process involved, just
as in the hospital an anemic is wooed
back to life and color again by the
injection of pure fresh blood in his
veins, only in this case it would be a
metal transfusion.
They would proceed In this fashion:
Take first a grain of metal from
the crevice of the bell. Have it
analyzed by a board of expert metal
lurgists. Reproduce in the labora
tories of the alchemist the identical
metal of which the Liberty Bell is
composed. When you have the proper
alloy you are ready to bring on the
electric needle.
Now for the process of 'welding.
Fashion the new metal to be applied
into a wire or needle of the welding
apparatus Measure the resistance of
the bell and the resistance of the wire
after having estimated the amount of
steel sufficient to fill up the crack.
Now to fill in-the cracU. One elec
tric contact is made on the bell and
the other on the needle that is com
posed of the same metal substance as
upon the battlefield. A successful at
tack upon a convoy, involving the
sinking of one or more transports,
would have nad no important effect
upon the war, but it would probably
have improved German morale and
possibly have Injured that of the
Americans.
There was practically only one way
in which such ap attack could be
made; one or more German battle
cruisers might slip out to sea and
assail one of our troop convoys. In
order to prepare for such a possibi
lity, the department sent three of our
most powerful dreadnaughts to Bere
haven, Ireland the Nevada. Captain
A. T. Long, afterward Captain W. C.
Cole; the Oklahoma, Captain M. L.
Bristol, afterward Captain C. B. Mc
Vay; and the Utah, Captain F. B.
Bassett, the whole division under the
command of Rear-Admiral Thomas .S
Rodgers. Berehaven is located in
Bantry bay, on the extreme south
western coast. For several months
and "Cure"
It of Metallurgical
the bell itself. Electricity leaps be
tween the two points. It describes an
arc. since electricity travels in a
curved rather than a straight line.
Now the process of vaporization Is in
full blaze. The electric needle i3 con
suming itself and depositing its own
particles within the orifice of the
split bell. Eighty per cent of the
applied power is being consumed on
the wire side of the arc. Five per
cent of the current is in the arc itself,
a burning glare of light that makes
the operator shield his eyes behind
heavily smoked goggles. Ten per
cent of the power is consumed on the
negative pole for the purpose of heat
ing the plate which receives the de
posit. You simply touch the electric
needle to one on the other side of the
crack, withdraw it a fraction of an
Inch and then repeat the process over
and over. Your electric needle, or
welding wire, is giving its own life,
transferring its very self through the
medium of the electric current, to fill
out the crevice in the Liberty Bell.
Particle by particle, layer on layer,
the process continues until the open
ing is closed. The Liberty Bell ts
mended just as the surgeon takes a
piece of bone from the shin and grafts
it on the face to make a new nose
bone for bone and, in this case, metal'
for metal.
Not only will It ring, say the weld
ers, but it. will have again the same
vibrant tone that it had when It was
first hung up In the steeple of the
State House In Philadelphia in the
summer of 1753. The old bell rang
first to call the members of the as
sembly; it rang when town meetings
were held in the State House yard;
it tolled dismally when the stamp act
went into effect; it electrified the
people when the tea ship Polly was
sent home with Its cargo untouched:
it saluted the patriots from Boston
when they sojourned with the patriots
of Philadelphia; It sounded in dirge
fashion when Boston was occupied by
the redcoats under Gage; it pealed
joyously when the news of Lexington
and Concord reached the Quaker City,
and, finally. It clanged forth as
spokesman announcing the birth of
the new republic and the consumma
tion of the Declaration of Independ
ence. For many years altar th
our dreadnaughts lay here, ready to
start to sea and give battle, momen
tarily awaiting the ne-vs that a Ger
man raider had escaped. But the ex
pected did not happen. The mere
fact that this powerful squadron was
ready for the emergency is perhaps
the reason why the Germans never
attempted, the adventure.
What the Map Showed.
A reference to the map which ac
companies this article will help the
reader to understand why our trans
ports were able to carry American
troops to France so successfully that
not a single in-going ship was ever
struck by a torpedo. This diagram
makes it evident that there were two
areas of the Atlantic through which
American shipping could reach its
European destination. The line of
division wa.s about the 49th parallel
of latitude, the French city of Brest
representing its most familiar land
mark. From this point southward
extending as far as the 15th parallel.
revolution it rang out on national
holidays, in welcoming illustrious!
visitors, in mourning the deaths of
beloved American patriots. It was
tolling on the day when the body of
Chief Justice Marshall was being car
ried in a public funeral procession,
and after that day it never tolled
again.
Shall the Liberty bell ring again?
The electric welders would invoke
now the magic power that Benjamin
Franklin snatched from the clouds
with a silken cord and key in the
days when the Liberty bell shown re
fulgent in the full glory of its mission
and make that same beloved relic
function anew as it did in the days of
youth; a renaissance of the good old-
fashioned American brand of liberty
that was good enough in the anti
bolshevistic days, when pure democ
racy leaped to the front rank of
civilization.
It is asserted by the welders that
electricity will also cure the famous
bell of its chronic disease. The bell's
doctor, Alexander E. Outerbridge Jr.,
who holds the chair of metallurgy at
Franklin Institute bnu held thai lh
bell suffers from n form n f rlis- I
temper. It is to be guarded carefully
lest It go all to pieces.
The electrical engineers now pre
scribe baths for the bell electrical
baths. Heat it electrically and then
allow it to cool slowly. This will elim
inate the "fatigue" of the metal. The
heat treatment is recommended re
gardless of the proposed transfusion.
The heat, it Is reasoned, would pre
serve the bell by relieving the stress
between the metal particles caused by
vibration. Constant vibration wears
against the relic, particularly when
it, is opened to visitors, as in the
recent case when the Spanish novelist,
Vlncente Blasco Ibanez, clasped and
kissed it.
As for the electric welding of the
fissure, another woman may take ber
place in history beside Betsy Ross
and Barbara Frletchie. Women are
easily adapted to electric welding.
They have the deftness of touch nec
essary to perfect welding. During
the war there was a woman in the
Hog Island ship yard who excelled
all others as an electric welder. In
Baltimore, in the Mont Clair shops
of the ' Baltimore & Ohio railroad,
there is a woman who earns better
than $3600 a year welding locomotive
fireboxes. A girl who handled high
explosives and phosphorus at the
Frankford Arsenal found herself out
of a job on armistice day, but speed
ily "joined up" again with an electric
Cjompany in Erie, where she today
draws large wages patching steam
tract ura, automobile parts, anvils and
which corresponds to the location of
the city or Bordeaux, is a great
stretch of ocean, about 200 miles
wide. It includes the larger part of
the Bay of Biscay, which forms that
huge indentation with which our
school geographies have made us
Americans so familiar, and which has
always enjoyed a particular fame for
its storms, the dangers of its coast,
and the sturdy and Independent char
acter of the people on its shores.
The other distinct area to which the
map calls attention extends norther
ly from the 49th parallel to the 52ln;
It comprises the English channel, and
includes both the French channel
ports, the British ports, the southern
coast of Ireland, and the entrance to
the Irish sea. The width of this
second section is very nearly the
same as that of the one to the south,
or about 1!00 miles. ,
I have thus far had little to say
of the Bay of Biscay section because,
until 191S. there was comparatively
little activity In that part of the
other metal products that have met
with accidents.
These welding engineers tell us that
the world will soon turn to electric
welding for virtually all metal .con
struction work. In labor saving alone,
they point out, the welding process
holds the advantage. One operator
only is needed in welding. In riveting
ship plates together it takes four men
to rivet one plate. One man is the
riveter, another the holder on, the
third the passer-up and the fourth the
heater boy, who supplies the red-hot
bolts. In this way. it is said, there
is a net saving of from 18 to 25 l-erj
cent in the cost of ship construction.
But. of equal advantage, is the saving
in the weight of the ehip and its in
creased cargo-carrying capacity. The
hull is electric welded throughout, i
and therefore wholly without rivets I
in us construction. Ail plates are
auuLkcu l i , w n l i, Ottawa
nt..,Al . :
angles, and then welded with a joint
95 to 100 per cent as strong as the
abutting steel members.
Dudley of the Chester shipyard,
says that, due to the elimination of
loose, leaky joints, elimination of air
and water pockets in riveted joints.
where rust may form, and substitut
ing smooth for Irregular surfaces, the
maintenance costs may be consider
ably reduced; the exterior or wetted
surface of the welded hull is smoother
than the riveted hull, so the resistance
to propulsion, fuel consumption and
the capacity of propelling machinery
will be about 2 per cent less; water
tightness is easily and completely at
tained even in most difficult places:
owing to the saving of space and
lightening the hull with the same
tonnage displacement.
Already they are putting automo
biles, street cars, railway rolling
stock, window sash, horseshoes and
steel rails together with the tiny
12-ounce electric welding needle. Now
they are proposing to dip down into
the ocean that needle and lift
up sunken ships that may be salvaged
for their hidden treasure. Pretty soon
we may be buijding the world of to
morrow with an electrified metal pen
cil that a woman may wield as neatly
as the artist sways his brush to and
frd over the canvas.
Civil War Veteran Xow Citizen.
SEATTLE. Wash. James Doyle, a
I civil war veteran, recently was grant
ed citizenship papers in the United
States district court here. For 54
years he had voted and performed
the duties of a citizen although he
was born In Ireland. He believed
himself a citizen because of his serv
ice in the union army and his father's
naturalization
ocean. For every ship which sailed
through this bay I suppose that there
were at least 100 which came through
the Irish sea and the English chan
nel. Through the Bay of Biscay.
Thg fact that we had, these two
separate areas and that these two
areas were so different in characttr
is what made it possible to send our
2.00". 000 soldiers to France with
out losing a s-inc:!e man. From March,
1918. to the conclusion of the war
the American and British navies were
engaged in two distinct transporta
tion operations. The shipment of
food and munitions continued in 1918
as in 1917. and on an even larger
scale. With the passing of time the
mechanism of these mercantile con
voys increased in efficiency, and by
March. 191S. the management of this
great transportation system had be
come almost automatic. Shipping
from America came into Britten
ports, it will be remembered, in two
great trunk lines, one of which' ran
up the English channel and the other
up the Irish sea. But when the time
came to brinsr over the American
troops, we naturally selected the area
to the south, both because it was
necessary to send the troops to
France and because we had here a
great expanse of ocean which was
relatively free of submarined.
Our earliest troop shipments dis
embarked at tft. Nazaire; later, when
the great trans-Atlantic liners, both
German and British, were pressed
into service, we landed many tenB of
thousands at Brest; and all the larg
est French ports from Breist to Bor
deaux took a share. A smaller num
ber we sent to England, from which
j country they were transported across
the channel into France: when he
demands became pressing, indoed
I hardly a ship of any kind was sent
to Europe without its quota of Amer
ican soldiers; but. on the whole, the
business of transportation in 1C18
followed simple and well-defined
lines. We sent mercantile convoys
in what I may call the northern
"lane" and troop convoys In the
southern "lane." We kept both
lines of traffic for the most part dis
tinct, and this simple procedure of
fered to our German enemies a pretty
problem.
For. I must repeat, .the German
navy could maintain in the open At
lantic Only about eight or ten of her
efficient U-boats at one time. The
German admiralty thui had to an
swer this difficult question: Shall
we use these submarines to attack
mercantile convoys or to attack troop
convoys? The submarine flotilla
which was actively engaged was bo
small that it as aiurd to think of
sending half into each lane; the Ger
mans must send most of their subma
rines against cargo ships or most of
them against troop ships. Which
should it be?
Copyright. 1020. by the World's Work.
The copyright of these articles in Ureat
Britain id strictiy reserved by Pearson's
Mafrazine. London: without their per
mission no quotation may be made. Pub
lished by special arrangement with tne
MrClure Ne-ppuper syndicate. Another
article next Sunday.
Blessings of Pope Taken by
Envoy to Japan.
Confederation for Nipponese Na
tion Ktprrnnril Through Arch
binhop I'rtro KumaMoln. Third to
Have Been Sent on Such Min
Mion. TOKIC
tro
OKIO, March 24.-
-Archbishop Pe-
Fumasoni. who Jias just ar
rived in Tokio, has conveyed the
pope's blessing upon all Catholics
bArn nnH ft vnrpKpl bis h i frb rnnsitl-
era(ion forthe Japanes nation. He
is the third envoy sent to this coun-
try from the Vatican.
The first was Cardinal O'Connell,
of Boston and the second Archbishop
Petrelli who presented to t-he em
peror the pope's congratulations upon
j his acces:ion to the throne.
Archbishop Fumasoni will stay
about three years in Japan and may
remain permanently as apostolic
delegate if the Japanese government
extends to him the recognition ex
tended by civil governments, the
Vatican being willing, it is said, to
reciprocate by inviting a permanent
Japanese representative to the holy
see. A few months ago Captain
Yamamoto was sent to the pope on
an official mission from the Japanese
government.
The archbishop comes from India
where he held the post of apostolic
delegate for the last few years. Re
ferring to the Catholic inhabitants
of the Carolines and the Mariannes
islands who have been without clergy
since the German missionaries were
repatriated, Arshbishop Fumasoni
said that these islands are now un
der the jurisdiction of the Archbishop
of Sydney.
Father and Son Kidnaped.
MEXICO CITY. Rafael Cal y May
or, the Zapatista rebel leader, who
kidnaped the well-known planter,
Ernesto Gutierrez, has now kidnaped
the son of Gutierrez also. The son
went to arrange for the ransom of
his father. The two men are now
held for ransom, which the rebel lead
er fixes at 10.000 pesos. 200 hats and
100 uniforms. It Is reared that the
family will not be able to raise the
ransom because their property is com
pletely destroyed.
Vickers Launch 1920 CraTt.
MONTREAL. P. Q. The first 1920
launching from the Vickers yards
took place last week when the Tat
jana. the third vessel built by this
firm for Norwegian interests, took the
water. The vessel will sail forChrls
tiauia before the end of May