The following text may have been generated by Optical Character Recognition, with varying degrees of accuracy. Reader beware!

June, 1919 December declined to 50 and in Febru- ary the sailings numbered but 35. The quick turn-around of the tanker, Broap Arrow, is a good example of N. O. T. S..management.. She is one of the largest tankers afloat, built by the New York Shipbuilding Corp., at Camden, N..J.;. for the Standard Oi! Co. She left Philadelphia and arrived at Port Arthur, Tex.,.on Apel 4 whe took abroad a cargo: of tuel oil and on April 17 had joined a convoy and was bound for Europe. On later voyages, this ship not only carried her usual cargo of fuel oil, but also sea- planes and troops, a strange mixture of cargoes. Another tanker, the Mav- MEE, covered approximately 60,000 miles during the 18 months of war. For about THE MARINE: REVIEW The navy was, therefore, called upon to take the vessels over, place a navy crew on board and manage them. Thus equipped, the vessels were let out under agreement of operation to the private interests to transport ordinary freight. These vessels were sent to South American and,.other ports of the world where the foreign trade of the United States demanded. N. O. T. S, assumed this duty of manning and managing shipping boara_ vessels in June, 1918. During February, 1919, it was managing 79 such vessels for ship- ping-board account. The -- shipping board continued turning over new freight vessels to the navy for man- agement up until the first. of March of current year, when it was found that. 293 tained about 10 per cent more men than a civilian crew but the wages paid the civilian crew was much more. Take the case of the cargo boat, Lake View, which. is 3090 tons deadweight, 2003 gross or 1200 net. <A vessel of this class carried a navy crew of 42 men, inclusive of the gun crew but exclusive of her officers. Now that the guns have been removed, the vessels are carrying an equal number of men in their crews for training purposes. A civilian crew: would number but 30 men, exclusive of an armed guard. But in the navy, an ordinary seaman receives but $30 a month, whereas in a civilian crew an able seaman receives $75 a month. The navy has a lieutenant commander in charge of a vessel of this size and he WALTER A, LUCKENBACH, A TYPICAL EXAMPLE OF A LARGE CARGO CARRIER COMMANDEERED BY THE GOVERNMENT FOR TRANSPORTING TROOPS three months at a'stretch, she shifted from one place to another so quickly and with such uncertainty that mail could not catch up with her. The tanker HisKo took aboard 9000 tons of fuel oil and supplies, and made a turn-around in 48 hours. There-are many records such as these. The Nerus took aboard 10,000 tons of coal and made the turn-around in 26 hours. But these were merely in- cidents. That the navy should operate 'supply vessels and transports for the army and supply vessels for its own account was not unusual. At the same time N. O. T. S. was called upon to manage ves- sels for shipping-board account. These were not ships used in war service, but freight vessels engaged in. ordinary im- port and export trade. The shipping board had not sufficient personnel to man, manage or operate all its ships. the school ships and other recruiting agencies were providing sufficient civil- ian crews to enable the board to take the vessels back from the navy and have them managed under . private agencies. To manage its own fleet is not merely turning the vessel over to a private agency. The shipping board has sent a committee of experts abroad to make a survey: of the situation and out of this is expected to be established some form of European supervising agency. Similar agencies are being es- tablished in the United States. When this organization is complete it is prob- able that the services of the navy will no longer be required on behalf of shipping-board vessels. When a. shipping board vessel was operated by the navy, it carried a navy crew throughout. The navy-crews con- receives but $3500 a year, whereas a civilian master of such a ship, accord- ing to the schedule of wages set by the shipping board, receives $312 a month. The navy has a lieutenant, receiving ~ $3000 per annum, in charge of the en- gine room. A civilian chief engineer is paid $231 per month by the shipping board on a vessel of this class. The navy has, therefore, not only pro- vided a means for taking care of the foreign trading fleet of the shipping board, but has been managing the trans- portation of supplies to the army abroad and is today transporting troops home. The navy's part in the ordinary com- mercial operation of ships will ulti- mately be withdrawn--it is being de- creased each day now but what it has done in the past is a demonstration of the fact that had not the navy been in existence, the United States would have