At this writing not a single transport
has been lost on the way to France, and but three have been sunk
returning. Transports bound for France have been attacked by submarines
time and again, and, in fact, our first transport convoy was
unsuccessfully assailed, as has been the case with other convoys
throughout the past twelve months. In the case of the _Tuscania_, sunk
by a torpedo while eastbound with American soldiers, that vessel was
under British convoy, a fact which implies no discredit upon the British
Navy, since it is beyond the powers of human ingenuity so to protect the
ocean lanes as to warrant assurance that a vessel, however well
convoyed, shall be totally immune from the lurking submarine. Again, it
should be remembered, that the British have taken about sixty per cent
of our expeditionary forces across the ocean.
In the line of expanding ship-building facilities the Navy Department
has in the past year carried on vigorously a stupendous policy of
increased shipyard capacity, which upon completion will see this country
able to have in course of construction on the ways at one time sixteen
war-vessels of which seven will be battleships.
In January, 1917, three months before we went to war, the Navy
Department's facilities for ship-building were: Boston, one auxiliary
vessel; New York, one battleship; Philadelphia, one auxiliary; Norfolk,
one destroyer; Charleston, one gunboat; Mare Island, one battleship and
one destroyer. At the present time the Brooklyn Navy Yard has a way for
the building of dreadnoughts, and one for the building of battleships.
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