Suffice to say, that through painstaking investigation every trick was
discovered and corrected. On each vessel there was no boiler that was
not threaded through every pipe for evidence of plugging, no mechanism
of any sort that was not completely dismantled, inspected, and
reassembled. On one ship the engineers chanced to find a written record
of the damage inflicted. In every other case the search for evidence of
sabotage was blind. This memorandum in the case of the one ship was
evidently left on board through an oversight, and written in German, was
a veritable guide-book for our engineers. In order that the reader may
have some idea of the sort of damage done, the following extracts from
that memorandum of destructiveness is herewith presented:
"Starboard and port high pressure cylinders with valve chest; upper
exhaust outlet flange broken off. (Cannot be repaired.)"
"Starboard and port second intermediate valve chest; steam inlet flange
broken off, (Cannot be repaired.)"
"First intermediate pressure starboard exhaust pipes of exhaust line to
second intermediate pressure flange broken off. (Cannot be repaired.)"
"Starboard and port low pressure exhaust pipe damaged. (Cannot be
repaired.)"
Naval officers are pleased to recall that every single one of these
supposedly irreparable injuries was not only repaired, but speedily
repaired. Patching and welding were the answer to the problem they
presented. Both these valuable methods had never been employed in marine
engineering, although they had been used by the railroads for some
fifteen years.
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