The CHAIRMAN. Has anybody from the department examined the matter and put any estimate on its value?

Mr. SMITH. Not that I know of, sir.

Admiral HARRIS. Yes.

The CHAIRMAN. The statement here estimates the value of these improvements at $90,000?

Admiral HARRIS. That has been checked by Admiral Grant and Capt. Sterling. Capt. Sterling is in command of the base and Admiral Grant has been in general charge of submarines.

The CHAIRMAN. Is there anybody here who knows anything about the details of it?

Admiral HARRIS. I do not know of any further details than this report, sir.

WEDNESDAY, JULY 25, 1917.

STATEMENTS OF REAR ADMIRAL FREDERIC R. HARRIS, CHIEF, BUREAU OF YARDS AND DOCKS, AND COMMANDER E. L. BENNETT, ASSISTANT CHIEF, BUREAU OF NAVIGATION, NAVY

DEPARTMENT.

HANDLING APPLIANCES AT NAVY YARDS.

The CHAIRMAN. The next item is "for weight-handling appliances at navy yards, fiscal year 1918, $1,650,000."

Admiral HARRIS. This is an item that ordinarily we would present in the regular estimates and would be content to take up slowly, but the Secretary has suggested that it would be well to bring it up so we could start on it immediately if you approved it.

The CHAIRMAN. What is the present necessity for it?

CRANES AT PHILADELPHIA, NORFOLK, AND NEW YORK.

Admiral HARRIS. It is for handling heavy turrets and heavy guns at the navy yard at Philadelphia, where we have no such plant, at Norfolk, and at New York, where we have one 50-ton modern crane, and where they want to duplicate it by putting in another crane of the same type.

The CHAIRMAN. This is a big cantilever crane?

Admiral HARRIS. Yes, sir; a cantilever crane. Also, we have a big hammer-head 350-ton crane, which is 100 tons larger than any ever built before. The reason for that is that in that way they can handle turrets without stripping them entirely. They could not handle a turret in its entirety, but they would have to take off the ordnance and the armor plate.

The CHAIRMAN. How many cranes do you expect to get? Admiral HARRIS. Two large hammer-heads of 350 tons each and three 50-ton locomotive cranes. It would take at least a year to build them.

The CHAIRMAN. Where will they be located?

Admiral HARRIS. One at Norfolk and one at Philadelphia-that is, of the 350-ton cranes-and of the 50-ton cranes one will be at Norfolk and two at New York.

The CHAIRMAN. There will be five all told?

Admiral HARRIS. Yes, sir.

The CHAIRMAN. How long will it take to construct them?

Admiral HARRIS. Under the most favorable conditions, I think we would get them in a year. We might get the 50-ton cranes a little sooner, but I think the 350-ton cranes would take at least a year.

Mr. SHERLEY. A tremendous demand is being made on the manufacturing capacity of this country along many lines. Have you gentlemen, in considering these estimates, had in mind that fact, and the further fact that the doing of one thing must necessarily delay or postpone or prevent the doing of something else?

Admiral HARRIS. Yes, sir.

Mr. SHERLEY. The reason I asked that is right in connection with this item. I do not know who makes these cranes or whether the making of them would interfere with any other more important work, but I think the committee will want to feel assured that that condition or question has been considered.

Admiral HARRIS. It has been carefully considered.
Mr. SHERLEY. What is the fact?

ADMIRAL HARRIS. If anything came along that interfered with something that was of more importance, we would do then as we have done in other cases, and hold it back, but, after consultation with the crane builders, we do not think that this would interfere with anything in hand. The 50-ton cranes themselves are absolutely essential. For instance, in New York they have two older cranes, of 35 and 40 tons, which are not in good condition. They have a 50-ton crane which was provided three years ago, and in case of a breakdown of that single crane that they use all the time, they would be seriously hampered in the work of repairing and building there. In ordinary times, they would have to wait on repairs, but with this condition, we think that as soon as possible they should have two duplicate cranes in that yard.

The CHAIRMAN. How much would the cranes cost?

Admiral HARRIS. The 50-ton cranes would cost about $150,000 apiece, and the 350-ton cranes would cost about $600,000 apiece.

Mr. SHERLEY. Now, in the case of these latter cranes, do you think the need is great?

Admiral HARRIS. We will not be able to place the turrets on the battleship and battle cruiser that we are building in the Philadelphia yard without these cranes.

The CHAIRMAN. You will have to have them anyway to finish the ships?

Admiral Harris. Normally we might have made some other arrangement.

CONSTRUCTION AND EQUIPMENT OF TRAINING CAMPS.

(See pp. 246, 282.)

The CHAIRMAN. The next item is "For construction and equipment of training camps, including the rental of land, fiscal year 1918. $12.600.000."

Admiral HARRIS. We have gone ahead with most of those camps on instructions from the Secretary. When you were holding your

last hearings, as you will probably recall, just when it was too late, the Secretary of the Navy wrote up here requesting an additional amount of about $5,000,000 for training camps.

The CHAIRMAN. He asked for $150,000, and then asked for $2,655,000. You then asked us to increase that to $5,000,000, and now you are asking for $5,000,000 more.

Admiral HARRIS. Yes, sir. We have not been able to foresee this condition.

The CHAIRMAN. You have 60,000 men.

Admiral HARRIS. Commander Bennett can explain this.

The CHAIRMAN. The Army will train 1,000,000 men at a cost of $84,000,000.

Admiral HARRIS. This is for 93,000 men.

Commander BENNETT. We are going to have in the Regular Navy 165,000 men.

The CHAIRMAN. You said this morning that you would have 60,000 men in training, and some of those men will be on board ships.

Commander BENNETT. A great many of them will be. Our Regular Navy will be 165,000 men, our reserve force 50,000 men, and our national naval volunteers amount to 10,000 men, and they will be recruited up to 25,000. We have got to look out for all those people.

The CHAIRMAN. Some of them will be on board ship?

Commander BENNETT. But we will have to train them before putting them afloat.

The CHAIRMAN. You have got a lot of them afloat now.
Commander BENNETT. I know.

The CHAIRMAN. I understood you to say this morning that about 60,000 men are in training?

Commander BENNETT. Yes, sir; we must have facilities for about 60,000 Regulars.

The CHAIRMAN. You stated that there would be about 20,000 men in the training camps

Commander BENNETT. No, sir.

Mr. SHERLEY. He said this morning that there would be 60,000 Regulars and 20,000 in reserve, making 80,000 men.

The CHAIRMAN. Will you spend $12,000,000 to provide training places for them? You have had provided Hampton Roads

Commander BENNETT (interposing). As for Hampton Roads, that is a new training station that we did not contemplate in the Bureau of Navigation at the time we asked for that increase a short time ago. There is one other place-Gulfport. We did not expect that at all when the general plans were made.

The CHAIRMAN. What is this $12,600,000 to be used for?

PORTSMOUTH, N. H.

We

Commander BENNETT. May I run over that quickly for your infermation? At Portsmouth, N. H., we have a tent camp of about 1.000 men, which will be abandoned when cold weather comes on. have found it costs almost as much to put men in tents as it does to put them in a wooden building; that is, the first cost. If the camps are to run for more than one year, then it is actually cheaper to put

the men in a semipermanent sort of a building. At Portsmouth, N. H., the camp was started early in the spring. As it would cost so much to heat buildings that far north and as the facilities there were only capable of taking care of such a small number of men, we decided to make that a tent camp and abandon it this fall.

BUMKIN ISLAND, BOSTON HARBOR.

For the reserves in the first naval district we have under construction a training camp on Bumkin Island, in Boston Harbor, which we get for $1 a year. We want to put up buildings there habitable winter and summer, and that will be the training station for the reserve force of the first district.

The receiving ship in Boston is located on a pier which has been loaned by the city of Boston. The receiving ship itself was withdrawn and put into active service on the outbreak of the war. They had no place to go and they borrowed this pier and did a certain amount of construction work, so that it is now habitable winter and summer. It accommodates 2,000 men and can be expanded to 2,500. That is all under one shed, and when contagious diseases break out, as they do and as they have, we must have a detention camp somewhere, so we are putting up an isolation camp for 500 men at Hingham, Mass.

Mr. GILLETT. Is this separate from the hospital?

Commander BENNETT. Yes; it is merely for a group of men who have been exposed, we will say, to a case of meningitis; they must immediately be isolated or quarantined, so to speak, during the period of incubation. During that period they are given the usual tests. which, I think, take place every five days, and when the period of incubation has expired they are sent back to the clean camp.

Mr. GILLETT. Do you mean to say that the danger is so great that you must have so large a detention camp?

Commander BENNETT. That is a recognized feature of all of our stations where we are contemplating large bodies of men.

Mr. GILLETT. And for how large a proportion of the men is this detention camp?

Commander BENNETT. I am not familiar with the details of that. sir; but in this particular place, of which I am speaking now, we have provisions for 500.

Mr. GILLETT. How large is the force?

Commander BENNETT. The capacity of the receiving ship, of which this is to be the detention feature, is 2,000 normally and 2,500 at the extreme.

Admiral HARRIS. From 10 to 20 per cent usually.

NEWPORT, R. I.

Commander BENNETT. As we go South, we are extending the regular naval training station at Newport, with the expectation of having 10,000 men under training there this winter. That includes the supervising personnel of the permanent establishment, and for the naval reserves in that district we are establishing a camp on land which

Mr. GILLETT (interposing). Can you give us, as we go along, the cost of each one, so that we may know in making up this item?

Commander BENNETT. The Chief of Bureau of Yards and Docks would have to do that, sir; I simply utilize the plant after he builds it. For training the reserves in the second naval district we have at Newport a camp with a capacity of approximately 2,000, which is located on land which we lease merely for the payment of taxes, something less than $400 a year.

NEW YORK, N. Y.

The next place is New York. There the receiving ship was taken away and we have utilized some German interned ships as receiving ships; they are going to be turned into the service on the first day of the next month, and we have had to go outside and build barracks on a plot of land which has been loaned by the city of New York. That is the receiving ship at New York; that is not a training camp. but the men who are congregated there will be kept under training as well as circumstances permit.

Mr. GILLETT. I do not understand the distinction. Do they first go to a training camp, then to a receiving ship, and then to a regular ship?

Commander BENNETT. That is the idea; yes, sir. For the reserve force of the third naval district, with headquarters at New York, we hired a small hotel at Bensonhurst, Long Island; that is also a section headquarters or operating base, and we expect to have about 1,000 men there. Then we are putting up at Pelham Bay Park, which has been loaned by the city, a training camp for approximately 5,000 men. That will be the only reserve training camp in that

district.

PHILADELPHIA, PA.

In Philadelphia, the receiving ship there was also taken away, and we had to improvise means for taking care of the receiving ship personnel by putting up barracks in the navy yard for approximately 5.000 men. For the reserves in that district we are putting up a training camp on land which was leased for $1, with a capacity of about 2,000 men; that will be the training headquarters for that entire district.

NORFOLK, VA.

At Norfolk we started to extend our regular naval training station, and then we were told that we were to have Jamestown. The present scheme is to utilize the old training station as a detention feature and make the Jamestown training station the clean camp. We have not yet made any thorough provision for the training of the reserves in that district. Some are being trained on a German ship, but we must turn that over on the 1st of next month; others are being trained at the section headquarters on Cherrystone Island, and a larger proportion are being actually trained afloat in that district than in any other district.

BALTIMORE, MD.

We are trying to get the Army to give us a quitclaim on Fort McHenry, in Baltimore Harbor, and if we get that it will be the main training station for the reserves in that district.