suggested by the naval policy board. The board of inspection and survey is composed of representatives of all bureaus, who inspect vessels soon after commission and on return from a cruise, and report on the condition of the ship and efficiency of its personnel; it also conducts the official trials of new vessels. The boards for the examination of officers for promotion are composed of officers of the corps to which the candidate belongs and of medical officers. Every officer is examined professionally, morally and physically at each promotion. The Navy Department is located at Washington, D.C., and occupies a building together with the State and War Departments (the latter being charged solely with army affairs).
The personnel (see also under Navy) is limited in number by law. The engineer corps was abolished in 1899, the then engineer-officers becoming line officers in their respective relative grades. Line officers are the military and executive branch, and are required besides to perform engineer duties. They are graduates of the Naval Academy. Vacancies occurring in the construction corps are filled from the graduates of the Naval Academy having the highest standing in scholarship, who are given a two years’ graduate course, generally abroad, on being graduated from the Academy, and are then appointed assistant naval constructors. All other staff officers are appointed directly from civil life by the president, from candidates passing prescribed examinations. Each representative and delegate in Congress has authority to nominate a candidate for naval cadet whenever his congressional district has no representative in the Naval Academy. The candidate must be a resident of the district which the congressman represents, between fifteen and twenty years old, and must pass prescribed mental and physical examinations. The president is allowed ten representatives at the Academy at all times, appointed “at large,” and one appointed from the District of Columbia.
The course of instruction at the Academy is four years, each comprising eight months’ study, three months’ practice cruise, and one month’s furlough. At the expiration of four years, cadets are sent to cruising ships for two years’ further instruction, and are then commissioned ensigns. After three years’ further sea service, ensigns are promoted to lieutenants (junior grade). After this, promotion is dependent upon seniority alone, the senior officer in any grade being promoted to the lowest number in the next higher grade when a vacancy occurs in the higher grade, and not before. All officers are retired on three-fourths sea pay at the age of sixty-two, or whenever a board of medical officers certifies that an officer is not physically qualified to perform all duties of his grade. A few officers are allowed to retire voluntarily in certain circumstances, to stimulate promotion. Any officer on the retired list may be ordered by the secretary to such duty as he may be able to perform: this is a legal provision to provide for emergencies. Promotion in the staff corps is dependent upon seniority, though relative rank in the lower grades in some corps somewhat depends upon promotion of line officers of the same length of service, and accounts for the existence of staff officers in the same grade having different ranks. All sea-going officers, after commission, are required to spend three years at sea, and are then usually employed on shore-duty for a time, according to the needs of the service—short terms of shore-duty thereafter alternating with three-year cruises. This rule is adhered to as strictly as circumstances will permit. Shore-duty includes executive or distinctly professional duties in the Navy Department, under its bureaus, and at navy yards and stations; inspection of ordnance, machinery, dynamos, &c., under construction by private firms; duty on numerous temporary or permanent boards; instructors at the Naval Academy; recruiting duty; charge of branch hydrographic offices; inspection duty in the lighthouse establishment; at state nautical schools; as attaches with United States legations; and many others. Naval constructors (usually), civil engineers and professors of mathematics are continuously employed on shore-duty connected with their professions, the Naval Observatory, Nautical Almanac and the Naval Academy employing most of the last.
Warrant officers (boatswains, gunners, carpenters, sailmakers, warrant machinists and pharmacists) are appointed by the secretary, preference being given to enlisted men in the navy who have shown marked ability for the positions. They must be between twenty-one and thirty-five years of age, and pass an examination. After serving satisfactorily for one year under an acting appointment, they receive warrants that secure the permanency of their office. Ten years after appointment, boatswains, gunners, carpenters and sailmakers are eligible for examination for a commission as chief-boatswain, &c., and as such they rank with, but next after, ensigns. Mates are rated by the secretary from seamen or ordinary seamen. They have no relative rank, but take precedence of all petty officers. Their duties approximate to those of boatswains, though they seldom serve on large cruising vessels. Clerks to pay officers are appointed by the secretary on the nominations of the pay officers. They have no rank and are not promoted or retired. Their appointments are revoked when their services are no longer needed.
Boys between fifteen and seventeen years old of good character, who can read and write and pass the physical examination, may enlist for the term of their minority. They enlist as third-class apprentices, and are given six months’ instruction at a training station, and thence go to sea in apprentice training vessels. When proficient they are transferred to regular cruising vessels as second class, and when further qualified are rated first class. All other enlistments are for four years. Recruits must speak English. Landsmen are usually sent to sea on special training-ships until proficient, and are then sent into general service. Raw recruits may enlist as landsmen, or coal-passers or mess attendants. Ordinary seamen must have served two years, and seamen four years before the mast, prior to first enlistment as such; and before enlistment in any other rating allowed on first enlistment, applicants must prove their ability to hold such rating. Landsmen, coal-passers, &c., as soon as they become proficient, are advanced to higher grades, and, if American citizens, may eventually become petty officers (ranking with army non-commissioned officers), with acting appointments. In twelve months, or as soon thereafter as proficiency is established, the acting appointment is made permanent, and an acting appointment for the next higher grade is issued, &c. Permanent appointments are not revokable except by sentence of court-martial, and a man re-enlists in that rating for which he held a permanent appointment in his previous enlistment. All persons re-enlisting within four months after expiration of previous enlistment are entitled to a bounty equal to four months’ pay, and in addition receive a “continuous service certificate,” which entitles them to higher pay and to other special considerations. The same is true for each re-enlistment. When an enlisted man completes thirty years’ service and is over fifty years of age he may retire on three-fourths pay.
The Marine corps (see Marines) is a wholly separate military body, but it is under the control of the Navy Department.
United States naval vessels are, as a rule, built at private yards under contracts awarded after competition. The government is not committed to any fixed policy or building programme. Each year the secretary recommends certain new construction. The final action rests with Congress, which must appropriate money for the new ships before the construction can be commenced. Repairing and reconstruction are usually done at government navy yards.
Ships in commission are distributed among five stations: (1) the North Atlantic, i.e. the Atlantic coast of the United States, Central America, and South America as far as the Amazon, also the West Indies; (2) the South Atlantic, i.e. the remainder of the Atlantic coast of South America and both coasts of South Africa; (3) the European, comprising the coast of Europe, including the inland seas, and the North Atlantic coast of Africa; (4) the Asiatic station, comprising the coast of Asia, including the islands north of the equator, also the east coast of North Africa; (5) the Pacific station, comprising the Pacific coast of North and South America, and Australia and the adjacent islands lying
