esiding officer in charge of transport being Rear-Admiral Albert
Gleaves.

Then, again, the United States took over control of most of the patrol
of the western Atlantic. Our thousands of miles of coast had to be
guarded against enemy attack and protected against German raiders. A
squadron under command of Admiral William B. Caperton was sent to South
America and received with the utmost enthusiasm at Rio de Janeiro, at
Montevideo and Buenos Aires, which cities were visited on invitation
from the governments of Brazil, Uruguay, and Argentina. After Brazil's
entrance into the war the Brazilian Navy co-operated with our vessels in
the patrol of South American waters.

The taking over of some 800 craft of various kinds, and their conversion
into types needed, provided the navy with the large number of vessels
required for transports, patrol service, submarine-chasers,
mine-sweepers, mine-layers, tugs, and other auxiliaries. The repair of
the 109 German ships whose machinery had been damaged by their
crews--details of which will be treated in a subsequent chapter--added
more than 700,000 tons to our available naval and merchant tonnage, and
provided for the navy a number of huge transports which have been in
service for nearly a year. Hundreds of submarine-chasers have now been
built, and a number of destroyers and other craft completed and placed
in service. The first merchant ship to be armed was the oil-tanker
_Campana_; guns manned by navy men were on board when she sailed for
Europe, March 12, 1917. The big American passenger-liners _St. Paul_ and
_New York_ were armed on March 16 of that year, and the Red Star liner
_Kroonland_ and the _Mongolia_ on March 19. And continuously up to the
present writing merchant ships as they have become available have been
armed and provided with navy gun crews. Since the arming of the
_Campana_ more than 1,300 vessels have been furnished with batteries,
ammunition, spare parts, and auxiliaries.

But of equal importance, greater importance history may decree it, was
Secretary Daniels's action in 1915 of appointing the Naval Advisory
Board of Inventions. That was looking ahead with a vengeance. The idea
was to make available the latent inventive genius of the country to
improve the navy. The plan adopted by Secretary Daniels for selecting
this extraordinary board included a request to the eleven great
engineering and scientific societies of the country to select by popular
election t