On April 6, 1917, one message, "Plan One. Acknowledge," incorporated the Coast Guard as an integral part of the Navy during the war. That service had 138 line officers, 70 engineer officers, 13 district superintendents, and 2 constructors, a total of 233 commissioned and 257 warrant officers, and 3,478 men--a valuable addition to the naval forces. The professional ability of the Coast Guard officers is evidenced by the fact that twenty-four commanded combatant ships operating in European waters, five vessels of the patrol force in the Caribbean Sea, and twenty-three combatant craft attached to naval districts. Five Coast Guard officers commanded training camps, six performed aviation duty, two being in command of air stations, one of these in France. The Navy Department, naturally enough, assigned to the command of combatant ships only officers whose experience and ability warranted such detail and only those officers in whom the Department had implicit confidence. Commodore E. P. Bertholf, then commandant, and Commodore W. E. Reynolds, later commandant of the Coast Guard, and other officers were assigned important administrative duties. Ashore and afloat, officers and men discharged their duties with such efficiency that at the close of the war I strongly recommended to the President and Congress that the Coast Guard be continued permanently as a part of the Navy. Not only was the Coast Guard an integral part of the Navy during the war, but the Lighthouse Service added 1,284 men to the naval personnel and fifty vessels to the naval force. These vessels did a large part of the work on the defensive entrance areas, laid mines, and were employed as patrols. The light vessels and lighthouses served as lookouts and reporting stations. The Diamond Shoal Light vessel, off Cape Hatteras, was sunk by a German submarine, but not until after it had given warning and saved a number of vessels. The larger light-house tenders were almost continuously in the danger-zone and were employed to buoy the wrecks of torpedoed vessels.