Closely related to the work of Commissioner Camp in the naval stations was his successful attempt to secure for the aviators the use of skilful flight surgeons and college trainers to safeguard the physical condition of the airmen. At the annual conference of the National Collegiate Association, which was held in New York City in December, 1917, Mr. Camp called attention to the fact that the conditioning of the aviators was similar to that of college athletes, and was just as vital; and, inasmuch as the physical safety of football-players and other college athletic contestants was successfully guaranteed by experienced trainers, he recommended that several of the best be selected from leading American universities to go to the aviation-fields and take charge of the conditioning of the fliers. Two months later, recommendation was made by the aviation department that from ten to fifteen such trainers be named by Mr. Camp to go at once to the aviation-stations and pass judgment on the condition of the fliers before they were allowed to leave the ground. An unusually large number of deaths took place in the United States during practise flights of the aviators early in the spring of 1918, and in May the government authorized the appointment of an adequate number of college trainers to carry out the work of conditioning the airmen. Before this time reports of conditions in England and France established the fact that more deaths of aviators had been caused by the flight of the airmen when in poor physical condition than by any defect in the flying-machine. In all, Mr. Camp's work has been adequately recognized by the Navy Department as of the greatest benefit, and the constant stream of testimony from the reserve seamen attached to the various stations that "there is no place like the navy," is, in some part due to the activities of this veteran Yale athlete and his associates. CHAPTER XIV The United States Marine Corps--First Military Branch Of The National Service To Be Sanctioned By Congress--Leaving For The War--Service Of The Marines in Various Parts of the Globe--Details of Expansion of Corps--Their Present Service All Over The World When orders came for some 2,700 United States marines to go to France there was little circumstance, or general fuss and feathers, at the League Island Navy Yard, in Philadelphia. The Marine Corps, which is under control of the Navy Department, was quite used to such things. Through all the years when trouble had occurred in our island possessions, in the West Indies, Central America, or where not, it was the marines who received orders to start out and settle things. As a consequence, orders to go to France were merely in the line of the customary day's work.