In connection with our far-flung naval policy the establishment of a naval base on the Azores Islands was announced last spring. The arrangement was made with the full consent of Portugal, and the design was the protection of the Atlantic trade routes to southern Europe. Guns have already been landed on the island, and fortifications are now in process of construction. The station, besides being used as a naval base for American submarines, destroyers, and other small craft, will serve as an important homing-station for our airplanes, a number of which have already been assembled there. The establishment of this station greatly simplifies the task of protecting the great trade routes, not only to southern Europe and the Mediterranean, but also returning traffic to South American and southern Gulf ports in the United States. CHAPTER X Great Atlantic Ferry Company, Incorporated, But Unlimited--Feat of the Navy in Repairing the Steamships Belonging to German Lines Which Were Interned at Beginning of War in 1914--Welding and Patching--Triumph of Our Navy With the "Vaterland"--Her Condition--Knots Added to Her Speed--Damage to Motive Power and How It Was Remedied--Famous German Liners Brought Under Our Flag In an address delivered not long ago, Admiral Gleaves, commander-in-chief of the United States Cruiser and Transport Force, referred to "The Great Atlantic Ferry Company, Incorporated, but Unlimited." He referred to our transport fleet, of course, a fleet which, under naval supervision and naval operation, has safely transported more than a million of our soldiers to France. When the history of the war finally comes to be written, our success in the handling of oversea transportation will not be the least bright among the pages of that absorbing history. When the European nations first went to war in 1914 I happened to be at the Newport Naval Training Station, and I asked an officer what would happen if we went into the war. "Not much," he said. "We would stand on our shores and the Germans on theirs and make faces at each other." Events have proved that he was not looking into the future wisely, not taking into account the enormous energy and get-things-doneness of Secretary Daniels and his coadjutors. Not only did the Navy Department send our destroyer fleet to the war zone--the Allied officers, believing co-operation of the sort not feasible, had neither requested nor expected this--but performed many other extraordinary feats, among them the equipping of transports to carry our men to France, and the conduct of the service when they were ready.