This was an era in which college professors made a mystery of science; it gave them a feeling of superiority over the practical man. The latter similarly looked down their noses at the theorists. The term “engineer” was used to designate the driver of a railway locomotive or, in New York City, the superintendent of an apartment house. Dr. Lucke was of the opinion that, if the time ever came when the practical man and the theorist combined their talents as professional engineers, they would set the world on fire. “As engineers,” he stated for the opening gun of his new approach, “we deal with the application of combustion to industrial purposes.” And having thus stated the role of the engineer he went on to develop the fundamental requirements for combustion: “The fuel and oxygen,” he advised, “must be present in the proportions necessary to chemical combination; they must be intimately mixed; they must be brought to the ignition temperature and retained there until combustion is complete.” And having expounded this truth he went on into one of his excursions into philosophy: “That,” he said, “might be taken as a prescription for life. And remember,” he warned, “that whereas material things respond always in the same way to the same stimuli, that is not true of the human spirit. As engineers you will deal quite as frequently with the spiritual as with the material and must understand both.” The doctor, who exercised a strong influence on some of us, inspired us to do creative work. My first opportunity came shortly after graduation from Columbia in 1915, with my assignment as Chief Engineer of the battleship _Arkansas_. The “_Old Ark_” had been commissioned three years earlier with Comdr. William Adger Moffett as her Executive Officer, and still retained the marks of his leadership. In fleet athletics and in the gunnery competitions she had won honors. In engineering, however, she had, like other ships with the new turbines then replacing reciprocating engines, earned a reputation as a “coal hog.” To overcome this, I had worked out a scheme for using the waste heat of auxiliary exhaust steam for distilling sea water, thus saving about one-third of the daily port consumption. For this development I had narrowly escaped being disciplined because I had not previously obtained permission from the Bureau of Engineering. After our entry into World War I, the _Arkansas_ was assigned to the Sixth Battle Squadron of the British Grand Fleet and had been present at the surrender of the German High Seas Fleet. It was there, on the afternoon of November 21, 1918, that the shadow of the airplane had first fallen across my path.