To describe here the training of officers and men would be to repeat what will be more fully and personally described in succeeding chapters. It is sufficient to say that the aim was to bring them all to a predetermined standard of efficiency, which would enable the officers to command ships of specific types at sea and in action, and the men to form efficient engineers and deck hands for almost any ship in the Navy. The medical branches naturally required no special training and the accountants merely a knowledge of naval systems of financial and general administration. These two branches had their own training establishments. When the period of preliminary training in the cruiser _Hermione_ was over the officers were passed on to the Royal Naval College at Greenwich, and from there to one or other of the fifty war bases in the United Kingdom, the Mediterranean or farther afield. Their appointments were to ships forming the fleets attached to each of these bases and generally operating in the surrounding seas. In this way the whole zone of war was covered by an anti-submarine and minesweeping organisation and general naval patrol, which operated in conjunction with, but separate from, the battle fleets, squadrons and flotillas, which were thus left free to perform their true functions in big naval engagements. FOOTNOTES: [1] Extract from _Naval Demobilisation_--issued by the Ministry of Reconstruction. [2] The personnel of the new navy consisted of R.N., R.N.R. and R.N.V.R. officers. The former came mostly from the retired list. The R.N.R. needed training only in such subjects as gunnery, tactics, etc. The training of the R.N.V.R. is here described. CHAPTER II THE NEW NAVY--TRAINING AN ANTI-SUBMARINE FORCE HAVING described the _raison d'etre_ of the new navy, and how it became a fleet in being, with its own admirals, captains, staffs, bases and all the paraphernalia of war, I can pass on to a more intimate description of the training of the officers and men, preparatory to their being drafted to the scattered units of this great anti-submarine force.