No naval or military training is necessary to realise that the success of any war operation is mainly dependent upon the personnel. In these days of machinery and munitions, however, we are apt to become ultra-materialistic in our imagination. We read of so many million rounds of ammunition, so many thousand tons of merchant shipping, such and such new-fangled weapons. But the necessity for efficient personnel is, after all, the crux of the whole matter. What use a ship without a crew, or an aeroplane without a pilot? Truly the question of personnel is paramount. No belligerent state ever suffered from a surplus of fighting men in the midst of a war. How strange it seemed to us in those critical days that we had ever been content to rely on an overseas expeditionary force of only 150,000 men. The ordinary use of warships against the enemy involves no special requirements of personnel beyond those which can be foreseen when the ships are originally designed. Design naturally results from projected employment whether the design be constructional or instructional. But for the purposes of this unusual kind of operation special types of officers and men were required and special training had to be arranged for. The operation itself--in official {102} parlance--was considered to be _hazardous_. Success would depend upon the work of the personnel to an unusual degree. This fact was early recognised. It is difficult to define the type of men required. They should be volunteers as far as that was practicable. They must be "all out for business." In view of the hazardous nature of their enterprise it was advisable that they should be unmarried. In the Grand Fleet alone there were many thousands of men spoiling for a fight. Nor was this surprising. During nearly four years of waiting, tuned up to the last note of efficiency, there had been only one action in which the major portion of the main fleet was engaged, and only a few smaller actions in which opportunities were available for the crews of our large ships to show their worth. But how many of the public realised the vastness of its work?--the incessant patrolling, the continual sweeps up and down and across the North Sea, with only a glimpse of an enemy vessel on the rarest occasions, and that but a momentary vision of her stern disappearing at the utmost speed as the vessel fled to her nearest port of refuge. As a blue-jacket was heard to remark, "It's always tip and run with devilish little of the tip." The everlasting practices, manoeuvring, and drills, designed towards the attainment and upkeep of efficiency, may have been novel enough for the first few months, but the novelty soon wore off. Not that the men ever showed any sign of weariness. It was more a case of hope deferred.