any serious, extensive campaign on this side; it was also evident that any vessel as small as the subchaser had little value in convoy work, notwithstanding the excellence of its sea-keeping qualities; and we were all rather doubtful as to just what use we could make of these new additions to our navy. The work of pushing the design and construction of these boats reflects great credit upon those who were chiefly responsible. The designs were drawn and the first contracts were placed before the United States had declared war. The credit for this admirable work belongs chiefly to Commander Julius A. Furer (Construction Corps) U.S. Navy, and to Mr. A. Loring Swasey, a yacht architect of Boston, who was enrolled as a lieutenant-commander in the reserves, and who served throughout the war as an adviser and assistant to Commander Furer in his specialty as a small vessel designer, particularly in wood. It speaks well for the ability of these officers that the small subchasers exhibited such remarkable sea-keeping qualities; this fact was a pleasant surprise to all sea-going men, particularly to naval officers who had had little experience with that type of craft. The listening devices had not been perfected when they were designed, and this innovation opened up possibilities for their employment which had not been anticipated; for these reasons it inevitably took a large amount of time, after the subchasers had been delivered, to provide the hydrophones and all the several appliances which were necessary for hunting submarines. Apparently those who were responsible for constructing these boats had a rocky road to travel; with the great demand for material and labour for building destroyers, merchant ships, and for a multitude of war supplies, it was natural that the demands for the subchasers in the early days were viewed as a nuisance; the responsible officers, therefore, deserve credit for delivering these boats in such an efficient condition and in such a remarkably short time. That winter, as everyone will recall, was the coldest in the memory of the present generation. Day after day the poor subchasers, coated with ice almost a foot thick, many with their engines wrecked, their planking torn and their propellers crumpled, were towed into the harbour and left at the first convenient mooring, where the ice immediately began to freeze them in. As was inevitable under such conditions, the crews, for the most part, suffered acutely in this terrible weather; they had had absolutely no training in ordinary seamanship, to say nothing of the detailed tactics demanded by the difficult work in which they were to engage.