Commodore Sir Frederick Young’s calmness was indeed amazing. I have vivid recollections of seeing him in his room at Whitehall when the submarine campaign was at its height. The newspapers were full of the tales of sinking ships, people were talking about it agitatedly, faces in the inner precincts of Whitehall were grave and obviously concerned, but the Director of Salvage remained quite unruffled. As I sat talking with him, the news came through of seven more ships being sunk; on top of it arrived the information that one of the salvage ships herself had been torpedoed in the Mediterranean. Yet the Director of Salvage did not turn a hair. He asked one of his officers the whereabouts of another salvage craft. The officer told him. “Send her out to replace the ----,” and he mentioned the name of the sunken salvage ship, which I have long since forgotten. He puffed quietly at his pipe, screwed a monocle into his eye, and scanned the telegrams with their bad news. Then he gave a few orders, and in a moment or two the wires were humming with instructions to various salvage units to hurry to the aid of the stricken ships. It was all done so quietly and simply, without one sign of flurry or fuss on the part of the sturdy figure clad in a simple blue serge suit such as thousands of civilians wear to-day. Yet coming in and out and waiting deferentially on his word were naval figures resplendent in gold braid. The contrast emphasized the simplicity of the man controlling this supreme service. His unaffected ways and quiet manner masked an amazing cleverness, for no man alive was imbued with a greater genius for sea salvage work than this modest man sitting composedly at his desk by the pleasant window in Whitehall. His big room was set off in the centre by a round polished table containing a bowl of flowers. Photographs of salvage ships dotted the walls, while various charts of the British Isles stuck full of coloured flags bristled with information to those able to read them. Other charts were concealed beneath spring blinds that sprang up at the touch of authority. By studying these charts, the Commodore was able to tell at a glance just how the situation stood, where ships were sunk, where ships were beached, where his salvage units were working. On a side-table was a big book of charts that could only be lifted with an effort, and another table contained a model ship showing the standard patch. Called into being by the war, the standard patch certainly proved one of the greatest aids of the Salvage Section, for many a ship that would have ended her days at the bottom of the sea was brought safely into port under the protection afforded by this invention. The standard patch was formed of grooved timbers fitting one into another, something like matchboards, and in appearance it resembled the top of a gigantic roll-top desk. Owing to its construction, it was admirably adapted for fitting the curves of the hull of a ship.