Boxing and wrestling were taken up by the individual ships and, generally speaking, one evening each week was given over to “happy hours,” for bouts in the ring and on the mat. Ambitious youngsters would send forth bristling challenges, which were immediately snapped up by rivals in other ships and the resulting encounter was the equivalent—seldom bloodless—of a naval engagement in building up _esprit de corps_. Excellent golf courses and tennis courts lay convenient to both bases, and many a day the Squadron Commander returned from the Nigg links with 18 officers crowding the barge. The squadron surgeon, Dr. Rhoades, secured many recruits for the ancient and honorable game, with the result that upward of 50 officers out of 200 entered the tournament played in September. From the start the good effect on the men was noticeable. A consistently winning baseball team made that ship’s company the envy of all others, and fostered a spirit that could not confine itself to athletics alone but was injected into drills, mining excursions and all forms of ship’s work. Indeed, it would not be overshooting the mark to state that the success of the operation as a whole was due in large part to the spirit of enthusiasm aroused among the men by organized competitive athletics. The men and officers were benefited from a mental and moral, as well as physical, standpoint. They had something really interesting to go to see on shore and to talk about on returning aboard. Their minds were taken absolutely away from war while the games were in progress, their nerves relaxed and the tension removed. Their activities were directed into healthful channels, whereas, thrown upon their own resources, they might have sought amusement in some harmful form. Not only did athletics benefit the men, it also played its part from an international aspect, especially baseball. Essentially an American sport, it typifies everything American—rapid thinking, quickness of action, and purely American individualism, coupled with the keenest alertness in teamwork. These traits the British admire in the “Yanks.” At any of our baseball games, hundreds of British soldiers and sailors could always be seen, wearing broad grins of appreciation and admiration of the cleverness of their comrades in arms. So much were they taken up with the sport that on some British ships they began to organize baseball teams, with the hope in the near future to compete with their American cousins. And the small boys in the towns were quick to take up playing ball with a stick and an old string ball. All this helped in creating a spirit of coöperation and good feeling between the British and the Americans, so important to both present and future common aims.