A petty officer, eyes screwed tight in critical study of the recruit consignment. told what the new men were in for. During the &-week taining period. he said. they get the tundamentals. mostly infantry drill fatigue and Ketures, The new man gets the knack of handling a rifle and the habit of automatically reacting to spoken command. If he came in a. bit soft. setting-up exercises and the drill harden his physical fibre. If he was a hell ca? outside and kept indecent hours. he gets the habit of regular living. If he was untidy' he learns to ktep his quarters. his person and his equipment clean.
New men are taken down to the. station quays. put in small boats, and taught to pull an oar. They learn semaphore, the elements of chemical and gas warfare and get the hang of basic seamanship. They are taught to tie knots and to splice. Bzfore he leaves the station the recruit must know how to swim. The old Navy wasn't fussy about this. the petty officer confided, but the new Navy is. "It don't look ight to have a Navy with sailors who cam e: care of themselves if they go over the side," he said.
When the eight weeks are ended the new man gets brief leave. He goes home in his Uniform: sees the family, the girl and the d returns as a mano' one of two' things conduct and retty much what men will be picked for the schools, which are at Norfolk. Ya; San Diego. Calif. at Jacksonville and Pensacola in Florida. Re-cruising officers find mos? applicants eager for aviation courses—for the metal smith. machinist. ordnance or radio branches. of the Navy air service. No man is picked. though. who doesn't show definite promise in a particular kind lof work, or specialty, during the recruit period. Men proficient in English, for example. are likely to be diverted to one of the communications or clerical schools. while recruits with a knowledge or flair for handling tools might be marked for a trade or engineering course. During these courses, which run around sixteen the men stand sentry watch and do e fatigue. At the end of the course they're for postgraduate work in the fleet or at the air stations.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.