From knitting to knot-tying

Sea Power, Apr 2003 by Vergun, David

NAVY LEAGUE NEWS

This Month in Navy League History: April

NLUS Remains a Reliable Partner

During the past century, Sea Power, Navy, Now Hear This!-and, more recently, The Navy Leaguer-have documented the many ways that Navy League members have supported the nation's sea services, and a strong U.S. nationaldefense program in general, during both war and peace. Following are some photos and examples from different years and different eras, but all reported in the April issues of those publications.

The Navy League opened the National Headquarters of its Comforts Committee in Washington, D.C., on 8 March 1917, one month before the United States declared war on Germany-by which time a number of local Comforts Committee chapters already had opened in other cities across the country. By April 1917 the Navy Department had approved the specifications of, and the detailed knitting directions for, a variety of military uniform items being produced by Navy League women.

In many cases, the Comforts Committee Headquarters assigned various state Comforts Committees to do the knitting for the crews of battleships named for those states. Typically, the women on the committee would knit uniforms for the entire crew of a particular ship, package them together, and send them to NLUS Headquarterswhich would deliver them to the paymaster general of the Navy for forwarding to the ship designated. Tens of thousands of garments-including uniforms for Marine Corps, Coast Guard, and Merchant Marine as well as Navy personnel, and for some U.S. allies-were knitted by the Navy League women.

By the end of the war, many Navy Leaguers also had volunteered to be godfathers or godmothers to hundreds of French orphans whose fathers had been killed during the war. Navy Leaguers contributed thousands of dollars to support these war orphans.

In 1942, one generation later, tens of thousands of Navy League women throughout the country were once again knitting garments for sea-service personnel and their families. Others had volunteered to serve as cooks or in other capacities at the mobile canteens set up by the Navy League and the U.S. Navy for service personnel far from home. Some Navy League women volunteers also served as hostesses in USOs across the country. A 1942 Sea Power article about these patriotic women commented that, "Our American women may not be able to man the guns but they are doing the next best thinghelping to keep up the morale of the men who do man the guns."

From the organization's beginning, Navy League councils always have demonstrated a willingness to offer a helping hand not only to members of the armed services and their families, but also to America's young people, particularly those who might be interested in sea-service careers. This effort took a major step forward in 1958 with the founding of the Naval Sea Cadet Corps (NSCC), a program in which then-Secretary of the Navy Thomas S. Gates Jr. took a strong personal interest.

Numerous NLUS councils helped out by officially sponsoring and otherwise supporting NSSC units (for young men and women 14 to 17 years old) and NLCC (Navy League Cadet Corps) units (for those in the 11- to l3-year age bracket), in their home communities. The two programs have trained thousands of young men and women annually over the past 45 years, instilling in them personal core values and patriotism, teaching them the history and tradition of the sea services, developing their leadership skills, fostering self-reliance and confidence, and making them better citizens in general.

By 1961, just three years after the Sea Cadets' founding, there were 29 Sea Cadet Divisions and Squadrons, and 19 Navy League "Cadet Ships" throughout the United States. A representative and highly successful example of the first Cadet Ships was the USS Galveston, in Fort Worth, Texas. Like most other NSCC and NLCC units, then and now, the USS Galveston Cadet Ship was sponsored by a Navy League councilthe Fort Worth Council, in this case.

The 50 young people in the USS Galveston "crew" met once a week at the Naval and Marine Reserve Training Center in Fort Worth for military drills, and, when available and appropriate, hands-on training in such subjects as American history and naval history, basic seamanship, naval customs and traditions, personal hygiene, the essentials of leadership, first aid, knot-tying, marksmanship, ship construction, and naval communications.

The NSCC and NLCC Cadets expanded and honed their seamanship skills on "real"-i.e., active-duty-Navy ships; the USS Galveston Cadets even participated in two long cruises, one to Alaska and one to Japan.

Today, the USS Galveston has been replaced by the Training Ship VandiverBailey. Both the new unit and the Lone Star (Sea Cadet) Squadron are sponsored by the Fort Worth Council.

From supporting America's youth to assisting the men and women of the U.S. armed forces, the Navy League has been, and will continue to be a reliable partner to and a staunch supporter of the nation's sea services.