Off Ambrose

ARMY & NAVY

With the gay little "Admirals' March" nine Cabinet members one after another were piped over the side of the cruiser Indianapolis docked at a Manhattan pier early one morning last week. Then everybody fidgeted, waiting for President Roosevelt. Finally after 15 minutes he drove up in a touring car whose narrow tonneau he, his full-sized wife and New York's roly-poly mayor LaGuardia more than filled. The ship's band played "The Star Spangled Banner" and the President rode down the Hudson through the narrows and out of New York Harbor for his first review of the U. S. Fleet.

Had President Roosevelt been two hours late he would not have delayed the ceremonies. Off Staten Island fog closed in. The Indianapolis dropped anchor, whistled for a wind to blow the dank pall away. Ultimately the whistling had its effect. After noon the four-starred cruiser reached the reviewing grounds two mi. south of Ambrose Lightship, followed by the Louis-mile bearing lesser lights of the Government. Out of the distant haze emerged the battleship Pennsylvania, flagship of the Fleet, with the clean, high silhouets of airplane carriers Saratoga and Lexington behind.

Silently, swiftly, the meticulously spaced parade of men-o'-war bore by. The sounds that came across the steel-grey waters to the President's ear were few and sharp: brass bands playing one chorus of the national anthem, the six-pounders saluting 21 times, like doors banging in a distant, empty house. A thousand yards astern of the carriers footed seven Treaty cruisers of the Scouting Force, then a brood of 21 destroyers. Two thousand yards behind them glided the cruisers and destroyers of the Battle Force, followed by nine of the nation's 15 capital ships. New Mexico and Mississippi looked the most impressive with their modern, heavy forward fighting bridges. But the West Virginia, with outmoded masts like inverted wire-work waste baskets, sported a white E on her stack to show that she still surpassed all upstarts in her division in engineering efficiency. The show was over when the train, the "dungaree navy" came by, with the old Langley, the Navy's first carrier, closing the rear file with superannuated sauciness.

Honor of leading the Fleet into New York Harbor and to its Hudson River anchorage fell to the President, whose ship was now saluted by roaring power dives from 15 crack planes of the Fleet. But all naval eyes were still on the Indianapolis' fore truck. By tradition one more thing was necessary to complete the ceremony. Three little flags broke out spelling Y W X, Yoke William Xray, the Navy's "Well Done" signal. That meant the President was pleased.

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