| NLUS Remains
a Reliable Partner From Knitting to Knot-Tying
By DAVID VERGUN
Production Editor
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. national-defense 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 Headquarters--which 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 thing--helping 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- to13-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 council--the
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 Vandiver-Bailey. 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. *
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