7 scout cruisers, 27 destroyers, 61 submarines, 2 fuel ships, 1 supply
ship, 1 transport, 1 gunboat, 1 hospital ship, and 1 ammunition ship.
Since that date contracts have been placed for 949 vessels, including
100 submarine-chasers for co-belligerent nations. The Board of
Construction and Repair has also prepared in co-operation with the
Shipping Board, a number of preliminary designs of simplified merchant
vessels, varying in length from 400 to 800 feet.

In June of 1917, 180 acres of land were secured at South Charleston, W.
Va., for a projectile plant, which is now in operation. An armor-plate
factory will be constructed. In one plant manufacturing steel forgings
the output was increased 300 per cent within two months after government
managers were installed.

The expansion of the naval establishment has necessitated a great
increase in facilities for the assembling, housing, and distribution of
stores, and these needs have been largely met at Boston, Philadelphia,
and Hampton Roads by large emergency and permanent constructions.

In the Commissary Department the effort has been to see that the naval
forces continue to be what the surgeon-general has stated they are: the
"best fed body of men in the world." Sailors are no poison squad, and
all efforts to try upon the officers and seamen of the force any
experimental or test food have been rigorously suppressed. The high cost
of living has been reflected in the cost of the navy ration, but the
price has been met. There were clothing shortages during the early weeks
of the war, but prompt and efficient action by the Bureau of Supplies
and Accounts has remedied all this.

Fuel for the navy has been handled by means of allotments placed with