breech loading guns and these are mounted in revolving turrets one of which is forward and one aft. The Alabama had four 13 inch guns in the large turrets and twelve 6 inch guns on the broadsides. I’m telling you that if Huerta had been at Vera Cruz when we got there and taken a look into the muzzle of one of our 13 inch guns he’d have saluted the flag without any more of that mañana business. As it was he was safely out of range of our guns for Mexico City is over 200 miles from Vera Cruz.
In the early days of wireless when every Tom, Dick and Harry was getting up a “new” wireless system the Navy Department tried out all of them. It would not use the Marconi system because the government wanted to buy the apparatus outright while the policy of the Marconi Company was to lease their apparatus.
The favorite type of wireless apparatus used by the Navy Department was known as the Telefunken, a German getup that was a combination of the Slaby-Arco and the Braun-Siemens and Halske systems. The transmitter of our station was one of this kind and consisted of an induction coil with a mercury turbine in-