eyelids to a wistful half-close. He remembers that the American navy has named its guns thus from the days of Paul Jones. "Good gunner," he thinks, "fine boy, and navy to the core." A high-school boy from the middle west, blond and young.
All hands are now at action stations; the ship is stripped for war. High up on the signal bridge the ranking officers pace, awaiting word from the admiral. Signalmen stand ready to haul down the "commence firing" signal flag, and hoist the blood-red pennant which signifies the ship is manning her guns.
The Breech of One of the "West Virginia's" Turret Guns; the Trough in the Foreground Is the Wheeled Cart Which Brings the Huge Shell Up to Be Slid In Where the Sailor Now Rests
The radiomen are tuning their sets to the airplane wavelengths. On deck the catapult men are preparing to shoot a plane from the ship with powder, as though the plane were being fired from a gun. The plane is hoisted to the catapult, hooked on—mechanics carefully test all connections, try all valves, tighten a nut here and there—then the officer aviators come on deck in their khaki flying uniforms and carefully buckle their parachutes, on which they sit when aloft.
Suddenly a flash of red bunting breaks from the bridge and rapidly shoots upward. The aviators scramble into their plane. Another signal flag, this time a green one, flashes upward to the main truck of the foremast and the pilot raises his hand. The catapult is fired and the plane dips and begins to take the air. From other ships planes of the same type rise, they join and take battle station in the air, some with ominous machine guns poking fore and aft to protect other planes which fly lower. The commanding officer of the air takes command and all the planes forget the surface and obey the new commander, who is in turn instructed by radio from the admiral on the "West Virginia."
The fleet is ready to open fire. Deep in the bowels of the ship, the radiomen are tense at their instruments. The observer in the planes tunes in on the predetermined wavelength, which will change as the battle progresses, in order to con fuse any "enemy" listeners. In the turrets, the big steel guns rest calmly in their carriages—110 tons of dormant destructive power. It is the calm before the storm for these 16's are as loud as they are pow-
