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Show oo RECORD OF AMERICAN ENGINEERS. Our naval engineers evidently were equal to all emergencies during the war. When America entered tho con-'flilc con-'flilc on April 6, 1017, the Vatorland was seized, but the engineers found that the mighty German vessel had been damaged. The crew had burned out tho boilers, thrown away parts of the machinery and, in every manner possible, wrecked tho interior of the engine rooms. The Germans said they had made tho Vaterland a useless ship. Within threo months the Americans had restored tho 54,000-ton ship and made of it a faster vessel than it ever had been. Even the cylinders of the powerful engines had been cracked and they were restored by a special process of welding. Since the armistice has been signed, Washington has made public the performance per-formance of the Vatorland, which was rechristenod the Leviathan. The transport trans-port convoyed 94,195 soldiers to France, making the first trip on De-comber De-comber 15, 1917. During her service of 236 days, she landed an average of 399 American soldiers on French soil daily, counting her days in port on both sides of the Atlantic and at sea. The average aggregated ag-gregated a little more than a German division of 12,000 men every month. She made nine and a half round trips arid transported 9419 men with their equipment and soniejcargo on every outward voyage. She had been worked harder than any vessel of her size 54,000 tons was ever worked before. After her seizure by the United States, nava lengineers repaired her machinery machin-ery damaged by the German crew and made a decided Improvement over the original Tho fastest round trip made by the Leviathan -was seventeen days. |