RÉSUMÉ OF THE SERVICE RENDERED BY CAPT. D. W. KNOX, UNITED STATES NAVY (RETIRED), IN OFFICE OF NAVAL RECORDS AND LIBRARY, NAVY DEPARTMENT

NAVY DEPARTMENT,

Washington, D. C., February 8, 1929.

MY DEAR MR. BRITTEN: In accordance with the request contained in your very kind letter of February 2, 1929, I am very glad to submit below a statement concerning the work of this office having particular reference to the hearings before the Committee on Naval Affairs of the House on H. R. 13683 held during May, 1928. The functions of this office are threefold.

(1) The library proper is the central source of books and magazines for the administration of the Navy Department; purchases of this nature for all the bureaus and offices of the department being centralized and charged to it by law. In addition the library answers queries and furnishes data requiring research upon a great variety of naval subjects for the Navy Department administrations, Members of Congress, and civilians all through the country. Lieut. Commander Wainwright had been employed on this duty for about two and a half years at the time of the hearings, instead of eight years as stated in testimony. His services were also utilized as practicable incidental to the work of the historical section, and in instituting a pictorial section where 35,000 historical photographs have been collected, mounted and filed.

(2) The old records section contains nearly a million old manuscripts going back to the beginning of the Navy and extending through the year 1889. It is the principal original source of naval history in the country, and is frequently consulted by civilian as well as technical historians and researchers. When the manuscript collection was moved from the old building in 1923 it was found that a large proportion of old records had never been archived, but remained boxed or otherwise in bulk. In this condition data was not accessible except at the expenditure of much time and labor for every research operation, no matter how minor. This applied to records of even as far back as 1812, and the consequence was that many inquiries, at times involving pensions, claims, and other financial matters, could not be answered. The archiving of this material was therefore undertaken under my immediate supervision. Meantime search was instituted for additional material, and a large quantity which had been lost, misplaced, or forgotten, in the Navy Department, War Department, navy yards, and elsewhere, was "rescued" and added to the archives. One illustration is the discovery of four chests of forgotten and unaccounted for Confederate naval records, in a Navy Department storeroom, from which the names of 400 Confederate naval officers and many men have been added to those already known to have been in that service.

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This work has occupied a large proportion of my personal time since 1923, though supervision of the World War section and the library has necessarily claimed much of my attention. Incidentally it should be stated that my length of service in the office at the time of the hearings was less than 7 years, instead of 10 years as stated in the testimony.

(3) The World War section is charged by law with "The collection or copying and classification, with a view to publication, of the naval records of the World War," etc. This work, together with answering numerous inquiries, had absorbed the entire time of Lieutenant Commander Robertson (since detached) during his tenure of office, which had been for a period of about three and a half years at the time of the hearings instead of eight years as stated in testimony. He was preceded in this detailed work by myself and Lieutenant Commander Payne of the active list.

Owing to the fact that the historical section was not created until after the war, I do not consider it any reflection upon my predecessors here to say that upon assuming charge in 1921, little progress had been made toward preparing the naval records of the war for publicationwhich it should be observed is the task fixed by Congress, and not the writing of history. The collection which had been received from London was the only group of papers archived with thorough system. Virtually every other group of files in the office (many of which were still boxed and stored) remained to be examined, and the whole archived according to a common system, not yet devised. Large quantities of papers still remained in the administrative files of various ships and stations, and hence were not even available for accession, much less consolidation into historical archives.

Under these conditions the work of the office had consisted principally in answering inquiries, and in compiling and printing historical monographs on subjects concerning which the data available was fairly complete. This work of the preparation of monographs was continued by me until the Joint Congressional Committee on Printing forbade any further publication of World War historical material. When this action was taken in June, 1922, a total of 7 monographs had been printed and about 15 others were in preparation. This constitutes all of the "writing of history" in which the office has been engaged. Nearly all of it was done by predecessors of the present officer personnel. The head of the office collaborated with Capt. T. G. Frothingham, Officers' Reserve Corps in the preparation of a 3 volume Naval History of the World War, published by the Harvard University Press. This was done with the approval of the director of intelligence, and without any compensation or profit, public or private, to either Captain Frothingham or myself. I have collaborated similarly without any remuneration in the publication of several other books on naval history.

After coming to duty here it was necessary for me to give considerable study to the question of an appropriate scheme of archives into which all of the heterogeneous matter could be permanently incorporated systematically. This was obviously necessary to avoid tremendous future losses of time in accomplishing the immediate task which Congress had set us as well as in all future research work. The most eminent archivists in the city were consulted and a comprehensive plan adopted which was appropriate for the old records

as well as the new. The office personnel was then reorganized to handle archiving in a systematic way (which had not previously been undertaken seriously), so that there would be a steady and orderly flow of documents from the selection desks, through the classifiers, into the archive files.

To date, approximately 400,000 letters, telegrams, and reports have been selected, classified, and systematically archived; while several times that number have been examined, rejected as not of sufficient historical importance to archive, boxed, and placed in storage.

Substantially all of the archiving has been completed, and during the last year the selection of material for printing has been perused. The printing of the complete collection would involve a much too voluminous and expensive job. Within a year this work will have advanced to the stage where printing may be begun along the line of H. J. Res. 359.

With special reference to the testimony before your committee as to the alleged difficulty of obtaining from me an estimate of the time of completion of the World War work, I would respectfully invite your attention to my printed hearings before the House Committee on Appropriations every year since 1921, which are tabulated below:

It seems pertinent for me to add that the number of clerical employees attached to this office has been steadily reduced, from a peak of 32 in 1922, when 17 were employed jointly on old naval records and in the library, while 15 were engaged on World War work. The present number is 22, distributed as follows:

This notwithstanding a substantial increase in work of the library and old records.

In accordance with your request I have sent a copy of this letter to Hon. V. S. K. Houston, House of Representatives.

If the foregoing is not sufficiently complete for your purposes I will of course, be very glad to furnish additional data.

With many kind regards,

Very sincerely,

Hon. FRED A. BRITTEN,

D. W. KNOX,

Captain United States Navy (retired),
Officer in Charge.

Chairman Committee on Naval Affairs,
House of Representatives, Washington, D. C.

A HEARING ON THE BILL (H. R. 8536, REINTRODUCED AS H. R. 17128) TO AMEND SECTION 11 OF THE ACT APPROVED FEBRUARY 28, 1925, ENTITLED "AN ACT TO PROVIDE FOR THE CREATION, ORGANIZATION, ADMINISTRATION, AND MAINTENANCE OF A NAVAL RESERVE AND A MARINE CORPS RESERVE"

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES,
COMMITTEE ON NAVAL AFFAIRS,
Friday, February 15, 1929.

The CHAIRMAN. We will take up for consideration H. R. 8536, a bill to amend section 11 of the act of February 28, 1925, entitled "An act to provide for the creation, organization, administration, and maintenance of a naval reserve and marine corps reserve." (The bill and the report thereon are as follows:)

A BILL To amend section 11 of the act approved February 28, 1925, entitled "An act to provide for the creation, organization, administration, and maintenance of a Naval Reserve and a Marine Corps Reserve"

Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America in Congress assembled, That section 11 of the act approved February 28, 1925, entitled "An act to provide for the creation, organization, administration, and maintenance of a Naval Reserve and a Marine Corps Reserve" (Fortythird Statutes at Large, page 1083), is hereby amended to read as follows:

"SEC. 11. That commissioned officers of the Naval Reserve, exclusive of commissioned warrant officers, when employed on active duty or on training duty, with pay, or when employed in authorized travel to and from such duty, shall be deemed to have been confirmed in grade and qualified for all general service and shall receive the pay, allowances, including longevity pay, as provided by law for the reserve forces of the United States, and shall when traveling under orders receive transportation in kind, mileage, or actual expenses as provided by law for travel performed by officers of the regular Navy. Commissioned warrant officers, warrant officers, and men of the Naval Reserve when employed on active duty or on training duty with pay or when employed in authorized travel to and from such duty shall receive the same pay and allowances as received by commissioned warrant officers, warrant officers, and enlisted men of the regular Navy of the same rank, grade, or rating, and of the same length of service which shall include service in the Navy, Marine Corps, Coast Guard, Naval Reserve Force, Naval Militia, National Naval Volunteers, Marine Corps Reserve, or Naval Reserve: Provided, That when officers or men of the Naval Reserve perform active duty or training duty with pay for a period of less than thirty days such duty performed on the thirty-first day of any month shall be paid for at the same rate as for other days: Provided further, That commissioned warrant officers in the Naval Reserve promoted from the grade of warrant officer shall suffer no reduction of pay by reason of such promotion."