U.S. battleship serve as transports in bringing our troops home

Never before in the world's history have two million troops, with supplies, munitions and equipment, been sent over so many miles of open sea with so few losses. When America entered the great World War, one of our great problems—probably the greatest next to raising and training a huge army—was how to get them "over there." Indeed, the German people were made to believe by their government that even if the United States could raise and train a large army, it could not be transported across the Atlantic in time to win the war. The high efficiency of the British and American navies, and the wonderful cooperation between them, solved the problem of protecting the transports from the German U-boats. But vessels were badly needed for use as transports, and these transports had to be provided without interfering with the shipment of supplies, munitions, and equipment. Then, upon our entry into the war, our Government took over 109 German ships, which had been interned in American ports. In spite of the fact that their German crews had attempted to damage these ships so that they would be useless, American ingenuity had soon repaired the damage, and thousands of our boys went to defeat the Hun in these German-made vessels. Our boys were brought home in record breaking time, and with the German navy surrendered and the German U-boat swept off the sea, many of our finest battleships did "their bit" as transports. The Louisiana, shown in our picture, was engaged in this service