Indeed, the increase in numbers was so great that it became necessary to find additional housing room, and the offices of the Board of Education were taken over for the purpose.

It was felt that the increase in staff, though it involved, of course, very heavy expenditure, would be justified if it resulted in increased rapidity of production.

It will be readily understood that such an immense change in organization, one which I had promised to see through personally, and which was naturally much disliked by all the Admiralty departments, threw a vast volume of extra work on my shoulders, work which had no connexion with the operations of war, and this too at a period when the enemy's submarine campaign was at its height.

I should not have undertaken it but for the hope that the change would result in greatly increased production, particularly of warships and merchant ships.
The success of this new organization can only be measured by the results obtained, and by this standard, if it were possible to eliminate some of the varying and incalculable factors, we should be able to judge the extent to which the change was justified.

It was a change for which, under pressure, I bore a large share of responsibility, and it involved replacing, in the middle of a great war, an organization built up by experts well acquainted with naval needs by one in which a considerable proportion of the personnel had no previous experience of the work.