Only those officers and men who served afloat in the years immediately preceding the opening of hostilities know how great the struggle was to gain that high pitch of efficiency which the Navy had reached at the outbreak of war, and it was the devotion to duty of our magnificent pre-war personnel that went far to ensure our victory.

It is essential that the Navy of the future should not be given a yet harder task than fell to the Navy of the past as a result of a policy of starving the personnel.
There is, perhaps, just one other point upon which I might touch in conclusion.

I would venture to suggest to my countrymen that there should be a full realization of the fact that the Naval Service as a whole is a highly specialized profession.

It is one in which the senior officers have passed the whole of their lives, and during their best years their thoughts are turned constantly in one direction--namely, how they can best fit the Navy and themselves for possible war.

The country as a whole has probably but little idea of the great amount of technical knowledge that is demanded of the naval officer in these days.