Rear Admiral Leigh C. Palmer, Chief of the Bureau of Navigation, to Secretary of the Navy Josephus Daniels
THE SECRETARY OF THE NAVY.
WASHINGTON.
April 20, 1917.
Memorandum for the Secretary
left by Admiral Palmer:
You are going to speak to the President1 tonight about getting two or three of the interned German vessels for use at each of the Yards for housing our recruits and reserves because we have no barracks and the training stations are not big enough to keep them until we actually put them on the naval vessels and on the merchant vessels that we are going to take over and use. There is a very great number of these men. They are coming in daily and there is now no place to put them. It is most necessary that we should have this authorization tonight or tomorrow morning so we can wire the Commandants.2
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Source Note: Cy, DLC-MSS, Josephus Daniels Papers, Special Correspondence, Roll 58. This memorandum was written on stationery.
Footnote 1: President Woodrow Wilson.
Footnote 2: A week later, the Navy announced that in New York interned German ships would be used as barracks to relieve overcrowding. Army and Navy Journal, 28 April 1917: 1117.
