The Adventure Club with the fleet by Ralph Henry Barbour
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"The Adventure Club with the fleet" by Ralph Henry Barbour is a juvenile adventure novel written in the early 20th century. It follows American college friends—chiefly Steve Chapman and Joe Ingersoll—who enlist in the Navy as the U.S. enters World War I, train up, cross the Atlantic, and join a destroyer hunting submarines near the British Isles. Expect brisk sea action, technical ship detail, and a patriotic coming‑of‑age focus on friendship, duty,
and courage. The opening of the novel begins with the U.S. declaration of war and the contrasting reactions of Steve, who is eager to enlist, and Joe, who hesitates on moral grounds until a visit from their friend Hanford and a stirring appeal to duty tip him toward service. The boys join the Navy, endure inoculations, close‑quarters barracks, “suds drill,” and basic seamanship at Newport, then are rushed aboard a transport via Halifax, crossing under convoy amid U‑boat precautions and seasickness. They land at Plymouth, are sent on to Queenstown, Ireland, and are assigned together to the destroyer U.S.S. Warren. A tour of the lean, businesslike ship introduces its guns, torpedo tubes, tight spaces, officers, and the rough, rolling life of a destroyer, with Joe dreading seasickness and gunner’s mate Hearn offering blunt humor and hard facts. The section closes with practical talk of patrol work and false periscope alarms, setting the stage for frontline anti‑submarine duty. (This is an automatically generated summary.)
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About this eBook
| Author | Barbour, Ralph Henry, 1870-1944 |
|---|---|
| Illustrator | Caswell, Edward C., 1879-1963 |
| LoC No. | 18018535 |
| Title | The Adventure Club with the fleet |
| Original Publication | New York: Dodd, Mead and Company, 1918. |
| Credits | Produced by Donald Cummings and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at www.pgdp.net (from images made available by the HathiTrust Digital Library). |
| Language | English |
| LoC Class | PZ: Language and Literatures: Juvenile belles lettres |
| Subject | Sea stories |
| Subject | World War, 1914-1918 -- Naval operations, American -- Juvenile fiction |
| Category | Text |
| eBook-No. | 78754 |
| Release Date | May 26, 2026 |
| Copyright | Public domain in the USA. |
| Downloads | 461 downloads in the last 30 days. |
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