Doctor Wood. Modern Wizard of the Laboratory: The Story of an American Small Boy Who Became the Most Daring and Original Experimental Physicist of Our Day-but Never Grew Up

Sailing orders came for Wood, Senior, in August, directing him to join a group of Signal Corps officers who were to sail September 9, 1917, on the Adriatic. Like most of Wood’s experiences with military routine, this embarkation seemed to him puzzling and illogical. He was ordered on board two days before the boat was scheduled to sail — all with the greatest secrecy. The ship was docked on West Street in New York in full view of a group of saloons kept by German-Americans. If there were spies around, Wood reasoned, they would be in touch with the proprietors of these saloons, all of whom must have been able to see that the Adriatic was still in dock and that company after company of officers and men had gone on board. Wood says they could swarm all over the decks until the Adriatic started down the river, but once it got under way, they had to go below for fear some spy might be on the Jersey shore with a telescope. Finally, with all hands below and no smoking allowed, the Adriatic steamed down the North River and on its way to Halifax, where they were to join the other seven ships of the convoy.

I quote from Wood’s notes.

Several days out from Halifax harbor, we had our first boat drill. Each lifeboat and raft was put in command of an American officer; why I don’t know. “Our little group” consisted of Professor Augustus Trowbridge of Princeton, one of my closest friends since Berlin student days, Professor Theodore Lyman of Harvard, and three men from the Western Electric Company, Buckley and Shreeve in uniform and Colpitts in civilian disguise! Trowbridge and I were put in command of a life raft and its adjacent boat respectively, and I was ordered to bring the army squad assigned to my boat from the lower deck to the boat deck at 3:00 p.m. When the time came I discovered, to my relief, a sergeant in my group, and I ordered him to bring the squad to Boat 12 on the upper deck, for I felt sure that if I attempted to accomplish the maneuver I should end by marching the squad over the rail and into the ocean. After the drill was over, I dismissed my squad, and Trowbridge and I went below and had a couple of drinks. Later on I went up to the boat deck for a breath of air before dinner, and discovered Trowbridge’s squad still standing at ease by the boat. “What are you men doing here?” I asked. The sergeant grinned and said, “We’ve not been dismissed, sir”.

We sailed on night after night, the weather growing colder and colder, and the North Star climbing toward the zenith. One afternoon it occurred to Colpitts that it was the night of the autumnal equinox, on which both latitude and longitude can be calculated from the elevation of the North Star and the time of sunset. I made a quadrant out of two sticks of wood and a protractor. By sighting one stick on the horizon and the other on the star, I determined its elevation, given which Colpitts, who had timed the sunset, worked out our position in a few minutes. This news spread rapidly in the smoking-room, eventually reaching the bridge, throwing the ship’s officers into a frenzy, as all information regarding the course we were sailing was a dead secret. Next morning we discovered the ship’s officers had set all of the clocks available to passengers three-quarters of an hour ahead, to confuse and baffle the scientists aboard.

One afternoon we were asked to have tea with the Captain, who told us the destroyer escort would pick up our convoy about half past seven. By seven everyone was on deck scanning the horizon. Presently someone said, “There they are”, and sure enough there they were, four tiny black matchsticks outlined against the sky. Presently another four, a little to one side. So great was the speed of approach that you could visualize the curvature of the earth. It was almost like watching a motorcar coming over a hill top. Presently they were all around us, and one slim gray craft with a wicked-looking, scarlet red, four-inch gun in her bow slipped by within a few yards of the Adriatic, and five hundred Americans cheered themselves hoarse.

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After a dramatic trip from Liverpool to Southampton in five trains, each with a double locomotive, they finally arrived at Havre at five on a September morning, and were ordered to proceed to British Rest Camp No. 2, which they were told was on top of a hill about two miles from the city. There they were to await orders for transportation to Paris.

They waited on the dock for some time and then began to question themselves whether “the long, low, gray cars” which were provided as transportation for officers in the stories of war correspondents would materialize! Finally, they realized that they were expected to go on foot. So they marched up the dock, feeling very important — four majors and a captain, all in brand new Rogers Peet uniforms — with their coats unbuttoned and their hands in their pockets.