 During World War I, the U.S. Government needed to train men in the Navy, Coast Guard and Merchant Marine to become operators of small boats, including landing craft, utility craft, gigs, patrol craft.Then Assistant U.S. Secretary of the Navy, Franklin D. Roosevelt, commissioned Chapman to write a manual that could be used to help provide that training.Chapman did this in just three days, drawing largely on articles that had appeared in "Motor Boating Magazine".