LITMIR.BIZ

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vessels was very keen. They examined minutely all features that were new to them in the design and arrangement of guns, torpedoes, depth charges, and machines, freely exchanged information, and discussed proposed improvements in the friendliest possible spirit. Strangely enough, although the American destroyers carried greater fuel supplies than the British, they were rather more dainty and graceful in their lines, a fact which inspired a famous retort which rapidly passed through the ranks of both navies.

      "You know," remarked a British officer to an American, "I like the British destroyers better than the American. They look so much sturdier. Yours seem to me rather feminine in appearance."

      "Yes," replied the American, "that's so, but you must remember what Kipling says, 'The female of the species is more deadly than the male.'"

      The work of the Americans really began on the Sunday which followed their arrival; by this time they had established cordial relations with Admiral Bayly and were prepared to trust themselves unreservedly in his hands. He summoned the officers on this Sunday morning and talked with them a few moments before they started for the submarine zone; the time of their departure had been definitely fixed for the next day. In the matter of ceremonial greetings the Admiral was not strong, but when it came to discussing the business in hand he was the master of a convincing eloquence. The subject of his discourse was the responsibility that lay before our men; he spoke in sharp, staccato tones, making his points with the utmost precision, using no verbal flourishes or unnecessary words—looking at our men perhaps a little fiercely, and certainly impressing them with the fact that the work which lay before them was to be no summer holiday. As soon as the destroyers passed beyond the harbour defences, the Admiral began, death constantly lay before the men until they returned. There was only one safe rule to follow; days and even weeks might go by without seeing a submarine, but the men must assume that one was constantly watching them, looking for a favourable opportunity to discharge its torpedo. "You must not relax attention for an instant, or you may lose an opportunity to destroy a submarine or give her a chance to destroy you." It was the present intention to send the American destroyers out for periods of six days, giving them two days' rest between trips, and about once a month they were to have five days in port for boiler cleaning. And now the Admiral gave some details about the practical work at sea. Beware, he said, about ramming periscopes; these were frequently mere decoys for bombs and should be shelled. In picking up survivors of torpedoed vessels the men must be careful not to stop until thoroughly convinced that there were no submarines in the neighbourhood: "You must not risk the loss of your vessel in order to save the lives of a few people."

      The Admiral proclaimed the grim philosophy of this war when he told our men that it would be their first duty, should they see a ship torpedoed, not to go to the rescue of the survivors, but to go after the submarine. The three imperative duties of the destroyers were, in the order named: first, to destroy submarines; second, to convoy and protect merchant shipping; and third, to save the lives of the passengers and crews of torpedoed ships. No commander should ever miss an opportunity to destroy a submarine merely because there were a few men and women in small boats or in the water who might be saved. Admiral Bayly explained that to do this would be false economy: sinking a submarine meant saving far more lives than might be involved in a particular instance, for this vessel, if spared, would simply go on constantly destroying human beings. The Admiral then gave a large number of instructions in short, pithy sentences: "Do not use searchlights; do not show any lights whatever at night; do not strike any matches; never steam at a slower rate than thirteen knots; always zigzag, thereby preventing the submarine from plotting your position; always approach a torpedoed vessel with the sun astern; make only short signals; do not repeat the names of vessels; carefully watch all fishing vessels—they may be submarines in disguise—they even put up masts, sails, and funnels in this attempt to conceal their true character." The Admiral closed his remarks with a warning based upon his estimate of the character and methods of the enemy. In substance he said that were it not for the violations of the dictates of humanity and the well-established chivalry of the sea, he would have the greatest respect for the German submarine commanders. He cautioned our officers not to underrate them, and particularly emphasized their cleverness at what he termed "the art of irregularity." He explained this by saying that up to that time he had been unable to deduce from their operations any definite plan or tactics, and advised our commanders also to guard against any regularity of movement; they should never, for example, patrol from one corner to another of their assigned squares in the submarine zone, or adopt any other uniform practice which the enemy might soon perceive and of which he would probably take advantage.

      At the very moment that Admiral Bayly was giving these impressive instructions the submarine campaign had reached its crisis; the fortunes of the Allies had never struck so low a depth as at that time. An incident connected with our arrival, not particularly important in itself, brought home to our men the unsleeping vigilance of the enemy with whom they had to deal.

      Perhaps the Germans did not actually have advance information of the arrival of this first detachment of our destroyers; but they certainly did display great skill in divining what was to happen. At least it was a remarkable coincidence that for the first time in many months a submarine laid a mine-field directly off the entrance to Queenstown the day before our ships arrived. Soon afterward a parent ship of the destroyers reached this port and encountered the same welcome; and soon after that a second parent ship found a similar mine-field awaiting her arrival. The news that our destroyers had reached Queenstown actually appeared in the German papers several days before we had released it in the British and American press. Thanks to the vigilance and efficiency of the British mine-sweepers, however, the enemy gained nothing from all these preparations, for the channel was cleared of German mines before our vessels reached port.

      The night before the destroyers arrived, while some of the officers of my staff were dining with Admiral Bayly, the windows were shaken by heavy explosions made by the mines which the sweepers were dragging out. Admiral Bayly jokingly remarked that it was really a pity to interfere with such a warm welcome as had apparently been planned for our crusaders. Even the next night, while the destroyer officers were dining at Admiralty House, several odd mines exploded outside the channel that had been swept the previous day. This again impressed our men with the fact that the game which they had now entered was quite a different affair from their peace-time manœuvres.

      The Germans at that time were jubilant over the progress of their submarine campaign and, indeed, they had good reason to be. The week that our first flotilla reached Irish waters their submarines had destroyed 240,000 tons of Allied shipping; if the sinking should keep up at this rate, it meant losses of 1,000,000 tons a month and an early German victory.

      In looking over my letters of that period, I find many references that picture the state of the official mind. All that time I was keeping closely in touch with Ambassador Page, who was energetically seconding all my efforts to bring more American ships across the Atlantic.

      "It remains a fact," I wrote our Ambassador, "that at present the enemy is succeeding and that we are failing. Ships are being sunk faster than they can be replaced by the building facilities of the world. This simply means that the enemy is winning the war. There is no mystery about that. The submarines are rapidly cutting the Allies' lines of communication. When they are cut, or sufficiently interfered with, we must accept the enemy's terms."

      Six days before our destroyers put in at Queenstown I sent this message to Mr. Page:

      Allies do not now command the sea. Transport of troops and supplies strained to the utmost and the maintenance of the armies in the field is threatened.

      Such, then, was the situation when our little destroyer flotilla first went to sea to do battle with the submarine.

      II

      Admiral Sir Lewis Bayly, who now became the commander of the American destroyers at Queenstown, so far as their military operations were concerned, had spent fifty years in the British navy, forty years of this time actually at sea. This ripe experience, combined with a great natural genius for salt water, had made him one of the most efficient men in the service. In what I have already said, I may have given a slightly false impression of the man; that he was taciturn, that he was generally regarded as a hard taskmaster, that he never made friends at the first meeting, that he was more interested

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