Probably the most completely equipped aviation centre which we constructed was that at Pauillac, France, under the command of Captain F. T. Evans, U.S.N.; here we built accommodation for 20,000 men; we had here what would have eventually been a great airplane factory; had the war continued six months longer, we would have been turning out planes in this place on a scale almost large enough to supply our needs. The far-sighted judgment and the really extraordinary professional ability of civil engineers D. G. Copeland and A. W. K. Billings made such work possible, but only, I might add, with the hearty co-operation of Lieutenant-Commander Benjamin Briscoe and his small band of loyal and devoted co-workers. Another great adventure was the establishment of our Northern Bombing Group, under the command of Captain David C. Hanrahan, U.S.N.; here we had 112 planes, 305 officers, and more than 2,000 enlisted personnel, who devoted all of their attention to bombing German submarine bases at Zeebrugge and Ostend. This enterprise was a joint one with the marines under the command of Major A. A. Cunningham, an experienced pilot and an able administrator, who performed all of his various duties not only to my entire satisfaction but in a manner which reflected the greatest credit to himself as well as to the Marine Corps of which he was a worthy representative. Due to the fact that the rapidity of our construction work had exceeded that with which airplanes were being built at home, we entered into an agreement with the Italian Government whereby we obtained a number of Cap.r.o.ni planes in exchange for raw materials. Several of these large bombing airplanes were successfully flown over the Alps to the fields of Flanders, under the direction of Lieutenant-Commander E. O. MacDonnell, who deserves the greatest credit for the energetic and resourceful manner in which he executed this difficult task.
In September, 1918, Captain Cone"s duties took him to Ireland; the ship on which he sailed, the _Leinster_, was torpedoed in the Irish Sea; Captain Cone was picked up unconscious in the water, and, when taken to the hospital, it was discovered that both his legs were broken. It was therefore necessary to appoint another officer in his stead, and I selected Lieutenant W. A. Edwards, who had served with credit on the destroyer _Cushing_, and who, for some time, had been second in command to Captain Cone in the aviation section. It was almost unprecedented to put at the head of such an important branch a young lieutenant who had only been out of the naval academy for a few years; ordinarily the duties would have required a man of Admiral"s rank. Lieutenant Edwards, however, was not only extremely capable, but he had the gift of getting along splendidly with our Allies, particularly the British, with whom our intercourse was necessarily extensive, and with whom he was very popular. He remained in charge of the department for the rest of the war, winning golden opinions from his superiors and his subordinates, and the Distinguished Service Order from King George.
The armistice was signed before our aviation work had got completely into running order. Yet its accomplishments were highly creditable; and had the war lasted a little longer they would have reached great proportions. Of the thirty-nine direct attacks made on submarines, ten were, in varying degrees, "successful." Perhaps the most amazing hit made by any seaplane in the war was that scored by Ensign Paul F. Ives; he dropped a bomb upon a submarine, striking it directly on its deck; the result was partly tragical, partly ludicrous, for the bomb proved to be a "dud" and did not explode! In commenting upon this and another creditable attack, the British Admiralty wrote as follows:
I beg to enclose for your information reports of attacks made on two enemy submarines on the 25th March by Pilot Ensign J. F.
McNamara, U.S.N., and Pilot Ensign P. F. Ives, U.S.N.
The Admiralty are of opinion that the submarine attacked by Pilot Ensign McNamara was damaged and that the attack of Pilot Ensign Ives might also have been successful had not his bombs failed to explode, which was due to no fault of his own.
I should add that Wing Commander, Portsmouth Group has expressed his appreciation of the valuable a.s.sistance rendered by the United States Pilots.
At the cessation of hostilities we had a total of more than 500 planes of various descriptions actually in commission, a large number of which were in actual operation over the North Sea, the Irish Sea, the Bay of Biscay, and the Adriatic; our bombing planes were making frequent flights over enemy submarine bases, and 2,500 officers and 22,000 enlisted men were making raids, doing patrols, bombing submarines, bombing enemy bases, taking photographs, making reconnaissance over enemy waters, and engaging enemy aircraft. There can be no doubt but that this great force was a factor in persuading the enemy to acknowledge defeat when he did. A few simple comparisons will ill.u.s.trate the gigantic task which confronted us and the difficulties which were successfully overcome in the establishment of our naval aviation force on foreign service. If all the buildings constructed and used for barracks for officers and men were joined end to end, they would stretch for a distance of twelve miles. The total cubic contents of all structures erected and used could be represented by a box 245 ft.
wide, 300 ft. long, and 1,500 ft. high. In such a box more than ten Woolworth buildings could be easily placed. Twenty-nine telephone exchanges were installed, and in addition connections were made to existing long-distance lines in England and France, and approximately 800 miles of long-distance lines were constructed in Ireland, so that every station could be communicated with from London headquarters. The lumber used for construction work would provide a board-walk one foot wide, extending from New York City to the Isle of Malta--a distance of more than 4,000 miles.
When we consider the fact that during the war naval aviation abroad grew in personnel to be more than one-half the size of the entire pre-war American navy, it is not at all astonishing that all of those regular officers who had been trained in this service were employed almost exclusively in an administrative capacity, which naturally excluded them from taking part in the more exciting work of bombing submarines and fighting aircraft. To their credit be it said that they chafed considerably under this enforced restraint, but they were so few in number that we had to employ them not in command of seaplanes, but of air stations where they rendered the most valuable service.
For the reserves I entertain the very highest regard and even personal affection. Collectively they were magnificent and they reflected the greatest credit upon the country they served so gallantly and with such brilliant success. I know of no finer individual exploit in the war than that of Ensign C. H. Hammon who, while attached to our Air Station at Porto Corsini, took part in a bombing raid on Pola, in which he engaged two enemy airplanes and as a result had his plane hit in several places.
During this engagement a colleague, Ensign G. H. Ludlow, was shot down.
Ensign Hammon went to his rescue, landed his boat on the water just outside of Pola harbour, picked up the stricken aviator, and flew back to Porto Corsini, a distance of seventy-five miles. A heavy sea made it highly probable that his frail boat, already damaged by his combat with the enemy, would collapse and that he would be drowned or captured and made a prisoner of war. For this act of courageous devotion to duty I recommended Ensign Hammon for the Congressional Medal of Honour.
The mention of this officer calls to my mind the exploits of Lieutenant-Commander A. L. Gates, who was the second of only three officers attached to the Naval Forces in Europe whom I recommended for the Congressional Medal of Honour. The citation in the case of Gates reads as follows and needs no elaboration to prove the calibre of the man: "This officer commanded the U.S. Naval Air Station, Dunkirk, France, with very marked efficiency and under almost constant sh.e.l.l and bomb fire from the enemy. Alone and unescorted he rescued the crew of a British airplane wrecked in the sea off Ostend, for which he was awarded the Distinguished Flying Cross by the British Government. This act of bravery was actually over and above the duties required of this officer and in itself demonstrates the highest type of courage.
Lieutenant-Commander Gates took part in a number of flights over the enemy lines and was shot down in combat and taken prisoner by the enemy.
He made several heroic and determined attempts to escape. During all of his service this officer was a magnificent example of courage, modesty, and energetic devotion to duty. He at all times upheld the very highest traditions of the Naval Service."
Volumes could well be written about the work of these splendid young Americans--of how Ensign Stephen Potter shot down in flames an enemy seaplane from a position over Heligoland Bight; unfortunately he made the supreme sacrifice only a month later when he in turn was shot down in flames and fell to his resting-place in the North Sea; and of De Cernea and Wilc.o.x and Ludlow. Theirs was the spirit which dominated the entire Force and which made it possible to accomplish what seemed at times to be almost the impossible. It was the superior "will to victory"
which proved to be invincible.
CHAPTER XII
THE NAVY FIGHTING ON THE LAND
Besides transporting American troops, the Navy, in one detail of its work, actually partic.i.p.ated in warfare on the Western Front. Though this feature of our effort has nothing to do with the main subject, the defeat of the submarine, yet any account of the American navy in the war which overlooks the achievements of our naval batteries on land would certainly be incomplete. The use of naval guns in war operations was not unprecedented; the British used such guns in the Boer War, particularly at Ladysmith and Spion Kop; and there were occasions in which such armament rendered excellent service in the Boxer Rebellion. All through the Great War, British, French, and Germans frequently reinforced their army artillery with naval batteries. But, compared with the American naval guns which under the command of Rear-Admiral Charles P. Plunkett performed such telling deeds against the retreating Germans in the final phases of the conflict, all previous equipment of naval guns on sh.o.r.e had been less efficient in one highly important respect.
For the larger part of the war, the Germans had had a great gun stationed in Belgium bombarding Dunkirk. The original purpose in sending American naval batteries to France was to silence this gun. The proposal was made in November, 1917; but, rapidly as the preparations progressed, the situation had entirely changed before our five fourteen-inch guns were ready to leave for France. In the spring of 1918 the Germans began the great drive which nearly took them to the Channel ports; and under the conditions which prevailed in that area it was impossible to send our guns to the Belgian coast. Meanwhile, the enemy had stationed a gun, having a range of nearly seventy-five miles, in the forest of Compiegne; the sh.e.l.ls from this weapon, constantly falling upon Paris, were having a more demoralizing effect upon the French populace than was officially admitted. The demand for the silencing of this gun came from all sides; and it was a happy coincidence that, at just about the time when this new peril appeared, the American naval guns were nearly ready to be transported to France. Encouraged by the success of this long-range gun on Paris, the Germans were preparing long-range bombardments on several sections of the front. They had taken huge guns from the new battle-cruiser _Hindenburg_ and mounted them at convenient points for bombarding Dunkirk, Chalons-sur-Marne, and Nancy. In all, the Allied intelligence departments reported that sixteen guns of great calibre had left Kiel in May, 1918, and that they would soon be trained upon important objectives in France. For this reason it was welcome news to the Allies, who were deficient in this type of artillery, that five naval fourteen-inch guns, with mountings and ammunition and supply trains, were ready to embark for the European field. The Navy received an urgent request from General Pershing that these guns should be landed at St. Nazaire; it was to be their main mission to destroy the "Big Bertha" which was raining sh.e.l.ls on Paris, and to attack specific points, especially railroad communications and the bridges across the Rhine.
The initiative in the design of these mobile railway batteries was taken by the Bureau of Ordnance of the Navy Department, under Rear-Admiral Ralph Earle, and the details of the design were worked out by the officers of that bureau and Admiral Plunkett. The actual construction of the great gun mounts on the cars from which the guns were to be fired, and of the specially designed cars of the supply trains for each gun, was an engineering feat which reflects great credit upon the Baldwin Locomotive Works and particularly upon its president, Mr. Samuel M.
Vauclain, who undertook the task with the greatest enthusiasm. The reason why our naval guns represented a greater achievement than anything of a similar nature accomplished by the Germans was that they were mobile. Careful observations taken of the bombardment of Dunkirk revealed the fact that the gun with which it was being done was steadily losing range. This indicated that the weapon was not a movable one, but that it was firmly implanted in a fixed position. The seventy-five mile gun which was bombarding Paris was similarly emplaced. The answering weapon which our ordnance department now proposed to build was to have the ability to travel from place to place--to go to any position to which the railroad system of France could take it. To do this it would be necessary to build a mounting on a railroad car and to supply cars which could carry the crews, their sleeping quarters, their food and ammunition; to construct, indeed, a whole train for each separate gun.
This equipment must be built in the United States, shipped over three thousand miles of ocean, landed at a French port, a.s.sembled there, and started on French railroads to the several destinations at the front.
The Baldwin Locomotive Works accepted the contract for constructing these mountings and attendant cars; it began work February 13, 1918; two months afterward the first mount had been finished and the gun was being proved at Sandy Hook, New Jersey; and by July all five guns had arrived at St. Nazaire and were being prepared to be sent forward to the scene of hostilities. The rapidity with which this work was completed furnished an ill.u.s.tration of American manufacturing genius at its best.
Meanwhile, Admiral Plunkett had collected and trained his crews; it speaks well for the _moral_ of the Navy that, when news of this great operation was first noised about, more than 20,000 officers and men volunteered for the service.
At first the French, great as was their admiration for these guns and the astonishingly accurate marksmanship which they had displayed on their trials, believed that their railroad beds and their bridges could not sustain such a weight; the French engineers, indeed, declined at the beginning to approve our request for the use of their rails. The constant rain of German sh.e.l.ls on Paris, however, modified this att.i.tude; the situation was so urgent that such a.s.sistance as these American guns promised was welcome. One August morning, therefore, the first train started for h.e.l.les Mouchy, the point from which it was expected to silence the "Big Bertha." The progress of this train through France was a triumphant march. Our own confidence in the French road bed and bridges was not much greater than that of the French themselves; the train therefore went along slowly, climbed the grades at a snail"s pace, and took the curves with the utmost caution. As they crossed certain of the bridges, the crews held their breath and sat tight, expecting almost every moment to crash through. All along the route the French populace greeted the great battery train with one long cheer, and at the towns and villages the girls decorated the long muzzle of the gun with flowers. But there were other spectators than the French. Expertly as this unusual train had been camouflaged, the German airplane observers had detected its approach. As it neared the objective the sh.e.l.ls that had been falling on Paris ceased; before the Americans could get to work, the Germans had removed their mighty weapon, leaving nothing but an emplacement as a target for our sh.e.l.ls. Though our men were therefore deprived of the privilege of destroying this famous long-range gun, it is apparent that their arrival saved Paris from further bombardment, for nothing was heard of the gun for the rest of the war.
The guns proved exceedingly effective in attacking German railroad centres, bridges, and other essential positions; and as they could be fired from any point of the railroad tracks behind the Western Front, and as they could be shifted from one position to another, with all their personnel and equipment, as fast as the locomotives could haul them, it was apparent that the more guns of this design that could be supplied the better. These qualities were at once recognized by the Army, which called upon the Navy for a.s.sistance in building a large number of railway batteries; and if the war had continued these great guns would soon have been thundering all along the Western Front.
From the time the naval guns were mounted until the armistice Admiral Plunkett"s men were busy on several points of the Allied lines. In this time the five naval guns fired 782 sh.e.l.ls at distances ranging from 18 to 23 miles. They played great havoc in the railroad yards at Laon, destroying large stretches of track that were indispensable to the Germans, and in general making this place practically useless as a railroad centre. Probably the greatest service which they rendered to the cause of the Allies was in the region north of Verdun. In late October three naval batteries were brought up to Charny and Thierville and began bombarding the railroad which ran through Montmedy, Longuyon, and Conflans. This was the most important line of communication on the Western Front; it was the road over which the German army in the east was supplied, and there was practically no other line by which the great German armies engaging the Americans could escape. From October 23rd to the hour when the armistice was signed our fourteen-inch guns were raining sh.e.l.ls upon this road. So successful was this bombardment that the German traffic was stopped, not only while the firing was taking place, but for several hours each day after it had ceased. What this meant to the success of the Allied armies the world now knows. The result is perfectly summed up in General Pershing"s report:
"Our large calibre guns," he says, "had advanced and were skilfully brought into position to fire upon the important lines at Montmedy, Longuyon, and Conflans; the strategical goal which was our highest hope was gained. We had cut the enemy"s main line of communications and nothing but surrender or an armistice could save his army from complete disaster."
These guns were, of course, only one of many contributing factors, but that the Navy had its part in this great achievement is another example of the success with which our two services co-operated with each other throughout the war--a co-operation which, for efficient and harmonious devotion to a common cause, has seldom, if ever, been equalled.
CHAPTER XIII
TRANSPORTING TWO MILLION AMERICAN SOLDIERS TO FRANCE
I
In March, 1918, it became apparent that the German submarine campaign had failed. The prospect that confronted the Allied forces at that time, when compared with the conditions which had faced them in April, 1917, forms one of the most impressive contrasts in history. In the first part of the earlier year the cause of the Allied Powers, and consequently the cause of liberty throughout the world, had reached the point almost of desperation. On both land and sea the Germans seemed to hold the future in their hands. In Europe the armies of the Central Powers were everywhere in the ascendant. The French and British were holding their own in France, and in the Somme campaign they had apparently inflicted great damage upon the German forces, yet the disintegration of the Russian army, the unmistakable signs of which had already appeared, was bringing nearer the day when they would have to meet the undivided strength of their enemy. At the time in question, Rumania, Serbia, and Montenegro were conquered countries, and Italy seemed unable to make any progress against the Austrians. Bulgaria and Turkey had become practically German provinces, and the dream of a great Germanic eastern empire was rapidly approaching realization. So strong was Germany in a military sense, so little did she apprehend that the United States could ever a.s.semble her resources and her men in time to make them a decisive element in the struggle, that the German war lords, in their effort to bring the European conflict to a quick conclusion, did not hesitate to take the step which was destined to make our country their enemy.
Probably no nation ever adopted a war measure with more confidence in its success. The results which the German submarines could accomplish seemed at that time to be simply a matter of mathematical calculation.
The Germans estimated that they could sink at least 1,000,000 tons a month, completely cut off Great Britain"s supplies of food and war materials, and thus end the war by October or November of 1917. Even though the United States should declare war, what could an unprepared nation like our own accomplish in such a brief period? Millions of troops we might indeed raise, but we could not train them in three or four months, and, even though we could perform such a miracle, it was ridiculous to suppose that we could transport them to Europe through the submarine danger zone. I have already shown that the Germans were not alone in thus predicting the course of events. In the month of April, 1917, I had found the Allied officials just about as distressed as the Germans were jubilant. Already the latter, in sinking merchant ships, had had successes which almost equalled their own predictions; no adequate means of defence against the submarine had been devised; and the chiefs of the British navy made no attempts to disguise their apprehension for the future.
Such was the atmosphere of gloom which prevailed in Allied councils in April, 1917; yet one year later the naval situation had completely changed. The reasons for that change have been set forth in the preceding pages. In that brief twelve months the relative position of the submarine had undergone a marked transformation. Instead of being usually the pursuer it was now often the pursued. Instead of sailing jauntily upon the high seas, sinking helpless merchantmen almost at will, it was half-heartedly lying in wait along the coasts, seeking its victims in the vessels of dispersed convoys. If it attempted to push out to sea, and attack a convoy, escorting destroyers were likely to deliver one of their dangerous attacks; if it sought the shallower coastal waters, a fleet of yachts, sloops, and subchasers was constantly ready to a.s.sail it with dozens of depth charges. An attempt to pa.s.s through the Straits of Dover meant almost inevitable destruction by mines; an attempt to escape into the ocean by the northern pa.s.sage involved the momentary dread of a similar end or the hazard of navigating the difficult Pentland Firth. In most of the narrow pa.s.sages Allied submarines lay constantly in wait with their torpedoes; a great fleet of airplanes and dirigibles was always circling above ready to rain a shower of bombs upon the under-water foe. Already the ocean floor about the British Isles held not far from 200 sunken submarines, with most of their crews, amounting to at least 4,000 men, whose deaths involved perhaps the most hideous tragedies of the war. Bad as was this situation, it was nothing compared with what it would become a few months or a year later. American and British shipyards were turning out anti-submarine craft with great rapidity; the industries of America, with their enormous output of steel, had been enlisted in the anti-submarine campaign. The American and British shipbuilding facilities were neutralizing the German campaign in two ways: they were not only constructing war vessels on a scale which would soon drive all the German submarines from the sea, but they were building merchant tonnage so rapidly that, in March, 1918, more new tonnage was launched than was being destroyed. Thus by this time the Teutonic hopes of ending the war by the submarine had utterly collapsed; if the Germans were to win the war at all, or even to obtain a peace which would not be disastrous, some other programme must be adopted and adopted quickly.
Disheartened by their failure at sea, the enemy therefore turned their eyes once more toward the land. The destruction of Russian military power had given the German armies a great numerical superiority over those of the Allies. There seemed little likelihood that the French or the British, after three years of frightfully gruelling war, could add materially to their forces. Thus, with the grouping of the Powers, such as existed in 1917, the Germans had a tremendous advantage on their side, for Russia, which German statesmen for fifty years had feared as a source of inexhaustible man-supply to her enemies, had disappeared as a military power. But a new element in the situation now counterbalanced this temporary gain; that was the daily increasing importance of the United States in the war. The Germans, who in 1917 had despised us as an enemy, immediate or prospective, now despised us no longer. The army which they declared could never be raised and trained was actually being raised and trained by the millions. The nation which their publicists had denounced as lacking cohesion and public spirit had adopted conscription simultaneously with their declaration of war, and the people whom the Germans had affected to regard as devoted only to the pursuit of gain and pleasure had manifested a unity of purpose which they had never before displayed, and had offered their lives, their labours, and their wealth without limit to the cause of the Allies. Up to March, 1918, only a comparatively small part of this American army had reached Europe, but the Germans had already tested its fighting quality and had learned to respect it. Yet all these manifestations would not have disturbed the Germanic calculations except for one depressing fact. Even a nation of 100,000,000 brave and energetic people, fully trained and equipped for war, is not a formidable foe so long as an impa.s.sable watery gulf of three thousand miles separates them from the field of battle.
For the greater part of 1917 the German people believed that their submarines could bar the progress of the American armies. By March, 1918, they had awakened from this delusion. Not only was an American army millions strong in process of formation, but the alarming truth now dawned upon the Germans that it could be transported to Europe. The great industries of America could provide munitions and food to supply any number of soldiers indefinitely, and these, too, could be brought to the Western Front. Outwardly, the German chiefs might still affect to despise this new foe, but in their hearts they knew that it spelt their doom. They were not now dealing with a corrupt Czardom and hordes of ignorant and pa.s.sionless Slavs, who could be eliminated by propaganda and sedition; they were dealing with millions of intelligent and energetic freemen, all animated by a mighty and almost religious purpose. Yet the situation, desperate as it seemed, held forth one more hope. If the German armies, which still greatly outnumbered the French and British, could strike and win a decisive victory before the Americans could arrive, then they might still force a satisfactory peace. "It is a race between Ludendorff and Wilson" is the terse and accurate way in which Lloyd George summed up the situation. The great blow fell on March 21, 1918; the British and the French met it with heroism, but it was quite evident that they were fighting against terrible odds. At this time the American army in France numbered about 300,000 men; it now became the business of the American navy, a.s.sisted by the British, to transport the American troops who could increase these forces sufficiently to turn the balance in the Allies" favour.
The supreme hour, to which all the anti-submarine labours of the preceding year were merely preliminary, had now arrived. Since the close of the war there has been much discussion of the part which the American navy played in bringing it to a successful end. Even during the war there was some criticism on this point. There were two more or less definite opinions in the public mind upon this question. One was that the main business of our war vessels was to convoy the American soldiers to France; the other emphasized the anti-submarine warfare as its most important duty. Anyone would suppose, from the detached way in which these two subjects have been discussed, that the anti-submarine warfare and the successful transportation of troops were separate matters. An impression apparently prevails that, at the beginning of the war, the American navy could have quietly decided whether it would devote its energies to making warfare on the submarine or to convoying American armies; yet the absurdity of such a conception must be apparent to anyone who has read the foregoing pages. The several operations in which the Allied navies engaged were all part of a comprehensive programme; they were all interdependent. According to my idea, the business of the American navy was to join its forces whole-heartedly with those of the Allies in the effort _to win the war_. Anything which helped to accomplish this great purpose became automatically our duty. Germany was basing her chances of success upon the submarine; our business was therefore to a.s.sist in defeating the submarine. The cause of the Allies was our cause; our cause was the cause of the Allies; anything which benefited the Allies benefited the United States; and anything which benefited the United States benefited the Allies. Neither we nor France nor England were conducting a separate campaign; we were separate units of an harmonious whole. At the beginning the one pressing duty was to put an end to the sinking of merchantmen, not because these merchantmen were for the larger part British, but because the failure to do so would have meant the elimination of Great Britain from the war, with results which would have meant defeat for the other Allies. Let us imagine, for a moment, what the sequence of events would have been had the submarine campaign against merchant shipping succeeded; in that case Britain and France would have been compelled to surrender unconditionally and the United States would therefore have been forced to fight the Central Empires alone. Germany"s terms of peace would have included the surrender of all the Allied fleets; this would eventually have left the United States navy to fight the German navy reinforced by the ships of Great Britain, Austria, France, and Italy. In such a contest we should have been outnumbered about three or four to one. I have such confidence in the power and purpose of America as to believe that, even in a single-handed conflict with Germany, we should have won in the end; but it is evident that the problem would have been quite a different one from that of fighting in co-operation with the Allies against the Germanic foe.
Simply as a matter of self-interest and strategy it was certainly wisdom to throw the last ounce of our strength into the scale of the Allied navies; and it was therefore inevitable that we should first of all use our anti-submarine craft to protect all shipping sailing to Europe and to clear the sea of submarines. In doing this we were protecting the food supply not only of Great Britain, but of France and our other Allies, for most of the materials which we sent to our European friends were transported first to England and thence were shipped across the Channel. Moreover, our twelve months" campaign against the submarine was an invaluable preliminary to transporting the troops. Does any sane person believe that we could have put two million Americans into France had the German submarines maintained until the spring and summer of 1918 the striking power which had been theirs in the spring of 1917? Merely to state the question is to answer it. In that same twelve months we had gained much experience which was exceedingly valuable when we began transporting troops in great numbers. The most efficacious protection to merchant shipping, the convoy, was similarly the greatest safeguard to our military transports. Those methods which had been so successfully used in shipping food, munitions, and materials were now used in shipping soldiers. The section of the great headquarters which we had developed in London for routing convoys was used for routing transports, and the American naval officer, Captain Byron A. Long, who had demonstrated such great ability in this respect, was likewise the master mind in directing the course of the American soldiers to France.
In other ways we had laid the foundations for this, the greatest troop movement in history. In the preceding twelve months we had increased the oil tankage at Brest more than fourfold, sent over repair ships, and augmented its repair facilities. This port and all of our naval activities in France were under the command first of Rear-Admiral Wm. B.
Fletcher, and later Rear-Admiral Henry B. Wilson. It was a matter of regret that we could not earlier have made Brest the main naval base for the American naval forces in France, for it was in some respects strategically better located for that purpose than was any other port in Europe. Even for escorting certain merchant convoys into the Channel Brest would have provided a better base than either Plymouth or Queenstown. A glance at the map explains why. To send destroyers from Queenstown to pick up convoys and escort them into the Channel or to French ports and thence return to their base involved a long triangular trip; to send such destroyers from Brest to escort these involved a smaller amount of steaming and a direct east and west voyage. Similarly, Queenstown was a much better location for destroyers sent to meet convoys bound for ports in the Irish Sea over the northern "trunk line."
But unfortunately it was utterly impossible to use the great natural advantages of Brest in the early days of war; the mere fact that this French harbour possessed most inadequate tankage facilities put it out of the question, and it was also very deficient in docks, repair facilities, and other indispensable features of a naval base. At this time Brest was hardly more than able to provide for the requirements of the French, and it would have embarra.s.sed our French allies greatly had we attempted to establish a large American force there, before we had supplied the essential oil fuel and repair facilities. The ships which we did send in the first part of the war were mostly yachts, of the "dollar-a-year" variety, which their owners had generously given to the national service; their crews were largely of that type of young business man and college undergraduate to whose skill and devotion I have already paid tribute. This little flotilla acquitted itself splendidly up and down the coast of France. Meanwhile, we were constructing fuel-oil tanks; and as soon as these were ready and repair ships were available, we began building up a large force at Brest--a force which was ultimately larger than the one we maintained at Queenstown; at the height of the troop movements it comprised about 36 destroyers, 12 yachts, 3 tenders, and several mine-sweepers and tugs.
The fine work which this detachment accomplished in escorting troop and supply convoys is sufficient evidence of the skill acquired by the destroyers and other vessels in carrying out their duties in this peculiar warfare.
Meanwhile, on the other side of the Atlantic, a great organization had been created under the able direction of Rear-Admiral Albert Gleaves for maintaining and administering the fleet of transports and their ocean escorts. Also, as soon as war was declared the work was begun of converting into transports those German merchant ships which had been interned in American ports. The successful completion of this work was, in itself, a great triumph for the American navy. Of the vessels which the Germans had left in our hands, seventeen at New York, Boston, Norfolk, and Philadelphia, seemed to be adapted for transport purposes, but the Germans had not intended that we should make any such use of them. The condition of these ships, after their German custodians had left, was something indescribable; they reflected great discredit upon German seamanship, for it would have been impossible for any people which really loved ships to permit them to deteriorate as had these vessels and to become such cesspools of filth. For three years the Germans had evidently made no attempt to clean them; the sanitary conditions were so bad that our workmen could not sleep on board, but had to have sleeping quarters near the docks; they spent weeks scrubbing, sc.r.a.ping, and disinfecting, in a finally successful effort to make the ships suitable habitations for human beings. Not only had the Germans permitted such liners as the _Vaterland_ and the _Kronprinzessin Cecilie_ to go neglected, but, on their departure, they had attempted to injure them in all conceivable ways. The cylinders had been broken, engines had been smashed, vital parts of the machinery had been removed and thrown into the sea, ground gla.s.s had been placed in the oil cups, gunpowder had been placed in the coal--evidently in the hope of causing explosions when the vessels were at sea--and other damage of a more subtle nature had been done, it evidently being the expectation that the ships would break down when on the ocean and beyond the possibility of repair. Although our navy yards had no copies of the plans of these vessels or their machinery--the Germans having destroyed them all--and although the missing parts were of peculiarly German design, they succeeded, in an incredibly short time, in making them even better and speedier vessels than they had ever been before.
The national sense of humour did not fail the transport service when it came to rechristening these ships; the _Princess Irene_ became the _Pocahontas_, the _Rhein_ the _Susquehanna_; and there was also an ironic justice in the fact that the _Vaterland_, which had been built by the Germans partly for the purpose of transporting troops in war, actually fulfilled this mission, though not quite in the way which the Germans had antic.i.p.ated. Meanwhile, both the American and the British mercantile marines were supplementing this German tonnage. The first troops which we sent to France, in June, 1917, were transported in ships of the United Fruit Company; and when the German blow was struck, in March, 1918, both the United States and Great Britain began collecting from all parts of the world vessels which could be used as troop transports. We called in all available vessels from the Atlantic and Pacific coasts and the Great Lakes; England stripped her trade routes to South America, Australia, and the East, and France and Italy also made their contributions. Of all the American troops sent to France from the beginning of the war, the United States provided transports for 4625 per cent., Great Britain for 5125, the remainder being provided by France and Italy. Of those sent between March, 1918, and the armistice, American vessels carried 4215 per cent., British 5540 per cent.[8]
Yet there was one element in the safe transportation of troops which was even more fundamental than those which I have named. The basis of all our naval operations was the dreadnoughts and the battle-cruisers of the Grand Fleet. It was this aggregation, as I have already indicated, which made possible the operation of all the surface ships that destroyed the effectiveness of the submarines. Had the Grand Fleet suddenly disappeared beneath the waves, all these offensive craft would have been driven from the seas, the Allies" sea lines of communication would have been cut, and the war would have ended in Germany"s favour.
From the time the transportation of troops began the United States had a squadron of five dreadnought battleships constantly with the Grand Fleet. The following vessels performed this important duty: the _New York_, Captain C. F. Hughes, afterward Captain E. L. Beach; the _Wyoming_, Captain H. A. Wiley, afterward Captain H. H. Christy; the _Florida_, Captain Thomas Washington, afterward Captain M. M. Taylor; the _Delaware_, Captain A. H. Scales; the _Arkansas_, Captain W. H. G.
Bullard, afterward Captain L. R. de Steiguer; and the _Texas_, Captain Victor Blue. These vessels gave this great force an unquestioned preponderance, and made it practically certain that Germany would not attempt another general sea battle. Under Rear-Admiral Hugh Rodman, the American squadron performed excellent service and made the most favourable impression upon the chiefs of the Allied navies. Under the general policy of co-operation established throughout our European naval forces these vessels were quickly made a part of the Grand Fleet in so far as concerned their military operations. This was, of course, wholly essential to efficiency--a point the layman does not always understand--so essential, in fact, that it may be said that, if the Grand Fleet had gone into battle the day after our vessels joined, the latter might have decreased rather than increased the fighting efficiency of the whole; for, though our people and the British spoke the same language, the languages of the ships, that is, their methods of communication by signals, were wholly different. It was therefore our duty to stow our signal flags and books down below, and learn the British signal language. This they did so well that four days after their arrival they went out and manoeuvred successfully with the Grand Fleet. In the same way they adopted the British systems of tactics and fire control, and in every other way conformed to the established practices of the British. Too great praise cannot be given the officers and men of our squadron, not only for their efficiency and the cordiality of their co-operation, but for the patience with which they bore the almost continuous restriction to their ships, and the long vigil without the opportunity of a contact with the enemy forces. Just how well our ships succeeded in this essential co-operation was expressed by Admiral Sir David Beatty in the farewell speech which he made to them upon the day of their departure for home. He said in part:
"I want, first of all, to thank you, Admiral Rodman, the captains, officers, and ships" companies of the magnificent squadron, for the wonderful co-operation and the loyalty you have given to me and to my admirals; and the a.s.sistance that you have given us in every duty you had to undertake. The support which you have shown is that of true comradeship; and in time of stress, that is worth a very great deal.
"You will return to your own sh.o.r.es; and I hope in the sunshine, which Admiral Rodman tells me always shines there, you won"t forget your "comrades of the mist" and your pleasant a.s.sociations of the North Sea....
"I thank you again and again for the great part the Sixth Battle Squadron played in bringing about the greatest naval victory in history. I hope you will give this message to your comrades: "Come back soon. Good-bye and good luck!""