III

The Admiralty in London was thus the central nervous system of a complicated but perfectly working organism which reached the remotest corners of the world. Wherever there was a port, whether in South America, Australia, or in the most inaccessible parts of India or China, from which merchantmen sailed to any of the other countries which were involved in the war, representatives of the British navy and the British Government were stationed, all working harmoniously with shipping men in the effort to get their cargoes safely through the danger zones. These danger zones occupied a comparatively small area surrounding the belligerent countries, but the safeguarding of the ships was an elaborate process which began far back in the countries from which the commerce started. Until about July, 1917, the world's shipping for the most part had been unregulated; now for the first time it was arranged in hard and fast routes and despatched in accordance with schedules as fixed as those of a great railroad. The whole management of convoys, indeed, bore many resemblances to the method of handling freight cars on the American system of transcontinental lines. In the United States there are several great headquarters of freight, sometimes known as "gateways," places, that is, at which freight cars are assembled from a thousand places, and from which the great accumulations are routed to their destinations. Such places are Pittsburg, Buffalo, St. Louis, Chicago, Minneapolis, Denver, San Francisco—to mention only a few. Shipping destined for the belligerent nations was similarly assembled, in the years 1917 and 1918, at six or eight great ocean "gateways," and there formed into convoys for "through routing" to the British Isles, France, and the Mediterranean. Only a few of the ships that were exceptionally fast—speed in itself being a particularly efficacious protection against submarines—were permitted to ignore this routing system, and dash unprotected through the infested area. This was a somewhat dangerous procedure even for such ships, however, and they were escorted whenever destroyers were available. All other vessels, from whatever parts of the world they might come, were required to sail first for one of these great assembling points, or "gateways"; and at these places they were added to one of the constantly forming convoys. Thus all shipping which normally sailed to Europe around the Cape of Good Hope proceeded up the west coast of Africa until it reached the port of Dakar or Sierra Leone, where it joined the convoy. Shipping from the east coast of South America—ports like Rio de Janeiro, Bahia, Buenos Aires, and Montevideo—instead of sailing directly to Europe, joined the convoy at this same African town. Vessels which came to Britain and France by way of Suez and Mediterranean ports found their great stopping place at Gibraltar—a headquarters of traffic which, in the huge amount of freight which it "created," became almost the Pittsburg of this mammoth transportation system. The four "gateways" for North America and the west coast of South America were Sydney (Cape Breton), Halifax, New York, and Hampton Roads. The grain-laden merchantmen from the St. Lawrence valley rendezvoused at Sydney and Halifax. Vessels from Portland, Boston, New York, Philadelphia, and other Atlantic points found their assembling headquarters at New York, while ships from Baltimore, Norfolk, the Gulf of Mexico, and the west coast of South America proceeded to the great convoy centre which had been established at Hampton Roads.

In the convoy room of the Admiralty these aggregations of ships were always referred to as the "Dakar convoy," the "Halifax convoy," the "Hampton Roads convoy," and the like. When the system was completely established the convoys sailed from their appointed headquarters on regular schedules, like railroad trains. From New York one convoy departed every sixteen days for the west coast of England and one left every sixteen days for the east coast. From Hampton Roads one sailed every eight days to the west coast and one every eight days to the east coast, and convoys from all the other convoy points maintained a similarly rigid schedule. The dates upon which these sailings took place were fixed, like the arrivals and departures of trains upon a railroad time-table, except when it became necessary to delay the sailing of a convoy to avoid congestion of arrivals. According to this programme, the first convoy to the west coast left New York on August 14, 1917, and its successors thereafter sailed at intervals of about sixteen days. The instructions sent to shipmasters all over the world, by way of the British consulates, gave explicit details concerning the method of assembling their convoys.

Here, for example, was a ship at New York, all loaded and ready to sail for the war zone. The master visited the port officer at the British consulate, who directed him to proceed to Gravesend Bay, anchor his vessel, and report to the convoy officers for further instructions. The merchant captain, reaching this indicated spot, usually found several other vessels on hand, all of them, like his ship, waiting for the sailing date. The commander of the gathering convoy, under whose instructions all the merchantmen were to operate, was a naval officer, usually of the rank of commodore or captain, who maintained constant cable communication with the convoy room of the Admiralty and usually used one of the commercial vessels as his flagship. When the sailing day arrived usually from twenty to thirty merchantmen had assembled; the commander summoned all their masters, gave each a blue book containing instructions for the management of convoyed ships, and frequently delivered something in the nature of a lecture. Before the aggregation sailed it was joined by a cruiser or pre-dreadnought battleship of the American navy, or by a British or French cruiser. This ship was to accompany the convoy across the Atlantic as far as the danger zone; its mission was not, as most people mistakenly believed, to protect the convoy from submarines, but to protect it from any surface German raider that might have escaped into the high seas. The Allied navies constantly had before their minds the exploits of the Emden; the opportunity to break up a convoy in mid-ocean by dare-devil enterprises of this kind was so tempting that it seemed altogether likely that Germany might take advantage of it. To send twenty or thirty merchant ships across the Atlantic with no protection against such assaults would have been to invite a possible disaster. As a matter of fact, the last German raider that even attempted to gain the high seas was sunk in the North Sea by the British Patrol Squadron in February, 1917.

On the appointed day the whole convoy weighed anchor and silently slipped out to sea. To such spectators as observed its movements it seemed to be a rather limping, halting procession. The speed of a convoy was the speed of its slowest ship, and vessels that could easily make twelve or fourteen knots were obliged to throttle down their engines, much to the disgust of their masters, in order to keep formation with a ship that made only eight or ten; though whenever possible vessels of nearly equal speed sailed together. Little in the newly assembled group suggested the majesty of the sea. The ships formed a miscellaneous and ill-assorted company, rusty tramps shamefacedly sailing alongside of spick-and-span liners; miserable little two-or three-thousand ton ships attempting to hold up their heads in the same company with other ships of ten or twelve. The whole mass was sprawled over the sea in most ungainly fashion; twenty or thirty ships, with spaces of nine hundred or a thousand yards stretching between them, took up not far from ten square miles of the ocean surface. Neither at this stage of the voyage did the aggregation give the idea of efficiency. It presented about as desirable a target as the submarine could have desired. But the period taken in crossing the ocean was entirely devoted to education. Under the tutorship of the convoy commander, the men composing the twenty or thirty crews went every day to school. For fifteen or twenty days upon the broad Atlantic they were trained in all the evolutions which were necessary for coping with the submarine. Every possible situation that could arise in the danger zone was anticipated and the officers and the crews were trained to meet it. They perfected themselves in the signal code; they learned the art of making the sudden manœuvres which were instantaneously necessary when a submarine was sighted; they acquired a mastery in the art of zigzagging; and they became accustomed to sailing at night without lights. The crews were put through all the drills which prepared them to meet such crises as the landing of a torpedo in their engine-room or the sinking of the ship; and they were thoroughly schooled in getting all hands safely into the boats. Possibly an occasional scare on the way over may have introduced the element of reality into these exercises; though no convoys actually met submarines in the open ocean, the likelihood that they might do so was never absent, especially after the Germans began sending out their huge under-water cruisers.

The convoy commander left his port with sealed orders, which he was instructed not to open until he was a hundred miles at sea. These orders, when the seal was broken, gave him the rendezvous assigned by Captain Long of the convoy board in London. The great chart in the convoy room at the Admiralty indicated the point to which the convoy was to proceed and at which it would be met by the destroyer escorts and taken through the danger zone. This particular New York convoy commander was now perhaps instructed to cross the thirtieth meridian at the fifty-second parallel of latitude, where he would be met by his escort. He laid his course for that point and regulated his speed so as to reach it at the appointed time. But he well knew that these instructions were only temporary. The precise point to which he would finally be directed to sail depended upon the movement and location of the German submarines at the time of his arrival. If the enemy became particularly active in the region of this tentative rendezvous, then, as the convoy approached it, a wireless from London would instruct the commander to steer abruptly to another point, perhaps a hundred miles to north or south.

"Getting your convoy" was a searching test of destroyer seamanship, particularly in heavy or thick weather. It was not the simplest thing to navigate a group of destroyers through the tempestuous waters of the North Atlantic, with no other objective than the junction point of a certain meridian and parallel, and reach the designated spot at a certain hour. Such a feat demanded navigation ability of a high order; and the skill which our American naval officers displayed in this direction aroused great admiration, especially on the part of the merchant skippers; in particular it aroused the astonishment of the average doughboy. Many destroyer escorts that went out to meet an incoming convoy also took out one which was westward bound. A few mishaps in the course of the war, such as the sinking of the Justicia, which was sailing from Europe to America, created the false notion that outward-bound convoys were not escorted. It was just as desirable, of course, to escort the ships going out as it was to escort those which were coming in. The mere fact that the inbound ships carried troops and supplies gave stronger reasons, from the humane standpoint, for heavier escorts, but not from the standpoint of the general war situation. The Germans were not sinking our ships because they were carrying men and supplies; they were sinking them simply because they were ships. They were not seeking to destroy American troops and munitions exclusively; they were seeking to destroy tonnage. They were aiming to reduce the world's supply of ships to such a point that the Allies would be compelled to abandon the conflict for lack of communications. It was therefore necessary that they should sink the empty ships, which were going out, as well as the crowded and loaded ships which were coming in. For the same reason it was necessary that we should protect them, and we did this as far as practicable without causing undue delays in forming outward-bound convoys. The Justicia, though most people still think that she was torpedoed because she was unescorted, was, in fact, protected by a destroyer escort of considerable size. This duty of escorting outward-bound ships increased considerably the strain on our destroyer force. The difficulty was that the inbound convoy arrived in a body, but that the ships could not be unloaded and sent back in a body without detaining a number of them an undue length of time—and time was such an important factor in this war that it was necessary to make the "turn-around" of each important transport as quickly as possible. The consequence was that returning ships were often despatched in small convoys as fast as they were unloaded. The escorts which we were able to supply for such groups were thus much weaker than absolute safety required, and sometimes we were even forced to send vessels across the submarine zone with few, if any, escorting warships. This explains why certain homeward-bound transports were torpedoed, and this was particularly true of troop and munition convoys to the western ports of France. Only when we could assemble a large outgoing convoy and despatch it at such a time that it could meet an incoming one at the western edge of the submarine zone could we give these vessels the same destroyer escort as that which we always gave for the loaded convoys bound for European ports.

As soon as the destroyers made contact with an inward-bound convoy, the ocean escort, the cruiser or pre-dreadnought, if an American, abandoned it and started it back home, sometimes with a westbound convoy if one had been assembled in time. British escorts went ahead at full speed into a British port, usually escorted by one or more destroyers. This abandonment sometimes aroused the wrath of the passengers on the inbound convoy. Their protector had dropped them just as they had entered the submarine zone, the very moment its services were really needed! These passengers did not understand, any more than did the people at home, that the purpose of the ocean escort was not to protect them from submarines, but from possible raiders. Inside the danger zone this ocean escort would become part of the convoy itself and require protection from submarines, so that its rather summary departure really made the merchantmen more secure. As the convoy approached the danger zone, after being drilled all the way across the ocean, its very appearance was more taut and business-like. The ships were closed up into a much more compact formation, keeping only such distances apart as were essential for quick manœuvring. Generally the convoy was formed in a long parallelogram, the distance across the front of which was much longer than the depth or distance along the sides. Usually the formation was a number of groups of four vessels each, in column or "Indian file," at a distance of about five hundred yards from ship to ship, and all groups abreast of each other and about half a mile apart. Thus a convoy of twenty-four vessels, or six groups of four, would have a width of about three miles and a depth of one. Most of the destroyers were stationed on the narrow sides, for it was only on the side, or the beam, that the submarines could attack with much likelihood of succeeding. It was usually necessary for a destroyer to be stationed in the rear of a convoy, for, though the speed of nearly all convoys was faster than that of a submarine when submerged, the latter while running on the surface could follow a convoy at night with a fair chance of torpedoing a vessel at early daylight and escaping to the rear if unhampered by the presence of a rear-guard destroyer. It was generally impracticable and dangerous for the submarine to wait ahead, submerge, and launch its torpedoes as the convoy passed over it. The extent to which purely mechanical details protected merchant ships is not understood, and this inability to attack successfully from the front illustrates this point. The submarine launches its torpedoes from tubes in the bow or stern; it has no tubes on the beam. If it did possess such side tubes, it could lie in wait ahead and shoot its broadsides at the convoy as it passed over the spot where it was concealed. Its length in that case would be parallel to that of the merchant ships, and thus it would have a comparatively small part of its area exposed to the danger of ramming. The mere fact that its torpedo tubes are placed in the bow and stern makes it necessary for the submarine, if it wishes to attack in the fashion described, to turn almost at right angles to the course of the convoy, and to manœuvre into a favourable position from which to discharge its missile—a procedure so altogether hazardous that it almost never attempts it. With certain reservations, which it is hardly necessary to explain in detail at this point, it may be taken at least as a general rule that the sides of the convoy not only furnish the U-boats much the best chance to torpedo ships, but also subject them to the least danger; and this is the reason why, in the recent war, the destroyers were usually concentrated at these points.

I have already compared the convoy system to a great aggregation of railroads. This comparison holds good of its operation after it had entered the infested zone. Indeed the very terminology of our railroad men was used. Every convoy nearly followed one of two main routes, known at convoy headquarters as the two "trunk lines." The trunk line which reached the west coast of England usually passed north of Ireland through the North Channel and down the Irish Sea to Liverpool. Under certain conditions these convoys passed south of Ireland and thence up the Irish Sea. The convoys to the east coast took a trunk line that passed up the English Channel. Practically all shipping from the United States to Great Britain and France took one of these trunk lines. But, like our railroad systems, each of these main routes had branch lines. Thus shipping destined for French ports took the southern route until off the entrance to the English Channel; here it abandoned the main line and took a branch route to Brest, Bordeaux, Nantes, and other French ports. In the Channel likewise several "single-track" branches went to various English ports, such as Plymouth, Portsmouth, Southampton, and the like. The whole gigantic enterprise flowed with a precision and a regularity which I think it is hardly likely that any other transportation system has ever achieved.

IV

A description of a few actual convoys, and the experiences of our destroyers with them, will perhaps best make clear the nature of the mechanism which protected the world's shipping. For this purpose I have selected typical instances which illustrate the every-day routine experiences of escorting destroyers, and other experiences in which their work was more spectacular.

One day in late October, 1917, a division of American destroyers at Queenstown received detailed instructions from Admiral Bayly to leave at a certain hour and escort the outward convoy "O Q 17" and bring into port the inbound convoy "H S 14." These detailed instructions were based upon general instructions issued from the Admiralty, where my staff was in constant attendance and co-operation. The symbols by which these two groups of ships were designated can be easily interpreted. The O Q simply meant that convoy "No. 17"—the seventeenth which had left that port—was Outward bound from Queenstown, and the H S signified that convoy "No. 14" was Homeward bound from Sydney, Cape Breton. Queenstown during the first few months was one of those places at which ships, having discharged their cargoes, assembled in groups for despatching back to the United States. Later Milford Haven, Liverpool, and other ports were more often used for this purpose. Vessels had been arriving here for several days from ports of the Irish Sea and the east coast of England. These had now been formed into convoy "O Q 17"; they were ready for a destroyer escort to take them through the submarine zone and start them on the westward voyage to American ports.

This escort consisted of eight American destroyers and one British "special service ship"; the latter was one of that famous company of decoy vessels, or "mystery ships," which, though to all outward appearances unprotected merchantmen, really carried concealed armament of sufficient power to destroy any submarine that came within range. This special service ship, the Aubrietia, was hardly a member of the protective escort. Her mission was to sail about thirty miles ahead of the convoy; when observed from the periscope or the conning-tower of a submarine, the Aubrietia seemed to be merely a helpless merchantman sailing alone, and as such she presented a particularly tempting target to the U-boat. But her real purpose in life was to be torpedoed. After landing its missile in a vessel's side, the submarine usually remained submerged for a period, while the crew of its victim was getting off in boats; it then came to the surface, and the men prepared to board the disabled ship and search her for valuables and delicacies, particularly for information which would assist them in their campaign, such as secret codes, sailing instructions, and the like. The mystery ship had been preparing for this moment, and as soon as the submarine broke water, the gun ports of the disguised merchantman dropped, and her hitherto concealed guns began blazing away at the German. By October, 1917, these special service ships had already accounted for several submarines; and it had now become a frequent practice to attach one or more to a convoy, either ahead, where she might dispose of the submarine lying in wait for the approaching aggregation, or in the rear, where a U-boat might easily mistake her for one of those stragglers which were an almost inevitable part of every convoy.

Trawlers and mine-sweepers, as was the invariable custom, spent several hours sweeping the Queenstown Channel before the sailing of convoy "O Q 17" and its escort. Promptly at the appointed time the eight American ships sailed out in "Indian file," passing through the net which was always kept in place at the entrance to the harbour. Their first duty was to patrol the waters outside for a radius of twelve miles; it was not improbable that the Germans, having learned that this convoy was to sail, had stationed a submarine not far from the harbour entrance. Having finally satisfied himself that there were no lurking enemies in the neighbourhood, the commander of the destroyer flagship signalled to the merchant ships, which promptly left the harbour and entered the open sea. The weather was stormy; the wind was blowing something of a gale and head seas were breaking over the destroyers' decks. But the convoy quickly manœuvred into three columns, the destroyers rapidly closed around them, and the whole group started for "Rendezvous A"—this being the designation of that spot on the ocean's surface where the fourteenth meridian of longitude crosses the forty-ninth parallel of latitude—a point in the Atlantic about three hundred miles south-west of Queenstown, regarded at that time as safely beyond the operating zone of the submarine. Meanwhile, the "mystery ship," sailing far ahead, disappeared beneath the horizon.

Convoying ships in the stormy autumn and winter waters, amid the fog and rain of the eastern Atlantic, was a monotonous and dreary occupation. Only one or two incidents enlivened this particular voyage. As the Parker, Commander Halsey Powell, was scouting ahead at about two o'clock in the afternoon, her lookout suddenly sighted a submarine, bearing down upon the convoy. Immediately the news was wirelessed to every vessel. As soon as the message was received, the whole convoy, at a signal from the flagship, turned four points to port. For nearly two hours the destroyers searched this area for the submerged submarine, but that crafty boat kept itself safely under the water, and the convoy now again took up its original course. About two days' sailing brought the ships to the point at which the protecting destroyers could safely leave them, as far as submarines were concerned, to continue unescorted to America; darkness had now set in, and, under its cover, the merchantmen slipped away from the warships and started westward. Meantime, the destroyer escort had received a message from the Cumberland, the British cruiser which was acting as ocean escort to convoy "HS 14." "Convoy is six hours late," she reported, much like the announcer at a railroad station who informs the waiting crowds that the incoming train is that much overdue. According to the schedule these ships should reach the appointed rendezvous at six o'clock the next morning; this message evidently moved the time of arrival up to noon. The destroyers, slowing down so that they would not arrive ahead of time, started for the designated spot.

Sometimes thick weather made it impossible to fix the position by astronomical observations, and the convoy might not be at its appointed rendezvous. For this reason the destroyers now deployed on a north and south line about twenty miles long for several hours. Somewhat before the appointed time one of the destroyers sighted a faint cloud of smoke on the western horizon, and soon afterward thirty-two merchantmen, sailing in columns of fours, began to assume a definite outline. At a signal from this destroyer the other destroyers of the escort came in at full speed and ranged themselves on either side of the convoy—a manœuvre that always excited the admiration of the merchant skippers. This mighty collection of vessels, occupying about ten or twelve square miles on the ocean, skilfully maintaining its formation, was really a beautiful and inspiring sight. When the destroyers had gained their designated positions on either side, the splendid cavalcade sailed boldly into the area which formed the favourite hunting grounds for the submarine.

As soon as this danger zone was reached the whole aggregation, destroyers and merchant ships, began to zigzag. The commodore on the flagship hoisted the signal, "Zigzag A," and instantaneously the whole thirty-two ships began to turn twenty-five degrees to starboard. The great ships, usually so cumbersome, made this simultaneous turn with all the deftness, and even with all the grace of a school of fish into which one has suddenly cast a stone. All the way across the Atlantic they had been practising such an evolution; most of them had already sailed through the danger zone more than once, so that the manœuvre was by this time an old story. For ten or fifteen minutes they proceeded along this course, when immediately, like one vessel, the convoy turned twenty degrees to port, and started in a new direction. And so on for hours, now a few minutes to the right, now a few minutes to the left, and now again straight ahead, while all the time the destroyers were cutting through the water, every eye of the skilled lookouts in each crew fixed upon the surface for the first glimpse of a periscope. This zigzagging was carried out according to comprehensive plans which enabled the convoy to zigzag for hours at a time without signals, the courses and the time on each course being designated in the particular plan ordered, all ships' clocks being set exactly alike by time signal. Probably I have made it clear why these zigzagging evolutions constituted such a protective measure. All the time the convoy was sailing in the danger zone it was assumed that a submarine was present, looking for a chance to torpedo. Even though the officers might know that there was no submarine within three hundred miles, this was never taken for granted; the discipline of the whole convoy system rested upon the theory that the submarine was there, waiting only the favourable moment to start the work of destruction. But a submarine, as already said, could not strike without the most thorough preparation. It must get within three or four hundred yards or the torpedo would stand little chance of hitting the mark in a vital spot. The commander almost never shot blindly into the convoy, on the chance of hitting some ship; he carefully selected his victim; his calculation had to include its speed, the speed of his own boat and that of his torpedo; above all, he had to be sure of the direction in which his intended quarry was steaming; and in this calculation the direction of the merchantman formed perhaps the most important element. But if the ships were constantly changing their direction, it is apparent that the submarine could make no calculations which would have much practical value.

In the afternoon the Aubrietia, the British mystery ship which was sailing thirty miles ahead of the convoy, reported that she had sighted a submarine. Two or three destroyers dashed for the indicated area, searched it thoroughly, found no traces of the hidden boat, and returned to the convoy. The next morning six British destroyers and one cruiser arrived from Devonport. Up to this time the convoy had been following the great "trunk line" which led into the Channel, but it had now reached the point where the convoys split up, part going to English ports and part to French. These British destroyers had come to take over the twenty ships which were bound for their own country, while the American destroyers were assigned to escort the rest to Brest. The following conversation—typical of those that were constantly filling the air in that area—now took place between the American flagship and the British:

The Aubrietia had already given warning of the danger referred to in the last words of this final message. It had been flashing the news in this way:

The fact that nothing more was seen of that submarine may possibly detract from the thrill of the experience, but in describing the operations of this convoy I am not attempting to tell a story of wild adventure, but merely to set forth what happened ninety-nine out of a hundred times. What made destroyer work so exasperating was that, in the vast majority of cases, the option of fighting or not fighting lay with the submarine. Had the submarine decided to approach and attack the convoy, the chances would have been more than even that it would have been destroyed. In accordance with its usual practice, however, it chose to submerge, and that decision ended the affair for the moment. This was the way in which merchant ships were protected. At the time this submarine was sighted it was headed directly for this splendid aggregation of cargo vessels; had not the Aubrietia discovered it and had not one of the American destroyers started in pursuit, the U-boat would have made an attack and possibly would have sent one or more ships to the bottom. The chief business of the escorting ships, all through the war, was this unspectacular one of chasing the submarines away; and for every under-water vessel actually destroyed there were hundreds of experiences such as the one which I have just described.

The rest of this trip was uneventful. Two American destroyers escorted H.M.S. Cumberland—the ocean escort which had accompanied the convoy from Sydney—to Devonport; the rest of the American escort took its quota of merchantmen into Brest, and from that point sailed back to Queenstown, whence, after three or four days in port, it went out with another convoy. This was the routine which was repeated until the end of the war.

The "O Q 17" and the "H S 14" form an illustration of convoys which made their trips successfully. Yet these same destroyers had another experience which pictures other phases of the convoy system.

On the morning of October 19th, Commander Johnson's division was escorting a great convoy of British ships on its way to the east coast of England. Suddenly out of the air came one of those calls which were daily occurrences in the submarine zone. The J. L. Luckenback signalled her position, ninety miles ahead of the convoy, and that she was being shelled by a submarine. In a few minutes the Nicholson, one of the destroyers of the escort, started to the rescue. For the next few hours our ships began to pick out of the air the messages which detailed the progress of this adventure—messages which tell the story so graphically, and which are so typical of the events which were constantly taking place in those waters, that I reproduce them verbatim:

I have already said that a great part of the destroyer's duty was to rescue merchantmen that were being attacked by submarines: this Luckenback incident vividly illustrates this point. Had the submarine used its torpedo upon this vessel, it probably would have disposed of it summarily; but it was the part of wisdom for the submarine to economize in these weapons because they were so expensive and so comparatively scarce, and to use its guns whenever the opportunity offered. The Luckenback was armed, but the fact that the submarine's guns easily outranged hers made her armament useless. Thus all the German had to do in this case was to keep away at a safe distance and bombard the merchantman. The U-boat had been doing this for more than three hours when the destroyer reached the scene of operations; evidently the marksmanship was poor, for out of a great many shots fired by the submarine only about a dozen had hit the vessel. The Luckenback was on fire, a shell having set aflame her cargo of cotton; certain parts of the machinery had been damaged, but, in the main, the vessel was intact. The submarine was always heroic enough when it came to shelling defenceless merchantmen, but the appearance of a destroyer anywhere in her neighbourhood made her resort to the one secure road to safety—diving for protection. The Nicholson immediately trained her guns on the U-boat, which, on the second shot, disappeared under the water. The destroyer despatched men to the disabled vessel, the fire was extinguished, necessary repairs to the machinery were made, and in a few hours the Luckenback had become a member of the convoy.

Hardly had she joined the merchant ships and hardly had the Nicholson taken up her station on the flank when an event still more exciting took place. It was now late in the afternoon; the sea had quieted down; the whole atmosphere was one of peace; and there was not the slightest sign or suggestion of a hostile ship. The Orama, the British warship which had accompanied the convoy from its home port as ocean escort, had taken up her position as leading ship in the second column. Without the slightest warning a terrific explosion now took place on her starboard bow. There was no mystery as to what had happened; indeed, immediately after the explosion the wake of the torpedo appeared on the surface; there was no periscope in sight, yet it was clear, from the position of the wake, that the submarine had crept up to the side of the convoy and delivered its missile at close range. There was no confusion in the convoy or its escorting destroyers but there were scenes of great activity. Immediately after the explosion, a periscope appeared a few inches out of the water, stayed there only a second or two, and then disappeared. Brief as was this exposure, the keen eyes of the lookout and several sailors of the Conyngham, the nearest destroyer, had detected it; it disclosed the fact that the enemy was in the midst of the convoy itself, looking for other ships to torpedo. The Conyngham rang for full speed, and dashed for the location of the submarine. Her officers and men now saw more than the periscope; they saw the vessel itself. The water was very clear; as the Conyngham circled around the Orama her officers and men sighted a green, shining, cigar-shaped thing under the water not far from the starboard side. As she sped by, the destroyer dropped a depth charge almost directly on top of the object. After the waters had quieted down pieces of débris were seen floating upon the surface—boards, spars, and other miscellaneous wreckage, evidently scraps of the damaged deck of a submarine. All attempts to save the Orama proved fruitless: the destroyers stood by for five hours, taking off survivors, and making all possible efforts to salvage the ship, but at about ten o'clock that evening she disappeared under the water. In rescuing the survivors the seamanship displayed by the Conyngham was particularly praiseworthy. The little vessel was skilfully placed alongside the Orama and some three hundred men were taken off without accident or casualty while the ship was sinking.

One of the things that made the work of the destroyer such a thankless task was that only in the rarest cases was it possible to prove that she had destroyed the submarine. Only the actual capture of the enemy ship or some of its crew furnished irrefutable proof that the action had been successful. The appearance of oil on the surface after a depth charge attack was not necessarily convincing, for the submarine early learned the trick of pumping overboard a little oil after such an experience; in this way it hoped to persuade its pursuer that it had been sunk and thus induce it to abandon the chase. Even the appearance of wreckage, such as arose on the surface after this Conyngham attack, did not absolutely prove that the submarine had been destroyed. Yet, as this submarine was never heard of again, there is little doubt that Commander Johnson's depth charge performed its allotted task. The judgment of the British Government, which awarded him the C.M.G. for his achievement, may be accepted as final. The Admiralty citation for this decoration reads as follows:

"At 5.50 P.M. H.M.S. Orama was torpedoed in convoy. Conyngham went full speed, circled bow of Orama, saw submarine between lines of convoy, passed right over it so that it was plainly visible and dropped depth charge. Prompt and correct action of Commander Johnson saved more ships from being torpedoed and probably destroyed the submarine."

One of the greatest difficulties of convoy commanders, especially during the first months the system was in operation, was with "slacker" merchantmen; these were vessels which, for various reasons, fell behind the convoy, a tempting bait for the submarine. At this time certain of the merchant captains manifested an incurable obstinacy; they affected to regard the U-boats with contempt, and insisted rather on taking chances instead of playing the game. In such cases a destroyer would often have to leave the main division, go back several miles, and attempt to prod the straggler into joining the convoy, much as a shepherd dog attempts to force the laggard sheep to keep within the flock. In some cases, when the merchantman proved particularly obdurate, the destroyer would slyly drop a depth charge, near enough to give the backward vessel a considerable shaking up without doing her any injury; usually such a shock caused the merchantman to start full speed ahead to rejoin her convoy, firmly believing that a submarine was giving chase. In certain instances the merchantman fell behind the convoy because the machinery had broken down or because she had suffered other accidents. The submarines would follow for days in the track of convoys, looking for a straggler of this kind, just as a shark will follow a vessel in the hope that something will be thrown overboard; and for this reason one destroyer at least was often detached from the escorting division as a rear guard. In this connection we must keep in mind that at no time until the armistice was signed was any escort force strong enough to insure entire safety. If we had had destroyers enough to put a close screen, or even a double screen, around every convoy, there would have been almost no danger from submarines. The fact that all escort forces were very inadequate placed a very heavy responsibility upon the escort commanders, and made them think twice before detaching a destroyer in order to protect stragglers.

One late summer afternoon the American converted yacht Christabel was performing this duty for the British merchantman Danae, a vessel which had fallen eight miles behind her convoy, bound from La Pallice, France, to Brest. It was a beautiful evening; the weather was clear, the sea smooth, and there was not a breath of wind. Under such conditions a submarine could conceal its presence only with great difficulty; and at about 5.30 the lookout on the Christabel detected a wake, some six hundred yards on the port quarter. The Christabel started at full speed; the wake suddenly ceased, but a few splotches of oil were seen, and she was steered in the direction of this disturbance. A depth charge was dropped at the spot where the submarine ought to have been, but it evidently did not produce the slightest result. The Christabel rejoined the Danae, and the two went along peacefully for nearly four hours, when suddenly a periscope appeared about two hundred yards away, on the starboard side. Evidently this persistent German had been following the ships all that time, looking for a favourable opportunity to discharge his torpedo. That moment had now arrived; the submarine was at a distance where a carefully aimed shot meant certain destruction; the appearance of the periscope meant that the submarine was making observations in anticipation of delivering this shot. The Christabel started full speed for the wake of the periscope; this periscope itself disappeared under the water like a guilty thing, and a disturbance on the surface showed that the submarine was making frantic efforts to submerge. The destroyer dropped its depth charge, set to explode at seventy feet, its radio meantime sending signals broadcast for assistance. Immediately after the mushroom of water arose from this charge a secondary explosion was heard; this was a horrible and muffled sound coming from the deep, more powerful and more terrible than any that could have been caused by the destroyer's "ash can." An enormous volcano of water and all kinds of débris arose from the sea, half-way between the Christabel and the spot where it had dropped its charge. This secondary explosion shook the Christabel so violently that the officers thought at first that the ship had been seriously damaged, and a couple of men were knocked sprawling on the deck. As soon as the water subsided great masses of heavy black oil began rising to the surface, and completely splintered wood and other wreckage appeared. In a few minutes the sea, for a space many hundred yards in diameter, was covered with dead fish—about ten times as many, the officers reported, as could have been killed by the usual depth charge. The Christabel and the ship she was guarding started to rejoin the main convoy, entirely satisfied with the afternoon's work. Indeed, they had good reason to be; a day or two afterward a battered submarine, the U C-56, crept painfully into the harbour of Santander, Spain; it was the boat which had had such an exciting contest with the Christabel. She was injured beyond the possibility of repair; besides, the Spanish Government interned her for "the duration of the war"; so that for all practical purposes the vessel was as good as sunk.

V

Discouraging as was this business of hunting an invisible foe, events occasionally happened with all the unexpectedness of real drama. For the greater part of the time the destroyers were engaged in battle with oil slicks, wakes, tide rips, streaks of suds, and suspicious disturbances on the water; yet now and then there were engagements with actual boats and flesh and blood human beings. To spend weeks at sea with no foe more substantial than an occasional foamy excrescence on the surface was the fate of most sailormen in this war; yet a few exciting moments, when they finally came, more than compensated for long periods of monotony.

One afternoon in November, 1917, an American destroyer division, commanded by Commander Frank Berrien, with the Nicholson as its flagship, put out of Queenstown on the usual mission of taking a westbound convoy to its rendezvous and bringing in one that was bound for British ports. This outward convoy was the "O Q 20" and consisted of eight fine ships. After the usual preliminary scoutings the vessels passed through the net in single file, sailed about ten miles to sea, and began to take up the stipulated formation, four columns of two ships each. The destroyers were moving around; they were even mingling in the convoy, carrying messages and giving instructions; by a quarter past four all the ships had attained their assigned positions, except one, the René, which was closing up to its place as the rear ship of the first column. Meanwhile, the destroyer Fanning was steaming rapidly to its post on the rear flank. Suddenly there came a cry from the bridge of the Fanning, where Coxswain David D. Loomis was on lookout:

"Periscope!"

Off the starboard side of the Fanning, glistening in the smooth water, a periscope of the "finger" variety, one so small that it could usually elude all but the sharpest eyes, had darted for a few seconds above the surface and had then just as suddenly disappeared. Almost directly ahead lay the Welshman, a splendid British merchant ship; the periscope was so close that a torpedo would almost inevitably have hit this vessel in the engine-room. The haste with which the German had withdrawn his periscope, after taking a hurried glance around, was easily explained; for his lens had revealed not only this tempting bait, but the destroyer Fanning close aboard and bearing down on him. Under these circumstances it was not surprising that no torpedo was fired; it was clearly military wisdom to beat a quick retreat rather than attempt to attack the merchantman. Lieut. Walter S. Henry, who was the officer of the deck, acted with the most commendable despatch. It is not the simplest thing, even when the submarine is so obviously located as this one apparently was, to reach the spot accurately.

The destroyer has to make a wide and rapid turn, and there is every danger, in making this manœuvre, that the location will be missed. Subsequent events disclosed that the Fanning was turned with the utmost accuracy. As the ship darted by the spot at which the periscope had been sighted, a depth charge went over the stern, and exploded so violently that the main generator of the Fanning herself was temporarily disabled. Meanwhile the Nicholson had dashed through the convoy, made a rapid detour to the left, and dropped another depth charge a short distance ahead of the Fanning.

The disturbances made on the water by these "ash cans" gradually subsided; to all outward appearances the submarine had escaped unharmed. The Fanning and the Nicholson completed their circles and came back to the danger spot, the officers and crew eagerly scanning the surface for the usual oil patch and air bubbles, even hoping for a few pieces of wreckage—those splintered remnants of the submarine's wooden deck that almost invariably indicated a considerable amount of damage. But none of these evidences of success, or half-success, rose to the surface; for ten or fifteen minutes everything was as quiet as the grave. Then something happened which occurred only a few times in this strange war. The stern of a submarine appeared out of the water, tilted at about thirty degrees, clearly revealing its ugly torpedo tubes. Then came the conning-tower and finally the entire boat, the whole hull taking its usual position on the surface as neatly and unconcernedly as though no enemies were near. So far as could be seen the U-boat was in perfect condition. Its hull looked intact, showing not the slightest indication of injury; the astonished officers and men on the destroyers could easily understand now why no oil or wreckage had risen to the top, for the U-58—they could now see this inscription plainly painted on the conning-tower—was not leaking, and the deck showed no signs of having come into contact even remotely with a depth charge. The Fanning and the Nicholson began firing shells at the unexpected visitant, and the Nicholson extended an additional welcome in the form of a hastily dropped "ash can."

Suddenly the conning-tower of the submarine opened and out popped the rotund face and well-fed form of Kapitän-Leutnant Gustav Amberger, of the Imperial German Navy. The two arms of the Herr Kapitän immediately shot heavenward and the Americans on the destroyers could hear certain guttural ejaculations:

"Kamerad! Kamerad!"

A hatchway now opened, and a procession of German sailors emerged, one after the other, into the sunshine, like ants crawling out of their hole. As each sailor reached the deck he straightened up, lifted his arms, and shouted:

"Kamerad! Kamerad! Kamerad!"

In all four officers and thirty-five men went through this ceremony. Were they really surrendering themselves and their boat, or did these gymnastic exercises conceal some new form of German craftiness? The American ships ceased firing; the Fanning gingerly approached the submarine, while the Nicholson stood by, all her four-inch guns trained upon the German boat, and the machine-guns pointed at the kamerading Germans, ready to shoot them into ribbons at the first sign that the surrender was not a genuine one.

While these preliminaries were taking place, a couple of German sailors disappeared into the interior of the submarine, stayed there a moment or two, and then returned to the deck. They had apparently performed a duty that was characteristically German; for a few minutes after they appeared again, the U-58 began to settle in the water, and soon afterward sank. These men, obeying orders, had opened the cocks and scuttled the ship—this after the officers had surrendered her! As the submarine disappeared, the men and officers dived and started swimming toward the Fanning; four of them became entangled in the radio antennæ and were dragged under the waves; however, in a few minutes these men succeeded in disentangling themselves and joined the swimmers. As the thirty-nine men neared the Fanning it was evident that most of them were extremely wearied and that some were almost exhausted. The sailors from the Fanning threw over lines; some still had the strength to climb up these to the deck, while to others it was necessary to throw other lines which they could adjust under their arms. These latter, limp and wet figures, the American sailors pulled up, much as the fisherman pulls up the inert body of a monster fish. And now an incident took place which reveals that the American navy has rather different ideals of humanity from the German. One of the sailors was so exhausted that he could not adjust the life-lines around his shoulders; he was very apparently drowning. Like a flash Elxer Harwell, chief pharmacist mate, and Francis G. Conner, coxswain, jumped overboard, swam to this floundering German, and adjusted the line around him as solicitously as though he had been a shipmate. The poor wretch—his name was Franz Glinder—was pulled aboard, but he was so far gone that all attempts to resuscitate him failed, and he died on the deck of the Fanning.

Kapitän Amberger, wet and dripping, immediately walked up to Lieut. A. S. Carpender, the commander of the Fanning, clicked his heels together, saluted in the most ceremonious German fashion, and surrendered himself, his officers, and his crew. He also gave his parole for his men. The officers were put in separate staterooms under guard and each of the crew was placed under the protection of a well-armed American jackie—who, it may be assumed, immensely enjoyed this new duty. All the "survivors" were dressed in dry, warm clothes, and good food and drink were given them. They were even supplied with cigarettes and something which they valued more than all the delicacies in the world—soap for a washing, the first soap which they had had for months, as this was an article which was more scarce in Germany than even copper or rubber. Our physicians gave the men first aid, and others attended to all their minor wants. Evidently the fact that they had been captured did not greatly depress their spirits, for, after eating and drinking to their heart's content, the assembled Germans burst into song.

But what was the explanation of this strange proceeding? The German officers, at first rather stiff and sullen, ultimately unbent enough to tell their story. Their submarine had been hanging off the entrance to Queenstown for nearly two days, waiting for this particular convoy to emerge. The officers admitted that they were getting ready to torpedo the Welshman when the discovery that the Fanning was only a short distance away compelled a sudden change in their plans. Few "ash cans" dropped in the course of the war reached their objective with the unerring accuracy of the one which now came from this American destroyer. It did not crush the submarine but the concussion wrecked the motors, making it impossible for it to navigate, jammed its diving rudders, making the boat uncontrollable under the water, and broke the oil leads, practically shutting off the supply of this indispensable fuel. Indeed, it would be impossible to conceive of a submarine in a more helpless and unmanageable state. The officers had the option of two alternatives: to sink until the pressure of the water crushed the boat like so much paper, or to blow the ballast tanks, rise to the surface, and surrender. Even while the commander was mentally debating this problem, the submarine was rapidly descending to the bottom; when it reached a depth of two hundred feet, which was about all that it could stand, the commander decided to take his chances with the Americans. Rising to the top involved great dangers; but the guns of the destroyers seemed less formidable to these cornered Germans than the certainty of the horrible death that awaited them under the waves.

Admiral Bayly came to meet the Fanning as she sailed into Queenstown with her unexpected cargo. He went on board the destroyer to congratulate personally the officers and men upon their achievement. He published to the assembled company a cablegram just received from the Admiralty in London: