For all this we are indebted, not nearly so much to the men here at the front as to those whose untiring efforts at home, in face of all kinds of criticism of the most venomous kind, have driven this enormous task to a successful culmination. I have a wonderful respect for our men at home who have had to stay home and accomplish things which they could never disclose to a naturally impatient and clamoring public. Had the Germans done such things as I have seen here accomplished by Americans, I would have taken off my hat to them and acknowledged the fact that German efficiency coupled with the advantages of a despotism was at least worthy of a close look. I dwell upon this phase of the situation because it has recently come to my attention, from most reliable sources, that there is a tendency toward gloom in certain quarters at home. The constant attacks made by conscientious critics, aside from the braying of the eternally discontented and the insidious whispers of the disloyal, are liable to make even the stoutest hearts falter at times.

I cannot too emphatically contradict every reason advanced to sustain a gloomy attitude of mind. There is every reason for the greatest enthusiasm and confidence. In fact, we over here on the firing line have a spontaneous kind of enthusiasm that comes only to the victorious. This war is a long and ferocious process in which each battle must be considered as a single shot fired only as a part of the ensemble. On land and sea things look better than they have in a long time. Every American effort is pure velvet for the Allied side. I trust our nation will now begin to see that America is a big and powerful fellow among the nations of the world and that, with just a little bit of careful attention, this European situation can be hammered into shape. The women of the country are, after all, pretty much the whole thing, for they can inculcate the spirit of fight and of happy confidence that nothing else can put into their boys. If the mother will adopt the old Spartan admonition of “Come home either with your shield or on it,” the boys will keep surging into this war with an ardor that no enemy can stop.

... My experiences thus far have brought me more laughs than it has been my pleasure to have in any other period of time. I must confess, however, that many of the laughs come when I view some of the situations in retrospect. At times, especially in the middle of a ruction, when literally tons of high explosives are being launched, we are too busily engaged to laugh. On such occasions we have to think rapidly and work fast.

One incident may be worthy of note. A flock of troop-ships was under escort through the torpedo zone. The eagle eye of a trained observer caught the tell-tale symptoms of a submarine trying to manœuvre into striking position. Activities began at once, if not sooner. Those of us whose job it was to look after the sub, did it. Those of us whose job it was to screen the troop-ships, did that. On one of the transports were many negroes who knew more about shore duties than seafaring. On the ship they were passengers pro tem.

The process of dealing with a submarine certainly must send thrills through a spectator who has never attended any rehearsals. The negroes in question were all novices and their chief emotion was primitive terror. The simultaneous explosion of forty or fifty barrels of dynamite made the whole ocean heave and rumble. Even those of us who were used to dropping ’em over and who were braced for the shock, felt considerably jolted.

The darky soldiers thought the end of creation had sure busted loose in epidemic form. One of them excitedly dug down into his pack and fished out a Bible. Opening it on deck, he knelt upon it, wrung his hands to Heaven and cried in accents that could be heard above the racket of the explosions, “O Lawd, O Lawd, I’se never gwine roll dem bones no mo’. Ah promise it. Ah promise it absotively.”

Another one decided that this method of imploring grace was worth imitating in the terrible crisis, so he rushed over and tried to get knee-room on the same Bible. Shoving his comrade aside, he managed to find a sacred anchorage and his supplication was, “Good Lawd Jesus, lemme see jes’ one green tree. Ah ain’t askin’ you to send me back home across dis yere big ocean till th’ war is done. Ah’ll stay right where I is put, but lemme see jes’ one green tree befo’ all dem German su’marines gobble dis pore niggah like Jonah an’ th’ whale.”

Half an hour after the excitement was over, these devout passengers were shooting dice as busily as ever. There were negroes in another unit which we escorted into France. In wandering about the port, they came across some of their own race, black troopers from the French African colonies. Negotiations were opened to start a conversation going, but they could find no common language until one of the bunch produced a pair of dice. This, it seems, instantly broke down the barrier, and they soon had going as fine a little game of international craps as a man ever saw. Both sides whooped and haw-hawed until traffic was blocked and the police interfered.

This was the only ship lost out of a convoy with which the Corsair operated during the long period of this service in and out of the Gironde, from June to November of 1918. On several occasions steamers were attacked and sunk or damaged just before joining or just after leaving the escort. These included the Montanan, the Westbridge, the Westward Ho, the Cubore, and the French cruiser Dupetit Thouars. When the S.O.S. calls came, the Corsair hurried to stand by, but other naval vessels happened to be nearer the scene and were able to save the survivors, or the ship managed to remain afloat, as in the case of the Westward Ho. A cruise in August, beginning on the ill-omened 13th, turned out to be anything but monotonous, from start to finish. The air was full of tragic messages from torpedoed ships. It was like a dying flurry of the German submarine campaign.

The excitement began with this entry in the Corsair’s record:

A little later in this voyage came the following tale of disaster, as caught by the radio:

The Corsair and Aphrodite had left their outward-bound convoy at this time, according to orders, to steer for the rendezvous and make contact with a fleet of fourteen ships bound in for France. During the night a green Véry light flared against the cloudy sky to the southward. The Corsair headed for it at full speed, but could find no ship in distress and it was later conjectured that the signal might have come from the French destroyers which had remained to pick up the survivors of the Cubore.

Soon after this, several lights were sighted close to the water. It is hard to realize how unusual and arresting was such a phenomenon as this upon an ocean where ships had long shrouded themselves in darkness, screening every ray and glimmer lest it might betray them to a lurking enemy. The vision of officers and lookouts had so adapted themselves to these conditions that they were able to discern a shadow of a ship a mile away. In this instance, when vessels’ lights, several of them, were boldly displayed, the Corsair approached warily until it was possible to make them out as showing aboard a little flock of Breton fishermen. It was known that a French submarine was operating in this patrol area and the officers of the Corsair plausibly assumed that the lights might be a decoy for Fritz, so they concluded not to meddle with the situation.

Next morning another bevy of fishing vessels was seen, and the French submarine was with them, while a steamer was also standing by. Meanwhile the Corsair and Aphrodite had found the inbound convoy which had also a destroyer escort, and one of these, the Lamson, ran down to investigate the startling picture of a submarine calmly loafing about. The Frenchman promptly exploded a smoke bomb as the proper recognition signal, for he was taking no chances with a venomous Yankee destroyer which was known to be exceedingly quick on the trigger when a periscope or conning tower was etched against the horizon. It was agreed that there were much more healthy pursuits than to be ranging the Bay of Biscay in a French submarine.

Fortune had been unkind when the Corsair tried to pull the Californian into port, but the story was a happier one when next she had the opportunity to snatch a good ship from the greedy maw of the sea. How it was done is summarized in a letter written by Vice-Admiral Wilson, after the event:

The Corsair happened to find this helpless Dagfin while scouting in search of a steamer of the convoy which had somehow gone astray. Insistent radio calls had failed to awaken a response from this missing Macona. She appeared to have lost her bearings and totally mislaid the rendezvous. The Corsair was too courteous to express annoyance, but her radio queries became more and more emphatic. The Macona was as elusive as a Flying Dutchman. At length the yacht concluded that she had done her honest duty and so turned in the general direction of the destroyer rendezvous, still keeping an eye lifted for the lost sheep of the convoy.

At 8.35 o’clock on the morning of September 10th, with the Macona still on her mind and the quest continued, the Corsair descried a steamer against the misty horizon and soon it was discovered that she was in distress and making no headway. By way of precaution the Corsair’s crew scampered to general quarters, because nothing could be taken for granted in war-time. Bearing down, the yacht hovered close to a sea-worn, dingy Norwegian tramp which wallowed inert and wore an air of profound discouragement. The sailors of the Dagfin flourished their caps and yelled with delight. It was obvious that they yearned to be plucked out of the submarine zone after six days and nights of exposure as a stationary target to any U-boat which might wander that way. Fritz was too unsportsmanlike to hesitate to shoot at a sitting bird.

The Corsair was willing to undertake a towing job in order to save the forlorn Dagfin and her cargo, but it was necessary to ask permission to leave the duty already assigned, and a radio was therefore sent to the Admiral at Brest. Meanwhile the sea was too rough to undertake the ticklish manœuvre of hooking onto the melancholy Norwegian and Commander Porter shouted through a megaphone that he would return and stand by. There was profound gratitude on the bridge of the Dagfin, but some deep-sea curses along the rail. To have rescue so near, and to behold the American warship depart! It was too much like having the cup of salvation snatched from one’s lips. Were they to be left at the mercy of the hell-begotten submarines?

Steering northward to take another look for the Macona, Commander Porter changed course to sweep a wider area and, after several hours, received a radio reply from Brest, “Stand by Dagfin. Tug will be sent when weather moderates.” This order was to be obeyed, blow high, blow low, and through two stormy days the Corsair rolled and plunged within sight or signalling distance of the Dagfin before any attempt could be made to board her. It was a furious gale, with squalls of snow and sleet, and the Corsair was so knocked about while heading into it that she had to turn and run before the sea under steerageway of four knots. The water came piling over the stern until the depth charges had to be shifted amidships to change the trim of the ship and lift the overhang a little. It was a man’s-size job, from beginning to end, this playing friend in need to the Dagfin.

With a sea anchor out, the Dagfin had been lying broadside to the waves, and this could not have increased the comfort of her crew. She was swept and drenched and miserable, and, at best, there is no luxury in a two-thousand-ton Norwegian tramp. At last the wind lost something of its evil temper and the sea was less confused. On the morning of September 12th the Corsair tried to get a line aboard, after receiving another radio from Brest, “Take Dagfin in tow when weather permits.” It was still too rough to put a boat over, so Commander Porter steamed to windward and attempted to float a line, buoyed by empty boxes, to the Dagfin, but the freighter’s drift was so much greater than the yacht’s that this scheme failed.

Nothing daunted, the skipper of the Corsair hauled his own ship around to leeward and deftly placed her where the line floated so close to the Dagfin that it was caught and hauled up by a boat-hook as she drifted upon it. To this light line the Corsair secured one hundred and fifty fathoms of ten-inch manila hawser, and the Dagfin heaved it aboard with a turn about the winch. To the end of the hawser the Norwegians bent fifty fathoms of chain, for the longer the tow-line the easier the strain in heavy weather. The Corsair secured her end of the hawser by means of a wire span leading to the two after gun mounts, and then she was ready to go ahead and pull her heart out. It is needless to remark that the yacht had not been designed or built to yank disabled freighters through the Bay of Biscay in the tail-end of a nasty gale of wind.

They went ahead, Corsair and Dagfin, and worked up to a speed of five knots, reducing it a trifle when the strain seemed too great. They slogged along in this manner until 8.30 P.M. when the chain parted and the Dagfin went adrift. Commander Porter describes the rest of it in his report:

In the early morning of September 14th the Corsair trailed into the mouth of the Gironde, doggedly kicking along at six knots, with the Norwegian water-bruiser dragging in her wake. There the Penguin took hold and the yacht went on alone to a berth at Pauillac, none the worse for the experience. It was all in the job, not so sensational as dropping depth bombs on a submarine, but perhaps requiring more courage, endurance, and seamanship. Commander Porter’s description of the tussle with the hawser is highly technical, but one catches glimpses of the hard and heavy toil of the sea and the ability to do the right thing in time of stress which comes only with experience. The sailors of the Corsair, many of them landlubbers only a year before, were learning the tricks of the trade.

It was back to the convoys again, the same old round of discomfort at sea and coaling ship in port, but the spirit of the great adventure had not been dulled. By way of change and respite, the Corsair was twice chosen to carry distinguished official visitors from one French base to another. The first occasion was on August 24th when the passengers comprised the party of members of the House Committee on Naval Affairs who were inspecting for themselves the American naval and military forces overseas—Chairman L. P. Padgett, D. J. Riordan, W. L. Hensley, J. R. Connelly, W. B. Oliver, W. W. Venable, J. C. Wilson, T. S. Butler, W. J. Browning, J. R. Farr, S. E. Mudd. J. A. Peters, and F. C. Hicks.

They were the guests of the Corsair from Royan to the great American aviation base at Pauillac, and their enthusiastic approval of the work of the Navy in the war was pleasant for the crew of the Corsair to hear. Their report, later submitted to the Secretary of the Navy, contained this non-partisan opinion, signed by Republican and Democratic members alike:

Late in October the word came to the Corsair that the Commander-in-Chief of the Atlantic Fleet, Admiral Henry T. Mayo, and staff, would be graciously pleased to use the yacht (or fourth-class gunboat, to be precise) to take them from Royan to Pauillac. Now a four-starred admiral is absolutely top-hole in naval rank and dignity, and the three gold stripes above the broad band on his sleeve are viewed with awe and bedazzlement by the younger officers. To be a vice-admiral, or even a rear admiral, is a resounding distinction, but an admiral is so much more imposing that there are very few of him extant.

You may be sure that the Corsair was fit for minute inspection when the Commander-in-Chief of the Atlantic Fleet stepped aboard at Royan, with side boys at the gangway and the boatswain’s mate to pipe him with proper ceremony. The ship’s officers found him to be the affable gentleman and manly sailor which his reputation in the Navy had led them to expect. Admiral Mayo later recalled this trip in a letter to the writer of this story of the Corsair, and was kind enough to say: