ILLUSTRATIONS

The Corsair rescues the Crew of the Sinking Californian	[Frontispiece]
Admiral H. B. Wilson, commanding the U.S. Naval Forces in France	[4]
Commander Theodore A. Kittinger, U.S.N., commanding U.S.S. Corsair	[10]
Lieutenant Commander William B. Porter, later commanding U.S.S. Corsair, and Lieutenant Robert E. Tod, Navigator	[16]
Fitting the Corsair for the War Zone	[22]
Number Two Gun Crew on Watch	[26]
They are All Sea Dogs together	[26]
Some of the Officers and Crew, before leaving New York	[32]
With America’s First Convoy: Troop-Ships Henderson, Antilles, Momus, and Lenape	[38]
The Mine functions and a Lurking U-Boat would find it excessively Unhealthy	[38]
The Kind of “Gobs” the Country was proud of	[44]
The German Submarine was a Tiny Target even when on the Surface	[44]
Boatswain’s Mate Seger, from Passaic	[50]
Pharmacist’s Mate Feeley and Mess Attendant Martinez	[50]
Winning Boat Crew in Fourth of July Race with Aphrodite	[56]
“The Bridge Gang”	[56]
Starting the Swimming Race from a Mooring Buoy	[62]
Water Sports on the Fourth of July: The Race between Life-Rafts with Coal Shovels for Paddles	[62]
A Wet Day for the Deck Watch	[66]
French and Underhill are dolled up for the Camera	[66]
The Burning American Schooner Augustus Weld	[70]
From the Corsair’s Main-Top: The Convoy steams out	[70]
“Coal on the Corsair, Fill every bin. We work like hell, boys, Till it’s all in”	[74]
A French Fishing-Smack which dared the Ruthless Warfare	[78]
The S.S. Manto, which sped through the War Zone At Five Knots	[78]
A Group of Chief Petty Officers	[84]
A Liberty Party at Brest	[84]
The Gunner’s Mates and the Long Row of Depth Charges ready to plop over the Stern	[88]
Another View of the Mine Track, showing the Y Gun or Double Mortar	[88]
French Fishermen who were set adrift	[92]
The Castaways find a Hearty Welcome on the Corsair	[92]
Gunner’s Mates Barko and Moore, and a Depth Charge	[98]
Watching the Aphrodite go out on Patrol	[98]
Engineering Force of the Corsair	[102]
Lieutenant J. J. Patterson, Engineer Officer, and his Husky “Black Gang”	[102]
A Boat-Load of Survivors from the Antilles coming alongside	[106]
Naval Officers rescued from the Antilles, with General McNair, U.S.A.	[106]
The Antilles crowded with Troops on her Last Voyage to France	[110]
The Alcedo picks up the Antilles Survivors	[110]
The Corsair drops a Mine and shakes up Fritz	[114]
The Finland, just after she was torpedoed	[118]
Destroyer Preston, which was caught in the Hurricane and also found Refuge at Lisbon	[118]
Chief Yeoman Paulson	[122]
Gunner’s Mate Wiley	[122]
Bucking into the Winter Seas	[128]
She takes ’em aboard Green	[128]
The Ship’s Cooks and the Wardroom Steward	[134]
The Noble Job of peeling “Spuds”	[134]
Boatswain’s Mate Houtz in the Navy’s Storm Clothes	[140]
Swollen Sea, from the Forward Crow’s-Nest	[140]
A Letter from Home: Coaling Ship must wait	[144]
Carroll Bayne gets his Ensign’s Commission	[144]
How the Hurricane Seas pounded the Yacht: “The Poor Old Ship was a Mess”	[150]
What was left of the Emergency Wheel	[156]
When the Hurricane slapped the Windows	[156]
Assistant Engineer Hawthorn and his Watch	[160]
The Crew of Number Three Gun	[160]
Temporary Repairs, after the Hurricane	[164]
What the Forward Deck-House looked like while running for Lisbon	[164]
Cleaning up at Lisbon, after the Hurricane	[172]
Lisbon Harbor and the Tug that towed the Corsair to the Dockyard	[176]
The American Legation at Lisbon where the Corsair’s Crew found a Home	[176]
The Corsair in Drydock at Lisbon	[182]
At her Mooring Buoy, Brest	[182]
“Doc” Laub agrees that “this is the Life if you don’t weaken”	[188]
Coxswain Dave Tibbott waits with the Launch	[188]
The Cheery French Pilot, Lieutenant Mejeck	[194]
Chief Quartermaster Benton	[194]
The Home of the American Naval Officers’ Club in Brest	[200]
American Yachts clustered inside the Breakwater, Brest	[206]
The Faithful Wakiva, which was sunk in Collision	[212]
Big Transports in Brest Harbor	[212]
Chief Quartermaster Farr stands with Folded Arms and indicates that he has his Sea-Legs with him	[216]
Commander Kittinger says Good-Bye to Lieutenant Commander Porter as the Latter takes over the Command	[216]
Lieutenant Schanze, Ensign Gray, Lieutenant Commander Porter, Chief Engineer Hutchison, Commander Kittinger, and Lieutenant McGuire	[220]
At Rosyth: Lieutenant Nolan, Dr. Agnew, Commander Porter, Lieutenant McGuire, Ensign Acorn, Lieutenant Patterson, Ensign Wangerin, and Paymaster Erickson	[220]
Rolling out to find a Convoy	[226]
A Little Water on Deck	[226]
The Sinking Californian: Going, Going, Almost Gone!	[232]
Californian Survivors aboard the Corsair	[232]
A Mascot from the Californian, known as “The Mutt”	[238]
The Newfoundland Pup saved from the French Fishing Bark	[238]
The Dagfin, broken down and helpless. The Corsair stands by	[244]
Admiral Henry T. Mayo, Commander-in-Chief of the Atlantic Fleet	[248]
H. A. Breckel, Chief Radio Operator	[256]
Electricians Swan and Plummer, of the highly Efficient Radio Gang	[256]
At the Emergency Wheel: Heavy Weather Offshore	[262]
The Trim, Immaculate Navy Man: After Coaling Ship	[262]
Boatswain’s Mate French bought a Pet Parrot in Lisbon	[268]
“Tommy,” the Ship’s Cat, who finished strong in the Hurricane	[268]
“Teddy,” who was given a Military Funeral when he swallowed a Nail	[268]
With the Grand Fleet at Rosyth	[274]
Surrendered German Submarines tied up at Portland	[274]
The Corsair at Queenstown as Flagship of Admiral Sims	[278]
Seaman Henry Barry, before they wished Another Job on him	[282]
Gunner’s Mate Simpson hopes to spot that Sub	[282]
The Homeward-Bound Pennant: “We’re off for Little Old New York, thank God”	[286]
The Corsair when in Commission as a Yacht before the War	[290]
Admiral William S. Sims, commanding the U.S. Naval Forces in European Waters	[294]
Map showing the Corsair’s Wanderings in the War Zone	[304]

THE CORSAIR
IN THE WAR ZONE

CHAPTER I
THE CALL OF DUTY OVERSEAS

The task of the American Navy in the great conflict was performed exceedingly well, but so very quietly that even now the merits of the achievement are realized only by those who knew how near the German submarine campaign came to winning the war. There was no blacker period than the spring of 1917 when the losses of Allied merchant shipping were mounting toward a million tons a month, and the Admiralty was well aware that England stood face to face with starvation and defeat unless this piracy could soon be checked. It was when Admiral Sims cabled to his own Government, from London, “Briefly stated, I consider that at the present moment we are losing the war”; when Admiral Jellicoe privately admitted, “It is impossible for us to go on if losses like this continue”; and when Lord Balfour could see no escape from the same tragic conclusion.

The facts were purposely concealed from the people of both countries, and even after the declaration of war the attitude of the American mind was all too leisurely, while the British grimly hung on and tightened their belts with the tenacity of the breed. The battleship squadrons of the Grand Fleet still dominated the surface of the Seven Seas, but they were helpless to aid in this vital problem. It was perceived that the chief hope of salvation was in massing destroyers to protect the converging trade routes of the Irish Sea and the English Channel and thereby increasing the supply of food and material. For this service the British Navy was able to spare a flotilla of less than a score of these craft, a patrol force obviously inadequate. These were the reasons why the fleet of thirty-five fast and powerful American destroyers was sent across the Atlantic, and why Queenstown was chosen as the strategic base port.

As soon as the troop-ships began to move overseas, these destroyers were able to extend their operations and to help guard and escort the convoys through the Bay of Biscay to the coast of France. Meanwhile another urgent situation had developed and an appeal no less insistent had been conveyed to Washington. The navy of France was mostly in the Mediterranean where it properly belonged, and the small patrol force off the stormy shores of Brittany was racked, weary, almost discouraged. Thousands of French sailors had been sent from the ships and bases to fight in the trenches. The little torpedo boats and trawlers were unable to cope with the U-boats which ran amuck among the precious coastwise convoys or intercepted the ships that were homeward bound from distant voyages.

France was magnificent, but her maritime strength in the Atlantic was almost spent. To safeguard the approaches to her ports in which American regiments and divisions were to be landed, hundreds of thousands of men, with their mountains of supplies, was more than she could attempt. Help was needed and the American Navy was eager to respond, but no more destroyers were available. It was necessary to retain a certain number of them in home waters as units of the fighting fleet of big ships which was held in readiness for whatever emergency the war might suddenly unfold. To France, therefore, the Navy was compelled to send whatever it could lay hands on at short notice, planning to reinforce this vanguard with destroyers as fast as they could be launched and commissioned.

In these circumstances the only ships which could be hastily fitted out and sent across were the larger yachts, about twenty in number, whose owners had enrolled and offered them for service when the war clouds were gathering. It had been expected that these pleasure craft, with their volunteer officers and crews, would be used only in the coastal patrol areas and not for duty in the war zone, and in the naval organization they were defined as belonging to “Class IV,” which had a limited field of operation. This was no obstacle, it is needless to say, for when the greater opportunity offered, the amateur bluejackets who manned these yachts were eager to shift into “Class II,” or combatant ships, and to sign on for the adventure in the war zone.

The story of one of these yachts which bravely endured almost two years of battering service in foreign waters is more than a record of a single ship, for it will convey, I hope, something of the spirit and the experiences which they all shared together and which the Navy at large regards with pride as worthy of its traditions. These ships were flung into work for which they were presumably unfitted, into a kind of warfare which was wholly novel, and they sailed with crews who were mostly greenhorns, but they passed the test with flying colors and their admiral who commanded the American Naval Forces in France took pleasure in writing, not long ago:

U.S.S. Pennsylvania
New York, N.Y.
8 September, 1919

My dear Mr. Paine:

I am glad that you are to write the war story of the Corsair because the story of the yachts that came to France in 1917 is well worthy of record. These vessels, designed for pleasure and manned, in large part, by officers and men of little naval training, but of unconquerable spirit, were by peculiar circumstances given an important rôle in the war.

Copyright by Underwood and Underwood, N.Y.

ADMIRAL H. B. WILSON, COMMANDING THE U.S. NAVAL FORCES IN FRANCE

Because of the lack of destroyers, the yachts contributed a large share of the American naval effort on the French coast during the summer and fall of 1917—trying months of the submarines’ greatest activity. Their work then and subsequently, whether on troop and store-ship escort in the Bay of Biscay, convoy escort through the difficult coastal channels of France, or on the Gironde convoys, was frequently hazardous and was always well done.

Very sincerely
H. B. Wilson
(Admiral, U.S. Navy)

Such was the “Suicide Fleet” as it was dubbed by certain pessimists who were later compelled to eat their words. Of these yachts one of the largest and fastest was the Corsair, owned by J. Pierpont Morgan, and the second of her name to fly the pennant of the American Navy in war-time. The first Corsair was renamed the Gloucester and won a well-deserved renown at Santiago in 1898, under Lieutenant Commander Richard Wainwright, who engaged two Spanish destroyers, driving one ashore and sinking the other in the most brilliant single exploit of that battle. In size and armament either destroyer was more than a match for the converted yacht, called a gunboat by courtesy, whose main battery consisted of four six-pounders. This was the kind of blue-water warfare which American sailors would have vastly preferred in 1917, ship to ship, between honorable foemen, as navies had fought in days gone by.

The contrast between the naval careers of these two Corsairs is wide and significant. The older ship had known what to expect, a certain chivalry of the sea which had never been obscured, even when men slew each other with cutlass and boarding-pike upon reddened decks. It was exemplified in the conduct of the Spanish Admiral Cervera, and reflected in the behavior of Captain “Jack” Phillip of the Texas when he shouted to his bluejackets in the moment of victory, “Don’t cheer, boys. The poor devils are dying.”

The Corsair of twenty years later was to sail against an enemy who skulked beneath the sea with malice toward all and mercy toward none, who counted women and children as fair prey in war, and whose trail was marked by the agonies of unarmed and helpless castaways adrift in open boats.

This Corsair was no fragile, fair-weather yacht whose cruises had been confined to sheltered reaches, but a powerful ship familiar with the Atlantic in all seasons. She was no longer young, as vessels go, with eighteen years of service to her credit, but the Lloyd’s surveyor rated her as staunch and sound in every respect. As a yacht the Corsair had made six voyages to Europe, while owned by the late J. Pierpont Morgan, and her shapely lines were known to mariners from the Channel ports to the Mediterranean and the Golden Horn.

A faithful ship which has long withstood the ordeals of the sea becomes something more than a mere fabric of steel and wood. She seems almost sentient, like a living thing to those who have shared her fortunes, and therein is the immemorial romance which the sea peculiarly vouchsafes. It is obvious to sailor-men that these many years of fidelity, in winter gales and summer breezes, should have endeared the Corsair to her owners, father and son.

Designed by J. Beavor Webb, the yacht was built for offshore work, although not with the expectation that she would be used as a “fourth-rate gunboat” in the Bay of Biscay for a year and a half on end. This was too much to ask of a vessel so planned and arranged, but like the men of the Navy she proved that she could do a little better than her best. Her length was three hundred and four feet, with a beam of thirty-three and a half feet, a draft of seventeen feet, and a measurement of sixteen hundred tons—noble dimensions for a pleasure craft. The unusual speed of nineteen knots was maintained, when necessary, in the war zone. Her yachting complement comprised fifty-five officers and men. With spacious decks and living quarters, the Corsair was rather comfortable than ornate.

Captain William B. Porter had been in command of her for sixteen years. He was a deep-water sailor whose youth had known a merchant marine now vanished, the stately sailing ships from ports “down east” which lifted sky sail yards to the breath of the Pacific trades or snugged down to breast the tempests of Cape Horn. He knew shipwreck and the peril and misery of an open boat adrift in Far Eastern seas. He had gone into steam, at first on the China coast, and later he became an officer in the American Line. During the Spanish War he served on the auxiliary cruiser Yale with the naval rank of lieutenant (junior grade), and was given command of the Spanish Steamer Rita which was captured as a prize and used as a transport.

When the Corsair was taken over by the Navy, it was ruled that all vessels of this class should be commanded by an officer of the regular service. Captain Porter was appointed executive officer of the yacht, which position he held until promoted to command during her second year of duty in foreign waters.

In April and May of 1917 the Corsair was overhauled and refitted as a fighting craft at the yard of the W. & A. Fletcher Company in Hoboken, the firm which had built her. The Navy is severely practical and beauty was sacrificed to utility. The bowsprit, which had added the finishing touch to the fine sheer of the deck, was ruthlessly removed. Canvas-screened platforms, or crow’s-nests, disfigured the two tall masts. The white-pine decks, whose spotlessness had been the officers’ pride, were bored for gun mountings. Teakwood panels which had covered the steel plates of the bulwarks were sent ashore for storage. Plate-glass windows were boarded up and gleaming brass-work painted to decrease visibility and save the trouble of polishing it. The quarter-deck, no longer inviting to leisure with its awnings, cushions, and wicker chairs, was measured for the track and gear of the ready depth bombs.

The hardest problem was to stow a hundred and more men below. The large dining-room forward was stripped of its fittings and filled with tiers of bunks and a few hammocks. Down the middle ran two long mess tables, bare and scrubbed. Forty-five men were taken care of in this space, and although they could not have whirled a cat around by the tail, they were no more crowded than is customary in the Navy. Twenty-four more were berthed in the forecastle. By ripping out bulkheads, room was made in the “glory hole” for some of the petty officers. The old quarters of the yacht’s officers were given over to the chief petty officers. The bluejackets overflowed into the hold and slept close to the ice machine, where they philosophically reflected that they were sure to keep cool in the event of a torpedo attack.

The owner’s cabins and the library aft were occupied by the commissioned officers. Although the rugs and panels and much of the furniture were removed and the ship had a bare, business-like aspect, the officers found a certain luxury in the fact that there were bathrooms enough to go round. They ate in the forward house on deck and the library served as an office, with gun supports extending from the wide divans to the deck above. The rough-and-ready transformation must have seemed almost brutal to those of the crew who, for many years, had striven for perfection of detail in maintaining the Corsair as a yacht. As a fighting ship the gleaming black of the hull and the mahogany houses were covered with sombre gray paint.

A naval crew was put aboard as soon as the quarters were ready. For the most part they were eager and youthful volunteers who had chosen the Navy because it seemed to promise speedier action than the Army. They had lost no time in enlisting, many of them preferring the humble station of a bluejacket to the delay incident to studying for a commission at Plattsburg. The lack of seafaring experience was atoned for by unbounded zeal and enthusiasm. Their sublime ignorance was unclouded by doubts. They yearned to fight German submarines and expected to find them.

It was a democracy of the forecastle in which social distinctions were thrown overboard as so much rubbish. The yachts recruited many of their men from the universities, from offices in Wall Street and Broadway, and as sweating “gobs” with blistered palms they rubbed elbows or bunked with youngsters of all sorts and were proud of it. Princeton was strong aboard the Corsair, and more than a dozen of her sons, as a stentorian glee club, enlivened the Bay of Biscay with praise of Old Nassau. The older officers of the regular service disliked this new word “gob” as undignified and untraditional, but the Reserve Force adopted it with pride as the badge of their high-hearted fraternity.

COMMANDER THEODORE A. KITTINGER, U.S.N., COMMANDING U.S.S. CORSAIR

The Corsair was fortunate in the officers assigned for the hazardous employments of the war zone. Lieutenant Commander Theodore A. Kittinger, U.S.N., was in command of the yacht, having been transferred from the destroyer Cushing which had taken part in the long and arduous training that had whetted the flotilla personnel to a fine edge.

The service record of Commander Kittinger helps one to realize how varied is the experience and how rigorous the training of a naval officer, even in time of peace. Graduated from Annapolis in 1901, he served first in the battleship Alabama, of the North Atlantic Squadron, as junior watch and division officer, on deck and in the engine-room. As an ensign he was in the converted yacht Vixen in 1903 when she cruised in Caribbean waters and kept an eye on the attempt of the former Kaiser to meddle in the affairs of Venezuela. Then shifted to the China station, the youthful officer was in the monitor Monadnock and the cruiser New Orleans during the anti-foreign riots and the Russo-Japanese War.

Sent home to join the armored cruiser West Virginia, Lieutenant Kittinger was an assistant engineer officer in 1906 and again made the long voyage to the Far East and the Pacific. He became gunnery officer of the same ship before the tour of sea duty ended and he was appointed assistant inspector of ordnance at the Naval Gun Factory, Washington. In 1910-13 he was senior engineer officer of the battleship Minnesota, visiting Europe and then to Cuba and Vera Cruz. Again ashore, he was in charge of the smokeless powder works at Indian Head and executive officer of the station of the Naval Proving Ground, going from there to the Fore River Shipyard as naval inspector of machinery. Then came two years of sea service in a destroyer.

As executive officer of the Corsair, Lieutenant Commander Porter was an uncommonly experienced and capable seaman and navigator and, of course, knew the ship from keel to truck and what she could do in all weathers. Third on the list was Lieutenant Robert E. Tod as navigating officer. He was one of the foremost yachtsmen of the United States, a commodore of the Atlantic Yacht Club, and a licensed master mariner who had sailed his own large vessels without the aid of a skipper. The gunnery officer, Ensign A. K. Schanze, was a graduate of the Naval Academy who welcomed the opportunity to return to the Service. The chief engineer of the Corsair, J. K. Hutchison, who had been in her for several years, decided to stand by the ship through thick and thin, as did his assistants, A. V. Mason and W. F. Hawthorn. This was true also of Lieutenant R. J. McGuire who had been the first officer of the yacht and of Boatswain R. Budani and a number of the enlisted force.

The day’s work of making the Corsair ready for sea, the unaccustomed drudgery and the uncertainty which filled the ship with rumors, are reflected in the letters and diaries of the youthful seamen whose motto was, “We don’t know where we’re going but we’re on our way.” One of them wrote as follows:

April 3rd. 1917. The President of the United States to-day declared this nation to be at war with Germany.... 4th. Have determined that I had better join the Army or Navy, as we are really at war. Most of my friends are going to try to go to Plattsburg and get commissions. I do not think I shall do this.... 6th. A lot of men are planning to go to the Mosquito Fleet school at Newport. I can’t see it. Will go on a foreign-bound ship or none. Have decided to learn radio and join the Navy as an operator if I can learn it soon.

April 13th. Still plugging at radio. I am getting a little impatient. Think I shall enlist very soon.... 20th. Almost ready to leave the office. Hate to go, but war is war and it’s no fault of mine. Sorry there is war, but there is only one thing to do—see it through.... 26th. Finished all my work in the office and took away my things. I wonder if I’ll ever get through the war and come back to my old job.... 27th. On this day I made my final determination to enlist in the Navy. Saw Lieutenant Tod and Captain Porter who recommended me for the Corsair. Was enrolled in the Navy and assigned to this ship, with orders to report at once. My rank is seaman....

May 2nd. First day of decent weather on this ship and we worked like slaves. Coaling, cleaning decks, and drill. The food so far is good. Home liberty for the night.... 3rd. Was elected to mess, with Jack Faison. Worst job in the world. We washed hundreds of dishes, knives, etc., but got the fo’castle clean for the first time.... 4th. Same kind of work, although we added setting-up exercises and semaphore. We were signed out of the Reserves (for coast patrol) into Class II, regular U.S.N. service call.... 5th. Spent most of the morning learning knots in ropes. Also had to clean decks. Brought aboard the small arms. Stood watch from noon to 4 P.M. Chased away two suspicious looking Wops. Six men are to be sent off the ship soon. If I am elected there is going to be one awful kick.

May 8th. This morning we had boat drill and I stroked the cutter. Then the head gunner and I showed the rest of the men how to take down, sight, and load a Springfield rifle. After that we practiced signals and had infantry drill with full equipment. The new boatswain treats ’em rough and he bawled me out all day. Rumors on this ship spread like wildfire. First we are to be a flagship and then a dispatch boat and then to patrol the English Channel until nobody knows anything. There goes the boatswain’s whistle which means turn to.

May 11th. Spent the entire day at the Armory getting clothes. The only decent thing about Navy red-tape is the cheap price which we pay for stuff. We stood in line just seven hours. The Corsair now looks like a real battleship. The paint is all on, also the gun mountings. We hear that the Kaiser has offered a big reward to the U-boat captain who sinks this boat, because it belongs to J. P. Morgan. Here’s hoping he is disappointed! I learned a new way yesterday of making a deck-mop out of canvas. It is very useful.... 14th. We got our orders to-day and sail for the Navy Yard to-morrow. The dope is that we leave for good on Friday. We expect to be sent to the coast of Maine for two weeks’ target practice, then to Newport where we get definite sailing orders for some foreign service.... 15th. Had a good trip from Fletchers’ to the Navy Yard and then a terrible day. We had to coal ninety tons of soft coal in buckets and shovels. The crew is dog-tired and I never saw such a dirty crowd. I pray we may never have to live to-day again.

(Note. Inserted later. This day was repeated in France once a week. We soon got so used to it that it became routine.)

May 16th. We had been asleep two hours when the fire call was rung and all hands had to march double-quick to the Princess Irene, a converted German liner. It was a pretty bad fire and we were detailed to haul hose for three hours. To-day was spent in washing the ship and loading meat aboard. We are taking on provisions for six months. The work here in the Navy Yard is something fierce and I shall be glad to go to sea. I bought shore liberty from another gob for two dollars to go home and take a bath.

May 17th. To-day a strict censorship was put on us. All our mail is read by the executive officer before we send it out. Also no news of any kind is handed to us. We are not even allowed to tell our families when or where we sail. All the dope is that we are going abroad soon. I visited the Noma and the Harvard to-night, but they can’t compare with the Corsair. We also looked over some of the battleships and destroyers. Eleven of them left for France to-day. We now get home leave once a week. I washed some clothes to-day. They were in awful shape. We loaded ten tons more of provisions. Also got shot in the arm for typhoid and was vaccinated. I am all in to-night.

May 18th. To-day has been more like the real Navy. I was on anchor watch from 4 P.M. to 6 and again in the morning. I went aboard a submarine to-night and it was the most interesting craft I have ever seen, but I would not care to ship in her. My arm is a lot better to-night, but still sore. The food is not nearly as good as it was, mostly because the cook is lazy, but I think the skipper has got his number.... 19th. It looks very much as if we would sail any day now. All stores, ammunition, etc., are aboard and we are living a life of comparative ease. Now they say we are going to convoy the United States Commission to Russia. I hope we do.... 21st. Captain Kittinger told us this morning to get all the warm clothes we could as we are going to a cold climate. This sounds like Russia or the North Sea. Everybody says for sure we are going over soon, so I guess that must be right. I was recommended by the chief boatswain for a coxswain’s job and I hope I get the appointment. Dave Tibbott got one, too. Pay-day to-day, but I did not get a cent, as by some error of the Department my name was not on the list. Am studying hard on the deck and boat book and the seaman’s manual.

May 22nd. Got offered a job as yeoman, but I don’t want to be a pen-pusher if I can help it. Mr. Tod advised me to take it and say nothing if the commander makes a point of it.... 24th. This has been a trying day. In the first place a lot more men were transferred off the boat and it makes us all nervous. So far eight have got the gate. I painted the skylights and covers all the afternoon. We are still at the Navy Yard. Because of the Mongolia accident all our ammunition was condemned, so we had to unload it. The weight to carry was enough to pull all the rivets out of your back-bone. I suppose it will be the same when we load it again. We still don’t know for sure whether we will be kept on the boat. Several more men expect to get the hook.

Copyright by Kadel and Herbert, N. Y.

LIEUTENANT COMMANDER WILLIAM B. PORTER, LATER COMMANDING U.S.S. CORSAIR, AND LIEUTENANT ROBERT E. TOD, NAVIGATOR

May 26th. I have the P.O. mess. Dirty job. Another man got canned to-day. I do wish they would settle on the crew. I understand now that the Corsair will sail for Gravesend, England, on Thursday. Mr. McGuire told me last night that he is afraid some more men will have to be put off for lack of room. It certainly keeps us feeling jumpy.... 29th. Coaled ship all day. It was a frightful job. It was shot onto the decks and we shovelled it into the bunkers. We took on 350 tons and the dirt and coal dust are unspeakable. To add to the discomfort it rained all day. To-morrow is a national holiday, but not for us.

May 30. To-day we spent washing the ship. We turned loose the hose for four hours and it looks better, but is not clean by a long shot. I have caught a rotten cold. To-day more of the crew got fired. Thirty-two regulars from the South Carolina came aboard to fill up the crew. We now have a full complement.... 31st. Still raining. I have never known such beastly weather. We are still loading stores and I don’t understand where all the stuff is put. We are carrying the fleet paymaster and the fleet postmaster, so it looks as if we would also be the fleet dispatch boat on the other side. Heaven only knows when we will sail. We have been expecting to go every night. Liberty is very scarce these days.

June 1st. Still more rain. I don’t expect a decent day this summer. We are still loading, loading, loading. Food, clothes, and ammunition. A hundred and fifty pounds on my back is nothing any more. They first announced that we were to have liberty to-morrow and then cancelled it. Haven’t been mess cook or on watch for five days. Hope my good luck continues. The regulars are a good bunch, with few exceptions, and I am surprised that most of them are so young. They run from nineteen to twenty-two on an average, barring the petty officers who are older.

June 4th. We sail definitely to-morrow, nobody knows where. In the afternoon I went to the Subtreasury with the paymaster to get money. We both carried guns and brought back $10,000 in gold to the ship. It was some load to carry.... 5th. We shoved off from the Navy Yard at 8.30 A.M. and are now heading north in Long Island Sound. No idea yet where we are heading for. We cruised in the Sound all day and anchored at Whitestone for the night. Got our battle billet to-day. I am as follows:

Fire. Extinguisher in crew quarters.

Boat. Big motor sailer.

Gun. Fire control aft.

Arm and away. Fire control aft.

This is a joke on me. It was raining the other morning and we were getting under way. Everybody was dressed in dirty working whites. The bos’n yelled at me, “Hey, get the messenger for’ard.” I immediately rushed down to my locker, broke out a clean suit of whites, and reported to the bridge for messenger watch. I could hear the bos’n cursing all over the deck. The mate finally spotted me and asked what I was doing on the bridge. I told him the bos’n had put me on messenger watch, and the mate said, “Messenger watch! Hell! The messenger is a rope, you poor boob!” It turned out that the “messenger” was a long line which was stowed forward and he was wondering what in Sam Hill had happened to me. The “messenger” is used to hoist the motor sailer.

June 6th. Spent the morning overside, scrubbing the ship. At one o’clock we hove anchor and cruised down to Staten Island. There are eleven warships here with us.... 7th. Coaled ship all day at the Navy Yard. Filled the bunkers and then put thirty tons on deck in bags. The ship was a holy mess. Before breakfast we were over the side scrubbing.... 8th. Spent most of the day washing the whole ship. We left the Navy Yard and are tied to a dock at the foot of 80th Street in the Hudson River. The Seattle, Birmingham, and the Aphrodite are anchored near us. Got paid $13.00 to-day. So much money makes me dizzy.

June 11th. I got what amounts to a promotion. I am signal-man on the bridge. I handle all the signals, flags, semaphore, blinker, and searchlights, excepting radio. It lets me out of all the hard deck work. It will take lots of practice to make good, but I am coming along fairly well.... 12th. Three large transports are anchored off us, crowded with regular infantry. We hear we are to convoy them across. We shall be starting very soon. The dope is that we are to act as convoy all summer.... 13th. We are told that there will be no liberty to-night, so that means business. I called up father and he came to see me and said good-bye. The day was spent in putting on the finishing touches for sea. We think we are going over with about thirty other ships. The Seattle is the flagship. There will be cruisers, destroyers, our type of vessel, and the transports....

This young sailor and his comrades were about to take part in one of the most memorable voyages in American history. The crowded transports at which they gazed bore Pershing’s first contingent, the vanguard of an army two million strong. They presaged the enormous flow of troops and material, the bridge of ships which should finally shatter the military power of Germany. There was nothing outwardly dramatic in this sailing of this little fleet of transports. It stole out in secret and no newspaper hinted at its departure. The men in khaki belonged to regular regiments whose names and numbers meant nothing to the people of their country. It was to be the destiny of most of these unknown men to fall, dead or wounded, on the fields of France, but the regiments came back, and then the country knew them as they marched down Fifth Avenue, wildly cheered and pelted with flowers—the stern, bronzed ranks of the First Division.

They filled the decks of this first convoy, companies and battalions of the Sixteenth, the Eighteenth, the Twenty-Sixth, and the Twenty-Eighth infantry regiments which were to win glory at tremendous cost in the victorious assaults at Toul, at Cantigny, at Soissons, at Saint-Mihiel, and in the desperate advances of the Meuse and the Argonne.

It was the Navy’s job to shepherd them across the sea in safety. While the crew of the Corsair was busied with rumor and conjecture, her official record or confidential “War Diary” briefly noted the facts in the case:

April 28th. Corsair taken over by the Government at Fletchers’ Ship Yard, Hoboken, New Jersey.

April 28th to May 15th. Fitting out for duty as scout patrol, Third Naval District. During first week in May information was received that ship would operate with Nantucket Patrol when ready for sea.

May 15th. Sailed from Fletchers’ Ship Yard to Navy Yard to receive battery and continue fitting out. Commissioned as per following letter:

Office of the Commandant Third Naval District
Navy Yard, Brooklyn, N.Y. May 14, 1917

From: Commandant, Third Naval District.
To: Lt. Com’dr T. A. Kittinger, U.S.N.,
Commanding Officer.

Subject: Corsair, S.P. No. 159, placed in commission.

1. As authorized in reference (a) the Corsair, S.P. No. 159, is hereby placed in full commission, 15 May, 1917, 3.00 P.M.

N. R. Usher
Rear Admiral, U.S.N.

Copy to Navy Department		Operations.
Copy to Navy Department		Bureau of Nav.

Commander Patrol Force, U.S. Atlantic Fleet.

May 19th. Received orders to fit out for distant service, to be ready on May 30, 1917.

June 4th. Received orders to report to Rear Admiral Albert Gleaves, U.S. Navy, for temporary service.

June 5th. Left Navy Yard, New York, for shaking down cruise in Long Island Sound.

June 6th. Proceeded to anchorage at Tompkinsville for conference with Captain W. B. Fletcher, U.S.N., on the U.S.S. Noma.

June 7th. Proceeded to the Navy Yard for coal.

June 8th. Joined U.S.S. Seattle at anchorage, North River, New York.

June 14th. Sailed with First Expeditionary Force from United States to France.

The troop-ships in Group One of this First Expeditionary Force were the merchant steamers Tenadores, Saratoga, Havana, and Pastores. The escort assigned to them comprised the cruiser Seattle, flagship of Rear Admiral Gleaves, the yacht Corsair, the armed transport DeKalb, and the destroyers Wilkes, Terry, and Roe. Three other groups followed in a similar arrangement. The secret orders received by the commander of the Corsair were as follows:

From: Commander Destroyer Force, Commanding
U.S. Convoy Operations in the Atlantic.
To: Convoy Group Number One.

Subject: Movement Order.

1. Execute Operation Order No. 1 of 7 June, 1917.

Escort arrive Ambrose Channel Lightship at 7.00 A.M., 14 June.

Convoy arrive Ambrose Channel Lightship at 7.30 A.M., 14 June.

Group One will, on arrival at Ambrose Channel Lightship, assume following formation:

Terry O			.		O Wilkes
			.
	DeKalb O		.	O Seattle (2 points starboard bow of leading transport, distance 2000 yards)
			.
			.
			.
			O Tenadores
		Havana	O
	Roe O		O Saratoga	O Corsair (On beam 3rd transport, distance 2000 yards)
		Pastores	O

Distance between transports 600 yards.

(Signed) Albert Gleaves

FITTING THE CORSAIR FOR THE WAR ZONE

The instructions for warding off submarine attack have more than a passing interest. They signified a new chapter in the work of the American Navy, with no doctrine as precedent—the task of transporting an army across three thousand miles of ocean and protecting it against an enemy which was supremely confident that its undersea warfare could not be thwarted, which had boasted that it could prevent the landing of an American army in France. In a way, this was a momentous experiment. How thoroughly and intelligently the Navy had studied the problem may be discerned in these extracts from its confidential orders to the Corsair and the other ships of the escort:

Reports of enemy submarine activity indicate that the area of greatest activity is east of Longitude Twenty West, and within a circle radius five hundred miles from Fayal, Azores. Submarines may be operating on the Atlantic coast of the United States and Canada. Every effort has been made to hold secret the sailing of the convoy but it may be assumed that the departure of convoy from the United States and the hour of departure will be communicated to the enemy. It is possible that particular effort will be made by the enemy to accomplish the destruction of the convoy, and no part of the water traversed may be assumed to be free from submarines.

Ships will make every effort to maintain distance accurately and will be careful not to drop astern, particularly at night or in thick weather. Speed will be assigned by signal. During daylight every effort will be made to determine the revolutions necessary to make the speed of the convoy in order that each ship may maintain a more nearly constant speed during the darkness.

Convoy will be manœuvred as necessary by the Battle Signal Book. Ships will manœuvre independently in accordance with the Rules of the Road in all cases when necessary to avoid collision. When convoy alters course each ship of the convoy will turn in the wake of the next ahead except in zigzagging when all turn together.

There will be two well-protected and arranged lookout stations aloft; one on each side of the mast as high as possible, capable of holding four lookouts each. There will be four well-protected and arranged lookout stations on each side of the ship, capable of holding two lookouts each. During daylight there will be an officer in each top, in addition to lookouts. At all times there will be an officer in charge of lookouts on deck who will make periodic inspections. The communication system from lookout stations to bridge will be tested frequently.

Lookouts will be carefully selected for their fitness for lookout duty—keen eyesight, intelligence, and freedom from seasickness are essential qualities. A school for lookouts will be held daily. They will be instructed to report everything they see. In so far as practicable they will be furnished with binoculars and each lookout will always use the same glass. Each lookout will be assigned a definite sector and will be required to maintain the closest possible watch within that sector, no matter what may be happening in other sectors.

Gun crews will be at all times in the immediate vicinity of their guns. One man of each crew will be at all times on watch. Daily pointing, loading, and fire control drills will be held. When conditions permit and upon orders from the Group Convoy Commander, target practice will be held in accordance with the General Signal Book.

No radio message will be sent except in great emergency involving the safety of the ship. A continuous radio watch will be maintained. If it becomes necessary to communicate by radio, the cipher contained in the operation order will be used.

All vessels will be darkened so that no ray of light shall show outboard between sunset and sunrise. A single gleam of light may cause the loss of the ship. Sentries will make constant rounds to insure the strict enforcement of this order throughout the ship. Navigational lights will not be shown except when specifically ordered by the convoy commander or when immediately necessary to avoid collision and then only long enough to meet the emergency. Range lights will not be shown and all lights will be dimmed to two miles visibility.

Smoke from the funnels must be reduced to a minimum both by day and night. All vessels will keep fuel so trimmed that maximum speed can be maintained toward end of voyage. Neither the whistle or the siren shall be used in submarine waters except in case of emergency. Care will be exercised that the leads of the siren and whistle cords are such that these cannot be accidentally pulled or become jammed.

A station bill will be prepared showing the stations at fire quarters and abandon ship. Daily drills at fire stations and abandon ship will be held until all persons on board become familiar with their duties.

Necessary instructions in regard to rendezvous and courses will be found in the sealed instructions. These will be opened only as directed on the outside of the envelope. Before dark a rendezvous for 4 P.M. of the day following will be signalled by the Escort Commander.

Nothing that floats will be thrown overboard. All waste material that can be burned will be burned. Tin cans must be well punctured before being thrown overboard. Garbage that cannot be burned shall be accumulated in suitable receptacles and thrown overboard from all ships simultaneously one hour after sunset each night.

Submarine Attack

The following is generally accepted:

Submarines on surface are visible on the horizon. Submarine awash is visible about five miles. Submarine submerged, periscope showing, is not visible more than two miles unless periscope appears against skyline. Porpoising of submarine as it comes to the surface to obtain sight through periscope creates a distinct wake which is more clearly visible than the wake of periscope when submarine is steadied.

Under poor conditions of atmosphere and sea the probability of detecting a submarine decreases. It follows that constant vigilance alone will insure the early detection of a submarine. The wake of a torpedo is distinctive and can easily be picked up in smooth water at a distance of two thousand yards. In rough water it is difficult to observe the wake.

NUMBER TWO GUN CREW ON WATCH

THEY ARE ALL SEA DOGS TOGETHER

Daylight attack by surface craft (enemy raider), will be handled by signal from the Convoy Commander. Daylight attack by submarines shall be handled as follows by each vessel:

(a) Open fire instantly on any submarine sighted. Don’t delay the first shot even if it is apt to go wild,—it will show the direction of the submarine and will have a pronounced moral effect.

(b) Continue to fire as rapidly as possible. Short shots interfere with the ability of the submarine to see and aim.

(c) If submarine appears less than six points on bow and not more than 2000 yards away, head for submarine at best speed.

(d) If submarine appears more than six points on bow, abeam, or on the quarter, head directly away from submarine at best speed.

(e) If torpedo wake only is seen, fire gun immediately and indicate direction to other ships and manœuvre to avoid torpedo as in case of submarine, i.e.—turning towards torpedo if less than six points.

(f) Other ships of convoy turn from direction of submarine and scatter at best speed, maintaining keenest lookout for torpedo wake and for a possible mate of the attacking submarine.

(g) Resume course when it is deemed that your vessel is outside the danger zone of attacking submarine.

Night Attack:—All vessels instantly change course ninety degrees either to port or starboard. Course will be resumed before any vessel has proceeded ten miles after ninety degrees change. If any vessel is damaged by torpedo, that vessel will act independently and all other vessels of convoy escape at best speed. The damaged vessel may send out radio distress signals provided for merchant vessels.

Owing to the presence of escorting ships it is not probable that submarines will be caught on the surface and therefore will not attempt to use her guns. It is very probable that the first indication of the presence of a submarine will be the wake of her torpedo.

Mines, floating or submerged, may be encountered. All floating objects, the character of which is uncertain, must be carefully avoided. Floating mines have recently been encountered under the following conditions:

(a) Two mines connected by lines.

(b) Secured to bottom of dummy periscopes which were mounted in a box or other object.

(d) Attached to wreckage of various kinds.

If submarine is sighted or if gunfire from any ship indicates attack, destroyers and fast yachts of escort will head at best speed in direction of submarine, force it to submerge, and attack as conditions permit. They will rejoin convoy at earliest possible moment. If any ship is damaged by torpedo, two destroyers will stand by ship, those nearest of escort, affecting such rescue as may be necessary and possible.

CHAPTER II
“LAFAYETTE, WE ARE HERE!”

The Corsair stood out to sea with the transports and the escort in the morning of June 14th after a thick fog had delayed the departure for several hours. As finally selected, the ship’s company consisted of 130 officers and enlisted men. The shifting fortunes of war were to scatter most of them to other ships and stations during the long exile overseas, and when the battered yacht came home, only Commander Porter and Lieutenant McGuire and eighteen of the crew of this first muster roll were left on board.

Changes were so frequent that from first to last almost three hundred men served in the Corsair.[1] The ship proved to be a training school for officers, and made an exceptional record in that thirteen of her enlisted force and one warrant officer won commissions during the war, some taking the examinations while on foreign service and others being sent to Annapolis for the intensive course of three months and receiving the rank of temporary ensigns in the regular naval organization. On deck and below, men were rated as petty officers as rapidly as they displayed aptitude, and few of the crew failed to advance themselves. The spirit of the ship was eager and ambitious from the start and drudgery could not dull it.

As a proper man-of-war the Corsair lived a complex and disciplined programme of duty through the twenty-four hours of the day. When she steamed past Sandy Hook, outward bound, the complement included a chief boatswain’s mate, one boatswain’s mate, six coxswains, seven gunner’s mates, four quartermasters, nineteen seamen, nineteen ordinary seamen, three electricians, four radio operators, a carpenter’s mate, two ship-fitters, a boiler maker, a blacksmith, a chief machinist’s mate, one machinist’s mate, a chief water tender, two water tenders, four oilers, twenty-one firemen and coal passers, a chief yeoman, three yeomen, a hospital apprentice, a bugler, a cabin steward, four ship’s cooks, and eight mess attendants.

The complete roster of the ship on this famous day of June 14, 1917, was as follows:

Lieutenant Commander T. A. Kittinger, U.S.N. (Commanding)
Lieutenant Commander W. B. Porter, N.R.F. (Executive)
Lieutenant Robert E. Tod, N.R.F. (Navigator)
Lieutenant R. J. McGuire, (JG) N.R.F. (First Lieutenant)
Lieutenant J. K. Hutchison, (JG) N.R.F. (Engineer Officer)
Ensign A. K. Schanze, N.R.F. (Gunnery Officer)
Ensign J. F. W. Gray, N.R.F. (Communications Officer)
Assistant Surgeon E. V. Laub, N.R.F.
Assistant Paymaster J. J. Cunningham, N.R.F.
Machinist W. F. Hawthorn, N.R.F.
Machinist A. V. Mason, N.R.F.
Boatswain R. Budani, N.R.F.
Aguas, I C. F1c.
Ashby, C. N. Sea. 2c.
Balano, F. Sea.
Barko, A. W. G.M. 3c.
Barry, H. A. Sea.
Bayne, C. S. Sea.
Bedford, H. H. F1c.
[2]Benton, E. M. Sea.
Bischoff, H. J. F2c.
Bonsall, T. C. Cox.
Breckel, H. F. Elec. 1cR.
[2]Brillowski, A. J. F2c.
Byram, C. S. F2c.
Carey, N. J. Bugler
[2]Carroll, O. W.T.
Clinch, T., Jr. Elec. 2cG.
Coffey, A. H. Sea.
Connolly, C. Yeo. 3c.
Copeland, A. T. Sea.
Cure, H. S.C. 2c.
Curtin, J. J. F1c.
Davis, I. S. Elec. 2cR.
De Armosolo, V. M. Att. 3c.
Donaldson, S. J. Sea. 2c.
Duke, W. M., Jr. Sea.
Egan, L. C. G. M. 3c.
Emmons, L. C. Sea. 2c.
Evans, W. F. Sea.
Farr, F. S. Q.M. 2c.
Feeley, N. M.Att. 1c.
[2]Flynn, J. S. M.Att. 1c.
[2]French, L. A. Sea.
Fusco, N. S.C. 3c.
Ganz, C. A. M.M. 2c.
Gilhooley, J. P. G.M. 3c.
[2]Gillette, H. E. F2c.
Goring, H. D. H.A. 1c.
Graul, R. W. F1c.
Gray, A. O. Sea. 2c.
Griffin, L. H. F3c.
Haase, H. E. G.M.3c.
Haling, C. W.T.
Hamilton, C. Blacksmith
[2]Hanley, J. M.Att. 1c.
[2]Heise, W. F. F1c.
Herrman, H. Oiler
Hill, F. C. C.M. 3c.
Hiss, S. W. F1c.
Hollis, L. R. Sea. 2c.
Houtz, E. L. Sea.
Jetter, R. T. Sea.
Jones, R. D. Oiler
[2]Jones, T. W. F1c.
Kaetzel, H. D. Sea. 2c.
Keenan, A. E. B.M’ker.
Kerr, G. M. Sea.
[2]Kleine, J. F. Oiler
Leal, R. M.Att. 3C.
Lewis, F. W. Cox.
Lindeburg, F. R. Sea.
Loescher, H. A. Elec. 2cG.
Loftus, J. P. C.B.M.
Luke, E. E. C.M.M.
Marsden, C. Cox.
Marsh, A. J. Sea.
Martin, O. F. F1c.
Martinez, M. M.Att. 3c.
McClellan, R. B. B.M. 1c.
Miller, A. E. Yeo. 2c.
Montaux, R. C. Cox.
[2]Moore, J. E. Sea. 2c.
Moore, W. C. G.M. 2c.
Mulcahy, W. W. Cox.
Mullins, T. Q.M. 1c.
Murphy, W. F. Sea.
[2]Nardo, S. M.Att. 1c.
Nolan, F. M.Att. 2c.
Outwater, H. Sea.
Paulson, G. C. Yeoman
Pease, A. E. F1c.
Phillips, E. S.C. 2c.
[2]Plummer, J. A. Elec. 2cR.
Prindle, E. B. Q.M. 2c.
Rachor, J. Cox.
Rahill, W. J. Sea.
Regent, A. A. Sea. 2c.
Reynolds, F. J. Sea. 2c.
Robertson, C. Oiler
Rubein, S. F1c.
[2]Schlotfeldt, H. B. F2c.
Schmidt, H. L. S.F. 2c.
Seger, R. G. Sea.
Sellers, E. H. Sea. 2c.
[2]Sholander, E. Sea. 2c.
Simpson, J. F. G.M. 3c.
Skolmowski, S. J. Sea. 2c.
Smith, A. C., Jr. Q.M. 2c.
Smith, J. F1c.
Smock, T. F. Sea. 2c.
Stephenson, H. F1c.
Sullivan, V. J. F.2c.
Swan, M. H. Elec. 3cR.
Tepelman, L. W. F1c.
[2]Teuten, W. W. F1c.
Thysenius, E. Cabin St’rd
Tibbott, D. W. Sea.
Tucker, R. S.C. 3c.
Underbill, P. W. Sea. 2c.
Valyon, L. J. Sea. 2c.
[2]Van Camp, L. R. Sea.
Wallace, E. C.W.T.
Walters, F. Sea. 2c.
Washburn, C. F. Sea. 2c.
Waters, C. W. Yeo. 2c.
Walters, F. Sea 2c.
[2]Wheatcroft, W. A. S.F. 2c.
Wyllie, A. A. G.M. 1c.
Wysocki, P. P. Elec. 3c.

Many of these patriotic pilgrims were about to undertake their first voyage on blue water, nor could they foresee how much piteous woe can be caused by the uneasy motion of a ship. The Corsair was a lively boat, as the saying is, for her hull was not moulded like a fat-bellied merchantman, and she lifted to the seas with the graceful stride of a Yankee clipper. And so when the transports plodded out into the wide, wet Atlantic, not a few of the bold mariners of the Corsair devoutly wished they had enlisted in the Army. They were not disgraced, however, for many a hard-shell of the regular Navy has confessed to the pangs of seasickness. The nervous thoughts of submarines were forgotten in wrestling with the immediate tribulation. The great adventure was not what it had been cracked up to be.

Copyright by Kadel and Herbert, N.Y.

SOME OF THE OFFICERS AND CREW, BEFORE LEAVING NEW YORK

Among the bluejackets was a Princeton undergraduate, Arthur Herbert Coffey, rating as a seaman, whose misfortune it was to suffer serious trouble with his eyes, so that he was sent home shortly after the Corsair reached France. Later he entered the aviation service and died of influenza on December 31, 1918, greatly mourned by his former shipmates. He wrote, at some length, his impressions of the voyage and so entertainingly caught the spirit of it that he must be permitted to tell you how they went rolling out to find the “Bay of Biscay, O”:

I shall never forget the morning of June 14th as long as I live. It was three A.M. and very foggy when our bos’n’s mate roused us from our hammocks and told us to “rise and shine” as we were going to shove off. I’ll admit that I had many fears and misgivings at these harsh words, “shove off.” I had never been out of sight of land before in my life, and to cross the ocean on your first trip in a yacht three hundred feet long seemed to me to be some adventure, just then. Up to that time I hadn’t given it much thought. In fact, I had been impatient for the event, like the rest of the men, but as I was pulling on my socks that morning (and three A.M. is a rotten time of day anyhow), I began to reflect that perhaps I had been just a little bit hasty in rushing into the war. And I couldn’t help thinking how pleasant it would be to be snoring in a good, soft bed at Princeton with nothing between me and complete enjoyment of the day excepting a ten-thirty recitation hour.

Well, I got dressed anyway and turned to. We dropped down the river slowly and anchored off the Battery, for the fog was so thick that you could hardly see your hand before your face. All about us there was the moaning of fog-horns and I felt forlorn inside. But soon the fog lifted a bit and that, together with Bill Rahill’s grin, made things feel a little bit better. “Well, we are off for the big stunt,” I said to myself. “I wonder when we’ll see this old town again.”

I had the watch in the crow’s nest that afternoon, from two to four, and enjoyed myself very much. It had turned out to be a fine day, the sun was bright, and we had lots of company, seven ships in all, four transports, a cruiser, and two destroyers. After an hour in the crow’s nest I happened to glance down at the deck and noticed some very odd actions among the crew. Several of them were leaning over the rail and appeared to be staring very intently at something in the water. I watched them for a while and then suddenly it occurred to me that they were seasick.

I felt like a hardened old sailor, for here I was high up in the crow’s nest, swaying from side to side, right over the water, and in tip-top form with a husky appetite for the next meal. I still felt fine when I climbed down to the deck, but was too wise to kid anybody. And it was a good thing I kept quiet, for an hour later I was as miserable as the rest of them. We certainly had a seasick crew for a couple of days. The green firemen were so sick that they were unable to stoke properly and we failed to keep up with the rest of our convoy.

We kept dropping farther and farther behind, the firemen still shy their sea-legs and also some of the crew. Nobody saw the doctor and the paymaster for four days.... Then the doctor made a brief appearance in the sick-bay. He looked at a cut in a man’s hand, clapped his own hand over his mouth, and we didn’t see him again for two days more. But he came around in fine shape after that, on the job every minute, although he was not needed often, I am glad to say.

To make a long story short, we abandoned all hope of staying with the first division and ploughed along by ourselves for a few days, then picking up the second group consisting of four transports and the same type of escort. Everything went along smoothly for four days and then our destroyers came out to meet us from Queenstown. There were five of them and a bully good sight they were to us who were getting pretty close to the danger zone with our precious transports. The destroyers came zipping up like gray streaks and were on us almost before we knew it. We stood on deck and cheered ourselves hoarse. They were the boys who had gone over early, the first of the Navy to see active service. They were glad to see us, too, it appeared, and many messages were wig-wagged back and forth. They fell into position and all hands felt as safe as a church.

About two o’clock in the afternoon of the next day, I was below getting a drink of water when suddenly there was a loud explosion. I remember that at the time I thought somebody had dropped a hatch cover directly over my head. I realized in a moment that it was something else, for I heard loud shouts and the tramp of feet on deck. I was topside in no time and rushed for my gun as I was the loader of Number Three gun.

The transports had all stopped. One of them, nearest to us, was giving the submarine warning, a number of blasts on her whistle which sounded uncanny to us because it was the first time we had heard anything from the transports since leaving New York. They had moved across the ocean like so many ghosts. It was a beautiful, clear day and the sea was as smooth as a carpet.

I took my position at the gun, broke open a box of ammunition, and laid hands on a shell. The doctor came rushing aft with a handful of cotton which he told us to stuff in our ears. Then we were all set to be torpedoed. I wasn’t scared—I was too busy, I guess—but I was a little bit jumpy. I looked at my watch and it was just five minutes of two. I wondered how long it would take our yacht to sink after the torpedo hit us.

The transports, as I have said, were making no headway and were all grouped together like a flock of frightened sheep, while the destroyers were just getting into motion. This was one of the prettiest sights I ever saw. No sooner had the transports halted than the destroyers, six in all, darted out in a fan-shaped formation and then worked back and forth, looking for all the world like greyhounds on a scent. And maybe they didn’t make knots! We were moving at top speed ourselves, but those destroyers gave us the impression that we were standing still. Zoom, one would cut across our bow at about thirty knots, then another would flash astern at the same rate.

For a time we could discover nothing else out of the ordinary. Then suddenly the captain of Number Four gun gave a yell and pointed astern. “There she goes!” he shouted. “It’s a torpedo as sure as you live, or I never saw one.” We all rubbered astern with our eyes sticking out like onions, and there, sure enough, was a wake foaming along at tremendous speed about fifty yards away, but it was not heading in our direction, thank goodness. I don’t know whether it was a torpedo or not. I have never seen one, but our regular Navy men swore it was.

The paymaster was sure it was, although he had never seen one either, and he dashed up and down the deck, clapping his hands and loudly exclaiming, “Oh, it is a torpedo! It is a torpedo!” This relieved the strain considerably. We all laughed until we almost cried. The officer upon the after deck-house suddenly cried out, “Stand steady, boys. Don’t get excited. A school of porpoises is coming toward us.” We saw them, and I imagine there would have been a heavy mortality in that bunch of porpoises if the keen-eyed officer had not warned us in time.

That was about all I saw of the submarine attack, but I heard other stories from the deck and bridge. The explosion at the outset had been caused by the dropping of a depth charge from a destroyer, quite close aboard the Corsair. No wonder I thought somebody had banged a hatch cover over my head! The firemen below thought we had been torpedoed and were all for erupting on deck for a breath of fresh air. That depth charge was powerful. Our men said they saw the destroyer’s stern lift high in air while a great spout of water leaped just astern. We saw oil smeared over the water and I hope the destroyer was given official credit for sinking a submarine.

One of our officers told me that more than one submarine must have been in the attack, and that the activity of the destroyer escort drove them off. There was one incident which some of the men thought rather a joke, but I felt sorry. In the morning an old British tramp picked us up, and seeing all the destroyers, etc., concluded that we were good company to travel in, so she stuck with us all the forenoon, keeping a mile off to port. No sooner did she hear the submarine warning than she lit out at full speed, about ten knots, for safer waters. Two hours after that, our radio men got an S.O.S. from her, that she had been torpedoed and was sinking. It seemed too bad that we couldn’t go and help her.

This submarine alarm was the famous episode which thrilled the American public as elaborated by George Creel for the newspapers of July 4, 1917. The Corsair witnessed only what occurred among the second group of transports, and although some of her men declared they saw the wake of a torpedo, Commander Kittinger failed to confirm it in his official report of this busy afternoon. Rear Admiral Gleaves carefully considered the statements of the officers of ships in Group Two and drew the following conclusions, omitting the names of the vessels engaged because of the naval censorship in force at that time:

The H, leading the second group, encountered two submarines, the first about 11.50 A.M., June 26th, about a hundred miles off the coast of France, and the second submarine two hours later. The I investigated the wake of the first without further discovery. The J[3] sighted the bow wave of the second at a distance of 1500 yards and headed for it at a speed of twenty-five knots. The gun pointers at the forward gun saw the periscope several times for several seconds but it disappeared each time before they could get on, due to the zigzagging of the ship.

The J[3] passed about twenty-five yards ahead of a mass of bubbles which were coming up from the wake and let go a depth charge just ahead. Several pieces of timber, quantities of oil, bubbles, and débris came to the surface. Nothing more was seen of the submarine. The attacks on the second group occurred about eight hundred miles to the eastward of where the attacks had been made on the first group.... It appears from reports of the French Ministry of Marine and from the location of the attack that enemy submarines had been notified of our approach and were probably scouting across our route.

WITH AMERICA’S FIRST CONVOY. THE TROOP-SHIPS ARE THE HENDERSON, ANTILLES, MOMUS, AND LENAPE

THE MINE FUNCTIONS AND A LURKING U-BOAT WOULD FIND IT EXCESSIVELY UNHEALTHY

The story of Seaman Arthur Coffey is less exaggerated than might have been expected in these wholly novel circumstances. It may have been a torpedo or, perchance, it was a porpoise that was seen from the Corsair. If it was the latter, no blame is to be laid to the young sailors who were so tremendously excited. To their unaccustomed eyes the ocean swarmed with periscopes and U-boats. Many a seasoned skipper had blazed away at blackfish or shivered in his shoes at a bit of floating spar. The destroyer Cummings, at any rate, blew up something from the vasty deep with the “ash can” that plopped from her fan-tail. As for the soldiers packed in the transports, all girdled with life-belts and eyeing the ocean with morbid suspicion, they would have told you that the submarines were coming at them in droves. It was one of the dauntless doughboys of this First Expeditionary Force who wrote home to his trustful kindred:

Dear Mother and the Folks:

We hadn’t more than got out of New York than you could see submarines bobbing up all around us. The periscopes were as thick as cat-tails in a swamp. I counted seventy-five and then the ships began to fire. The gunner near me fainted. Shell shock, I guess. I sprang to the gun and began shooting. The first shot I fired hit a submarine square on top of the back and tore out its whole back-bone, just like tearing out a whale’s back-bone. There was blood all over the water, and some oil.

I kept on shooting. I sank twelve of the submarines myself. The battle lasted a good while and I heard that fifty of the submarines had been destroyed. None of us was killed. The submarines, what was left, finally quit us. We haven’t seen any more of them. Give this to the newspapers.

Love to all the folks, from your soldier boy

Bill

At this early period of the naval war, the employment of the depth charge as the most efficient weapon against the submarine had not been fully developed. The traditions of accurate gunfire as the best offensive were not easily set aside. It was true of the destroyers at Queenstown, as of these yachts bound to France, that their crews felt sublimely certain of smashing Fritz with the batteries at which they drilled like so many skilled football teams. Soon they came to realize, however, that the chance of catching the enemy napping on the surface was extremely remote and that shooting at periscopes, even when they were not imaginary, was futile business.

The Corsair was armed with four three-inch rifles, and their crews were very capably trained under the direction of Ensign Schanze. This armament was not heavy enough to match the guns of a U-boat if the latter had been plucky enough to stand up to a duel, but it served to drive him under and to inspire a wholesome respect. The superior speed of the yacht made her particularly well fitted for using depth charges, but at the outset she was equipped with no more than ten of the small and rather crude “Sperry mine” loaded with from thirty to fifty pounds of TNT. This device was exploded by means of a buoy and wire cable which unwound as the steel canister plunged through the water, releasing the detonator at the proper depth. These mines frequently failed to function and the destructive effect was feeble.

The Navy Department later perfected a terrific “ash can” packed with three hundred pounds of high explosive which was set off by means of a hydrostatic valve and could be relied upon to devastate a submarine a hundred feet below the surface of the sea. These great bombs were dropped, not one or two in an attack, but fairly dumped overboard by the dozen or the score in a cataclysmic barrage, after listening devices had located and “fixed” the enemy. The “Y gun,” or twin mortar, was also invented to hurl these metal kegs a considerable distance from the ship. Such were the perfected tactics learned from experience, which would surely have doomed the U-boat to extinction if the armistice had not intervened. The Corsair was fitted out in this manner later in her service, but she blithely sailed for the war zone with her four small guns and a few “Sperry pills” and could have felt no more pride in her task if she had been a first-class battleship.

Concerning the voyage, Commander Kittinger reported as follows, in the War Diary of the yacht:

Got under way at 4 A.M., June 14th, and stood down the river, anchoring at 6 A.M. off Governor’s Island on account of fog. Got under way again at 9.40 A.M. Laid to off Ambrose Light Vessel at 1.20 P.M. Joined Group No. 1 at 1.50 P.M. and took departure from Ambrose Light Vessel at 2.09 P.M., standard speed 12 knots. At 2.30 P.M. weather became misty again which necessitated closing in to keep the convoy in sight. The 4 to 8 P.M. watch had difficulty in keeping steam for 12 knots. Blowers were used to assist. Ship lost distance which was recovered in the next watch and position maintained.

At 11.40 P.M. the fog set in thick and lasted until about 1.25 A.M., June 15th. At 3.20 A.M. the convoy was sighted on the port bow, distance four miles. During the watch the ship logged over 12 knots by revolutions of main engines, but due to deep draft was unable to keep up. The blowers were run continually to assist. The forward boiler could not be lighted off as it was banked in with reserve coal supply. Between 4 and 5 A.M. while cleaning fires the speed by revolutions dropped to 11 knots. A moderate sea was running which caused seasickness among the firemen. The firemen were drafted from the U.S.S. Delaware through the receiving ship at New York and were unfamiliar with firing Scotch boilers and not accustomed to the quick and deep roll of small ships. Most of them became useless during the cleaning fire period and their places were taken by petty officers of the engine and fire-room watch. The ship continued to lose distance astern of convoy, a logged speed of 10½ knots being maintained. I gave this matter my personal attention and every effort was made to rejoin the convoy. From noon to midnight an average speed of 11¾ knots was logged. At 4.45 P.M. the Wilkes came within hail and made inquiries as to the cause of the Corsair’s inability to keep in position.

June 16th. An average speed of 10½ knots was logged for the day. I found that the seasoned men, most of them petty officers, were showing fatigue due to the hard steaming qualities of the ship. A number of volunteers from the deck force went below and passed coal and handled ashes to assist. The reserve coal from the dead fire-room was removed to allow the forward boiler to be lighted off. Group No. 1 was not seen this day. Group No. 2 was sighted astern at 3.40 A.M. Lighted fires in boiler No. 1 at 6 P.M.

June 17th. Maintained about 11 knots (by revolutions). Some of the firemen who had suffered from seasickness were back at useful work and the ship had become considerably lighter. At 5 P.M. cut in boiler No. 1 and increased speed to 13 knots. Between 1 and 2 P.M. two U.S. destroyers passed six miles to the southward, one heading east and one west.

June 18th. Averaged 13½ knots until 10.40 A.M. when speed was reduced to 10 knots to lose distance and join Group No. 2.

June 19th. Proceeding at reduced speed to allow Group No. 2 to overhaul.

June 20th. Proceeding at reduced speed, about 9 knots, to allow Group No. 2 to overhaul. It was desirable to keep a speed that was low but economical to get the mileage for the fuel.

June 21st. Proceeding at reduced speed, about 7 knots. At 3.45 A.M. sighted Group No. 2 on port quarter,—distance four miles. Changed course to intercept. At 5.15 A.M. took position on starboard beam of Henderson, distance 2000 yards. At 6 P.M. sighted U.S.S. Maumee and U.S.S. Henley on starboard bow. The Burrows joined the Maumee and refueled. At 8.22 A.M. stopped and lowered a boat and boarded the Birmingham for orders. At 9.35 A.M. proceeded in formation at 12 knots. Had no trouble in keeping position from this time on with natural draft. Zigzagged during the afternoon.

June 22nd and 23rd. Proceeding with Group No. 2. Zigzagged during daylight.

June 24th. Momus broke out break-down flag and dropped astern of formation. At 8.17 A.M. sighted three destroyers one point on port bow. Five destroyers joined escort during the morning.

June 25th. Proceeding as before. At 5.30 A.M. steamed at 14 knots. At noon steamed at 13 knots. Zigzagged during daylight.

June 26th. Proceeding with Group No. 2, steaming at 13 knots. The U.S.S. Cummings let go a depth charge at 2.00 P.M. about 600 yards ahead. Manœuvred for attack. Nothing sighted. Returned to formation. Two French torpedo craft joined escort about 4 P.M.

June 27th. Entered port during mid-watch. Anchored during morning watch with 32 tons of coal remaining. Arrived at Saint-Nazaire, France, with Group No. 2 of Expeditionary Force.

THE KIND OF “GOBS” THE COUNTRY WAS PROUD OF MOST OF THIS GROUP WON COMMISSIONS

Photograph by Underwood and Underwood, N.Y.

THE GERMAN SUBMARINE WAS A TINY TARGET EVEN WHEN ON THE SURFACE

These were tired and grateful sailors aboard the Corsair, for the slow-gaited transports, thirteen days on the voyage, had caused continual anxiety among the war vessels of the escort. The first group had been attacked by submarines, as reported by Rear Admiral Gleaves, and it was an auspicious omen that every ship and every soldier had been carried across unharmed. The Corsair had been compelled to drop back and join the second group, but it was not her fault. As her skipper in former days, Lieutenant Commander Porter was unhappy, as you may imagine, although he knew that the yacht would vindicate herself when in proper trim and with a “black gang” that could make steam and hold it.

Extra coal and stores had made the draft two feet deeper than normal. One boiler-room was used for coal stowage, but a speed of fourteen knots was to be expected under these conditions. The firemen, trained in a battleship, were green to their task and were bowled off their pins by seasickness. It indicated the spirit of the ship when the petty officers, deck force and all, and as many other volunteers as could find space to swing slice-bar and shovel, toiled in the sultry heat of the furnaces to shove the ship along. Never again was the Corsair a laggard. Month after month on the Breton Patrol or with the offshore convoys, the destroyers were the only ships that could show their heels to her.

The process of “shaking down,” of welding a hundred and thirty men into a crew, and teaching them what the Navy was like, had begun with the hard routine at the docks in Hoboken and Brooklyn. The voyage was the second lesson and it wonderfully helped to hammer home the doctrines of team-work and morale, of cheerful sacrifice and ready obedience. Those who grumbled repented of it later and held it as a privilege that they were permitted to play the great game. It was while they sweltered to make more steam and urge the ship to greater speed that an Irish stoker expressed himself as follows:

“I have heard tell of the meltin’-pot, but ’tis me first experience with it. Hotter than hell wid the lid off, and ye can see thim all meltin’, and will ye listen to the names of the brave American lads, Brillowski, Schlotfeldt, Aguas, and Teuten that signed on to juggle the coal. An’ will ye pipe off the true-blue Yankee sailors, Haase, and Skolmowski, Fusco, Kaetzel, and Balano, not to mintion such good old Anglo-Saxon guys as De Armosolo, Thysenius, and Wysocki. I will make no invidjous distinctions, but what kind of a fightin’ ship would this be if ye hadn’t Gilhooley, Mullins, Murphy, Mulcahy, Egan, Sullivan, and Flynn? The meltin’-pot! ’Tis a true word. An’ may the domned old Kaiser sizzle in a hotter place, if there is wan.”

One of the boyish bluejackets noted his own change of heart in a diary which contained such entries as these:

June 19th. At 6 A.M. we sighted an empty lifeboat. Don’t know where it came from, as there was no name. We also saw two objects floating quite far off and thought they were corpses, but were not sure.... Stood two watches and had an abandon ship drill and gun practice. Wrote some letters, but don’t know when we can mail them. Sighted a big whale not fifty yards from the ship. It scared me. I was at the wheel and thought it was a submarine. Sleeping in my bunk for the first time since leaving New York.

21st. We are having a typical northeaster and the ship is burying her rails in the sea now and then. We have joined the second group of the fleet. It consists of the Birmingham, four transports, a destroyer, ourselves, and the Aphrodite.... 22nd. The northeaster is still on in full blast and the sea is running high. We hope to reach France Tuesday. The food and the life on this ship are pretty bad, and when this war is over and I sign off I shall devoutly thank God.

23rd. A pretty bad day all round. High sea, rain, and fog. We are now in the war zone and zigzagging back and forth across the ocean. The Birmingham has kept us busy all day with signals. The ship has been very hard to steer and I am tired out. Broke a filling out of my tooth and it hurts. Hope I will get a chance to have it fixed in France. A toothache out here would certainly be bad. Have been unable to take a bath for a week. Am washing in a bucket of water.

24th. Another day of nasty weather. The mid-watch was the worst I ever stood. The fog was awful and when I was at the wheel we almost rammed the Antilles. We also dodged two suspicious-looking steel drums that looked very much like mines.... 25th. Our coal is getting low and we will surely land some time to-morrow morning. I wish I could talk French. Everybody is writing letters home to-day. Stood a terrible watch with Mr. Tod on the bridge. He and Captain Kittinger took turns bawling me out. I almost rammed a destroyer twice by obeying orders to the letter, but the officers were in a bad temper and blamed me. Gad, but I’ll be glad to set foot on dry land.

Somewhat later this same young man was jotting down:

Whoever reads this diary will probably notice my changed attitude toward what we have to put up with. What seemed unbearable a few months ago amounts to nothing, now that we have become hardened to all things. I have read the whole diary through and laughed at my early grouches.

And so the Corsair came to France and rested in the quaint old port of Saint-Nazaire while her men beheld the troops of Pershing’s First Division stream down the gangways and receive a welcome thrilling beyond words, the cheers and outstretched hands, the laughter and the tears of a people who hailed these tall, careless fighting men as crusaders come to succor them. This was a sight worth seeing and remembering. And when the American sailors went ashore there was an ovation for them, flowers and kisses and smiles, and if such courtesies were bestowed upon the bluejackets of the Corsair, they gallantly returned them, it is quite needless to say.

Seven of the crew were granted liberty for a hasty trip to Paris. Seaman Arthur Coffey was in the party and his written impressions convey a glimpse of what it meant to these young Americans to come into contact with the sombre realities of the struggle which France was enduring with her back to the wall. It surprised and amused them to find the American infantrymen already so much at home in Saint-Nazaire that their liveliest interest was in shooting craps at the street corners:

Here were soldiers and sailors who had just crossed an ocean full of hidden terrors [observed Arthur Coffey], and most of them were to face worse terrors later on, but did they consider these things? Not for a minute! They had money in their pockets and beer under their belts and this “spiggoty” currency, as they called the wads of paper notes, made them feel like millionaires. The marines had not arrived to police the streets, so they rattled the dice in crowds. For all they saw or cared, they might have been in their own home towns, perfectly indifferent to their surroundings. The French onlookers were different. They were appraising these new comrades-in-arms, whispering among themselves, admiring the equipment and the rugged stature of these soldiers from beyond the seas. We watched the fun until it was time to find the train for Paris and moved away with cries of, “Shoot the cinq-froncs,” “Fade him for a cart-wheel, Bill,” “Come on, you baby,” ringing in our ears.

We got aboard the right train with the kind assistance of a French lady who interpreted for us. It was great luck to get the seventy-two-hour leave, and the crowd was congenial, five men from Princeton, one from Yale, and one from Cornell. The trip to Paris was lengthy because we had to travel second class and sit up all night, being Navy gobs and not officers. The French took us for plain, ordinary bluejackets and fraternized at once. Their style of opening a conversation was to sit and look at you for a time, smile, and then having attracted your attention, with a terrifying grimace ejaculate: “Le boche, ah-h-h-k!” drawing a hand across the throat. This done they would beam expectantly and, needless to say, we responded with grimaces even more terrifying and repeated the formula. Having mutually slit the gullet of the hated foe, I would add, to show off my French, “Je n’aime pas le boche!” Then the way was opened for a conversation.

“Parlez-vous français, monsieur?” “Mais un peu, monsieur,” I would say, and then bang away with the stereotyped sentence, “I have studied French two years at school and I can understand the language pretty well, but I cannot speak it.” As soon as my friend, the French soldier, heard me rip off this sentence he would open his eyes and say, “Parlez bien français, monsieur” and then start talking so fast that I could not understand a word, and this would be the end of the conversation, on my part, at least.

Some of my companions, however, were even worse performers than I. Poor old Bill Rahill, who was in my class in college, had taken economic courses and so knew no modern languages. All he could say was “Oui” and “Non comprenny, monsieur,” at which I would nudge him and ask if it were not better, perhaps, to have a little culture and know something about a foreign language than to be cluttered up with the Malthusian theory or some other rot like that.

We had a great time on that train to Paris. At the first long stop almost everybody got out and went into the waiting-room, or saloon, and bought various refreshments. We had seen no grass or green trees for two weeks, so we piled out and made for the beautiful lawn near the station. We rolled on the grass and sniffed the pine trees. We were like cats that had been shy of catnip for a long time. I suppose the French people thought we were crazy, but we didn’t care, and it certainly did feel good to have the green earth under our feet again.

BOATSWAIN’S MATE SEGER, FROM PASSAIC

THE TALL ONE IS PHARMACIST’S MATE FEELEY HIS FRIEND IS MESS ATTENDANT MARTINEZ

Then we wandered into the restaurant and loaded up with cheese and a couple of yards of war bread, and one of the fellows bought several bottles of champagne at a ridiculously low price. Thus armed, we climbed into the train where we met two French soldiers who were returning to the trenches. They let us try on their helmets and gas-masks and they spoke a little English, so with plenty of gestures we got on very well. They said they knew we were Americans because we talked through our noses. We took that good-naturedly, but I noticed that my brother gobs began to speak way down in their throats right after that. We chewed on the war bread and washed it down with champagne. That is a great breakfast combination, you can take my word for it. And then some one piped up a song. “Buck” Bayne, Yale 1914, was handy at fitting words to college airs and we soon had a fine concert going. One of the ditties, I remember, went like this, to the tune of “Cheer for Old Amherst”:

“Good-night, poor U-boats,

U-boats, good-night!

We’ve got your number;

You’re high as a kite.

Good-night, poor U-boats,

You’re tucked in tight.

When the U.S. fleet gets after you,

Kaiser, good-night!!”

Before long we had a crowd around that train compartment that you couldn’t get through to save your neck. The Frenchmen all applauded the Corsair glee club and yelled for more, but we felt too conspicuous and so we persuaded the poilus to sing some funny trench songs, which we couldn’t understand, but we laughed and slapped them on the back as though we knew every word.

Next morning we arrived in Paris, and, with a few other men from our ship, were the first American sailors in that city since our country had declared war. You can imagine what that meant to us, how the people greeted us with cordial affection and kindness. Thank God, the Frenchmen did not try to kiss us! If the Paris girls had insisted, we should have submitted like gentlemen. We put up at the Hotel Continental, and were more than amused at the expressions on the faces of several dignified English officers when they saw seven common bluejackets of the American Navy blow in and eat breakfast next to them.

That day we ran into lots of friends who were in the American Field Ambulance Service, attached to the French Army, and they told us gloomy tales about the war outlook. They said the Russians were through, that the French were literally shot to pieces, and that the job of finishing the war was up to us. Imagine it—I, who had hoped in May that the Russians would keep on retreating so that I could get a chance to see the show before it was over, was now wishing that the war would end. I have seen the light since that day. We fellows were really feeling the war for the first time when we noticed that the streets of Paris were filled with crippled men and with women in mourning.

We spent two busy days in mixing with soldiers of all nations and doing Paris. The troops who impressed us most, even more than the French, and that is going some, were the Canadians. They gave us such a rousing welcome that it was like being home again. They were so glad to see us that they almost wrapped themselves around our necks. “Hello, Jack,” was their invariable greeting. “How are things over in the States?” “It’s sure good to see you.” “When are your troops coming over?” “What, you came across with some of them?” “The devil you say!” “Well, all I hope is that they give us a chance to fight alongside the Yanks. We’ll go through Fritz so fast that he won’t know what hit him.”

While we were knocking about Paris with the Canadians, our money was no good. They insisted on buying us drinks, cigarettes, and acted as interpreters. There was nothing they wouldn’t do for us. Our spirits began to rise at once. We asked them about all the pessimistic rumors. Were they true? “Hell, no,” said they. “Why, there’s nothing to it. Shell ’em a bit, then shell ’em some more, and when you go over the top, Fritz just sticks up his hands and yells that he’s your kamerad.” “As soon as he sees the cold steel, up goes his bloody hands,” one little chap confided to me. And he had such a look in his eye when he said it that I think my blooming hands would have been up if he had said the word.

They were the most confident lot of men I ever saw. This was the first visit to Paris for most of them. They had been out there for two years, getting leave only among the little villages back of the line, but they didn’t seem to mind going back to the trenches. And they were always talking about the war and their campaigns. The soldiers of other nations seemed fed up with it, but not so with the Canadians. Why, I heard two of them, a private and a captain, in a heated argument across a table as to how they could capture Lens without letting the Germans destroy the coal mines. The private leaned over and poked the captain in the stomach to emphasize a point, and the captain tried to out-shout his companion. One would have thought them to be a couple of privates.

On the morning of the third day we left Paris for our port. Dave Tibbott, a classmate of mine, practiced talking French to a lad in the train, and Bill Rahill said “Oui” and “Voilà” to a pretty girl who shared the compartment. She seemed to be partial to Bill’s smile, for we all had him beaten on slinging the French. When she left the train, Bill helped her out and kissed her hand by way of farewell. When we kidded him about it, he defended himself on the ground that they did such things in France and one must follow the customs of the country.

We had many yarns to spin when we boarded our ship and we were careful to tell the boys about the fine baths in the hotel, although we omitted the fact that there was no hot water. When we described the wonderful soft beds, it looked as though there might be a lot of desertions from the Corsair.

I saw many interesting sights during my stay in French waters, but my eyes went bad and they put me ashore where I stayed a month and a half waiting for a ship to take me home. I was finally sent back to the United States in August and, to my great sorrow, received a medical discharge. The life is hard in the Navy in the war zone, harder than anything I had ever done before, but I would give ten years of my life to have been able to stick it out with the boys on the old Corsair and do my share.

ILLUSTRATIONS

CHAPTER ITHE CALL OF DUTY OVERSEAS

CHAPTER II“LAFAYETTE, WE ARE HERE!”

CHAPTER I
THE CALL OF DUTY OVERSEAS

CHAPTER II
“LAFAYETTE, WE ARE HERE!”