One day, soon after his return to Washington from Boston, Evans talked with Commander Barton of the Bureau of Intelligence about the peculiar mishap, and his failure to explain just how it occurred. When he mentioned his investigation of the Gloucester station, and finding the apparatus there in perfect order, Barton said, “Did you ask them who had been in the station that day or the day before?”
“No, I didn’t think of that,” said Evans; “I was looking for trouble in the apparatus.”
“I should say that was the first thing to find out,” said Barton.
That evening Evans did some hard thinking, and went to bed a wiser man.
Barton sent one of his best officers to Boston to visit the stations at Gloucester and Fourth Cliff, and conduct a bit of research along somewhat different lines from those Evans had followed. What this officer told Barton on his return he kept to himself. For a long, long time he did not speak of it to another living soul except Admiral Rallston, Chief of the Bureau of Naval Intelligence.
As the winter months wore on, the navy’s main task was escorting the great convoys across the ocean and thus enabling the armies of Northern Europe to hold their line. But the navy was preparing for larger things than escort duty. The enemy submarine base at the Azores proved to be a constant menace; from it submarines would come out in force, and sometimes succeed in sinking ships and escaping unharmed from the depth charges of the escort.
At Punta Delgada, the capital port of the Azores, the enemy had for some years been building a giant breakwater to create a harbor far bigger than that which sheltered American destroyers and submarines in 1918 when this port was in friendly hands. Work was now being rushed to complete this greater harbor, and with it docking facilities that would make the base more efficient in the maintenance of extensive submarine operations.
The nearest Allied base to the Azores was Berehaven on the Irish coast, and from here a British airplane carrier went out from time to time, cruising southwest to within two hundred miles of Punta Delgada, whence just before dawn she would launch into the air two or three high-speed aeroplanes equipped only with their machine guns and cameras of the most perfect type for long-distance photography. When the first rays of the rising sun struck the harbor and port works of Punta Delgada, revealing all details through the contrast of light and shadow, with a brilliance of relief which is lost when the sun is high, these planes, soaring at an altitude too great for the eyes of the drowsy watchers, would take their pictures and fly away unseen to the waiting mother ship. The optical system in these cameras was a marvel of design, and when the photographs were studied under the lens in London and Washington, it was not difficult to follow in detail the work of perfecting the submarine base.
By the end of the winter this photographic study had revealed that the breakwater was practically complete, and the docks almost ready for the opening of more extensive submarine operations; moreover, coast-defense guns and vast stores of ordnance and engineering material had been accumulated, and all was in readiness for the building of powerful defenses which would make the seizure of the port difficult in the extreme. Now was the time to attack, before the great coast-defense guns were mounted and ready for use. The American Navy, which had suffered from the peace-time shortage of personnel, was now adequately manned and ready for aggressive action. A consolidation with the British and French ships was effected, and in March the attempt was made to seize Punta Delgada. The Mediterranean Powers deemed it unwise to risk their capital ships for the defense of this point, and kept them safe in the Mediterranean. After a brief resistance, the Azores fell into the hands of the Allies. The enemy had done the lion’s share of the work of preparing a first-class base with the strongest kind of defenses. The materials were there, and it was a comparatively easy task for the Americans and British to assemble them after their own pattern. The loss of this valuable base was extremely annoying to the enemy, but as long as their fleet remained intact within the shelter of the Mediterranean Sea they felt secure in their control of the great resources on which they pinned their faith.
Following the advantage gained by possession of the Azores, the Allied forces soon took Madeira and the Canary Islands, both bases being less strongly defended than the Azores. The Cape Verde Islands thus were virtually cut off from their base, and surrendered before long without resistance.