Sweeping for mines is not like anything you see in a hotel or office or home—no, sir—it is entirely different. The broom is a big wire, and the game is looking for a needle in a haystack. It is a great sport in a way. I guess, if you analyze it seriously, it's the biggest game in this war from a naval point of view—a field is located, and instead of carefully avoiding it, we make the most exhaustive calculations to get right into it.... You have hunted big game in the mountains, but you could see what you were shooting at. We look for big game without that advantage. Get the idea? We don't want to throw ourselves any bouquets, but those who think that the submarine is the only menace, and destroyers the only duty, don't know what it means to hunt for the horned egg.... Every mine we get means a ship saved, each ship and cargo is worth at least three million dollars, and each mine we sink or explode cuts down the overhead. I am proud of my ships, my officers, and my men. We came across, and we are doing all we can to make good.... I have never met the King and Queen, so don't feel blue if they don't ask about me." To any one in doubt of the essential kinship between the average lieutenants of the English-speaking navies, we would beg to suggest a careful perusal of the foregoing letter.
Equally characteristic, and modestly illustrative of the spirit in which these American escort-officers interpreted their duty, is the following account, written by the commander of the destroyer Warrington, of the attempt to save the Wellington, a British collier. "The Wellington," he wrote, "carrying coal to Gibraltar, left Milford Haven with a convoy of about twenty ships in the morning of Friday, September 13th. Sunday night the escort of British destroyers left, and convoy proceeded under ocean escort of U.S.S. Seneca. About eleven in the morning of September 16th, the Wellington sighted a submarine which porpoised and instantly thereafter submerged about one point on her starboard bow. Immediately afterward she was struck by a torpedo forward, and the forehold was quickly flooded. The Wellington's crew of forty-four abandoned the ship in the two good lifeboats belonging to her, and were picked up by U.S.S. Seneca, the ocean escort.
First Lieutenant Fletcher W. Brown, Coast Guard, attached to Seneca, asked and obtained the permission of his commanding officer to man the Wellington with a volunteer crew and endeavour to bring her into port. A large number of the Seneca's crew volunteered, and eighteen men were chosen. At the same time the Master of the Wellington, the first and second mates and ten of her original crew volunteered to return with the Seneca's men. They were permitted to do so, and all went aboard the Wellington, with Lieutenant Brown in charge, but the Master of the Wellington navigating. Unfortunately, before returning to the Wellington, one of the lifeboats which had been used when the ship was first abandoned had been cast adrift. This left the vessel with but one lifeboat, two jolly boats, and two life-rafts which Lieutenant Brown had made on board.
At the time the Wellington's S.O.S. was received, the Warrington was operating with a west-bound convoy about eighty miles to the southward of the S.O.S.; but it was not before eleven P.M. that the Warrington was detached by the escort commander, and ordered to proceed to the position of the torpedoed ship. This order was carried out with all possible speed, but the Wellington had meanwhile been making about 7 knots per hour, heading for Brest, but steering badly on account of her being down by the head. Finally radio-communication was established between the Wellington and the Warrington, and a systematic search instituted by the latter vessel. Between eleven P.M., the sixteenth, and one A.M., the seventeenth, two eleven P.M. positions were received from Wellington differing by about forty miles. This discrepancy is explained by the first mate who states that the Master got a fix by simultaneous star sights about 11.30 and sent out a corrected position, which was forty miles away from his dead reckoning. I headed the Warrington toward the new position, and at three A.M. picked up Wellington dead ahead.
In the meanwhile we had received a radio from her saying she had stopped, but would go ahead again when wind had moderated. Just as we picked her up, the moon set. There was a strong breeze from the southwest and the sea was rough. I exchanged signals with Wellington and she stated that there was every probability of her remaining afloat till daylight and possibly longer, as her volunteer crew had then kept her afloat for seventeen hours. However, shortly after this signal was received, a bulkhead collapsed and she signalled for immediate assistance, and said her crew were abandoning ship. Immediately afterward I picked up her lifeboat containing first and second mates of Wellington, five of her original crew, and one of the Seneca's volunteer crew. I searched for more boats, coming as close to Wellington as I dared in the darkness. Going alongside in that wind and sea would have been suicide. I tried to hold Wellington's lifeboat alongside, but it quickly swamped and I had to cut it adrift.
Meanwhile, a desperate attempt was made to lower one of our boats, but after two men had barely escaped serious injuries in the attempt, I saw it would be a case of just so many more men in the water. The current was against the sea, so I went to leeward of Wellington and floated down three life-rafts well lighted, my Franklin life-buoys, and a number of circular buoys, all with lights. I learned afterward that Wellington's remaining boats were small and that they had been smashed in lowering, and that for some reason their own life-rafts had fouled and could not be gotten clear of the ship. Accordingly all the remaining men went down with the ship, or jumped just before she sank.
It was still very black, the proverbial darkest hour just before the dawn. From a few hundred yards to leeward I watched the black hull turn turtle, slowly settle in the water, and then disappear from sight. It was very distressing not to be able to do anything at that moment for the men in the water. Our life-rafts and buoys were there, with plenty of calcium torches, but we absolutely could not get a boat in the water. I circled slowly well clear of the raft. When dawn broke finally, we began to see men in the water. Some were on our rafts and buoys, some on pieces of floating wreckage. All were singing out to attract our attention. In picking them up, I had, of course, to take the ship alongside the men and to get heaving lines to them. In doing this, as you may well imagine, we had to draw a fine line between cutting the man down and getting close enough to get a heaving line to him. Manoeuvring amidst the wreckage, life-rafts, and buoys, we finally picked up eight men out of the water. One of these died on board. We had been able to save only half of the entire crew, but careful search for four hours failed to locate any more survivors.
One of the first men picked up from the water proved to be Lieutenant Brown, who had been in command of the volunteer crew. A heaving line had been flung to him, and he had grabbed it, but he says he does not remember having been hauled on board. He apparently lost consciousness until he awoke in a bunk in the C.P.O.'s quarters, when his identity was discovered. There were several commendable incidents on the part of our crew. I have recommended for life-saving medals three of my own crew—William James Taylor, coxswain; Robert Emanuel Noel, quartermaster, first class; Walter Irving Sherwood, fireman, first class—all for having jumped from the Warrington into the heavy sea, with lines made fast to their waists, in attempting to save life. Especially courageous was the action of Seaman James Osborne of the Coast Guard, one of the survivors. Osborne, supporting a shipmate—Coxswain John A. Peterson—swam to a small life-raft and placed Peterson, who was in a semi-conscious condition, on the raft, holding him, as well as he could, between his feet. Several times both Osborne and his shipmate were washed off the raft by the high seas, whereupon Osborne went to Peterson's assistance and replaced him on the raft. Finally, while I was going to the assistance of another man, who seemed for the time being in a more desperate predicament than Osborne, the latter semaphored from his pitching raft, 'I am all right; but he's gone unless you come right away.' We got them both. Above all, young Brown of the Coast Guard deserves commendation. It was he who organized the volunteer crew that kept the Wellington afloat for seventeen hours, and, without a doubt, with even average weather conditions, would have salved her."
While American cruisers, destroyers, gun-boats, coast-guard cutters, and tenders were thus all represented in European waters by the autumn of 1917, the first appearance of America's battleships was not till December 6th, when four of these were assigned to the Grand Fleet. Commanded by Rear-Admiral Hugh Rodman, and forming the Sixth Battle Squadron under Sir David Beatty, they consisted of the New York, Florida, Wyoming, and Delaware, the Texas joining in February, and the Arkansas relieving the Delaware in the following July. Here their duties, with the Battle of Jutland already an eighteen-month-old event, were but those of every similar squadron attached to the Grand Fleet—to take their share in filling the North Sea, to watch night and day for the tarrying High Seas Fleet, and to remain, throughout all that time, keyed to the highest pitch of preparedness and efficiency.