Our Navy at war

by Josephus Daniels

It is a notable fact that, while the submarines sank many schooners and fishing craft and some steamers proceeding independently, during the entire four months in which the U-boats operated in the Western Atlantic not one convoy, coastwise or trans-Atlantic, was attacked off the coast of the United States.

The alarm which occurred when the U-boats first appeared quickly subsided. The details of the comprehensive system the Navy had put into effect could not then be published. But the naval committees of Congress knew, for we could impart this information, in confidence, to them. To find out for themselves whether the Navy was doing everything possible to protect shipping and repel the Germans, Senators and Representatives came to the Navy Department, and examined all our plans and arrangements.

Senator Lodge well expressed their convictions in his speech in the Senate on June 6th, 1918, when he said:

The Navy and the Navy Department have taken every precaution that human foresight could suggest, so far as I am able to judge, and I have examined their preparations with such intelligence and care as I could give to the matter. ***

Mr. President, the Navy and the Navy Department have necessarily anticipated a submarine attack from the very beginning of the war. They have had it constantly on their minds. They have tried to make every preparation to meet it. I think they have. It would be most injurious for me to stand here and follow down the map of the coast and tell the Senate and the public exactly what those preparations are—tell them where the submarine chasers are, where the destroyers are, where the signal stations are, what arrangements they have made for meeting the danger when it came, as they were sure it would come. No human mind can possibly tell when out of the great waste of waters of the Atlantic Ocean a submarine, which travels by night and submerges by day, will appear. As soon as the Navy had any authentic news to indicate the presence of submarines on this coast they acted. They will do everything that can be done. They have the means to do it. That is all that I feel at liberty to say in a general way.

Mr. President, for four years the greatest Navy in the world has been devoting its strength to the destruction of German submarines. They were operating in what are known as the narrow seas, where the commerce of the world, we may say, comes together in a closely restricted area; and even there, with the knowledge for years of the presence of the German submarines, it is not going too far to say that many of those submarines escaped them. They are diminishing now, with our assistance. A larger control is being established over the narrow seas, and the work against the submarines at the point of the greatest danger—what we may call the naval front of this war—is succeeding more than many of us dared to hope. It is done by the multiplication of vessels and the multiplication of methods, and there is the great center of the fight.

One or two submarines have appeared suddenly on our coast, as was to be anticipated. In my judgment, we are doing all that can be done. I have taken the pains to go to the Department, where everything has been laid before the members of the Naval Affairs Committee who cared to investigate the subject, and I am entirely satisfied that they are doing everything that is possible. But the chase of the submarine is something like searching for the needle in the haystack. You can not tell in which particular wisp of hay it will come to the surface; but that the defense will be effective I have no sort of question. ***

We have a patrol along the coast, which is composed chiefly of what is known as the Life-Saving Service, or the Coast Guard, as it is now known. We also have an organized system for procuring information from fishermen and others on the coast, extending from Maine to the Gulf. Those sources of information were organized and in operation through the Navy Department at least two years before we entered the war, so I believe that so far as our own coasts are concerned the chances of a base there are almost negligible. ***

I did not rise to go into the details to describe to you the different naval districts of the country and what has been done in each one of them, but simply to tell you what my own opinion is after having examined all the arrangements with the utmost care of which I was capable and with the most intense interest, and I give my word for what it is worth, that in my judgment the Navy and the Navy Department, the Secretary and Assistant Secretary, and all the officers, the Chief of Staff, and every head of a bureau has done everything that human foresight could suggest. ***

I want the Senate also to remember that when newspaper editorials ask what the Navy is doing I should like to have them consider why it is that we have sent all the troops we have sent—and we have sent a great many thousands—why it is that they have gone to Europe without the loss of a transport, thank God, as I do. How is it that that has happened? It has happened because of the American Navy, which furnished the convoys, and no other cause.