When within radio communication of the British naval forces off Ireland, call GCK and inform the Vice Admiral at Queenstown in British general code of your position, course, and speed. You will be met outside of Queenstown.
4. Base facilities will be provided by the British Admiralty.
5. Communicate your orders and operations to Rear Admiral Sims at London and be guided by such instructions as he may give you. Make no report of arrival to Navy Department direct.
Josephus Daniels.
Signed only three days after the conference with British and French admirals in Washington, this put into effect the verbal orders given the moment they requested that one or two destroyers be sent. Six were on the way—the Wadsworth, Conyngham, Porter, McDougal, Davis and Wainwright. They were the first of the United States forces despatched to Europe, the pioneers of the large fleet we sent across the Atlantic.
It was no smooth voyage they had in that long trip. Caught in a southeast gale which lasted for seven days, they were so tossed about by the heavy seas that they could not even set the mess-tables. "We ate off our laps," one officer remarked. But the welcome received when they reached port more than made up for these hardships. Nearing the coast, the ninth day out, a British destroyer, the Mary Rose, was sighted, flying the international signal, "Welcome to the American colors!"
"Thank you, we are glad of your company," the Americans replied.
Next morning, Friday, May 4th, they reached Queenstown. Though efforts had been made to keep secret their coming, the American flag floated from public buildings, business houses and residences, and from vessels in the harbor. Crowds assembled on the hills and along the shore, cheering as the ships from over the sea hove in sight.
It was a brilliant scene, flooded with sunshine—a historic day, marking the arrival of the first American forces to take part with the Allies in the struggle against the Central Powers. Through cheering crowds the Navy boys proceeded to the American Consulate, where the lord mayors of Queenstown and Cork extended a formal welcome. Sir John Jellicoe, First Sea Lord of the British Admiralty, in a letter to Commander J. K. Taussig, in command of the flotilla, offered the "warmest welcome possible in the name of the British nation and the British Admiralty," concluding: "May every good fortune attend you, and speedy victory be with us."
Vice Admiral Sir Lewis Bayly, Commander-in-Chief of the Coasts of Ireland, invited the destroyer commanders to dine with him that evening, closing his invitation with the characteristic note: "Dine in undress; no speeches." Able and energetic, he was known as a "hard driver"; a man of few words who hated talk and demanded results.