CHAPTER VIII
RACE BETWEEN WILSON AND HINDENBURG
BIGGEST TRANSPORTATION JOB IN HISTORY—TWO MILLION TROOPS CARRIED 3,000 MILES OVERSEAS—FIRST CONVOYS ATTACKED BY U-BOATS NO AMERICAN TROOP-SHIP SUNK, NOT ONE SOLDIER ABOARD LOST THROUGH ENEMY ACTION, ON THE WAY TO FRANCE—NAVAL TRANSPORTS TOOK 911,000 TO EUROPE, BROUGHT HOME 1,700,000—U. S. NAVY PROVIDED FOUR-FIFTHS OF ESCORTS.
What was the greatest thing America did in the World War?" That is a question I have often been asked, and it is easily answered. It was the raising and training of an army of 4,000,000 men, a navy of over 600,000, and the safe transportation of more than two million troops to Europe. And all this was accomplished in eighteen months.
When the issue hung in the balance, in the spring of 1918, Lloyd George said: "It is a race between Wilson and Hindenburg." Could America land enough soldiers in France in time to check the German offensive? That was the one vital question.
Carrying the American Expeditionary Force across the Atlantic and bringing our troops home has been justly termed the "biggest transportation job in history." Sailing through submarine-infested seas, they constantly faced the menace of attack from an unseen foe, as well as the perils of war-time navigation. Yet not one American troop-ship was sunk on the way to France, and not one soldier aboard a troop transport manned by the United States Navy lost his life through enemy action.
That achievement has never been equalled. It was not only the most important but the most successful operation of the war. The Germans never believed it could be done.
When Rear Admiral Albert Gleaves, commander of the Cruiser and Transport Force, came to Washington for his final instructions, just before the first troop convoys sailed for Europe, as he was leaving my office, I said to him:
Admiral, you are going on the most important, the most difficult, and the most hazardous duty assigned to the Navy. Good bye.