When the break with Germany came the fleet was in Cuban waters, engaged in target practice, engineering exercises, and battle maneuvers. This intensive training had been going on under regular schedule for more than two years. Every man in the fleet, from the Commander-in-Chief to the youngest recruit, felt in his bones that the maneuvers that spring were a real preparation for war. Eager to get a chance at the Germans, confident that they could defeat any force of similar strength and tonnage afloat; they were just waiting for the word "Go!"
Is there such a thing as mental telepathy! Would you call it that or a mere coincidence, if the same thought at almost the same moment came to the Admiral of the Fleet at Guantanamo and to the Chief of Naval Operations in Washington? That is exactly what occurred on February 4, 1917. And the two dispatches stating the same conclusions in regard to moving the fleet were en route at the same time.
At 3:59 o'clock that afternoon Admiral Mayo sent this message from his flagship at Guantanamo:
Unless instructions are received to the contrary, propose to shift fleet base to Gulf of Guacanayabo after spotting practice February 5th; then proceed with schedule of all gunnery exercises.
Before that message reached Washington, in fact in less than ten minutes after it was handed to the operator in Cuba, the following to Admiral Mayo from Admiral William S. Benson, Chief of Operations, was being sent from the Department:
Position of fleet well known to everybody. If considered advisable on account of submarines, shift base to Gulf of Guacanayabo or elsewhere at discretion. Inform Department confidentially.
The first duty was protection of the Fleet from submarine attack. Four months before the U-53 had called at Newport, and sallying forth, had sunk British vessels just off our coast. On January 16th a Japanese steamer, the Hudson Maru, captured by Germans, a prize crew placed on board, had put into Pernambuco with 287 survivors from half a dozen vessels sunk by a German raider. That raider, as was learned later, was the famous Moewe, which captured twenty-six vessels, sinking all except the Hudson Maru and the Yarrowdale, which carried several hundred prisoners to Germany, among them fifty-nine American sailors.
The Germans could easily send their U-boats across the Atlantic. There was a possibility that they might strike quickly without warning. Naval strategists do not yet understand why Germany did not make an immediate dash against our coasts in the spring of 1917, instead of waiting until 1918. Allied and American officers alike expected the submarines to extend their operations to this side of the Atlantic when this country entered the war. It was necessary to provide for the fleet a rendezvous with which the Germans were not familiar, one easily defended, where battleships could carry on their work free from attack until the time came to bring them into action. But why Guacanayabo?
Though you would hardly notice it on the average map, the Gulf of Guacanayabo is a sizeable body of water, extending in a sort of semicircle some seventy miles, the broadest part about fifteen miles wide. On the southern coast of Cuba, it extends from Santa Cruz del Sur to below Manzanillo, nearly to Cape Cruz. With plenty of deep water inside, once the main channel is closed, only a navigator familiar with the turnings and depths can navigate safely through the other channels, for the Gulf is surrounded by a chain of islands, with many shoals. Difficult for submarines to negotiate submerged, it is easily defended against them.
When Admiral Mayo had placed his ships in this landlocked harbor, shut the door and turned the key, they were as safe as my lady's jewels in a safety deposit vault. At Guacanayabo the fleet continued its work, going out to sea for battle practice and long-range gunnery in the daytime, returning at night to conduct night firing with the secondary batteries, torpedo attack, and other exercises. There was even room in the Gulf to carry on torpedo firing and defense at 10,000 yards distance.