Our Navy at war

by Josephus Daniels

No vessels performed more convoy duty than these, and Admiral Niblack, who commanded them, thus states what was expected of the system:

(a) That a relatively small number of escort vessels could protect more ships if they were in convoy than in any other way.

(b) That ships in convoy could not be visited and sunk by bombs, as were single ships.

(c) That ships in convoy would not be attacked by gunfire by submarines.

(d) That convoys, being few in number, would be difficult to find and consequently fewer attacks could be made by torpedo.

(e) That in the danger zones near ports where submarines would lay for convoys the escort by anti-submarine craft could be made so strong as to make the risk to submarines very hazardous.

"The great advantage of the convoy," said he, "was that the ships arrived in the danger zone collectively and at a definite time, where an adequate danger zone escort could be assembled, which was fitted with depth-charges and was in such numbers as to make the chances of submarines extremely small if it attempted to attack the convoy."

But, in considering the effect of convoy in lessening sinkings, Admiral Niblack said:

I think we should take into consideration, as Admiral Mayo points out, the employment of new and offensive measures through the use of the depth-charges, mystery ships, airships, kite balloons, the laying of mine barrages, the firing of torpedoes from Allied submarines, combined with the use of organized patrols fitted with listening devices and hunting the submarine systematically. ****

One very important phase of the discussion of the convoy system which has been entirely overlooked is that during the entire war only one escorted convoy crossed from the United States to Gibraltar. *** All the rest of the million tons of shipping which crossed from the United States to Gibraltar went across as single ships, going "on their own," as it were. These ships depended on their armed guard gun crews, and were independent of the convoy system. They actually encountered submarines, but they relied on their guns for protection.