Only one duty remained: the commanding officer read the burial service over the body of poor Franz Glinder, the German sailor who had been drowned in his attempt to swim to the Fanning. The Fanning then steamed out to sea with the body and buried it with all the honours of war. A letter subsequently written by Kapitän Amberger to a friend in Germany summed up his opinion of the situation in these words:
"The Americans were much nicer and more obliging than expected."
VI
So far as convoying merchant ships was concerned, Queenstown was the largest American base; by the time the movement of troops laid heavy burdens on the American destroyers Brest became a headquarters almost equally important.
In July, 1917, the British Government requested the co-operation of the American navy in the great work which it had undertaken at Gibraltar; and on August 6th the U.S.S. Sacramento reached that port, followed about a week afterward by the Birmingham flying the flag of Rear-Admiral Henry B. Wilson. Admiral Wilson remained as commander of this force until November, when he left to assume the direction of affairs at Brest. On November 25th Rear-Admiral Albert P. Niblack succeeded to this command, which he retained throughout the war.
Gibraltar was the "gateway" for more traffic than any other port in the world. It was estimated that more than one quarter of all the convoys which reached the Entente nations either rendezvoused at this point or passed through these Straits. This was the great route to the East by way of the Suez Canal. From Gibraltar extended the Allied lines of communication to southern France, Italy, Salonika, Egypt, Palestine, and Mesopotamia. There were other routes to Bizerta (Tunis), Algiers, the island of Milo, and a monthly service to the Azores.
The Allied forces that were detailed to protect this shipping were chiefly British and American, though they were materially assisted by French, Japanese, and Italian vessels. They consisted of almost anything which the hard-pressed navies could assemble from all parts of the world—antiquated destroyers, yachts, sloops, trawlers, drifters, and the like. The Gibraltar area was a long distance from the main enemy submarine bases. The enemy could maintain at sea at any one time only a relatively small number of submarines; inasmuch as the zone off the English Channel and Ireland was the most critical one, the Allies stationed their main destroyer force there. Because of these facts, we had great difficulty in finding vessels to protect the important Gibraltar area, and the force which we ultimately got together was therefore a miscellaneous lot. The United States gathered at this point forty-one ships, and a personnel which averaged 314 officers and 4,660 men. This American aggregation contained a variegated assortment of scout cruisers, gunboats, coastguard cutters, yachts, and five destroyers of antique type. The straits to which we were reduced for available vessels for the Gibraltar station—and the British navy was similarly hard pressed—were illustrated by the fact that we placed these destroyers at Gibraltar. They were the Decatur and four similar vessels, each of 420 tons—the modern destroyer is a vessel of from 1,000 to 1,200 tons—and were stationed, when the war broke out, at Manila, where they were considered fit only for local service; yet the record which these doughty little ships made is characteristic of the spirit of our young officers. This little squadron steamed 12,000 miles from Manila to Gibraltar, and that they arrived in condition immediately to take up their duties was due to the excellent judgment and seamanship displayed by their commanding officer, Lieutenant-Commander (now Commander) Harold R. Stark. Subsequently they made 48,000 miles on escort duty. This makes 60,000 miles for vessels which in peace time had been consigned to minor duties! Unfortunately one of these gallant little vessels was subsequently cut down and sunk by a merchant ship while escorting a convoy.
For more than a year the Gibraltar force under Admiral Niblack performed service which reflected high credit upon that commander, his officers, and his men. During this period of time it escorted, in co-operation with the British forces, 562 convoys, comprising a total of 10,478 ships. Besides protecting commerce, chasing submarines, and keeping them under the surface, many of the vessels making up this squadron had engagements with submarines that were classified as "successful." On May 15, 1918, the Wheeling, a gunboat, and the Surveyor and Venetia, yachts, while escorting a Mediterranean convoy, depth-charged a submarine which had just torpedoed one of the convoyed vessels; we credited these little ships with sinking their enemy. The Venetia, under the command of Commander L. B. Porterfield, U.S.N., had an experience not unlike that of the Christabel, already described. On this occasion she was part of the escort of a Gibraltar-Bizerta convoy. A British member of this convoy, the Surveyor, was torpedoed at six in the evening; at that time the submarine gave no further evidence of its existence. The Venetia, however, was detailed to remain in the neighbourhood, attempt to locate the mysterious vessel, and at least to keep it under the water. The Venetia soon found the wake of the submerged enemy and dropped the usual depth charges. Three days afterward a badly injured U-boat put in at Cartagena, Spain, and was interned for the rest of the war. Thus another submarine was as good as sunk. The Lydonia, a yacht of 500 tons, in conjunction with the British ship Basilisk, sank another U-boat in the western Mediterranean. This experience illustrates the doubt that enshrouded all such operations, for it was not until three months after the Lydonia engagement took place that the Admiralty discovered that the submarine had been destroyed and recommended Commander Richard P. McCullough, U.S.N., for a decoration.
Thus from the first day that this method of convoying ships was adopted it was an unqualified success in defeating the submarine campaign. By August 1, 1917, more than 10,000 ships had been convoyed, with losses of only one-half of 1 per cent. Up to that same date not a single ship which had left North American ports in convoy had been lost. By August 11th, 261 ships had been sent in convoy from North American ports, and of these only one had fallen a prey to the submarines. The convoy gave few opportunities for encounters with their enemies. I have already said that the great value of this system as a protection to shipping was that it compelled the under-water boats to fight their deadliest enemies, the destroyers, every time they tried to sink merchant ships in convoy, and they did not attempt this often on account of the danger. There were destroyer commanders who spent months upon the open sea, convoying huge aggregations of cargo vessels, without even once seeing a submarine. To a great extent the convoy system did its work in the same way that the Grand Fleet performed its indispensable service—silently, unobtrusively, making no dramatic bids for popular favour, and industriously plodding on, day after day and month after month. All this time the world had its eyes fixed upon the stirring events of the Western Front, almost unconscious of the existence of the forces that made those land operations possible. Yet a few statistics eloquently disclose the part played by the convoy system in winning the war. In the latter months of the struggle from 91 to 92 per cent. of Allied shipping sailed in convoys. The losses in these convoys were less than 1 per cent. And this figure includes the ships lost after the dispersal of the convoys; in convoys actually under destroyer escort the losses were less than one-half of 1 per cent. Military experts would term the convoy system a defensive-offensive measure. By this they mean that it was a method of taking a defensive position in order to force the enemy to meet you and give you an opportunity for the offensive. It is an old saying that the best defensive measure is a vigorous offensive one. Unfortunately, owing to the fact that the Allies had not prepared for the kind of warfare which the Germans saw fit to employ against them, we could not conduct purely offensive operations; that is, we could not employ our anti-submarine forces exclusively in the effort to destroy the submarines. Up to the time of the armistice, despite all the assistance rendered to the navies by the best scientific brains of the world, no sure means had been found of keeping track of the submarine once he submerged. The convoy system was, therefore, our only method of bringing him into action. I lay stress on this point and reiterate it because many critics kept insisting during the war—and their voices are still heard—that the convoy system was purely a defensive or passive method of opposing the submarine, and was, therefore, not sound tactics. It is quite true that we had to defend our shipping in order to win the war, but it is wrong to assume that the method adopted to accomplish this protection was a purely defensive and passive one.
As my main purpose is to describe the work of the American navy I have said little in the above about the activities of the British navy in convoying merchant ships. But we should not leave this subject with a false perspective. When the war ended we had seventy-nine destroyers in European waters, while Great Britain had about 400. These included those assigned to the Grand Fleet, to the Harwich force, to the Dover patrol, to Gibraltar and the Mediterranean, and other places, many of which were but incidentally making war on the submarines. As to minor ships—trawlers, sloops, Q-boats, yachts, drifters, tugs, and the other miscellaneous types used in this work—the discrepancy was even greater. In absolute figures our effort thus seems a small one when compared with that of our great ally. In tonnage of merchant ships convoyed, the work of the British navy was far greater than ours. Yet the help which we contributed was indispensable to the success that was attained. For, judging from the situation before we entered the war, and knowing the inadequacy of the total Allied anti-submarine forces even after we had entered, it seems hardly possible that, without the assistance of the United States navy, the vital lines of communication of the armies in the field could have been kept open, the civil populations of Great Britain supplied with food, and men and war materials sent from America to the Western Front. In other words, I think I am justified in saying that without the co-operation of the American navy, the Allies could not have won the war. Our forces stationed at Queenstown actually escorted through the danger zone about 40 per cent. of all the cargoes which left North American ports. When I describe the movement of American troops, it will appear that our destroyers located at Queenstown and Brest did even a larger share of this work. The latest reports show that about 205 German submarines were destroyed. Of these it seems probable that thirteen can be credited to American efforts, the rest to Great Britain, France, and Italy—the greatest number, of course, to Great Britain. When we take into consideration the few ships that we had on the other side, compared with those of the Allies, and the comparatively brief period in which we were engaged in the war, this must be regarded as a highly creditable showing.