The Victory At Sea Part 16

Between the beginning of May and the end of October, 1918, five German submarines crossed the Atlantic and torpedoed a few ships on our coast.

That submarines could make this long journey had long been known.

Singularly enough, however, the impression still prevails in this country that the German U-boats were the first to accomplish the feat.

In the early autumn of 1916 the _U-53_--commanded by that submarine officer, Hans Rose, who has been previously mentioned in these pages--crossed the Atlantic, dropped in for a call at Newport, R.I., and, on the way back, sank a few merchant vessels off Nantucket. A few months previous the so-called merchant submarine _Deutschland_ had made its trip to Newport News. The Teutonic press, and even some Germanophiles in this country, hailed these achievements as marking a glorious page in the record of the German navy. Doubtless the real purpose was to show the American people how easily these destructive vessels could cross the Atlantic; and to impress upon their minds the fate which awaited them in case they maintained their rights against the Prussian bully. As a matter of fact, it had been proved, long before the _Deutschland_ or the _U-53_ had made their voyages, that submarines could cross the Atlantic. In 1915, not one but ten submarines had gone from North America to Europe under their own power. Admiral Sir John Fisher tells about this expedition in his recently published memoirs. In 1914, the British Admiralty had contracted for submarines with Charles M.

Schwab, president of the Bethlehem Steel Company. As international law prohibited the construction of war vessels by a nation in wartime for the use of a belligerent with which it was at peace, the parts of ten submarines were sent to Canada, where they were put together. These submarines then crossed the Atlantic under their own power, and were sent from British ports to the Dardanelles, where they succeeded in driving Turkish and German shipping out of the Sea of Marmora. Thus a crossing of the Atlantic by American-built submarines manned by British crews had been accomplished before the Germans made their voyages. It was therefore not necessary for the two German submarines to cross the Atlantic to prove that the thing could be done; but the Germans doubtless believed that this demonstration of their ability to operate on the American coast would serve as a warning to the American people.

We were never at all deceived as to what would be the purpose of such a visit after our entrance into the war. In the early part of 1917 the Allies believed that a few German U-boats might a.s.sail our coast, and I so informed the Navy Department at Washington. My cables and letters of 1917 explained fully the reasons why Germany might indulge in such a gesture. Strategically, as these despatches make clear, such attacks would have no great military value. To have sent a sufficient number of submarines to do any considerable damage on the American coast would have been a great mistake. Germany's one chance of winning the war with the submarine weapon was to destroy shipping to such an extent that the communications of the Allies with the outside world, and especially with the United States, would be cut. The only places where the submarine warfare could be conducted with some chance of success were the ocean pa.s.sage routes which lead to European ports, especially in that area south and south-west of Ireland in which were focussed the trade routes for ships sailing from all parts of the world and destined for British and French ports. With the number of submarines available, the Germans could keep enough of their U-boats at work in these areas to destroy a large number of merchant ships. Germany thus needed to concentrate all of her available submarines at these points; she had an inadequate number for her purpose; to send any considerable force three thousand miles across the Atlantic would simply weaken her efforts in the real scene of warfare and would make her submarine campaign a failure. The cruises of submarines on the American coast would have been very much longer and would have been a much more serious strain on the submarines than were the shorter cruises in the insh.o.r.e waters of Europe. As has already been explained, the submarine did not differ from other craft in its need for constant repairs and careful upkeep, except that perhaps it was a more delicate instrument of warfare than any other naval craft, and that it would require longer and more frequent periods of overhaul.

Any operations carried out three thousand miles from their bases, where alone supplies, spare parts, and repair facilities were available, would have soon reduced the submarine campaign to comparative uselessness; each voyage would have resulted in sinking a relatively small amount of shipping; a great number of submarines would be out of commission at all times for repairs, or would be lost through accidents. The Germans had no submarine bases in American waters and could establish none.

Possibly, as the newspaper writer has pointed out, they might have seized a deserted island off the coast of Maine or in the Caribbean, and cached there a reservoir of fuel and food; unless, however, they could also have created at these places adequate facilities for repairing submarines or supplying them with torpedoes and ammunition, such a place would not have served the purpose of a base at all. Comparatively few of the German submarines could have made the cruise to the American coast and operated successfully there so far away from their bases for any considerable time. In the time spent in such an enterprise, the same submarine could make three or four trips in the waters about the British Isles, or off the coast of France, and could sink four or five times the tonnage which could be destroyed in the cruise on the Atlantic coast. In the eastern Atlantic, the submarine could seek its victims in an area comprising a comparatively few square miles, at points where shipping was so dense that a submarine had only to take a station and lie in wait, and be certain, within a short time, of encountering valuable ships which it could attack successfully with its torpedoes. If the U-boats should be sent to America, on the other hand, they would have to patrol up and down three thousand miles of coast, looking for victims; and even when they found them the ships that they could sink would usually be those engaged in the coastwise traffic, which were of infinitely less military importance than the transports which were carrying food, munitions, and supplies to the Allies and which were being sunk in the eastern Atlantic.

Anything resembling an attack in force on American harbours was therefore improbable. Yet it seemed likely from the first that the Germans would send an occasional submarine into our waters, as a measure of propaganda rather than for the direct military result that would be achieved. American destroyers and other vessels were essential to the success of the whole anti-submarine campaign of the Allies. The sooner they could all be sent into the critical European waters the sooner the German campaign of terrorism would end. If these destroyers, or any considerable part of them, could be kept indefinitely in American waters, the Germans might win the war. Any manoeuvre which would have as its result the keeping of these American vessels, so indispensable to the Allies, out of the field of active warfare, would thus be more than justified and, indeed, would indicate the highest wisdom on the part of the German navy. The Napoleonic principle of dividing your enemy's forces is just as valuable in naval as in land warfare. For many years Admiral Mahan had been instructing American naval officers that the first rule in warfare is not to divide your fighting forces, but always to keep them together, so as to bring the whole weight at a given moment against your adversary. Two of the fundamental principles of the science of warfare, on land and sea alike, are contained in the maxims: Keep your own forces concentrated, and always endeavour to divide those of the enemy. Undoubtedly, the best method which Germany could use to keep our destroyers in our own waters would be to make the American people believe that their lives and property were in danger; they might accomplish this by sending a submarine to attack our shipping off New York and Boston and other Atlantic seaports, and possibly even to bombard our harbours. The Germans doubtless believed that they might create such alarm and arouse such public clamour in the United States that our destroyers and other anti-submarine craft would be kept over here by the Navy Department, in response to the popular agitation to protect our own coast. This is the reason why American headquarters in London, and the Allied admiralties, expected such a visitation. The Germans obviously endeavoured to create the impression that such an attack was likely to occur at any time. This was part of their war propaganda. The press was full of reports that such attacks were about to be made. German agents were continually circulating these reports.

Of course it was clear from the first, to the heads of the Allied navies and to all naval authorities who were informed about the actual conditions, that these attacks by German submarines on the American coast would be in the nature of raids for moral effect only. It was also quite clear from the first, as I pointed out in my despatches to the Navy Department, that the best place to defend our coast was in the critical submarine areas in the European Atlantic, through which the submarines had to pa.s.s in setting out for our coast, and in which alone they could have any hope of succeeding in the military object of the undersea campaign. It was not necessary to keep our destroyers in American waters, patrolling the vast expanse of our three thousand miles of coastline, in a futile effort to find and destroy such enemy submarines as might operate on the American coast. So long as these attacks were only sporadic--and carried out by the type of submarine which used its guns almost exclusively in sinking ships, and which selected for its victims unarmed and unprotected ships--destroyers and other anti-submarine craft would be of no possible use on the Atlantic coast. The submarine could see these craft from a much greater distance than it could itself be seen by them; and by diving and sailing submerged it could easily avoid them and sink its victims without ever being sighted or attacked by our own patrols, however numerous they might have been. Even in the narrow waters of the English Channel, up to the very end of the war, submarines were successfully attacking small merchant craft by gunfire, although the density of patrol craft in this area was naturally a thousand times greater than we could ever have provided for the vast expanse of our own coast. Consequently, so long as the submarine attacks on the American coast were only sporadic, it was absolutely futile to maintain patrol craft in those waters, as this could not provide any adequate defence against such scattered demonstrations. If, on the other hand, the Germans had ever decided to commit the military mistake of concentrating a considerable number of submarines off our Atlantic ports, we could always have countered such a step by sending back from the war zone an adequate number of craft to protect convoys in and out of the Atlantic ports, in the same manner that convoys were protected in the submarine danger zone in European waters. This is a fact which even many naval men did not seem to grasp.

Yet I have already explained that we knew practically where every German submarine was at any given time. We knew whenever one left a German port; and we kept track of it day by day until it returned home. No U-boat ever made a voyage across the Atlantic without our knowledge. The submarine was a slow traveller, and required a minimum of thirty days for such a trip; normally, the time would be much longer, for a submarine on such a long voyage had to economize oil fuel for the return trip and therefore seldom cruised at more than five knots an hour. Our destroyers and anti-submarine craft, on the other hand, could easily cross the Atlantic in ten days and refuel in their home ports. It is therefore apparent that a flotilla of destroyers stationed in European waters could protect the American coast from submarines almost as successfully as if it were stationed at Hampton Roads or Newport. Such a flotilla would be of no use at these American stations unless there were submarines attacking shipping off the coast; but as soon as the Germans started for America--a fact of which we could always be informed, and of which, as I shall explain, we always were informed--we could send our destroyers in advance of them. These agile vessels would reach home waters about three weeks before the submarines arrived; they would thus have plenty of time to refit and to welcome the uninvited guests. From any conceivable point of view, therefore, there was no excuse for keeping destroyers on the American side of the Atlantic for "home defence." Moreover, the fact that we could keep this close track of submarines in itself formed a great protection against them. I have already explained how we routed convoys entering European waters in such ways that they could sail around the U-boat and thus escape contact. I think that this simple procedure saved more shipping than any other method. In the same way we could keep these vessels sailing from American ports outside of the area in which the submarines were known to be operating in our own waters.

Yet the enemy sent no submarines to our coast in 1917; why they did not do so may seem difficult to understand, for that was just the period when a campaign of this kind might have served their purpose. During this time, however, we had repeated indications that the Germans did not take the American entrance into the war very seriously; moreover, looking forward to conditions after the peace, they perhaps hoped that they might soon be able once again to establish friendly relations. In 1917 they therefore refrained from any acts which might arouse popular hatred against them. We had more than one indication of this att.i.tude.

Early in the summer of 1917 we obtained from one of the captured German submarines a set of the orders issued to it by the German Admiralty Staff. Among these was one dated May 8, 1917, in which the submarine commanders were informed that Germany had not declared war upon the United States, and that, until further instructions were received, the submarines were to continue to look upon America and American shipping as neutral. The submarine commanders were especially warned against attacking or committing any overt act against such American war vessels as might be encountered in European waters. The orders explained that no official confirmation had been received by the German Government of the news which had been published in the press that America had declared war, and that, therefore, the Germans, officially, were ignoring our belligerence. From their own standpoint such a policy of endeavouring not to offend America, even after she became an enemy, may have seemed politically wise; from a military point of view, their failure to attempt the submarine demonstration off our coast in 1917 was a great mistake; for when they finally started warfare on our coast, the United States was deeply involved in hostilities, and had already begun the transportation of the great army which produced such decisive results on the Western Front. The time had pa.s.sed, as experience soon showed, when any demonstration on our coast would disturb the calm of the American people or affect their will to victory.

In late April, 1918, I learned through secret-service channels that one of the large submarines of the _Deutschland_ cla.s.s had left its German base on the 19th of April for a long cruise. On the 1st of May, 1918, I therefore cabled to the Department that there were indications that this submarine was bound for our own coast. A few days afterward I received more specific information, through the interception of radio despatches between Germany and the submarine; and therefore I cabled the Department, this time informing them that the submarine was the _U-151_, that it was now well on its way across the Atlantic, and that it could be expected to begin operations off the American coast any time after May 20th. I gave a complete description of the vessel, the probable nature of her cruise, and her essential military characteristics. She carried a supply of mines, and I therefore invited the attention of the Department to the fact that the favourite areas for laying mines were those places where the ships stopped to pick up pilots. Since at Delaware Bay pilots for large ships were taken on just south of the Five Fathom Bank Light, I suggested that it was not unlikely that the _U-151_ would attempt to lay mines in that vicinity. Now the fact is that we knew that the _U-151_ intended to lay mines at this very place. We had obtained this piece of information from the radio which we had intercepted; as there was a possibility that our own cable might fall into German hands, we did not care to give the news in the precise form in which we had received it, as we did not intend that they should know that we had means of keeping so accurately informed. As had been predicted, the _U-151_ proceeded directly to the vicinity of this Five Fathom Bank off Delaware Bay, laid her mines, and then, cruising northward up the coast, began her demonstration on the 25th of May by sinking two small wooden schooners. These had no radio apparatus, and it was not until June 2nd that the Navy Department and the country received the news that the first submarine was operating. On June 29th I informed Washington that another U-boat was then coming down the west coast of Ireland, bound for the United States, and that it would arrive some time after July 15th. Complete reports of this vessel were sent from day to day, as it made its slow progress across the ocean. On July 6th I cabled that still another U-boat had started for our coast; and the progress of this adventurer, with all details as to its character and probable area of operations, were also forwarded regularly. From the end of May until October there was nearly always one submarine operating off our coast.

The largest number active at any one time was in August, when for a week or ten days three were more or less active in attacking coastwise vessels. These three operated all the way from Cape Hatteras to Newfoundland, attempting by these tactics to create the impression that dozens of hostile U-boats were preying upon our commerce and threatening our sh.o.r.es. These submarines, however, attacked almost exclusively sailing vessels and small coastwise steamers, rarely, if ever, using torpedoes. A number of mines were laid at different points off our ports, on what the Germans believed to be the traffic routes; but the information which we had concerning them made it possible to counter successfully their efforts and, from a military point of view, the whole of the submarine operations off our coast can be dismissed as one of the minor incidents of the war, as the Secretary of the Navy described it in his Annual Report. The five submarines sunk in all approximately 110,000 tons of shipping, but the vessels were, for the most part, small and of no great military importance. The only real victory was the destruction of the cruiser _San Diego_, which was sunk by a mine which had been laid by the _U-156_ off Fire Island.

CHAPTER XI

FIGHTING SUBMARINES FROM THE AIR

The Allied navies were harrowing the submarines not only under the water and on the surface, but from the air. In the anti-submarine campaign the several forms of aircraft--airplane, seaplane, dirigible, and kite balloon--developed great offensive power. Nor did the fact that our fighters in the heavens made few direct attacks which were successful diminish the importance of their work. The records of the British Admiralty attribute the destruction of five submarines to the British air service; the French Admiralty gives the American forces credit for destroying one on the French coast. These achievements, compared with the tremendous efforts involved in equipping air stations, may at first look like an inconsiderable return; yet the fact remains that aircraft were an important element in defeating the German campaign against merchant shipping.

Like the subchaser and the submarine, the seaplane operated most successfully in coastal waters. I have already indicated that one advantage of the convoy system was that it forced the U-boats to seek their victims closer to the sh.o.r.e. In our several forms of aircraft we had still another method of interfering with their operation in such quarters. In order to use these agencies effectively we constructed aircraft stations in large numbers along the coast of France and the British Isles, a.s.signed a certain stretch of coastline to each one of these stations, and kept the indicated area constantly patrolled. The advantages which were possessed by a fleet of aircraft operating at a considerable height above the water are at once apparent. The great speed of seaplanes in itself transformed them into formidable foes. The submarine on the surface could make a maximum of only 16 knots an hour, whereas an airplane made anywhere from 60 to 100; it therefore had little difficulty, once it had sighted the under-water boat, in catching up with it and starting hostilities. Its great speed also made it possible for an airplane or dirigible to patrol a much greater area of water than a surface or a subsurface vessel. An observer located several hundred feet in the heavens could see the submarine much more easily than could his comrades on other craft. If the water were clear he could at once detect it, even though it were submerged; in any event, merely lifting a man in the air greatly extended his horizon, and made it possible for him to pick up hostile vessels at a much greater distance.

Moreover, the airplane had that same advantage upon which I have laid such emphasis in describing the anti-submarine powers of the submarine itself: that is, it was almost invisible to its under-water foe. If the U-boat were lying on the surface, a seaplane or a dirigible was readily seen; but if it were submerged entirely, or even sailing at periscope depth, the most conspicuous enemy in the heavens was invisible. After our submarines and our aircraft had settled down to their business of extermination, existence for those Germans who were operating in coastal waters became extremely hazardous and nerve-racking; their chief anxiety was no longer the depth bomb of a destroyer; they lived every moment in the face of hidden terrors; they never knew when a torpedo would explode into their vitals, or when an unseen bomb, dropped from the heavens, would fall upon their fragile decks.

I have said that the destructive achievements of aircraft figure only moderately in the statistics of the war; this was because the greater part of their most valuable work was done in co-operation with war vessels. Aircraft in the Navy performed a service not unlike that which it performed in the Army. We are all familiar with the picture of airplanes sailing over the field of battle, obtaining information which was wirelessed back to their own forces, "spotting" artillery positions, and giving ranges. The seaplanes and dirigibles of the Allied navies performed a similar service on the ocean. To a considerable extent they became the "eyes" of the destroyers and other surface craft, just as the airplanes on the land became the "eyes" of the army. As part of their equipment all the dirigibles had wireless telegraph and wireless telephone; as soon as a submarine was "spotted," the news was immediately flashed broadcast, and every offensive warship which was anywhere in the neighbourhood, as well as the airplane itself, started for the indicated scene. There are several cases in which the sinking of submarines by destroyers was attributed to information wirelessed in this fashion by American aircraft; and since the air service of the British navy was many times greater than our own, there are many more such "indirect sinkings" credited to the British effort.

The following citation, which I submitted to the Navy Department in recommending Lieutenant John J. Schieffelin for the Distinguished Service Medal, ill.u.s.trates this co-operation between air and surface craft:

This officer performed many hazardous reconnaissance flights, and on July 9th, 1918, he attacked an enemy submarine with bombs and then directed the British destroyers to the spot, which were successful in seriously damaging the submarine. Again, on July 19th, 1918, Lieutenant Schieffelin dropped bombs on another enemy submarine, and then signalled trawlers to the spot, which delivered a determined attack against the submarine, which attack was considered highly successful and the submarine seriously damaged, if not destroyed. This officer was at all times an example of courageous loyalty.

Besides scouting and "spotting" and bombing, the aerial hunters of the submarine developed great value in escorting convoys. A few dirigibles, located on the flanks of a convoy, protected them almost as effectively as the destroyers themselves; and even a single airship not infrequently brought a group of merchantmen and troopships safely into port.

Sometimes the airships operated in this way as auxiliaries to destroyers, while sometimes they operated alone. In applying this mechanism of protection to merchant convoys, we were simply adopting the method which Great Britain had been using for three years in the narrow pa.s.sages of the English Channel. Much has been said of the skill with which the British navy transported about 20,000,000 souls back and forth between England and France in four years; and in this great movement seaplanes, dirigibles, and other forms of aircraft played an important part. In the same way this scheme of protection was found valuable with the coastal convoys, particularly with the convoys which sailed from one French port to another, and from British ports to places in Ireland, Holland, or Scandinavia. I have described the dangers in which these ships were involved owing to the fact that the groups were obliged to break up after entering the Channel and the Irish Sea, and thus to proceed singly to their destinations. Aircraft improved this situation to a considerable extent, for they could often go to sea, pick up the ships, and bring them safely home. The circ.u.mstance that our seaplanes, perched high in the air, could see the submarine long before they had reached torpedoing distance, and could, if necessary, signal to a destroyer for a.s.sistance, made them exceedingly valuable for this kind of work.

Early in 1918, at the request of the British Government, we took over a large seaplane base which had been established by the British at Killingholme, England, a little sea-coast town at the mouth of the Humber River. According to the original plan we intended to co-operate from this point with the British in a joint expedition against enemy naval bases, employing for this purpose especially constructed towing lighters, upon which seaplanes were to be towed by destroyers to within a short flying distance of their objectives. Although this project was never carried out, Killingholme, because of its geographical location, became a very important base for seaplanes used in escorting mercantile convoys to and from Scandinavian ports, patrolling mine-fields while on the lookout for enemy submarines and making those all-important reconnaissance flights over the North Sea which were intended to give advanced warning of any activity of the German High Seas Fleet. These flights lasted usually from six to eight hours; the record was made by Ensigns S. C. Kennedy and C. H. Weatherhead, U.S.N., who flew for nine hours continuously on convoy escort duty. For a routine patrol, this compares very favourably indeed with the flight of the now famous trans-Atlantic _NC-4_.

I can no better describe the splendid work of these enthusiastic and courageous young Americans than by quoting a few extracts from a report which was submitted to me by Ensign K. B. Keyes, of a reconnaissance flight in which he took part, while attached temporarily to a British seaplane station under post-graduate instruction. The picture given by Ensign Keyes is typical of the flights which our boys were constantly making:

On June 4, 1918, we received orders to carry out a reconnaissance and hostile aircraft patrol over the North Sea and along the coast of Holland. It was a perfect day for such work, for the visibility was extremely good, with a light wind of fifteen knots and clouds at the high alt.i.tude of about eight or ten thousand feet.

Our three machines from Felixstowe rose from the water at twelve o'clock, circled into patrol formation, and proceeded north-east by north along the coast to Yarmouth. Here we were joined by two more planes, but not without some trouble and slight delay because of a broken petrol pipe which was subsequently repaired in the air. We again circled into formation, Capt. Leckie, D.S.O., of Yarmouth, taking his position as leader of the squadron.

At one o'clock the squadron proceeded east, our machine, being in the first division, flew at 1,500 feet and at about half a mile in the rear of Capt. Leckie's machine, but keeping him on our starboard quarter.

We sighted nothing at all until about half-past two, when the Haaks Light Vessel slowly rose on the horizon, but near this mark and considerably more to the south we discovered a large fleet of Dutch fishing smacks. This fleet consisted of more than a hundred smacks.

Ten minutes later we sighted the Dutch coast, where we changed our course more to the north-east. We followed the sandy beaches of the islands of Texel and Vlieland until we came to Tersch.e.l.ling. In following the coast of Vlieland we were close enough to distinguish houses on the inside of the island and even to make out breakers rolling up on the sandy beach.

At Tersch.e.l.ling we proceeded west in accordance with our orders, but soon had to turn back because of Capt. Leckie's machine which had fallen out of formation and come to the water. This machine landed at three fifteen and we continued to circle around it, finding that the trouble was with a badly broken petrol pipe, until about fifteen minutes later, when we sighted five German planes steering west, a direction which would soon bring them upon us.

At this time Capt. Barker had the wheel, Lt. Galvayne was seated beside him, but if we met the opposing forces he was to kneel on the seat with his eyes above the cowl, where he could see all the enemy planes and direct the pilot in which direction to proceed. I was in the front c.o.c.kpit with one gun and four hundred rounds of ammunition. In the stern c.o.c.kpit the engineer and wireless ratings were to handle three guns.

We at once took battle formation and went forward to meet the enemy, but here we were considerably surprised to find that when we were nearly within range they had turned and were running away from us. At once we gave chase, but soon found that they were much too fast for us. Our machine had broken out of the formation and, with nose down, had crept slightly ahead of Capt. Leckie, and we being the nearest machine to the enemy, I had the satisfaction of trying out my gun for a number of rounds. It was quite impossible to tell whether I had registered any hits or not.

Our purpose in chasing these planes was to keep them away from the machine on the water which, if we had not been there, would have been shot to pieces. Finding that it was useless to follow them, as they could easily keep out of our range, we turned back and very shortly we were again circling around our machine on the water.

It was not long before the enemy again came very close, so we gave chase the second time. This time, instead of five machines as before, there were only four, and one small scout could be seen flying in the direction of Bork.u.m.

It was the fourth time that we went off in pursuit of the enemy that we suddenly discovered that a large number of hostile planes were proceeding towards us, not in the air with the other four planes but very close to the water. There were ten planes in this first group, but they were joined a few minutes later by five more.

We swung into battle formation and steered for the middle of the group. When we were nearly within range four planes on the port side and five planes on the starboard side rose to our level of fifteen hundred feet. Two planes pa.s.sed directly beneath us firing upward. Firing was incessant from the beginning and the air seemed blue with tracer smoke. I gave most of my time to the four planes on our port side, because they were exactly on the same level with us and seemed to be within good range, that is about two hundred yards. When we had pa.s.sed each other I looked around and noticed that Lt. Galvayne was in a stooping position, with head and one arm on his seat, the other arm hanging down as if reaching for something. I had seen him in this position earlier in the day so thought nothing of it. All this I had seen in the fraction of a second, for I had to continue firing. A few minutes later I turned around again and found with a shock that Lt. Galvayne was in the same position. It was then that the first inkling of the truth dawned upon me. By bending lower I discovered that his head was lying in a pool of blood.

From this time on I have no clear idea of just what our manoeuvring was, but evidently we put up a running fight steering east, then circled until suddenly I found our machine had been cut off from the formation and we were surrounded by seven enemy seaplanes.

This time we were steering west or more to the south-west. We carried on a running fight for ten miles or so until we drove the seven planes off. During the last few minutes of the fight our engine had been popping altogether too frequently and soon the engineer came forward to tell us that the port engine petrol pipe had broken.

By this time I had laid out Lt. Galvayne in the wireless c.o.c.kpit, cleaned up the second pilot's seat, and taken it myself.

The engagement had lasted about half an hour, and the closest range was one hundred yards while the average range was two hundred. The boat with Ensign Eaton in it landed between the Islands of Texel and Vlieland, while the other boat, which had not taken any part in the fight, was last seen two miles off Vlieland and still taxiing in toward the beach.

We descended to the water at five forty-five, ten miles north-west of Vlieland. During the ten minutes we were on the water I loosened Lt. Galvayne's clothing, made his position somewhat easier, and felt for his heart which at that time I was quite sure was beating feebly.

When we rose from the water and ascended to fifteen hundred feet, we sighted two planes which later proved to be the two Yarmouth boats. We picked them up, swung into formation, and laid our course for Yarmouth.

At ten minutes to seven we sighted land and twenty minutes after we were resting on the water in front of Yarmouth slipway.

We at once summoned medical aid but found that nothing could be done. The shot had gone through his head, striking the mouth and coming out behind his ear, tearing a gash of about two inches in diameter.

The boat had been more or less riddled, a number of shots tearing up the top between the front c.o.c.kpit and the beginning of the cowl.

The total duration of the flight was seven hours and ten minutes.

American naval aviation had a romantic beginning; indeed, the development of our air service from almost nothing to a force which, in European waters, comprised 2,500 officers and 22,000 men, is one of the great accomplishments of the war. It was very largely the outcome of civilian enterprise and civilian public spirit. In describing our subchasers I have already paid tribute to the splendid qualities of reserve officers; and our indebtedness to this type of citizen was equally great in the aviation service. I can pay no further tribute to American youth than to say that the great aircraft force which was ultimately a.s.sembled in Europe had its beginnings in a small group of undergraduates at Yale University. In recommending Mr. Trubee Davison for a Distinguished Service Medal, the commander of our aviation forces wrote: "This officer was responsible for the organization of the first Yale aviation unit of twenty-nine aviators who were later enrolled in the Naval Reserve Flying Corps.... This group of aviators formed the nucleus of the first Naval Reserve Flying Corps, and, in fact, may be considered as the nucleus from which the United States Aviation Forces, Foreign Service, later grew." This group of college boys acted entirely on their own initiative. While the United States was still at peace, encouraged only by their own parents and a few friends, they took up the study of aviation. It was their conviction that the United States would certainly get into the war, and they selected this branch as the one in which they could render greatest service to their country. These young men worked all through the summer of 1916 at Port Washington, Long Island, learning how to fly: at this time they were an entirely unofficial body, paying their own expenses. Ultimately the unit comprised about twenty men; they kept constantly at work, even after college opened in the fall of 1916, and when war broke out they were prepared--for they had actually learned to fly. When the submarine scares disturbed the Atlantic seaboard in the early months of the war these Yale undergraduates were sent by the department scouting over Long Island Sound and other places looking for the imaginary Germans. In February, 1917, Secretary Daniels recognized their work by making Davison a member of the Committee on Aeronautics; in March practically every member of the unit was enrolled in the aviation service; and their names appear among the first one hundred aviators enrolled in the Navy--a list that ultimately included several thousand. So proficient had these undergraduates become that they were used as a nucleus to train our aircraft forces; they were impressed as instructors at Buffalo, Baysh.o.r.e, Hampton Roads, the Ma.s.sachusetts Inst.i.tute of Technology, Key West and Moorhead City. They began to go abroad in the summer of 1917, and they were employed as instructors in schools in France and England. These young men not only rendered great material service, but they manifested an enthusiasm, an earnestness, and a tireless vigilance which exerted a wonderful influence in strengthening the _moral_ of the whole aviation department. "I knew that whenever we had a member of the Yale unit," says Lieutenant-Commander Edwards, who was aide for aviation at the London headquarters in the latter part of the war, "everything was all right. Whenever the French and English asked us to send a couple of our crack men to reinforce a squadron, I would say, 'Let's get some of the Yale gang.' We never made a mistake when we did this."

There were many men in the regular navy to whom the nation is likewise indebted. Captain T. T. Craven served with very marked distinction as aide for aviation on the staff of Admiral Wilson, and afterward, after the armistice was signed, as the senior member of the Board which had been appointed to settle all claims with the French Government.

Lieutenant (now Commander) Kenneth Whiting was another officer who rendered great service in aviation. Commander Whiting arrived in St.

Nazaire, France, on the 5th of June, 1917, in command of the first aeronautic detachment, which consisted of 7 officers and 122 men.

Such were the modest beginnings of American aviation in France. In a short time Commander Whiting was a.s.signed to the command of the large station which was taken over at Killingholme, England, and in October, 1917, Captain Hutch I. Cone came from the United States to take charge of the great aviation programme which had now been planned. Captain Cone had for many years enjoyed the reputation of being one of the Navy's most efficient administrators; while still a lieutenant-commander, he had held for a considerable time the rank of rear-admiral, as chief of the Bureau of Steam Engineering; and in 1917 he was commanding naval officer of the Panama Ca.n.a.l, a position which required organizing ability of the highest order. It was at my request that he was ordered abroad to organize our European air forces. Captain Cone now came to Paris and plunged into the work of organizing naval aviation with all his usual vigour.

It subsequently became apparent, however, that London would be a better place for his work than Paris, and Captain Cone therefore took up his headquarters in Grosvenor Gardens. Under his administration naval aviation foreign service grew to the proportions I have indicated and included in France six seaplane stations, three dirigible stations, two kite balloon stations, one school of aerial gunnery, one a.s.sembly and repair base, and the United States Naval Northern Bombing Group. In the British Isles there were established four seaplane stations and one kite balloon station in Ireland; one seaplane station and one a.s.sembly and repair base in England; and in Italy we occupied, at the request of the Italian Government, two seaplane stations at Pescara and Porto Corsini on the Adriatic. From these stations we bombed to good effect Austrian naval bases in that area. To Lieutenant-Commander J. L. Callan, U.S.N.R.F., is due much of the credit for the cordial relations which existed between the Italians and ourselves, as well as for the efficient conduct of our aviation forces in Italy under his command.