THE ADOPTION OF THE CONVOY
I
All this time that we were seeking a solution for the submarine problem
we really had that solution in our hands. The seas presented two
impressive spectacles in those terrible months of April, May, and June,
1917. One was the comparative ease with which the German submarines were
sinking merchant vessels; the other was their failure materially to
weaken the Allied fleets. If we wish a counter-picture to that presented
by the Irish Sea and the English Channel, where merchant shipping was
constantly going down, we should look to the North Sea, where the
British Grand Fleet, absolutely intact, was defiantly riding the waves.
The uninformed public explained this apparent security in a way of its
own; it believed that the British dreadnoughts were anchored behind
booms, nets, and mine-fields, through which the submarines could not
penetrate. Yet the fact of the matter was that the Grand Fleet was
frequently cruising in the open sea, in the waters which were known to
be the most infested with submarines. The German submarines had been
attempting to destroy this fleet for two and a half years. It had been
their plan to weaken this great battle force by "attrition"; to sink the
great battleships one by one, and in this way to reduce the fighting
power of the fleet to such a point that the German dreadnoughts could
have some chances of success. Such had been the German programme, widely
heralded at the beginning of the war; nearly three years had now passed,
but how had this pretentious scheme succeeded? The fact was that the
submarines had not destroyed a single dreadnought. It was certainly a
profitable study in contrasts--that of merchant ships constantly being
torpedoed and that of battleships constantly repelling such attacks.
Certainly a careful study of this situation ought to bring out facts
which would assist the Allies in solving the most baffling problem of
the war.
Yet there was no mystery about the immunity which these great fighting
vessels were enjoying; the submarine problem, so far as it affected the
battle fleet, had already been solved. The explanation was found in the
simple circumstance that, whenever the dreadnoughts went to sea, they
were preceded by a screen of cruisers and destroyers. It almost seemed
as though these surface craft were serving as a kind of impenetrable
wall against which the German U-boats were beating themselves in vain.
Yet to the casual observer there seemed to be no reason why the
submarines should stand in any particular terror of the destroyers.
Externally they looked like the least impressive war vessels afloat.
When they sailed ahead of the battle squadrons, the destroyers were
ungraceful objects upon the surface of the water; the impression which
they conveyed was that of fragility rather than of strength, and the
idea that they could ever be the guardians of the mighty battleships
which sailed behind them at first seemed almost grotesque. Yet these
little vessels really possessed the power of overcoming the submarine.
The war had not progressed far when it became apparent that the U-boat
could not operate anywhere near this speedy little surface vessel
without running serious risk of destruction.
Until the reports of submarine fighting began to find their way into the
papers, however, the destroyer was probably the one type of warship in
which the public had the smallest interest. It had become, indeed, a
kind of ugly duckling of the Navy. Our Congress had regularly neglected
it; year after year our naval experts had recommended that four
destroyers be built for every battleship, and annually Congress had
appropriated for only one or two. The war had also found Great Britain
without a sufficient number of destroyers for the purpose of
anti-submarine warfare. The Admiralty had provided enough for screening
the Grand Fleet in cruising and in battle, but it had been called upon
to divert so many for the protection of troop transportation, supply
ships, and commerce generally that the efficiency of the fleet had been
greatly undermined. Thus Britain found herself without enough
destroyers to meet the submarine campaign; this situation was not due to
any lack of foresight, but to a failure to foresee that any civilized
nation could ever employ the torpedo in unrestricted warfare against
merchant ships and their crews.
The one time that this type of vessel had come prominently into notice
was in 1904, when several of them attacked the Russian fleet at Port
Arthur, damaging several powerful vessels and practically ending Russian
sea power in the Far East. The history of the destroyer, however, goes
back much further than 1904. It was created to fulfil a duty not unlike
that which it has played so gloriously in the World War. In the late
seventies and early eighties a new type of war vessel, the torpedo boat,
caused almost as much perturbation as the submarine has caused in recent
years. This speedy little fighter was invented to serve as a medium for
the discharge of a newly perfected engine of naval warfare, the
automobile torpedo. It was its function to creep up to a battleship,
preferably under cover of darkness or in thick weather, and let loose
this weapon against her unsuspecting hulk. The appearance of the torpedo
boat led to the same prediction as that which has been more recently
inspired by the submarine; in the eyes of many it simply meant the end
of the great surface battleship. But naval architects, looking about for
the "answer" to this dangerous craft, designed another type of warship
and appropriately called it the "torpedo boat destroyer." This vessel
was not only larger and speedier than its appointed antagonist, but it
possessed a radius of action and a seaworthiness which enabled it to
accompany the battle fleet. Its draft was so light that a torpedo could
pass harmlessly under the keel, and it carried an armament which had
sufficient power to end the career of any torpedo boat that came its
way. Few types have ever justified their name so successfully as the
torpedo boat destroyer. So completely did it eliminate that little
vessel as a danger to the fighting ships that practically all navies
long since ceased to build torpedo boats. Yet the destroyer promptly
succeeded to the chief function of the discarded vessel, that of
attacking capital ships with torpedoes; and, in addition to this, it
assumed the duty of protecting battleships from similar attack by enemy
vessels of the same type.
It surprises many people to learn that the destroyer is not a little
boat but a warship of considerable size. This vessel to-day impresses
most people as small only because all ships, those which are used for
commerce and those which are used for war, have increased so greatly in
displacement. The latest specimens of the destroyer carry four-or
five-inch guns and twelve torpedo tubes, each of which launches a
torpedo that weighs more than a ton, and runs as straight as an arrow
for more than six miles. The _Santa Maria_, the largest vessel of the
squadron with which Columbus made his first voyage to America, had a
displacement of about five hundred tons, and thus was about half as
large as a destroyer; and even at the beginning of the clipper ship era
few vessels were much larger.
Previous to 1914 it was generally believed that torpedo attacks would
play a large part in any great naval engagement, and this was the reason
why all naval advisers insisted that a large number of these vessels
should be constructed as essential units of the fleet. Yet the war had
not made much progress when it became apparent that this versatile craft
had another great part to play, and that it would once more justify its
name in really heroic fashion. Just as it had proved its worth in
driving the surface torpedo boat from the seas, so now it developed into
a very dangerous foe to the torpedo boat that sailed beneath the waves.
Events soon demonstrated that, in all open engagements between submarine
and destroyer, the submarine stood very little chance. The reason for
this was simply that the submarine had no weapon with which it could
successfully resist the attack of the destroyer, whereas the destroyer
had several with which it could attack the submarine. The submarine had
three or four torpedo tubes, and only one or two guns, and with neither
could it afford to risk attacking the more powerfully armed destroyer.
The U-boat was of such a fragile nature that it could never afford to
engage in a combat in which it stood much chance of getting hit. A
destroyer could stand a comparatively severe pounding and still remain
fairly intact, but a single shell, striking a submarine, was a very
serious matter; even though the vessel did not sink as a result, it was
almost inevitable that certain parts of its machinery would be so
injured that it would have difficulty in getting into port. It therefore
became necessary for the submarine always to play safe, to fight only
under conditions in which it had the enemy at such a disadvantage that
it ran little risk itself; and this was the reason why it preferred to
attack merchant and passenger ships rather than vessels, such as the
destroyer, that could energetically defend themselves.
The comparatively light draft of the destroyer, which is about nine or
ten feet, pretty effectually protects it from the submarine's torpedo,
for this torpedo, to function with its greatest efficiency, must take a
course about fifteen feet under water; if it runs nearer the surface
than this, it comes under the influence of the waves, and does not make
a straight course. More important still, the speed of the destroyer, the
ease with which it turns, circles, and zigzags, makes it all but
impossible for a torpedo to be aimed with much chance of hitting her.
Moreover, the discharge of this missile is a far more complicated
undertaking than is generally supposed. The submarine commander cannot
take position anywhere and discharge his weapon more or less wildly,
running his chances of hitting; he must get his boat in place, calculate
range, course, and speed, and take careful aim. Clearly it is difficult
for him to do this successfully if his intended victim is scurrying
along at the rate of thirty or forty miles an hour. Moreover, the
destroyer is constantly changing its course, making great circles and
indulging in other disconcerting movements. So well did the Germans
understand the difficulty of torpedoing a destroyer that they
practically never attempted so unprofitable and so hazardous an
enterprise.
Torpedoes are complicated and expensive mechanisms; each one costs about
$8,000 and the average U-boat carried only from eight to twelve; it was
therefore necessary to husband these precious weapons, to use them only
when the chances most favoured success; the U-boat commander who wasted
them in attempts to sink destroyers would probably have been
court-martialled.
But while the submarine had practically no means of successfully
fighting the destroyer, the destroyer had several ways of putting an end
to the submarine. The advantage which really made the destroyer so
dangerous, as already intimated, was its excessive speed. On the surface
the U-boat made little more than fifteen miles an hour, and under the
surface it made little more than seven or eight. If the destroyer once
discovered its presence, therefore, it could reach its prey in an
incredibly short time. It could attack with its guns, and, if conditions
were favourable, it could ram; and this was no trifling accident, for a
destroyer going at thirty or forty miles could cut a submarine nearly in
two with its strong, razor-like bow. In the early days of the war these
were the main methods upon which it relied to attack, but by the time
that I had reached London, another and much more frightful weapon had
been devised. This was the depth charge, a large can containing about
three hundred pounds of TNT, which, if it exploded anywhere within one
hundred feet of the submarine, would either destroy it entirely or so
injure it that the victim usually had to come to the surface and
surrender.
I once asked Admiral Jellicoe who was the real inventor of this
annihilating missile.
"No man in particular," he said. "It came into existence almost
spontaneously, in response to a pressing need. Gunfire can destroy
submarines when they are on the surface, but you know it can accomplish
nothing against them when they are submerged. This fact made it
extremely difficult to sink them in the early days of the war. One day,
when the Grand Fleet was cruising in the North Sea, a submarine fired a
torpedo at one of the cruisers. The cruiser saw the periscope and the
wake of the torpedo, and had little difficulty in so manoeuvring as to
avoid being struck. She then went full speed to the spot from which the
submarine had fired its torpedo, in the hope of ramming it. But by the
time she arrived the submarine had submerged so deeply that the cruiser
passed over her without doing her any harm. Yet the officers and crew
could see the submerged hull; there the enemy lay in full view of her
pursuers, yet perfectly safe! The officers reported this incident to me
in the presence of Admiral Madden, second in command.
"'Wouldn't it have been fine,' said Madden, 'if they had had on board a
mine so designed that, when dropped overboard, it would have exploded
when it reached the depth at which the submarine was lying?'"
"That remark," continued Admiral Jellicoe, "gave us the germinal idea of
the depth charge. I asked the Admiralty to get to work and produce a
'mine' that would act in the way that Admiral Madden had suggested. It
proved to be very simple to construct--an ordinary steel cylinder filled
with TNT; this was fitted with a simple firing appliance which was set
off by the pressure of the water, and could be so adjusted that it would
explode the charge at any depth desired. This apparatus was so simple
and so necessary that we at once began to manufacture it."
The depth charge looked like the innocent domestic ash can, and that was
the name by which it soon came to be popularly known. Each destroyer
eventually carried twenty or thirty of these destructive weapons at the
stern; a mere pull on a lever would make one drop into the water. Many
destroyers also carried strange-looking howitzers, which were made in
the shape of a Y, and from which one ash can could be hurled fifty yards
or more from each side of the vessel. The explosion, when it took place
within the one hundred feet which I have mentioned as usually fatal to
the submarine, would drive the plates inward and sometimes make a leak
so large that the vessel would sink almost instantaneously. At a
somewhat greater distance it frequently produced a leak of such serious
proportions that the submarine would be forced to blow her ballast
tanks, come to the surface, and surrender. Even when the depth charge
exploded considerably more than a hundred feet away, the result might be
equally disastrous, for the concussion might distort the hull and damage
the horizontal rudders, making it impossible to steer, or it might so
injure the essential machinery that the submarine would be rendered
helpless. Sometimes the lights went out, leaving the crew groping in
blackness; necessary parts were shaken from their fastenings; and in
such a case the commander had his choice of two alternatives, one to be
crushed by the pressure of the water, and the other to come up and be
captured or sunk by his surface foe. It is no reflection upon the
courage of the submarine commanders to say that in this embarrassing
situation they usually preferred to throw themselves upon the mercy of
the enemy rather than to be smashed or to die a lingering and agonizing
death under the water. Even when the explosion took place at a distance
so great that the submarine was not seriously damaged, the experience
was a highly disconcerting one for the crew. If a dozen depth charges
were dropped, one after the other, the effect upon the men in the hunted
vessel was particularly demoralizing. In the course of the war several
of our own submarines were depth-charged by our own destroyers, and from
our crews we obtained graphic descriptions of the sensations which
resulted. It was found that men who had passed through such an ordeal
were practically useless for several days, and that sometimes they were
rendered permanently unfit for service. The state of nerves which
followed such an experience was not unlike that new war psychosis known
as shell-shock. One of our officers who had had such an adventure told
me that the explosion of a single depth charge under the water might be
compared to the concussion produced by the simultaneous firing of all
the fourteen-inch guns of a battleship. One can only imagine what the
concussion must have been when produced by ten or twenty depth charges
in succession. Whether or not the submarine was destroyed or seriously
injured, a depth-charged crew became extremely cautious in the future
about getting anywhere in the neighbourhood of a destroyer; and among
the several influences which ultimately disorganized the _moral_ of the
German U-boat service these contacts with depth charges were doubtless
the most important. The hardiest under-water sailor did not care to go
through such frightful moments a second time.
This statement makes it appear as though the depth charge had settled
the fate of the submarine. Yet that was far from being the case, for
against the ash can, with its 300 pounds of TNT, the submarine possessed
one quality which gave it great defensive power. That was ability to
make itself unseen. Strangely enough, the average layman is inclined to
overlook this fairly apparent fact, and that is the reason why, even at
the risk of repeating myself, I frequently refer to it. Indeed, the only
respect in which the subsurface boat differs essentially from all other
war vessels is in this power of becoming invisible. Whenever it descries
danger from afar, the submarine can disappear under the water in
anywhere from twenty seconds to a minute. And its great advantage is
that it can detect its enemy long before that enemy can detect the
submarine. A U-boat, sailing awash, or sailing with only its
conning-tower exposed, can see a destroyer at a distance of about
fifteen miles if the weather is clear; but, under similar conditions,
the destroyer can see the submarine at a distance of about four miles.
Possessing this great advantage, the submarine can usually decide
whether it will meet the enemy or not; if it decides that it is wise to
avoid an encounter, all it has to do is to duck, remain submerged until
the destroyer has passed on, entirely unconscious of its presence, and
then to resume its real work, which is not that of fighting warships,
but of sinking merchantmen. The chief anxiety of the U-boat commander is
thus to avoid contact with its surface foe and its terrible depth
charge, whereas the business of the destroyer commander is to get within
fighting distance of his quarry.
Ordinarily, conditions favour the U-boat in this game, simply because
the ocean is so large a place. But there is one situation in which the
destroyer has more than a fighting chance, for the power of the
submarine to keep its presence secret lasts only so long as it remains
out of action. If it makes no attempt to fight, its presence can hardly
ever be detected; but just as soon as it becomes belligerent, it
immediately reveals its whereabouts. If it comes to the surface and
fires its guns, naturally it advertises to its enemy precisely where it
is; but it betrays its location almost as clearly when it discharges a
torpedo. Just as soon as the torpedo leaves the submarine, a wake,
clearly marking its progress, appears upon the surface of the water.
Though most newspaper readers have heard of this tell-tale track, I have
found few who really understand what a conspicuous disturbance it is.
The torpedo is really a little submarine itself; it is propelled by
compressed air, the exhaust of which stirs up the water and produces a
foamy, soapy wake, which is practically the same as that produced by the
propeller of an ocean liner. This trail is four or five feet wide; it is
as white and is as distinct as a chalk line drawn upon a blackboard,
provided the weather is clear and the sun is in the right direction.
Indeed, it is sometimes so distinct that an easily manoeuvred ship,
and even sometimes a merchantman, can avoid the torpedo which it sees
advancing merely by putting over the helm and turning out of its
course. But the chief value of this wake to the submarine hunters is
that it shows the direction in which the submarine was located when the
torpedo started on its course. It stands out on the surface of the water
like a long, ghostly finger pointing to the spot where the foe let loose
its shaft.
As soon as the destroyer sees this betraying disturbance, the commander
rings for full speed; and one of the greatest advantages of this type of
vessel is that it can attain full speed in an incredibly short time. The
destroyer then dashes down the wake until it reaches the end, which
indicates the point where the submarine lay when it discharged its
missile. At this point the surface vessel drops a depth charge and then
begins cutting a circle, say, to the right. Pains are taken to make this
circle so wide that it will include the submarine, provided it has gone
in that direction. The destroyer then makes another circle to the left.
Every ten or fifteen seconds, while describing these circles, it drops a
depth charge; indeed, not infrequently it drops twenty or thirty in a
few minutes. If there is another destroyer in the neighbourhood it also
follows up the wake and when it reaches the indicated point, it circles
in the opposite direction from the first. Sometimes more than two may
start for the suspected location and, under certain conditions, the
water within a radius of half a mile or more may be seething with
exploding depth charges.
It is plain from this description that the proceeding develops into an
exceedingly dangerous game for the attacking submarine. It is a simple
matter to calculate the chances of escaping which the enemy has under
these conditions. That opportunity is clearly measured by the time which
elapses from the moment when it discharges its torpedo to the moment
when the destroyer has reached the point at which it was discharged.
This interval gives the subsurface boat a certain chance to get away;
but its under-water speed is moderate, and so by the time the destroyer
reaches the critical spot, the submarine has advanced but a short
distance away from it. How far has she gone? In what direction did she
go? These are the two questions which the destroyer commander must
answer, and the success with which he answers them accurately measures
his success in sinking or damaging his enemy, or in giving him a good
scare. If he always decided these two points accurately, he would almost
always "get" his submarine; the chances of error are very great,
however, and that is the reason why the submarine in most cases gets
away. All that the surface commander knows is that there is a U-boat
somewhere in his neighbourhood, but he does not know its precise
location and so he is fighting more or less in the dark. In the great
majority of cases the submarine does get away, but now and then the
depth charge reaches its goal and ends its career.
If only one destroyer is hunting, the chances of escape strongly favour
the under-water craft; if several pounce upon her at once, however, the
chances of escaping are much more precarious. If the water is shallow
the U-boat can sometimes outwit the pursuer by sinking to the bottom and
lying there in silent security until its surface enemy tires of the
chase. But in the open sea there is no possibility of concealing itself
and so saving itself in this fashion, for if the submarine sinks beyond
a certain depth the pressure of the water will crush it.
While the record shows that the U-boat usually succeeded in evading the
depth charges, there were enough sunk or seriously damaged or given a
bad shake-up to serve as a constant reminder to the crews that they ran
great danger in approaching waters which were protected by destroyers.
The U-boat captains, as will appear, avoided such waters regularly; they
much preferred to attack their merchant prey in areas where these
soul-racking depth charges did not interfere with their operations.
It is now becoming apparent why the great battle fleet, which always
sailed behind a protecting screen of such destroyers, was practically
immune from torpedo attack. In order to assail these battleships the
submarine was always compelled to do the one thing which, above all
others, it was determined to avoid--to get within depth-charge radius of
the surface craft. In discharging the torpedo, distance, as already
intimated, is the all-important consideration. The U-boat carries a
torpedo which has a much shorter range than that of the destroyer; it
was seldom effective if fired at more than 2,000 yards, and beyond that
distance its chances of hitting became very slight. Indeed, a much
shorter distance than that was desirable if the torpedo was to
accomplish its most destructive purpose. So valuable were these missiles
and so necessary was it that every one should be used to good advantage,
that the U-boat's captain had instructions to shoot at no greater
distance than 300 yards, unless the conditions were particularly
favourable. In the early days, the torpedoes which were fired at a
greater distance would often hit the ships on the bow or the stern, and
do comparatively little damage; such vessels could be brought in,
repaired in a short time, and again put to sea. The German Admiralty
discovered that in firing from a comparatively long distance it was
wasting its torpedoes; it therefore ordered its men to get so near the
prey that it could strike the vessel in a vital spot, preferably in the
engine-room; and to do this it was necessary to creep up within 300
yards. But to get as close as that to the destroyers which screened the
battleships meant almost certain destruction. Thus the one method of
attack which was left to the U-boat was to dive under the destroyer
screen and come up in the midst of the battle fleet itself. A few
minutes after its presence should become known, however, a large number
of destroyers would be dropping depth charges in its neighbourhood, and
its chances of escaping destruction would be almost nil, to say nothing
of its chances of destroying ships.
The Germans learned the futility of this kind of an operation early in
the war, and the man who taught them this lesson was Commander
Weddingen, the same officer who had first demonstrated the value of the
submarine in practical warfare. It was Otto Weddingen who, in September,
1914, sank the old British cruisers, the _Hogue_, the _Cressy_, and the
_Aboukir_, an exploit which made him one of the great popular heroes of
Germany. A few months afterward Commander Weddingen decided to try an
experiment which was considerably more hazardous than that of sinking
three unescorted cruisers; he aspired to nothing less ambitious than an
attack upon the Grand Fleet itself. On March 18th a part of this fleet
was cruising off Cromarty, Scotland; here Weddingen came with the
_U-29_, dived under the destroyer screen and fired one torpedo, which
passed astern of the _Neptune_. The alarm was immediately sounded, and
presently the battleship _Dreadnought_, which had seen the periscope,
started at full speed for the submarine, rammed the vessel and sent it
promptly to the bottom. As it was sinking the bow rose out of the water,
plainly disclosing the number _U-29_. There was not one survivor.
Weddingen's attempt was an heroic one, but so disastrous to himself and
to his vessel that very few German commanders ever tried to emulate his
example. It clearly proved to the German Admiralty that it was useless
to attempt to destroy the Grand Fleet with submarines, or even to weaken
it piecemeal, and probably this experience had much to do with this new
kind of warfare--that of submarines against unprotected merchant
ships--which the Germans now proceeded to introduce.
The simple fact is that the battle fleet was never so safe as when it
was cruising in the open sea, screened by destroyers. It was far safer
when it was sailing thus defiantly, constantly inviting attack, than
when it was anchored at its unprotected base at Scapa Flow. Indeed,
until Scapa Flow was impregnably protected by booms and mines, the
British commanders recognized that cruising in the open sea was its best
means of avoiding the German U-boats. No claim is made that the
submarine cannot dive under the destroyer screen and attack a battle
fleet, and possibly torpedo one or more of its vessels. The illustration
which has been given shows that Weddingen nearly "got" the _Neptune_;
and had this torpedo gone a few feet nearer, his experiment might have
shown that, although he subsequently lost his own life, crew, and ship,
he had sunk one British battleship, a proceeding which, in war, might
have been recognized as a fair exchange. But the point which I wish to
emphasize is that the chances of success were so small that the Germans
decided that it was not worth while to make the attempt. Afterward, when
merchant vessels were formed into convoys, a submarine would
occasionally dive under the screen and destroy a ship; but most such
attacks were unsuccessful, and experience taught the Germans that a
persistent effort of this kind would cause the destruction of so many
submarines that their campaign would fail. So the U-boat commanders left
the Grand Fleet alone, either because they lacked nerve or because
their instructions from Berlin were explicit to that effect.
II
Having constantly before my eyes this picture of the Grand Fleet immune
from torpedo attack, naturally the first question I asked, when
discussing the situation with Admiral Jellicoe and others, was this:
"Why not apply this same principle to merchant ships?"
If destroyers could keep the submarines away from battleships, they
could certainly keep them away from merchantmen. It is clear, from the
description already given, precisely how the battleships had been made
safe from submarines; they had proceeded, as usual, in a close
formation, or "convoy," and their destroyer screen had proved effective.
Thus logic apparently indicated that the convoy system was the "answer"
to the submarine.
Yet the convoy, as used in previous wars, differed materially from any
application of the idea which could possibly be made to the present
contest. This scheme of sailing vessels in groups, and escorting them by
warships, is almost as old as naval warfare itself. As early as the
thirteenth century, the merchants of the Hanseatic League were compelled
to sail their ships in convoy as a protection against the pirates who
were then constantly lurking in the Baltic Sea. The Government of Venice
used this same device to protect its enormous commerce. In the fifteenth
century the large trade in wool and wine which existed between England
and the Moorish ports of Spain was safeguarded by convoys, and in the
sixteenth century Spain herself regularly depended upon massing her
ships to defend her commerce with the West Indies against the piratical
attacks of English and French adventurers. The escorts provided for
these "flotas" really laid the foundation of the mighty Spanish fleet
which threatened England's existence for more than a hundred years. By
the time of Queen Elizabeth the convoy had thus become the
all-prevailing method of safeguarding merchant shipping, but it was in
the Napoleonic wars that it had reached its greatest usefulness. The
convoys of that period were managed with some military precision; there
were carefully stipulated methods of collecting the ships, of meeting
the cruiser escorts at the appointed rendezvous, and of dispersing them
when the danger zone was passed; and naval officers were systematically
put in charge. The convoys of this period were very large; from 200 to
300 ships were not an unusual gathering, and sometimes 500 or more would
get together at certain important places, such as the entrance to the
Baltic. But these ships, of course, were very small compared with those
of the present time. It was only necessary to supply such aggregations
of vessels with enough protecting cruisers to overwhelm any raiders
which the enemy might send against them. The merchantmen were not
required to sail in any particular formation, nor were they required to
manoeuvre against unseen mysterious foes. Neither was it absolutely
essential that they should keep constantly together; and they could even
spread themselves somewhat loosely over the ocean. If an enemy raider
appeared on the horizon, the escorting cruiser or cruisers left the
convoy and began chase; a battle ensued, the convoy meanwhile passing on
its voyage unharmed. When its protecting vessels had disposed of the
attackers, they rejoined the merchantmen. No unusual seamanship was
demanded of the merchant captains, for the whole responsibility for
their safety rested with the escorting cruisers.
But the operation of beating off an occasional surface raider, which
necessarily fights in the open, is quite a different procedure from that
of protecting an aggregation of vessels from enemies that discharge
torpedoes under the water. As part protection against such insidious
attacks both the merchant ships and the escorting men-of-war of to-day
had in this war to keep up a perpetual zigzagging. This zigzag, indeed,
was in itself an efficacious method of protection. As already said, the
submarine was forced to attain an advantageous position before it could
discharge its torpedo; it was its favourite practice to approach to
within a few hundred yards in order to hit its victim in a vital spot.
This mere fact shows that zigzagging in itself was one of the best
methods of avoiding destruction. Before this became the general rule,
the task of torpedoing a vessel was comparatively easy. All it was
necessary for the submarine to do was to bring the vessel's masts in
line; that is, to get directly ahead of her, submerge with the small
periscope showing only occasionally, and to fire the torpedo at short
range as the ship passed by. Except in the case of very slow vessels,
she could of course do this only when she was not far from the course of
her advancing prey when she first sighted her. If, however, the vessel
was zigzagging, this pretty game was usually defeated; the submarine
never knew in what direction to go in order to get within torpedoing
distance, and she could not go far because her speed under water is so
slow. The same conditions apply to a zigzagging convoy. This explained
why, as soon as the merchant vessel or convoy entered the submarine
zone, or as soon as a submarine was sighted, it began zigzagging, first
on one side and then on the other, and always irregularly, its course
comprising a disjointed line, which made it a mere chance whether the
submarine could get into a position from which to fire with any
certainty of obtaining results. A vessel sailing alone could manoeuvre
in this way without much difficulty, but it is apparent that twenty or
thirty vessels, sailing in close formation, would not find the operation
a simple one. It was necessary for them to sail in close and regular
formation in order to make it possible to manoeuvre them and screen
them with destroyers, so it is evident that the closer the formation the
fewer the destroyers that would be needed to protect it. These
circumstances make the modern convoy quite a different affair from the
happy-go-lucky proceeding of the Napoleonic era.
It is perhaps not surprising that the greatest hostility to the convoys
has always come from the merchant captains themselves. In old days they
chafed at the time which was consumed in assembling the ships, at the
necessity for reducing speed to enable the slower vessels to keep up
with the procession, and at the delay in getting their cargoes into
port. In all wars in which convoys have been used it has been very
difficult to keep the merchant captains in line. In Nelson's day these
fine old salts were constantly breaking away from their convoys and
taking their chances of running into port unescorted. If the merchant
master of a century ago rebelled at the comparatively simply managed
convoy of those days it is not strange that their successors of the
present time should not have looked with favour upon the relatively
complicated and difficult arrangement required of them in this war. In
the early discussions with these men at the Admiralty they showed
themselves almost unanimously opposed to the convoy.
"The merchantmen themselves are the chief obstacle to the convoy," said
Admiral Jellicoe. "We have discussed it with them many times and they
declare that it is impossible. It is all right for war vessels to
manoeuvre in close formation, they say, for we spend our time
practising in these formations, and so they think that it is second
nature to us. But they say that they cannot do it. They particularly
reject the idea that when in formation they can manoeuvre their ships
in the fog or at night without lights. They believe that they would lose
more ships through collisions than the submarines would sink."
I was told that the whole subject had been completely threshed out at a
meeting which had been held at the Admiralty on February 23, 1917, about
six weeks before America had entered the war. At that time ten masters
of merchant ships had met Admiral Jellicoe and other members of the
Admiralty and had discussed the convoy proposition at length. In laying
the matter before these experienced seamen Admiral Jellicoe emphasized
the necessity of good station-keeping, and he described the close
formation which the vessels would have to maintain. It would be
necessary for the ships to keep together, he explained, otherwise the
submarines could pick off the stragglers. He asked the masters whether
eight merchant ships, which had a speed varying perhaps two knots, could
keep station in line ahead (that is, in single file or column) 500 yards
apart, and sail in two columns down the Channel.
"It would be absolutely impossible," the ten masters replied, almost in
a chorus.
A discouraging fact, they said, was that many of the ablest merchant
captains had gone into the navy, and that many of those who had replaced
them could not be depended on to handle their ships in such a formation.
"We have so few competent deck officers that the captain would have to
be on the bridge the whole twenty-four hours," they said. And the
difficulty was not only with the bridge, but with the engine-room. In
order to keep the ships constantly the same distance apart it would be
necessary accurately to regulate their speed; the battleships could do
this because they had certain elaborate devices, which the merchant
vessels lacked, for timing the revolutions of the engines. The poor
quality of the coal which they were obtaining would also make it
difficult to maintain a regular speed.
Admiral Jellicoe then asked the masters whether they could sail in twos
or threes and keep station.
"Two might do it, but three would be too many," was the discouraging
verdict. But the masters were positive that even two merchantmen could
not safely keep station abreast in the night-time without lights; two
such vessels would have to sail in single file, the leading ship showing
a stern light. The masters emphasized their conviction that they
preferred to sail alone, each ship for herself, and to let each one take
her chances of getting into port.
And there the matter rested. I had the opportunity of discussing the
convoy system with several merchant captains, and in these discussions
they simply echoed the views which had been expressed at this formal
conference. I do not believe that British naval officers came in contact
with a single merchant master who favoured the convoy at that time. They
were not doubtful about the idea; they were openly hostile. The British
merchant captains are a magnificent body of seamen; their first thought
was to serve their country and the Allied cause; their attitude in this
matter was not obstinacy; it simply resulted from their sincere
conviction that the convoy system would entail greater shipping losses
than were then being inflicted by the German submarines.
Many naval officers at that time shared the same view. They opposed the
convoy not only on these grounds; its introduction would mean
immediately cutting down the tonnage 15 or 20 per cent., because of the
time which would be consumed in assembling the ships and awaiting
escorts and in the slower average speed which they could make. Many ship
owners and directors of steamship companies expressed the same opinions.
They also objected to the convoy on the ground that it would cause
considerable delay and hence would result in loss of earnings. Yet the
attitude of the merchant marine had not entirely eliminated the convoy
from consideration. At the time when I arrived the proposal was still
being discussed; the rate at which the Germans were sinking merchantmen
made this inevitable. And there seemed to be two schools among Allied
naval men, one of which was opposed to the convoy, while the other
insisted that it should be given a trial. The convoy had one
irresistible attraction for the officer which seemed to counterbalance
all the objections which were being urged against it. Its adoption would
mean taking the offensive against the German submarines. The essential
defect of the patrol system, as it was then conducted, was that it was
primarily a defensive measure. Each destroyer cruised around in an
assigned area, ready to assist vessels in distress, escort ships through
her own "square" and, incidentally, to attack a submarine when the
opportunity was presented. But the mere fact that a destroyer was
patrolling a particular area meant only, as already explained, that the
submarine had occasionally to sink out of sight until she had passed by.
Consequently the submarine proceeded to operate whenever a destroyer was
not in sight, and this was necessarily most of the time, for the
submarine zone was such a big place and the Allied destroyer fleet was
so pitifully small that it was impossible to cover it effectively. Under
these conditions there were very few encounters between destroyers and
submarines, at least in the waters south and west of Ireland, for the
submarines took all precautions against getting close enough to be
sighted by the destroyers.
But the British and French navies were not the only ones which, at this
time, were depending upon the patrol as a protection against the
subsurface boat. The American navy was committing precisely the same
error off our Atlantic coast. As soon as Congress declared war against
Germany we expected that at least a few of the U-boats would cross the
Atlantic and attack American shipping; indeed, many believed that some
had already crossed in anticipation of war; the papers were filled with
silly stories about "submarine bases" in Mexican waters, on the New
England coast, and elsewhere; submarines were even reported entering
Long Island Sound; nets were stretched across the Narrows to keep them
out of New York Harbour; and our coasting vessels saw periscopes and the
wakes of torpedoes everywhere from Maine to Florida. So prevalent was
this apprehension that, in the early days of the war, American
destroyers regularly patrolled our coast looking for these far-flung
submarines. Yet the idea of seeking them this way was absurd. Even had
we known where the submarine was located there would have been little
likelihood that we could ever have sighted it, to say nothing of
getting near it. We might have learned that a German U-boat was
operating off Cape Cod; we might have had the exact latitude and
longitude of the location which it was expected that it would reach at a
particular moment. At the time the message was sent the submarine might
have been lying on the surface ready to attack a passing merchantman,
but even under these conditions the destroyer could never have reached
her quarry, for as soon as the U-boat saw the enemy approaching it would
simply have ducked under the water and remained there in perfect safety.
When all danger had passed it would again have bobbed up to the surface
as serenely as you please, and gone ahead with its appointed task of
sinking merchant ships. One of the astonishing things about this war was
that many of the naval officers of all countries did not seem to
understand until a very late date that it was utterly futile to send
anti-submarine surface craft out into the wide ocean to attack or chase
away submarines. The thing to do, of course, was to make the submarines
come to the anti-submarine craft and fight in order to get merchantmen.
I have made this point before, and I now repeat the explanation to
emphasize that the patrol system was necessarily unsuccessful, because
it made almost impossible any combats with submarines and afforded very
little protection to shipping. The advantage of the convoy system, as
its advocates now urged, was precisely that it made such combats
inevitable. In other words, it meant offensive warfare. It was proposed
to surround each convoy with a protecting screen of destroyers in
precisely the same way that the battle fleet was protected. Thus we
should compel any submarine which was planning to torpedo a convoyed
ship to do so only in waters that were infested with destroyers. In
order to get into position to discharge its missile the submarine would
have to creep up close to the rim that marked the circle of these
destroyers. Just as soon as the torpedo started on its course and the
tell-tale wake appeared on the surface the protecting ships would
immediately begin sowing the waters with their depth charges. Thus in
the future the Germans would be compelled to fight for every ship which
they should attempt to sink, instead of sinking them conveniently in
waters that were free of destroyers, as had hitherto been their
privilege. Already the British had demonstrated that such a screen of
destroyers could protect merchant ships as well as war vessels. They
were making this fact clear every day in the successful transportation
of troops and supplies across the Channel. In this region they had
established an immune zone, which was constantly patrolled by destroyers
and other anti-submarine craft, and through these the merchant fleets
were constantly passing with complete safety. The proposal to convoy all
merchant ships was a proposal to apply this same system on a much
broader scale. If we should arrange our ships in compact convoys and
protect them with destroyers we would really create another immune zone
of this kind, and this would be different from the one established
across the Channel only in that it would be a movable one. In this way
we should establish about a square mile of the surface of the ocean in
which submarines could not operate without great danger, and then we
could move that square mile along until port was reached.
The advantages of the convoy were thus so apparent that, despite the
pessimistic attitude of the merchant captains, there were a number of
officers in the British navy who kept insisting that it should be tried.
In this discussion I took my stand emphatically with these officers.
From the beginning I had believed in this method of combating the U-boat
warfare. Certain early experiences had led me to believe that the
merchant captains were wrong in underestimating the quality of their own
seamanship. It was my conviction that these intelligent and hardy men
did not really know how capable they were at handling ships. In my
discussions with them they disclosed an exaggerated idea of the seamanly
ability of naval officers in manoeuvring their large fleets. They
attributed this to the superior training of the men and to the special
manoeuvring qualities of the ship. "Warships are built so that they
can keep station, and turn at any angle at a moment's notice," they
would say, "but we haven't any men on our ships who can do these
things." As a matter of fact, these men were entirely in error and I
knew it. Their practical experience in handling ships of all sizes,
shapes, and speeds under a great variety of conditions is in reality
much more extensive than naval officers can possibly enjoy. I learned
this more than thirty years ago, when stationed on the Pennsylvania
schoolship, teaching the boys navigation. This was one of the most
valuable experiences of my life, for it brought me in every-day contact
with merchant seamen, and it was then that I made the discovery which
proved so valuable to me now.
It is true that merchant captains had much to learn about steaming and
manoeuvring in formation, but I was sure they could pick it up quickly
and carry it out successfully under the direction of naval officers--the
convoy commander being always a naval officer.
The naval officer not only has a group of vessels that are practically
uniform in speed and ability to turn around quickly, but he is provided
also with various instruments which enable him to keep the revolutions
of his engines constant, to measure distances and the like. Moreover, as
a junior officer, he is schooled in manoeuvring these very ships for
some years before he is trusted with the command of one of them, and he,
therefore, not only knows their peculiarities, but also those of their
captains--the latter very useful information, by the way.
Though it was necessary for the merchantmen, on the other hand, to bring
their much clumsier ships into formation with perhaps thirty entirely
strange vessels of different sizes, shapes, speeds, nationalities, and
manoeuvring qualities, yet I was confident that they were competent to
handle them successfully under these difficult conditions. Indeed,
afterward, one of my most experienced destroyer commanders reported that
while he was escorting a convoy of twenty-eight ships they kept their
stations quite as well as battleships, while they were executing two
manoeuvres to avoid a submarine.
Such influence as I possessed at this time, therefore, I threw in with
the group of British officers which was advocating the convoy.
There was, however, still one really serious impediment to adopting this
convoy system, and that was that the number of destroyers available was
insufficient. The British, for reasons which have been explained, did
not have the necessary destroyers for this work, and this was what made
so very important the participation of the United States in the naval
war--for our navy possessed the additional vessels that would make
possible the immediate adoption of the convoy system. I do not wish to
say that the convoy would not have been established had we not sent
destroyers for that purpose, yet I do not see how otherwise it could
have been established in any complete and systematic way at such an
early date. And we furnished other ships than destroyers, for besides
providing what I have called the modern convoy--that which protects the
compact mass of vessels from submarines--it was necessary also to
furnish escorts after the old Napoleonic plan. It was the business of
the destroyers to conduct the merchantmen only through the submarine
zone. They did not take them the whole distance across the ocean, for
there was little danger of submarine attack until the ships had arrived
in the infested waters. This would have been impossible in any case with
the limited number of destroyers. But from the time the convoys left the
home port there was a possibility that the same kind of attack would be
launched as that to which convoys were subjected in Nelsonian days;
there was the danger, that is, that surface war vessels, raiders or
cruisers, might escape from their German bases and swoop down upon them.
We always had before our minds the activities of the _Moewe_, and we
therefore deemed it necessary to escort the convoys across the ocean
with battleships and cruisers, just as was the practice a century ago.
The British did not have ships enough available for this purpose, and
here again the American navy was able to supply the lack; for we had a
number of pre-dreadnoughts and cruisers that were ideally adapted to
this kind of work.
III
On April 30th I received a message from Admiral Jellicoe requesting me
to visit him at the Admiralty. When I arrived he said that the projected
study of the convoy system had been made, and he handed me a copy of it.
It had been decided to send one experimental convoy from Gibraltar. The
Admiralty, he added, had not yet definitely decided that the convoy
system should be adopted, but there was every intention of giving it a
thorough and fair trial. That same evening at dinner I met Mr. Lloyd
George, Sir Edward Carson, and Lord Milner, and once more discussed with
them the whole convoy idea. I found the Prime Minister especially
favourable to the plan and, in fact, civilians in general were more
kindly disposed toward the convoy than seamen, because they were less
familiar with the nautical and shipping difficulties which it involved.
Naval officers were immediately sent to Gibraltar to instruct the
merchant masters in the details of assembling and conducting vessels.
Eight-knot ships were selected for the experiment, and a number of
destroyers were assigned for their protection. The merchant captains, as
was to be expected, regarded the whole enterprise suspiciously, but
entered into it with the proper spirit.
On May 20th that first convoy arrived at its English destination in
perfect condition. The success with which it made the voyage disproved
all the pessimistic opinions which the merchant sailors had entertained
about themselves. They suddenly discovered, as I had contended, that
they could do practically everything which, in their conferences with
the Admiralty, they had declared that they were unable to do. In those
meetings they had asserted that not more than two ships could keep
station; but now they discovered that the whole convoy could sail with
stipulated distances between the vessels and keep this formation with
little difficulty. They were drilled on the way in zigzagging and
manoeuvring--a practice carried out subsequently with all convoys--and
by the time they reached the danger zone they found that, in obedience
to a prearranged signal, all the ships could turn as a single one, and
perform all the zigzag evolutions which the situation demanded. They had
asserted that they could not sail at night without lights and that an
attempt to do so would result in many collisions, but the experimental
convoy proved that this was merely another case of self-delusion.
Naturally the arrival of this convoy caused the greatest satisfaction in
the Admiralty, but the most delighted men were the merchant captains
themselves, for the whole thing was to them a complete revelation of
their seamanly ability, and naturally it flattered their pride. The news
of this arrival naturally travelled fast in shipping circles; it
completely changed the attitude of the merchant sailors, and the chief
opponents of the convoy now became its most enthusiastic advocates.
Outside shipping circles, however, nothing about this convoy was known
at that time. Yet May 20th, the date when it reached England safely,
marked one of the great turning-points of the war. That critical voyage
meant nothing less than that the Allies had found the way of defeating
the German submarine. The world might still clamour for a specific
"invention" that would destroy all the submarines overnight, or it might
demand that the Allies should block them in their bases, or suggest that
they might do any number of impossible things, but the naval chiefs of
the Allies discovered, on May 20, 1917, that they could defeat the
German campaign even without these rather uncertain aids. The submarine
danger was by no means ended when this first convoy arrived; many
anxious months still lay ahead of us; other means would have to be
devised that would supplement the convoy; yet the all-important fact was
that the Allied chiefs now realized, for the first time, that the
problem was not an insoluble one; and that, with hard work and infinite
patience, they could keep open the communications that were essential to
victory. The arrival of these weather-beaten ships thus brought the
assurance that the armies and the civilian populations could be supplied
with food and materials, and that the seas could be kept open for the
transportation of American troops to France. In fine, it meant that the
Allies could win the war.
On May 21st the British Admiralty, which this experimental convoy had
entirely converted, voted to adopt the convoy system for all merchant
shipping. Not long afterward the second convoy arrived safely from
Hampton Roads, and then other convoys began to put in from Scandinavian
ports. On July 21st I was able definitely to report to Washington that
"the success of the convoys so far brought in shows that the system will
defeat the submarine campaign if applied generally and in time."
But while we recognize the fact that the convoy preserved our
communications and so made possible the continuation of the war, we must
not overlook a vitally important element in its success. In describing
the work of the destroyer, which was the protecting arm of the convoy, I
have said nothing about the forces that really laid the whole foundation
of the anti-submarine campaign. All the time that these destroyers were
fighting off the submarines the power that made possible their
operations was cruising quietly in the North Sea, doing its work so
inconspicuously that the world was hardly aware of its existence. For
back of all these operations lay the mighty force of the Grand Fleet.
Admiral Beatty's dreadnoughts and battle cruisers, which were afterward
supplemented by a fine squadron of American ships, kept the German
surface vessels penned in their harbours and in this way left the ocean
free for the operations of the Allied surface craft. I have already said
that, in April, 1917, the Allied navies, while they controlled the
surface of the water, did not control the subsurface, which at that time
was practically at the disposition of the Germans. Yet the determining
fact, as we were now to learn, was that this control of the surface was
to give us the control of the subsurface also. Only the fact that the
battleships kept the German fleet at bay made it possible for the
destroyers and other surface craft to do their beneficent work. In an
open sea battle their surface navies would have disposed of the German
fleet; but let us suppose for a moment that an earthquake, or some other
great natural disturbance, had engulfed the British fleet at Scapa Flow.
The world would then have been at Germany's mercy and all the destroyers
the Allies could have put upon the sea would have availed them nothing,
for the German battleships and battle cruisers could have sunk them or
driven them into their ports. Then Allied commerce would have been the
prey, not only of the submarines, which could have operated with the
utmost freedom, but of the German surface craft as well. In a few weeks
the British food supplies would have been exhausted. There would have
been an early end to the soldiers and munitions which Britain was
constantly sending to France. The United States could have sent no
forces to the Western Front and the result would have been the surrender
which the Allies themselves, in the spring of 1917, regarded as not a
remote possibility. America would then have been compelled to face the
German power alone, and to face it long before we had had an opportunity
of assembling our resources and of equipping our armies. The world was
preserved from all these calamities because the destroyer and the convoy
solved the problem of the submarine and because back of these agencies
of victory lay Admiral Beatty's squadrons, holding at arm's length the
German surface ships while these comparatively fragile craft were saving
the liberties of the world.