letter 78-14 of 24th May, 1918, and British Commander-Chief's

Mediterranean letter No. 2089-93 of 23 June, 1918.

While escort to Gibraltar-Bizerta convoy on May 17, 1918, the British steamship _Sculptor_ was torpedoed at 6:48 p. m. Submarine was not seen, but the _Venetia_, having been previously detailed to attack with depth-charges, and remain behind four hours to keep down submarine, did so. At 7:02 p. m. wake of submarine was sighted and depth-charges dropped. On May 18th an enemy submarine interned at Cartagena, Spain, and was officially assumed to have been damaged by the _Venetia_.

While on escort duty, Gibraltar-Genoa, the British steamship _Messidor_ was torpedoed at 7:24 p. m., July 23, 1918, and the _Venetia_ instantly made attack, dropping thirteen depth-charges on pre-arranged plan.

The cruiser _Chester_ had two encounters with submarines. While on convoy duty November 9, 1917, it attacked with gunfire a submarine which had sunk one of the vessels of the convoy, compelling the U-boat to submerge. On September 5, 1918, at 1:04 a. m., the _Chester_, on ocean escort, sighted a submarine close aboard on the starboard bow. First the cruiser attempted to ram the enemy, then attacked the undersea craft with depth-charges, which apparently damaged the U-boat.

Four days later a submarine attacked Convoy GGA-54, torpedoing and sinking the British steamship _Arabis_. The _Paducah_ attacked with depth-bombs and, according to reports, damaged the submarine. The _Seneca_ on September 16th drove off a submarine which attacked Convoy OM-99. The _U. S. S. Druid_ and _H. M. S. Gilia_ repulsed an attack on Convoy BG-65, on September 22nd. Escorting Convoy BG-67, on September 30th, the _Seneca_ sighted a periscope and attacked with depth-charges and gunfire.

Convoy BG-68, escorted by the _Cythera_, was attacked the night of October 3rd, and two steamships, the British _Ariel_ and the French _St. Luc_, were torpedoed. The _Cythera_ went for the submarine, laying a pattern of depth-charges. While being escorted through the Straits of Gibraltar by _H. M. S. Defender_ and the _U. S. S. Decatur_, _H. M. S. Britannia_ was torpedoed and sunk at 7 a. m., November 9, 1918. The _Decatur_ attacked with depth-charges. The same day a torpedo was fired at the _Parker_, which was on temporary duty on the western barrage line, in the Straits. But the torpedo missed, and the _Parker_ went after the U-boat, dropping depth-bombs around her.

German submarine activity around Gibraltar continued up to the very end of hostilities. On November 10, 1918, the day before the armistice, the _Israel_, which was operating on the barrage line with a sub-chaser, discovered and attacked a U-boat, and the same day Sub-chaser Unit C, while patrolling off Point Boassa, also made contact with a submarine.

Two vessels of the Gibraltar force were lost--the destroyer _Chauncey_, sunk in collision with the British steamship _Rose_, November 19, 1917, and the Coast Guard cutter _Tampa_, sunk in British waters September 30, 1918.

The six little destroyers sent from the Philippines to Gibraltar made the long voyage of 12,000 miles under their own steam, arriving in October. The work they did was amazing, when their small size and age are considered. One of them, the _Decatur_, 420 tons displacement, which had been condemned as not seaworthy enough to venture out of sight of land, successfully negotiated the long voyage from Manila, and in service at Gibraltar steamed over 48,000 miles, making a total of 60,000 miles steaming before her departure for the United States.

The _Wenonah_, an armed yacht of hardly more than 200 tons, steamed in escort work 29,979 miles. The U. S. Coast Guard cutter _Seneca_, which arrived at Gibraltar September 4, 1917, escorted 600 ships in convoys, carrying total cargoes of 2,100,000 tons. These are only a few of the phenomenal records made.

United States naval vessels based on Gibraltar assisted in escorting 562 convoys, and 79 single ships, furnishing an average of fifty per cent of all escorts. Under way 46 per cent of the time and 68 per cent available at all times for operation, our vessels were, in addition to the Gibraltar-England service and danger zone escort, employed in escorting ships to Bizerta, Genoa, Oran and Marseilles. They maintained a monthly service to the Azores, escorted cable ships, and also did other odd jobs.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

The convoy system, however, accomplished all that was expected of it, and was markedly successful.

It was our destroyers at Queenstown, our forces on the French coast and at Gibraltar, our cruisers escorting convoys crossing the Atlantic, that made it the success it was--and it was one of the most successful measures of the war.

President Wilson, as I have said, favored its adoption from the beginning; in fact, wondered why the Allies had not adopted it upon the outbreak of war in Europe. It was one of the first measures recommended by the General Board. But at the time this country entered the war, the Allies were pursuing exactly the opposite method; that is, dispersion of shipping.

When troop transportation was first determined upon, in May, 1917, we adopted the convoy system for troop-ships. It was in that month that the British decided to try out the plan for merchant ships, to see whether it would work. The first experimental convoy arrived in England from Gibraltar, May 20. A few convoys were despatched in June, and on June 22 Sims cabled me: "The British Admiralty have now adopted the convoy system and will put it into effect as fast as ships can be obtained for high sea convoy against raiders, and destroyers for escort duty in submarine zone." He reported two routes in operation, stated that eight convoys a week were planned, and recommended that we furnish one cruiser or battleship a week for high sea escort. On June 30, I informed him that the Department would assign seven cruisers for this duty. Our destroyers were engaged in the danger-zone from the time the first trans-Atlantic convoys were started.

Putting the convoy system into effect was a big job, involving the larger part of the world's shipping--a reversal of method that necessitated a radical change in the naval scheme. Concerning the part the United States Navy played in this great task, Admiral Sims wrote in the _World's Work_:

I do not wish to say that the convoy would not have been established had we not sent the destroyers for that purpose, yet I do not see how 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--protecting 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 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 reached 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, say New York or Hampton Roads, there was the possibility of the same kind of attack as that to which convoys were subjected in Nelsonian days--that is, from raiders or cruisers. We always feared that German cruisers or raiders of the Moewe type might escape into the ocean and attack these merchant ships, and we therefore had to escort them across the ocean with battleships and cruisers just as they did 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-dreadnaughts and cruisers that were ideally adapted to this kind of work.