VI

So far as convoying merchant ships was concerned, Queenstown was the largest American base; by the time the movement of troops laid heavy burdens on the American destroyers Brest became a headquarters almost equally important.

In July, 1917, the British Government requested the co-operation of the American navy in the great work which it had undertaken at Gibraltar; and on August 6th the U.S.S. _Sacramento_ reached that port, followed about a week afterward by the _Birmingham_ flying the flag of Rear-Admiral Henry B. Wilson. Admiral Wilson remained as commander of this force until November, when he left to a.s.sume the direction of affairs at Brest. On November 25th Rear-Admiral Albert P. Niblack succeeded to this command, which he retained throughout the war.

Gibraltar was the "gateway" for more traffic than any other port in the world. It was estimated that more than one quarter of all the convoys which reached the Entente nations either rendezvoused at this point or pa.s.sed through these Straits. This was the great route to the East by way of the Suez Ca.n.a.l. From Gibraltar extended the Allied lines of communication to southern France, Italy, Salonika, Egypt, Palestine, and Mesopotamia. There were other routes to Bizerta (Tunis), Algiers, the island of Milo, and a monthly service to the Azores.

The Allied forces that were detailed to protect this shipping were chiefly British and American, though they were materially a.s.sisted by French, j.a.panese, and Italian vessels. They consisted of almost anything which the hard-pressed navies could a.s.semble from all parts of the world--antiquated destroyers, yachts, sloops, trawlers, drifters, and the like. The Gibraltar area was a long distance from the main enemy submarine bases. The enemy could maintain at sea at any one time only a relatively small number of submarines; inasmuch as the zone off the English Channel and Ireland was the most critical one, the Allies stationed their main destroyer force there. Because of these facts, we had great difficulty in finding vessels to protect the important Gibraltar area, and the force which we ultimately got together was therefore a miscellaneous lot. The United States gathered at this point forty-one ships, and a personnel which averaged 314 officers and 4,660 men. This American aggregation contained a variegated a.s.sortment of scout cruisers, gunboats, coastguard cutters, yachts, and five destroyers of antique type. The straits to which we were reduced for available vessels for the Gibraltar station--and the British navy was similarly hard pressed--were ill.u.s.trated by the fact that we placed these destroyers at Gibraltar. They were the _Decatur_ and four similar vessels, each of 420 tons--the modern destroyer is a vessel of from 1,000 to 1,200 tons--and were stationed, when the war broke out, at Manila, where they were considered fit only for local service; yet the record which these doughty little ships made is characteristic of the spirit of our young officers. This little squadron steamed 12,000 miles from Manila to Gibraltar, and that they arrived in condition immediately to take up their duties was due to the excellent judgment and seamanship displayed by their commanding officer, Lieutenant-Commander (now Commander) Harold R. Stark. Subsequently they made 48,000 miles on escort duty. This makes 60,000 miles for vessels which in peace time had been consigned to minor duties! Unfortunately one of these gallant little vessels was subsequently cut down and sunk by a merchant ship while escorting a convoy.

For more than a year the Gibraltar force under Admiral Niblack performed service which reflected high credit upon that commander, his officers, and his men. During this period of time it escorted, in co-operation with the British forces, 562 convoys, comprising a total of 10,478 ships. Besides protecting commerce, chasing submarines, and keeping them under the surface, many of the vessels making up this squadron had engagements with submarines that were cla.s.sified as "successful." On May 15, 1918, the _Wheeling_, a gunboat, and the _Surveyor_ and _Venetia_, yachts, while escorting a Mediterranean convoy, depth-charged a submarine which had just torpedoed one of the convoyed vessels; we credited these little ships with sinking their enemy. The _Venetia_, under the command of Commander L. B. Porterfield, U.S.N., had an experience not unlike that of the _Christabel_, already described. On this occasion she was part of the escort of a Gibraltar-Bizerta convoy.

A British member of this convoy, the _Surveyor_, was torpedoed at six in the evening; at that time the submarine gave no further evidence of its existence. The _Venetia_, however, was detailed to remain in the neighbourhood, attempt to locate the mysterious vessel, and at least to keep it under the water. The _Venetia_ soon found the wake of the submerged enemy and dropped the usual depth charges. Three days afterward a badly injured U-boat put in at Cartagena, Spain, and was interned for the rest of the war. Thus another submarine was as good as sunk. The _Lydonia_, a yacht of 500 tons, in conjunction with the British ship _Basilisk_, sank another U-boat in the western Mediterranean. This experience ill.u.s.trates the doubt that enshrouded all such operations, for it was not until three months after the _Lydonia_ engagement took place that the Admiralty discovered that the submarine had been destroyed and recommended Commander Richard P. McCullough, U.S.N., for a decoration.

Thus from the first day that this method of convoying ships was adopted it was an unqualified success in defeating the submarine campaign. By August 1, 1917, more than 10,000 ships had been convoyed, with losses of only one-half of 1 per cent. Up to that same date not a single ship which had left North American ports in convoy had been lost. By August 11th, 261 ships had been sent in convoy from North American ports, and of these only one had fallen a prey to the submarines. The convoy gave few opportunities for encounters with their enemies. I have already said that the great value of this system as a protection to shipping was that it compelled the under-water boats to fight their deadliest enemies, the destroyers, every time they tried to sink merchant ships in convoy, and they did not attempt this often on account of the danger. There were destroyer commanders who spent months upon the open sea, convoying huge aggregations of cargo vessels, without even once seeing a submarine. To a great extent the convoy system did its work in the same way that the Grand Fleet performed its indispensable service--silently, un.o.btrusively, making no dramatic bids for popular favour, and industriously plodding on, day after day and month after month. All this time the world had its eyes fixed upon the stirring events of the Western Front, almost unconscious of the existence of the forces that made those land operations possible. Yet a few statistics eloquently disclose the part played by the convoy system in winning the war. In the latter months of the struggle from 91 to 92 per cent. of Allied shipping sailed in convoys. The losses in these convoys were less than 1 per cent. And this figure includes the ships lost after the dispersal of the convoys; in convoys actually under destroyer escort the losses were less than one-half of 1 per cent. Military experts would term the convoy system a defensive-offensive measure. By this they mean that it was a method of taking a defensive position in order to force the enemy to meet you and give you an opportunity for the offensive. It is an old saying that the best defensive measure is a vigorous offensive one.

Unfortunately, owing to the fact that the Allies had not prepared for the kind of warfare which the Germans saw fit to employ against them, we could not conduct purely offensive operations; that is, we could not employ our anti-submarine forces exclusively in the effort to destroy the submarines. Up to the time of the armistice, despite all the a.s.sistance rendered to the navies by the best scientific brains of the world, no sure means had been found of keeping track of the submarine once he submerged. The convoy system was, therefore, our only method of bringing him into action. I lay stress on this point and reiterate it because many critics kept insisting during the war--and their voices are still heard--that the convoy system was purely a defensive or pa.s.sive method of opposing the submarine, and was, therefore, not sound tactics.

It is quite true that we had to defend our shipping in order to win the war, but it is wrong to a.s.sume that the method adopted to accomplish this protection was a purely defensive and pa.s.sive one.

As my main purpose is to describe the work of the American navy I have said little in the above about the activities of the British navy in convoying merchant ships. But we should not leave this subject with a false perspective. When the war ended we had seventy-nine destroyers in European waters, while Great Britain had about 400. These included those a.s.signed to the Grand Fleet, to the Harwich force, to the Dover patrol, to Gibraltar and the Mediterranean, and other places, many of which were but incidentally making war on the submarines. As to minor ships--trawlers, sloops, Q-boats, yachts, drifters, tugs, and the other miscellaneous types used in this work--the discrepancy was even greater.

In absolute figures our effort thus seems a small one when compared with that of our great ally. In tonnage of merchant ships convoyed, the work of the British navy was far greater than ours. Yet the help which we contributed was indispensable to the success that was attained. For, judging from the situation before we entered the war, and knowing the inadequacy of the total Allied anti-submarine forces even after we had entered, it seems hardly possible that, without the a.s.sistance of the United States navy, the vital lines of communication of the armies in the field could have been kept open, the civil populations of Great Britain supplied with food, and men and war materials sent from America to the Western Front. In other words, I think I am justified in saying that without the co-operation of the American navy, the Allies could not have won the war. Our forces stationed at Queenstown actually escorted through the danger zone about 40 per cent. of all the cargoes which left North American ports. When I describe the movement of American troops, it will appear that our destroyers located at Queenstown and Brest did even a larger share of this work. The latest reports show that about 205 German submarines were destroyed. Of these it seems probable that thirteen can be credited to American efforts, the rest to Great Britain, France, and Italy--the greatest number, of course, to Great Britain. When we take into consideration the few ships that we had on the other side, compared with those of the Allies, and the comparatively brief period in which we were engaged in the war, this must be regarded as a highly creditable showing.

I regret that I have not been able to describe the work of all of our officers and men; to do this, however, would demand more than a single volume. One of the disappointing aspects of destroyer work was that many of the finest performances were those that were the least spectacular.

The fact that an attack upon a submarine did not result in a sinking hardly robbed it of its importance; many of the finest exploits of our forces did not destroy the enemy, but they will always hold a place in our naval annals for the daring and skill with which they were conducted. In this cla.s.s belong the achievements of the _Sterrett_, under Lieutenant-Commander Farquhar; of the _Benham_, under Lieutenant-Commander D. Lyons; of the _O'Brien_, under Lieutenant-Commander C. A. Blakeley; of the _Parker_, under Lieutenant-Commander H. Powell; of the _Jacob Jones_, under Lieutenant-Commander D. W. Bagley; of the _Wadsworth_, under Lieutenant-Commander Taussig, and afterward I. F. Dortch; of the _Drayton_, under Lieutenant-Commander D. L. Howard; of the _McDougal_, under Commander A. L. Fairfield; and of the _Nicholson_, under Commander F. D. Berrien. The senior destroyer commander at Queenstown was Commander David C. Hanrahan of the _Cushing_, a fine character and one of the most experienced officers of his rank in the Navy. He was a tower of strength at all times, and I shall have occasion to mention him later in connection with certain important duties. The Chief-of-Staff at Queenstown, Captain J. R. P. Pringle, was especially commended by Admiral Bayly for his "tact, energy, and ability." The American naval forces at Queenstown were under my immediate command. Necessarily, however, I had to spend the greater part of my time at the London headquarters, or at the Naval Council in Paris, and it was therefore necessary that I should be represented at Queenstown by a man of marked ability. Captain Pringle proved equal to every emergency. He was responsible for the administration, supplies, and maintenance of the Queenstown forces, and the state of readiness and efficiency in which they were constantly maintained was the strongest possible evidence of his ability. To him was chiefly due also the fact that our men co-operated so harmoniously and successfully with the British.

As an example of the impression which our work made I can do no better than to quote the message sent by Admiral Sir Lewis Bayly to the Queenstown forces on May 4, 1918:

"On the anniversary of the arrival of the first United States men-of-war at Queenstown, I wish to express my deep grat.i.tude to the United States officers and ratings for the skill, energy, and unfailing good-nature which they have all consistently shown and which qualities have so materially a.s.sisted in the war by enabling ships of the Allied Powers to cross the ocean in comparative freedom.

"To command you is an honour, to work with you is a pleasure, to know you is to know the best traits of the Anglo-Saxon race."

CHAPTER V

DECOYING SUBMARINES TO DESTRUCTION

I

My chief purpose in writing this book is to describe the activities during the World War of the United States naval forces operating in Europe. Yet it is my intention also to make clear the several ways in which the war against the submarine was won; and in order to do this it will be necessary occasionally to depart from the main subject and to describe certain naval operations of our allies. The most important agency in frustrating the submarine was the convoy system. An examination of the tonnage losses in 1917 and in 1918, however, discloses that this did not entirely prevent the loss of merchant ships.

From April, 1917, to November, 1918, the monthly losses dropped from 875,000 to 101,168 tons. This decrease in sinkings enabled the Allies to preserve their communications and so win the war; however, it is evident that these losses, while not necessarily fatal to the Allied cause, still offered a serious impediment to success. It was therefore necessary to supplement the convoy system in all possible ways. Every submarine that could be destroyed, whatever the method of destruction, represented just that much gain to the Allied cause. Every submarine that was sent to the bottom amounted in 1917 to a saving of many thousands of tons per year of the merchant shipping that would have been sunk by the U-boat if left unhindered to pursue its course. Besides escorting merchant ships, therefore, the Allied navies developed several methods of hunting individual submarines; and these methods not only sank a considerable number of U-boats, but played an important part in breaking down the German submarine _moral_. For the greater part of the war the utmost secrecy was observed regarding these expedients; it was not until the early part of 1918, indeed, that the public heard anything of the special service vessels that came to be known as the "mystery" or "Q-ships"--although these had been operating for nearly three years. It is true that the public knew that there was something in the wind, for there were announcements that certain naval officers had received the Victoria Cross, but as there was no citation explaining why these coveted rewards were given, they were known as "mystery V.C.'s."

On one of my visits to Queenstown Admiral Bayly showed me a wireless message which he had recently received from the commanding officer of a certain mystery ship operating from Queenstown, one of the most successful of these vessels. It was brief but sufficiently eloquent.

"Am slowly sinking," it read. "Good-bye, I did my best."

Though the man who had sent that message was apparently facing death at the time when it was written, Admiral Bayly told me that he had survived the ordeal, and that, in fact, he would dine at Admiralty House that very night. Another fact about this man lifted him above the commonplace: he was the first Q-boat commander to receive the Victoria Cross, and one of the very few who wore both the Victoria Cross and the Distinguished Service Order; and he subsequently won bars for each, not to mention the Croix de Guerre and the Legion of Honour. When Captain Gordon Campbell arrived, I found that he was a Britisher of quite the accepted type. His appearance suggested nothing extraordinary. He was a short, rather thick-set, phlegmatic Englishman, somewhat non-committal in his bearing; until he knew a man well, his conversation consisted of a few monosyllables, and even on closer acquaintance his stolidity and reticence, especially in the matter of his own exploits, did not entirely disappear. Yet there was something about the Captain which suggested the traits that had already made it possible for him to sink three submarines, and which afterward added other trophies to his record. It needed no elaborate story of his performances to inform me that Captain Campbell was about as cool and determined a man as was to be found in the British navy. His a.s.sociates declared that his physical system absolutely lacked nerves; that, when it came to pursuing a German submarine, his patience and his persistence knew no bounds; and that the extent to which his mind concentrated upon the task in hand amounted to little less than genius. When the war began, Captain Campbell, then about thirty years old, was merely one of several thousand junior officers in the British navy. He had not distinguished himself in any way above his a.s.sociates; and probably none of his superiors had ever regarded him as in any sense an unusual man. Had the naval war taken the course of most naval wars, Campbell would probably have served well, but perhaps not brilliantly. This conflict, however, demanded a new type of warfare and at the same time it demanded a new type of naval fighter. To go hunting for the submarine required not only courage of a high order, but a.n.a.lytical intelligence, patience, and a talent for preparation and detail. Captain Campbell seemed to have been created for this particular task. That evening at Queenstown he finally gave way to much urging, and entertained us for hours with his adventures; he told the stories of his battles with submarines so quietly, so simply and, indeed, so impersonally, that at first they impressed his hearers as not particularly unusual. Yet, after the recital was finished, we realized that the mystery ship performances represented some of the most admirable achievements in the whole history of naval warfare. We have laid great emphasis upon the brutalizing aspects of the European War; it is well, therefore, that we do not forget that it had its more exalted phases. Human nature may at times have manifested itself in its most cowardly traits, but it also reached a level of courage which, I am confident, it has seldom attained in any other conflict. It was reserved for this devastating struggle to teach us how brave modern men could really be. And when the record is complete it seems unlikely that it will furnish any finer ill.u.s.tration of the heroic than that presented by Captain Campbell and his compatriots of the mystery ships.

This type of vessel was a regular ship of His Majesty's navy, yet there was little about it that suggested warfare. To the outward eye it was merely one of those several thousand freighters or tramps which, in normal times, sailed sluggishly from port to port, carrying the larger part of the world's commerce. It looked like a particularly dirty and uninviting specimen of the breed. Just who invented this grimy enemy of the submarine is unknown, as are the inventors of many other devices developed by the war. It was, however, the natural outcome of a close study of German naval methods. The man who first had the idea well understood the peculiar mentality of the U-boat commanders. The Germans had a fairly easy time in the early days of submarine warfare on merchant shipping. They sank as many ships as possible with gunfire and bombs. The prevailing method then was to break surface, and begin sh.e.l.ling the defenceless enemy. In case the merchant ship was faster than the submarine she would take to her heels; if, as was usually the case, she was slower, the pa.s.sengers and crews lowered the boats and left the vessel to her fate. In such instances the procedure of the submarine was invariably the same. It ceased sh.e.l.ling, approached the lifeboats filled with survivors, and ordered them to take a party of Germans to the ship. This party then searched the vessel for all kinds of valuables, and, after depositing time bombs in the hold, rowed back to the submarine. This procedure was popular with the Germans, because it was the least expensive form of destroying merchant ships. It was not necessary to use torpedoes or even a large number of sh.e.l.ls; an inexpensive bomb, properly placed, did the whole job. Even when the arming of merchant ships interfered with this simple programme, and compelled the Germans to use long-range gunfire or torpedoes, the submarine commanders still persisted in rising to the surface near the sinking ship. Torpedoes were so expensive that the German Admiralty insisted on having every one accounted for. The word of the commander that he had destroyed a merchant ship was not accepted at its face value; in order to have the exploit officially placed to his credit, and so qualify the commander and crew for the rewards that came to the successful, it was necessary to prove that the ship had actually gone to the bottom. A prisoner or two furnished unimpeachable evidence, and, in default of such trophies, the ship's papers would be accepted. In order to obtain such proofs of success the submarine had to rise to the surface and approach its victim. The search for food, especially for alcoholic liquor, was another motive that led to such a manoeuvre; and sometimes mere curiosity, the desire to come to close quarters and inspect the consequences of his handiwork, also impelled the Hun commander to take what was, as events soon demonstrated, a particularly hazardous risk.

This simple fact that the submarine, even when the danger had been realized, insisted on rising to the surface and approaching the vessel which it had torpedoed, offered the Allies an opportunity which they were not slow in seizing. There is hardly anything in warfare which is more vulnerable than a submarine on the surface within a few hundred yards of a four-inch gun. A single, well-aimed shot will frequently send it to the bottom. Indeed, a U-boat caught in such a predicament has only one chance of escaping: that is represented by the number of seconds which it takes to get under the water. But before that time has expired rapidly firing guns can put a dozen shots into its hull; with modern, well-trained gun crews, therefore, a submarine which exposes itself in this way stands practically no chance of getting away. Clearly, the obvious thing for the Allies to do was to send merchant ships, armed with hidden guns, along the great highways of commerce. The crews of these ships should be naval officers and men disguised as merchant masters and sailors. They should duplicate in all details the manners and the "technique" of a freighter's crew, and, when sh.e.l.led or torpedoed by a submarine, they should behave precisely like the pa.s.sengers and crews of merchantmen in such a crisis; a part--the only part visible to the submarine--should leave the vessel in boats, while the remainder should lie concealed until the submarine rose to the surface and approached the vessel. When the enemy had come within two or three hundred yards, the bulwarks should fall down, disclosing the armament, the white battle ensign go up, and the guns open fire on the practically helpless enemy.

II

Such was the mystery ship idea in its simplest form. In the early days it worked according to this programme. The trustful submarine commander who approached a mystery ship in the manner which I have described promptly found his resting-place on the bottom of the sea. I have frequently wondered what must have been the emotions of this first submarine crew, when, standing on the deck of their boat, steaming confidently toward their victim, they saw its bulwarks suddenly drop, and beheld the ship, which to all outward appearances was a helpless, foundering hulk, become a ma.s.s of belching fire and smoke and shot. The picture of that first submarine, standing upright in the water, reeling like a drunken man, while the apparently innocent merchant ship kept pouring volley after volley into its sides, is one that will not quickly fade from the memory of British naval men. Yet it is evident that the Allies could not play a game like this indefinitely. They could do so just as long as the Germans insisted on delivering themselves into their hands. The complete success of the idea depended at first upon the fact that the very existence of mystery ships was unknown to the German navy.

All that the Germans knew, in these early days, was that certain U-boats had sailed from Germany and had not returned. But it was inevitable that the time should come when a mystery ship attack would fail; the German submarine would return and report that this new terror of the seas was at large. And that is precisely what happened. A certain submarine received a battering which it seemed hardly likely that any U-boat could survive; yet, almost by a miracle, it crept back to its German base and reported the manner of its undoing. Clearly the mystery ships in future were not to have as plain sailing as in the past; the game, if it were to continue, would become more a battle of wits; henceforth every liner and merchantman, in German eyes, was a possible enemy in disguise, and it was to be expected that the U-boat commanders would resort to every means of protecting their craft against them. That the Germans knew all about these vessels became apparent when one of their naval publications fell into our hands, giving complete descriptions and containing directions to U-boat commanders how to meet this new menace. The German newspapers and ill.u.s.trated magazines also began to devote much s.p.a.ce to this kind of anti-submarine fighting, denouncing it in true Germanic fashion as "barbarous" and contrary to the rules of civilized warfare.

The great significance of this knowledge is at once apparent. The mere fact that a number of Q-ships were at sea, even if they did not succeed in sinking many submarines, forced the Germans to make a radical change in their submarine tactics. As they could no longer bring to, board, and loot merchant ships, and sink them inexpensively and without danger by the use of bombs, they were obliged not only to use their precious torpedoes, but also to torpedo without warning. This was the only alternative except to abandon the submarine campaign altogether.

Berlin accordingly instructed the submarine commanders not to approach on the surface any merchant or pa.s.senger vessel closely enough to get within range of its guns, but to keep at a distance and sh.e.l.l it. Had the commanders always observed these instructions the success of the mystery ship in sinking submarines would have ended then and there, though the influence of their presence upon tactics would have remained in force. The Allied navies now made elaborate preparations, all for the purpose of persuading Fritz to approach in the face of a tremendous risk concerning which he had been accurately informed. Every submarine commander, after torpedoing his victim, now clearly understood that it might be a decoy despatched for the particular purpose of entrapping him; and he knew that an attempt to approach within a short distance of the foundering vessel might spell his own immediate destruction. The expert in German mentality must explain why, under these circ.u.mstances, he should have persisted in walking into the jaws of death. The skill with which the mystery ships and their crews were disguised perhaps explains this in part. Anyone who might have happened in the open sea upon Captain Campbell and his slow-moving freighter could not have believed that they were part and parcel of the Royal Navy. Our own destroyers were sometimes deceived by them. The _Cushing_ one day hailed Captain Campbell in the _Pargust_, having mistaken him for a defenceless tramp. The conversation between the two ships was brief but to the point:

_Cushing_: What ship?

_Pargust_: Gordon Campbell! Please keep out of sight.

The next morning another enemy submarine met her fate at the hands of Captain Campbell, and although the _Cushing_ had kept far enough away not to interfere with the action, she had the honour of escorting the injured mystery ship into port and of receiving as a reward three rousing cheers from the crew of the _Pargust_ led by Campbell. A more villainous-looking gang of seamen than the crews of these ships never sailed the waves. All men on board were naval officers or enlisted men; they were all volunteers and comprised men of all ranks--admirals, captains, commanders, and midshipmen. All had temporarily abandoned His Majesty's uniform for garments picked up in second-hand clothing stores.

They had made the somewhat disconcerting discovery that carefully trained gentlemen of the naval forces, when dressed in cast-off clothing and when neglectful of their beards, differ little in appearance from the somewhat rough-and-tumble characters of the tramp service. To a.s.sume this external disguise successfully meant that the volunteers had also to change almost their personal characteristics as well as their clothes. Whereas the conspicuous traits of a naval man are neatness and order, these counterfeit merchant sailors had to train themselves in the casual ways of tramp seamen. They had also to accustom themselves to the conviction that a periscope was every moment searching their vessel from stem to stern in an attempt to discover whether there was anything suspicious about it; they therefore had not only to dress the part of merchantmen, but to act it, even in its minor details. The genius of Captain Campbell consisted in the fact that he had made a minute study of merchantmen, their officers and their crews, and was able to reproduce them so literally on this vessel that even the expert eye was deceived. Necessarily such a ship carried a larger crew than the merchant freighter; nearly all, however, were kept constantly concealed, the number appearing on deck always representing just about the same number as would normally have sailed upon a tramp steamer. These men had to train themselves in slouchiness of behaviour; they would hang over the rails, and even use merchant terms in conversation with one another; the officers were "masters," "mates," "pursers," and the like, and their princ.i.p.al gathering-place was not a wardroom, but a saloon. That scrupulous deference with which a subordinate officer in the navy treats his superior was laid aside in this service. It was no longer the custom to salute before addressing the commander; more frequently the sailor would slouch up to his superior, his hands in his pockets and his pipe in his mouth. This attempt to deceive the Hun observer at the periscope sometimes a.s.sumed an even more ludicrous form. When the sailor of a warship dumps ashes overboard he does it with particular care, so as not to soil the sides of his immaculate vessel; but a merchant seaman is much less considerate; he usually hurls overboard anything he does not want and lets the ship's side take its chances. To have followed the manner of the navy would at once have given the game away; so the sailors, in carrying out this domestic duty, performed the act with all the nonchalance of merchant seamen. To have messed in naval style would also have been betraying themselves. The ship's cook, therefore, in a white coat, would come on deck, and have a look around, precisely as he would do on a freighter. Even when in port officers and men maintained their disguise. They never visited hotels or clubs or private houses; they spent practically all their time on board; if they occasionally went ash.o.r.e, their merchant outfit so disguised them that even their best friends would not have recognized them in the street.

The warlike character of their ships was even more cleverly hidden. In the early days the guns were placed behind the bulwarks, which, when a lever was pulled, would fall down, thus giving them an un.o.bstructed range at the submarine. In order to make the sides of the ships collapsible, certain seams were unavoidably left in the plates, where the detachable part joined the main structure. The U-boat commanders soon learned to look for these betraying seams before coming to the surface. They would sail submerged around the ship, the periscope minutely examining the sides, much as a scientist examines his specimens with a microscope. This practice made it necessary to conceal the guns more carefully. The places which were most serviceable for this purpose were the hatchways--those huge wells, extending from the deck to the bottom, which are used for loading and unloading cargo. Platforms were erected in these openings, and on these guns were emplaced; a covering of tarpaulin completely hid them; yet a lever, pulled by the gun crews, would cause the sides of the hatchway covers to fall instantaneously.

Other guns were placed under lifeboats, which, by a similar mechanism, would fall apart, or rise in the air, exposing the gun. Perhaps the most deceptive device of all was a gun placed upon the stern, and, with its crew, constantly exposed to public gaze. Since most merchantmen carried such a gun, its absence on a mystery ship would in itself have caused suspicion; this armament not only helped the disguise, but served a useful purpose in luring the submarine. At the first glimpse of a U-boat on the surface, usually several miles away, the gun crew would begin shooting; but they always took care that the shots fell short, thus convincing the submarine that it had the advantage of range and so inducing it to close.

Captain Campbell and his a.s.sociates paid as much attention to details in their ships as in their personal appearance. The ship's wash did not expose the flannels that are affected by naval men but the dungarees that are popular with merchant sailors. Sometimes a side of beef would be hung out in plain view; this not only kept up the fiction that the ship was an innocent tramp, but it served as a tempting bait to the not too well-fed crew of the submarine. Particularly tempting cargoes were occasionally put on deck. One of the ships carried several papier-mache freight cars of the small European type covered with legends which indicated that they were loaded with ammunition and bound for Mesopotamia. It is easy to imagine how eagerly the Hun would wish to sink that cargo!

These ships were so effectively disguised that even the most experienced eyes could not discover their real character. For weeks they could lie in dock, the dockmen never suspecting that they were armed to the teeth.

Even the pilots who went aboard to take them into harbour never discovered that they were not the merchant ships which they pretended to be. Captain Hanrahan, who commanded the U.S. mystery ship _Santee_, based on Queenstown, once entertained on board an Irishman from Cork.

The conversation which took place between this American naval officer--who, in his disguise, was indistinguishable from a tramp skipper of many years' experience--disclosed the complete ignorance of the guest concerning the true character of the boat.

"How do you like these Americans?" Captain Hanrahan innocently asked.

"They are eating us out of house and home!" the indignant Irishman remarked. The information was a little inaccurate, since all our food supplies were brought from the United States; but the remark was rea.s.suring as proving that the ship's disguise had not been penetrated.

Such precautions were the more necessary in a port like Queenstown where our forces were surrounded by spies who were in constant communication with the enemy.

I can personally testify to the difficulty of identifying a mystery ship. One day Admiral Bayly suggested that we should go out in the harbour and visit one of these vessels lying there preparatory to sailing on a cruise. Several merchantmen were at anchor in port. We steamed close around one in the Admiral's barge and examined her very carefully through our gla.s.ses from a short distance. Concluding that this was not the vessel we were seeking, we went to another merchantman.

This did not show any signs of being a mystery ship; we therefore hailed the skipper, who told us the one which we had first visited was the mystery ship. We went back, boarded her, and began examining her appliances. The crew was dressed in the ordinary sloppy clothes of a merchantman's deck-hands; the officers wore the usual merchant ship uniform, and everything was as unmilitary as a merchant ship usually is.

The vessel had quite a long deckhouse built of light steel. The captain told us that two guns were concealed in this structure; he suggested that we should walk all around it and see if we could point out from a close inspection the location of the guns. We searched carefully, but were utterly unable to discover where the guns were. The captain then sent the crew to quarters and told us to stand clear. At the word of command one of the plates of the perpendicular side of the deckhouse slid out of the way as quickly as a flash. The rail at the ship's side in front of the gun fell down and a boat davit swung out of the way. At the same time the gun crew swung the gun out and fired a primer to indicate how quickly they could have fired a real shot. The captain also showed us a boat upside down on the deckhouse--merchantmen frequently carry one boat in this position. At a word a lever was pulled down below and the boat reared up in the air and revealed underneath a gun and its crew. On the p.o.o.p was a large crate about 6 x 6 x 8 or 10 feet. At a touch of the lever the sides of this crate fell down and revealed another gun.

III

For the greater part of 1917 from twenty to thirty of these ships sailed back and forth in the Atlantic, always choosing those parts of the seas where they were most likely to meet submarines. They were "merchantmen"

of all kinds--tramp steamers, coasting vessels, trawlers, and schooners.

Perhaps the most distressing part of existence on one of these ships was its monotony: day would follow day; week would follow week; and sometimes months would pa.s.s without encountering a single submarine.

Captain Campbell himself spent nine months on his first mystery ship before even sighting an enemy, and many of his successors had a similar experience. The mystery boat was a patient fisherman, constantly expecting a bite and frequently going for long periods without the slightest nibble. This kind of an existence was not only disappointing but also exceedingly nerve racking; all during this waiting period the officers and men had to keep themselves constantly at attention; the vaudeville show which they were maintaining for the benefit of a possible periscope had to go on continuously; a moment's forgetfulness or relaxation might betray their secret, and make their experiment a failure. The fearful tediousness of this kind of life had a more nerve-racking effect upon the officers and men than the most exciting battles, and practically all the mystery ship men who broke down fell victims not to the dangers of their enterprise, but to this dreadful tension of sailing for weeks and months without coming to close quarters with their enemy.

About the most welcome sight to a mystery ship, after a period of inactivity, was the wake of a torpedo speeding in its direction. Nothing could possibly disappoint it more than to see this torpedo pa.s.s astern or forward without hitting the vessel. In such a contingency the genuine merchant ship would make every possible effort to turn out of the torpedo's way: the helmsman of the mystery ship, however, would take all possible precautions to see that his vessel was. .h.i.t. This, however, he had to do with the utmost cleverness, else the fact that he was attempting to collide with several hundred pounds of gun-cotton would in itself betray him to the submarine. Not improbably several members of the crew might be killed when the torpedo struck, but that was all part of the game which they were playing. More important than the lives of the men was the fate of the ship; if this could remain afloat long enough to give the gunners a good chance at the submarine, everybody on board would be satisfied. There was, however, little danger that the mystery ship would go down immediately; for all available cargo s.p.a.ce had been filled with wood, which gave the vessel sufficient buoyancy sometimes to survive many torpedoes.

Of course this, as well as all the other details of the vessel, was unknown to the skipper of the submerged submarine. Having struck his victim in a vital spot, he had every reason to believe that it would disappear beneath the waves within a reasonable period. The business of the disguised merchantman was to encourage this delusion in every possible way. From the time that the torpedo struck, the mystery ship behaved precisely as the every-day cargo carrier, caught in a similar predicament, would have done. A carefully drilled contingent of the crew, known as the "panic party," enacted the role of the men on a torpedoed vessel. They ran to and fro on the deck, apparently in a state of high consternation, now rushing below and emerging with some personal treasure, perhaps an old suit of clothes tucked under the arm, perhaps the ship's cat or parrot, or a small handbag hastily stuffed with odds and ends. Under the control of the navigating officer these men would make for a lifeboat, which they would lower in realistic fashion--sometimes going so far, in their stage play, as to upset it, leaving the men puffing and scrambling in the water. One member of the crew, usually the navigator, dressed up as the "captain," did his best to supervise these operations. Finally, after everybody had left, and the vessel was settling at bow or stern, the "captain" would come to the side, cast one final glance at his sinking ship, drop a roll of papers into a lifeboat--ostensibly the precious doc.u.ments which were so coveted by the submarine as an evidence of success--lower himself with one or two companions, and row in the direction of the other lifeboats.

Properly placing these lifeboats, after "abandoning ship," was itself one of the finest points in the plot. If the submarine rose to the surface it would invariably steer first for those little boats, looking for prisoners or the ship's papers; the boats' crews, therefore, had instructions to take up a station on a bearing from which the ship's guns could most successfully rake the submarine. That this manoeuvre involved great danger to the men in the lifeboats was a matter of no consideration in the desperate enterprise in which they were engaged.

Thus to all outward appearance this performance was merely the torpedoing of a helpless merchant vessel. Yet the average German commander became altogether too wary to accept the situation in that light. He had no intention of approaching either lifeboats or the ship until entirely satisfied that he was not dealing with one of the decoy vessels which he so greatly feared. There was only one way of satisfying himself: that was to sh.e.l.l the ship so mercilessly that, in his opinion, if any human beings had remained aboard, they would have been killed or forced to surrender. The submarine therefore arose at a distance of two or three miles. Possibly the mystery ship, with one well-aimed shot, might hit the submarine at this distance, but the chances were altogether against her. To fire such a shot, of course, would immediately betray the fact that a gun crew still remained on board, and that the vessel was a mystery ship; and on this discovery the submarine would submerge, approach the vessel under water, and give her one or two more torpedoes. No, whatever the temptation, the crew must "play 'possum," and not by so much as a wink let the submarine know that there was any living thing on board. But this experience demanded heroism that almost approaches the sublime. The gun crews lay p.r.o.ne beside their guns, waiting the word of command to fire; the captain lay on the screened bridge, watching the whole proceeding through a peephole, with voice tubes near at hand with which he could constantly talk to his men.