Page:Victory at Sea - William Sowden Sims and Burton J. Hendrick.djvu/111

1917] 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 under-estimating 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 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