Page:Victory at Sea - William Sowden Sims and Burton J. Hendrick.djvu/156

188 all the assistance 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 passive 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 assume that the method adopted to accomplish this protection was a purely defensive and passive 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 assigned 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 assistance 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