Page:Victory at Sea - William Sowden Sims and Burton J. Hendrick.djvu/23

1917] considerable period we had been more or less regular correspondents. I had first made his acquaintance in China in 1901; at that time Jellicoe was a captain and was already recognized as one of the coming men of the British navy. He was an expert in ordnance and gunnery, a subject in which I was greatly interested; and this fact had brought us together and made us friends. The admiration which I had then conceived for the Admiral's character and intelligence I have never lost. He was then, as he has been ever since, an indefatigable worker, and more than a worker, for he was a profound student of everything which pertained to ships and gunnery, and a man who joined to a splendid intellect the real ability of command. I had known him in his own home with his wife and babies, as well as on shipboard among his men, and had observed at close hand the gracious personality which had the power to draw everyone to him and make him the idol both of his own children and the officers and jackies of the British fleet. Simplicity and directness were his two most outstanding points; though few men had risen so rapidly in the Royal Navy, success had made him only more quiet, soft spoken, and unostentatiously dignified; there was nothing of the blustering seadog about the Admiral, but he was all courtesy, all brain, and, of all the men I have ever met, there have been none more approachable, more frank, and more open-minded.

Physically Admiral Jellicoe is a small man, but as powerful in frame as he is in mind, and there are few men in the navy who can match him in tennis. His smooth-shaven face, when I met him that morning in April, 1917, was, as usual, calm, smiling, and imperturbable. One could never divine his thoughts by any outward display of emotion. Neither did he give any signs that he was bearing a great burden, though it is not too much to say that at this moment the safety of the British Empire rested chiefly upon Admiral Jellicoe's shoulders. I find the absurd notion prevalent in this country that his change from Commander of the Grand Fleet to First Sea Lord was something in the nature of a demotion; but nothing could be farther from the truth. As First Sea Lord, Jellicoe controlled the operations, not only of the Grand Fleet, but also of the entire British navy; he had no