Page:Victory at Sea - William Sowden Sims and Burton J. Hendrick.djvu/295

1918] a submarine was "spotted," the news was immediately flashed broadcast, and every offensive warship which was anywhere in the neighbourhood, as well as the airplane itself, started for the indicated scene. There are several cases in which the sinking of submarines by destroyers was attributed to information wirelessed in this fashion by American aircraft; and since the air service of the British navy was many times greater than our own, there are many more such "indirect sinkings" credited to the British effort.

The following citation, which I submitted to the Navy Department in recommending Lieutenant John J. Schieffelin for the Distinguished Service Medal, illustrates this co-operation between air and surface craft:

This officer performed many hazardous reconnaissance flights, and on July 9th, 1918, he attacked an enemy submarine with bombs and then directed the British destroyers to the spot, which were successful in seriously damaging the submarine. Again, on July 19th, 1918, Lieutenant Schieffelin dropped bombs on another enemy submarine, and then signalled trawlers to the spot, which delivered a determined attack against the submarine, which attack was considered highly successful and the submarine seriously damaged, if not destroyed. This officer was at all times an example of courageous loyalty.

Besides scouting and "spotting" and bombing, the aerial hunters of the submarine developed great value in escorting convoys. A few dirigibles, located on the flanks of a convoy, protected them almost as effectively as the destroyers themselves ; and even a single airship not infrequently brought a group of merchantmen and troopships safely into port. Sometimes the airships operated in this way as auxiliaries to destroyers, while sometimes they operated alone. In applying this mechanism of protection to merchant convoys, we were simply adopting the method which Great Britain had been using for three years in the narrow passages of the English Channel. Much has been said of the skill with which the British navy transported about 20,000,000 souls back and forth between England and France in four years; and in this great movement seaplanes, dirigibles, and other forms of aircraft played an important part. In the same way this scheme of pro-