Page:Victory at Sea - William Sowden Sims and Burton J. Hendrick.djvu/323

1918] A. T. Long, afterward Captain W. C. Cole; the Oklahoma, Captain M. L. Bristol, afterward Captain C. B. McVay; and the Utah, Captain F. B. Bassett, the whole division under the command of Rear- Admiral Thomas S. Rodgers. This port is located in Bantry Bay, on the extreme south-western coast. For several months our dreadnoughts lay here, momentarily awaiting the news that a German raider had escaped, ready to start to sea and give battle. But the expected did not happen. The fact that this powerful squadron was ready for the emergency is perhaps the reason why the Germans never attempted the adventure. A reference to the map which accompanies this chapter will help the reader to understand why our transports were able to carry American troops to France so successfully that not a single ingoing ship was ever struck by a torpedo. This diagram makes it evident that there were two areas of the Atlantic through which American shipping could reach its European destination. The line of division was about the forty-ninth parallel of latitude, the French city of Brest representing its most familiar landmark. From this point extending southward, as far as the forty-fifth parallel, which corresponds to the location of the city of Bordeaux, is a great stretch of ocean, about 200 miles wide. It includes the larger part of the Bay of Biscay, which forms that huge indentation with which our school geographies have made us Americans so familiar, and which has always enjoyed a particular fame for its storms, the dangers of its coast, and the sturdy and independent character of the people on its shores. The other distinct area to which the map calls attention extends northerly from the forty-ninth parallel to the fifty-second; it comprises the English Channel, and includes both the French channel ports, the British ports, the southern coast of Ireland, and the entrance to the Irish Sea. The width of this second section is very nearly the same as that of the one to the south, or about 200 miles.

Up to the present moment this narrative has been concerned chiefly with the northernmost of these two great sea pathways. Through this one to the north passed practically all the merchant shipping which was destined for the Allies.