Page:Victory at Sea - William Sowden Sims and Burton J. Hendrick.djvu/90

72 sence in the neighbourhood for nearly two years would have meant a fortune to many of the local merchants. Yet we were obliged to refuse to accede to the numerous requests that the American sailors be permitted to visit this city.

A committee of distinguished citizens of Cork, led by the Lord Mayor, came to Admiralty House to plead for the rescinding of this order. Admiral Bayly cross-examined them very sharply. It appeared that the men who had committed these offences against American sailors had never been punished.

Unless written guarantees were furnished that there would be no hostile demonstrations against British or Americans, Admiral Bayly refused to withdraw the ban, and I fully concurred in this decision. Unfortunately the committee could give no such guarantee. We knew very well that the first appearance of Americans in Cork would be the signal for a renewal of hostilities, and the temper of our sailors was such that the most deplorable consequences might have resulted. We even discovered that the blacksmiths on the U.S.S. Melville were surreptitiously manufacturing weapons which our men could conceal on their persons and with which they proposed to sally forth and do battle with the Sinn Fein ! So for the whole period of our stay in Queenstown our sailors were compelled to keep away from the dangerous city. But the situation was not without its humorous aspects. Thus the pretty girls of Cork, finding that the Americans could not come to them, decided to come to the Americans ; every afternoon a trainload would arrive at the Queenstown station, where our sailors would greet them, give them a splendid time, and then, in the evening, escort them to the station and send a happy crowd on their way home.

But the Sinn Feiners interfered with us in much more serious ways than this. They were doing everything in their power to help Germany. With their assistance German agents and German spies were landed in Ireland. At one time the situation became so dangerous that I had to take experienced officers whose services could ill be spared from our destroyers and assign them to our outlying air stations in Ireland. This, of course, proportionately weakened our fleet and did its part in prolonging the war.