The sun., 1919-08-31

misses the matter with the statement
that after the scheme had been tried
station keeping proved quite good
and the masters who were interviewed
on arrival home stated that they had
enjoyed more sleep than they had had
for MONTHS.
out by Admiral Sims in several of his
speeches in this country, the merchant
captain is generally n much better
seaman than his brother officer of the
, naval service for the obvious reason
that he takes up his profession when
lad, spends practically his entire life
at sea and by the time he obtains
command has handled every variety of
vessel under conditions with which the
| average naval officer, with his long
periods of shore service, is quite unac-
quainted. At any rate after the sys-
TEN had once been tried nothing more
was heard of the deficiencies of mer-
chant shippers in handling their ships
By the end of August, 1917, all
homeward bound ships except those
| with a speed above twelve knots We're
arriving in convoy and in September
arrangements were perfected to in
clude the faster vessels as we'll. The
results were most encouraging, though
1t was found that the enemy, unable
TO strike at the conveyed homeward
bound ships, was concentrating his eff
forts on outbound tonnage, with the
| result that the sinkingS of this class
were becoming more numerous. Ac-
cordingly measures were taken to in
clude outbound sailings as we'll By
the end of October J, 500 steam ships
with a lightweight capacity of more
| than 100000 tons, had been escorted
to British ports and only twenty four
| had been lost-fourteen of them after
| separation from their conveys either
| by stress of weather or disobedience
OF the masters. The curve of subma-
rine losses had declined to half the
height which it had reached in the
previous April and was still declining.
Torpedoed at Harbor Entrances.
A less obvious advantage of the
| system was that ships which We're lost
were generally torpedoed near harbor
entrances, where help arrived in time
10 save the crews from the dangers of
a long pull in open boats and some
times In season to save the vessels
themselves. This was the result OF
the ability of the conveys to traverse
routes distant from the usual trade
lanes and to frequently change their
| courses so that to be sure of getting
in shot at all the U-boats were
Obliged to lie in wait nearer the coast.
where the conveys necessarily con-
Versed toward the ports. Altogether
1884 ships were conveyed on the At
lantic and less than one third OF 1 per
cent. were lost through enemy action.
The convoy system was also extended
10 the Mediterranean with satisfactory
results.
The lay reader will feel regret that
the editors of the Annual have moi
seen fit to give more details of the
work OF the "Q-boats," the decoy YES
seis' which during the worst stages OF
the submarine campaign were sent out
disguised as small merchant ships Il
trap unwary submarine captains into
coming within easy range of the guns
mounted behind canvas bulwarks
Their work is dismissed with a short
paragraph and the statement that n
would be hard to beat the tales of their
actions for discipline and endurance.
Among the novel types of ships dc.
scribed in the publication are the mon.
itors. a revival of Ericssons invention
which did so much to maintain the sea
power of the Union forces during our
civil war. First constructed for ser.
vice against the German bases on the
Belgian coast they afterward were
utilized in the Adriatic and at Gallipoli
Most OF them were makeshifts of hur.
ried construction. equipped with re-