The Pensacola journal. (Pensacola, Fla.) 1898-1985, 1920-08-08

TUT 10 the american people, IL wa
something which the Navy was deter
mined to prevent, and which we di
prevent. Considered as a strict mill
tary question. however-and that wa
the only consideration which influ
enced the Germans-it is hard to Sc
how the loss OF one transport, or eve
the loss OF several. would have ma
terially affected the course of the wal
In judging the purely military re
suits of such a tragedy, we must re
member that the Allied armies wer
losing from 5000 to 5000 men a day
thus sinking of an American transpor
once a week, would not have particu
larly affected the course of the war
The destruction of merchant ship
ping in large quantities. however
represented the one way in which thu
Germans could win. There were a
least a hundred merchant ships If {
considerable number of the formel
could be sunk, Germany would have
scored a decisive advantage. From the
the declaration of submarine warfare
the objective of the German Admiralty
had. been for tonnage! tonnagep; By
March. 1918, as already said, the
chances of destroying sufficient ton
slight; yet it still represented the one
logical mission of the submarine.
The two alternatives. however, that
of attacking mercantile conveys, or
troop conveys, hardly existed in fact
Let us suppose for a moment that the
Germans had changed their program
and had taken their group of operating
submarines from the northern trade
routes and had stationed them in the
south, in the track of the troop trans
ports. What would the result have
been? Lane" though a convenient
word for descriptive purposes. is hard
" an accurate one: for this ocean pas
sageway was really about 200 miles
wide. Imagine eight or ten subma-
rfnes. stretched across that expanse
and hunting for troop ships. At this
rate the Germans would have had
about one submarine for every twenty
miles. Instead of finding themselves
sailing amid a swarm of surface ships,
as they were when they were stationed
in the English Channel, the submarines
would have found themselves drifting
on a great waste of waters. Our troop
conyoys averaged not more than three
a week even in the busiest period; in
all probability the submarines would
therefore have hung around a month
without even catching a glimpse Oh
one.
The speediest vessels only were used
for transporting troops. At the begin
ming ships which made less than twelve
knot were not deemed safe for such
precious cargoes; when the need Tor
troops became more and more press
ing and when our transport service
had demonstrated great skill in the
work, a few slower vessels were used;
but the great majority of our troop
transports were those which made
twelve knots or more. Now one OF
the greatest projections which a ship
possesses against submarine attack Is
unquestionably high speed. Like all
conveys, the troop ships began zigzag-
ging a soon as they entered the danger
zone; and this in itself made 1t almost
impossible for a submarine to get its
bearings and take good aim. | believe
that these circumstances in themselves
the comparative scarcity of troop
transports, the width of the lane" in
which they travelled, the high speed
which they maintained and their con-
slant zigzagging would have defeated
the great majority of attempts the
Germans could have made to torpedo
them.
The Greatest Protection.
Though | think that most of them
would have reached their destination |
unframed without any other protec-
tion still this risk, small at it was,
could not be taken; and we therefore
gave them one other protection greater
than any of those which l have yet
destroyer escort. A
convoy of four or five large troop ships |
would be surrounded by as many as
ten or dozen destroyers. Very prop
erly, since they were carrying human
cargoes. we gave them an escort at
least three times as large as that given
to large mercantile conveys of twenty
or more vessels; and us fact made
them very uninviting bats for the
most venturesome U-boat commanders.
When the engineers built the Brook
yn bridge they introduced an element
which they call the factor of safety. 1t
was their usual procedure to estimate
the greatest weight which their struc-
lure might be called upon to bear un-
Ter any conceivable circumstances and
hen they made it strong enough to
stand number of times that weight.
rhis additional strength is the factor
# safety; il is never called into use,
# course, but the consciousness that
1 exists gives the public sense of Sc
.urity which it could obtain in no
,ther way.
The American Navy adopted a SINH
ar policy in Transporting these mill
ions of American boys 70 Europe. We
Ilso had large margin of safety. We
lid not depend upon one precaution to
.ssure the lives of our soldiers; we
Ieaped one precautionary measure on
mother. From the embarking of the
-oops at New York or at Hampton
roads to the Decentralization at Brest,
il. Nazaire, La Pallice, Bordeaux, or at
ne of their other destinations, not the
ninutest safeguard was omitted We
thus somewhat diminished
he protection of some of the mercan-
lie convoys-and properly so. This
yas done whenever the arrival of a
roop convoy conflicted with the ar