The Birmingham age-herald., 1921-05-04


 friendly visitor in 1916, comes with guns a One of the Iiveliest days of the whole war for the navy department was Monday, June 3, 1918 It will be many a year before I forget it.
 Sunday U-boat had suddenly bobbed up about 40 or 50 miles off the New Jersey coast and sunk four schooners. That was hard-hitting for a war hy- pothetically 5000 miles away.
 It certainly stirred things up in our corner of Washington. When re- ceived the newspaper correspondents that Monday morning I faced a fire of questions as rapid as that of any ma chine gun in France.
 What is the navy doing to protect our shipping?"
 'sWhy did it let the submarine sink those vessels?"
 Have you sunk the U-boat?'
 Wont you recall our destroyers from Europe?"
 GETS 5000 CALLS
 While I did my best with the eager. inquisitive and persistent gentlemen of the press. telegrams were pouring into the department by the hundred and the telephones were ringing without cessa- tion. In "A hours, 5000 telegrams, radio messages, phone calls and other in- quiries were handled by the navy. The halls and offices of the department were thronged with anxious people shippers and ship owners, and friends and relatives of captains and crews And everybody wanted information
 There was general alarm along the coast, from Cape Cod to Cape Sable If one U-boat was over here two might be. or three or four. There was no saying where the enemy would strike next Such was the feeling and, of course we heard from it.
 The last of the four questions which have given as coming from the news paper correspondents came from all over the country. but especially from the coast
 Won't you recall our destroyers from Europe?"
 Nor was it always phrased so po- htely or as diffidently as this Some times It passed from the interrogative to the imperative, and became an en phatic demand
 NO RECALL OF DESTROYERS opVlously 1t was quite impossible for the navy department to satisfy all these iiiquiries' or to answer the very pointed questions of the newspaper men, We could not tell the public what we were oolng; what ships were being sent out and where. We might just as well have cabled the information to Germany.
 Most or our destroyers and other pa troi craft were in European waters. but we had no idea of recalling them.
 In the first place, to cover every poinI Where submarines might appear, to pa. trol adequately the waters of our long coast line and to convoy all coastwise shippng-which was what excited jndi- Viduals were insisting we should do-- would have taken not less than a thou sand vessels
 In the second place, nothing would have suited GermanVS tba, to scare us into withdrawing our forces from the European hunting grounds, and perhaps abandoning our mine barrage across the North sea.
 We were doing everything possible, but we realized that we would have to ac- cept the likelihood of some small craft being sunk-possibly few steamers; but that at all costs we must keep the line of communication clear by which troops and supplies were carried to the fighting front.
 MUST KEEP ROAD OPEN
 Germany had sent her U-boats across the sea mainly for the purpose of inter- rupting the transportation of troops and supplies. Failing in this, their long and perilous adventure would be without mili- tary effect.
 Our first duty I said to the news paper men that morning, lis to keep open the road to France, to protect troop ships and supply vessels. We are doing all we can to protect all shipping and commerce, but that must be our first thought
 And that policy was so we'll carried out that not one troopship or transport was delayed in sailing a single day, and the months in which enemy submarines were operating almost continuously off our coast were the very months in which we broke all records in troop transpor- tation.
 DEUTSCHLAND RETURNS
 There were six U-boats which made the voyage from Wilhelmshaven or some other German port to the region of American waters in 191S-the U-154 the U-156. the U-14O, the U-117, the U-155 and the U-152. The U-155 was the Deutschland, which, doubtless, you remember as the submarine that arrived in Baltimore on a July Sunday in 1916. and was hailed as marvellous demon- stration of German enterprise and in trepity. Some of us have wondered since whether it was also demonstra- tion of German foresight--in other words, an experimental voyage, in peaceful guise to determine whether should get into the war on the allied side, it would be possible to do little sinking off our coast.
 However that may be, when the Deutschland returned as the U-155 she came armed with powerful guns and carrying torpedoes.
 Space will not permit the detailed narrative of the exploits of this sextet of U-boats. I will limit myself to one or two of the more striking incidents connected with each of them. l gave them above in the order of their arrival.
 BIG KILLING JUNE
 The U-151 was playing about not far from our coast for some days before she disclosed her presence. Report had come to us that steamers had been gunned at sea, and that an unfriendly periscope was headed in our direction. Prompted by these we sent broadcast a special warning on May 16. On May 19 tho Nyanza was gunned 300 miles from our coast. When the U-151 made her big killing on June 2, she had on board the crews of three small schooners she had sunk some days before. Though she sank a number of vessels her visit was brief. She began her homeward Journey on June IS. and reached her German port on August 1.
 The shelling of the Perth Amboy, a tug, and three barges within sight of Cape Cod Mass, was the work of the U-156. which left Germany about the time the U-151 was starting home. She began work in American waters in July. Her exploit in smelling a tug and barges aroused general indignation and con tempt There were Al persons on the barges. including three women and five ha