page_title: Reginald R. Belknap
section_title: World War I
hierarchical_section_title: Reginald R. Belknap / Naval career / World War I
caption_attribution_description: English: The officers of United States Navy Mine Squadron One during World War I. Seated in front row are (from left to right): Captain Wat T. Cluverius (1874-1952), Commanding Officer, USS&#160;Shawmut; Captain Clark D. Stearns (1870-1944), Commanding Officer, USS&#160;Roanoke; Captain Reginald R. Belknap (1871-1959), Commander, Mine Squadron One; Captain Henry V. Butler (1874-1957), Commanding Officer, USS&#160;San Francisco, and Captain Albert W. Marshall (1874-1958), Commanding Officer, USS&#160;Baltimore. Standing in back row are (from left to right): Commander w:Bruce L. Canaga (1882-1966), Aide to Commander Mine Squadron One; Captain Thomas L. Johnson (&#160;? -&#160;? ), Commanding Officer, USS&#160;Canonicus; Captain James H. Tomb (1876-1946), Commanding Officer, USS&#160;Aroostook; Captain John W. Greenslade (1880 - 1950), Commanding Officer, USS&#160;Housatonic; Commander Sinclair Gannon (1877-1948), Commanding Officer, USS&#160;Saranac; Commander William Herbert Reynolds (1874-1937), Commanding Officer, USS&#160;Canandaigua; and Commander Daniel Pratt Mannix (1878-1957), Commanding Officer USS&#160;Quinnebaug. Mine Squadron One laid the American part of the North Sea Mine Barrage between June and October 1918.
context_page_description: Rear Admiral Reginald Rowan Belknap was an officer in the United States Navy. He served in the Spanish–American War, Boxer Rebellion, Philippine–American War, and World War I. He gained distinction in 1909 for his relief work in Italy after the 1908 Messina earthquake and tsunami and for his work in command of the first offensive mining campaign in U.S. Navy history, the laying of the North Sea Mine Barrage in 1918. He was also a published author, an inventor, a member of many professional and social organizations, and an active member of the Episcopal Church, and he played a role in the selection of Amelia Earhart as the first female pilot to make a solo flight across the Atlantic Ocean.
context_section_description: Belknap was still in command of the Mining and Minesweeping Division when the United States entered World War I in April 1917. He transferred to duty in the Plans Section of the Office of the Chief of Naval Operations that year. In 1918, promoted to captain, he invented and patented a collapsible antisubmarine net and in the spring became commander of Mine Squadron One, which was tasked with laying the North Sea Mine Barrage, a primarily American effort to end use of the North Sea by German submarines as a transit route between Germany and the Atlantic Ocean by laying a dense minefield between the Orkney Islands and Norway. After taking command, Belknap organized and trained the squadron, which was made up of ten large ships capable of carrying a combined total of 6,000 naval mines.
  Under Belknap's command, Mine Squadron One deployed to its bases in Scotland at Inverness and Invergordon in May 1918. He personally commanded the activities of the squadron during its first foray into the North Sea on 2 June 1918, beginning the first offensive mining campaign in the history of the U.S. Navy and one of the largest U.S. Navy contributions to the Allied naval effort during the war. He commanded the squadron on nine more excursions, the last of them in the last week of October 1918, by which time it had laid 56,611 Mark 6 "antenna" mines in 13 groups, with each group consisting of rows of mines 134 nautical miles (248 km) across set at three preset depths of between 10 feet (3 meters) and 260 feet (79 meters), covering an area of 6,000 square miles. The British Royal Navy also contributed, laying 16,652 additional mines along the flanks of the American minefield. The war ended on 11 November 1918 before Mine Squadron One could finish a complete antisubmarine barrier, but the Barrage nonetheless is credited with sinking at least three German submarines and perhaps three more, as well as damaging three or four others. It also had a large psychological effect on German submarine crews, one of which mutinied when ordered to pass through the Barrage.
  In 1925, Admiral Henry Thomas Mayo, who had been the commander-in-chief of the Atlantic Fleet in 1918, said: "The Navy and our country owe to Captain Belknap a debt which can hardly be over-estimated; for it was the knowledge and experience acquired and the doctrine and methods established in the Mine Force under command of Commander [sic] Belknap that enabled the Navy to, first, fit out improvised by very efficient minelaying vessels and, second, to operate them under war conditions in a manner which brought commendation from all."
caption: The officers of Mine Squadron One in September 1918. Captain Reginald Belknap, the squadron's commander, is seated at center.
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