December 28, 1916 
LAND & WATER 
9 
tlic torpedoes of 1914. wliich would bo useless against 
the larger explosive charges of to-day. It miglit be 
salutary for some of us to remember that the conditions 
of service are changing with such bewildering rapidity 
tliat courses which seemed right enougli a year ago are 
alieady liopclcssly out of date. Could we indeed have 
a better proof of this than the present incfticacy of anti- 
submarine methods wliicli gave such excellent results 
last year ? 
If our anti-submarine methods have been made 
ineffective by new devdces used by the enemy, it looks as 
if, in another field, our own advance had been far more 
striking. It is about eiglitcen months since we began 
serious preparation for dealing with Zeppelin raids and, 
in the earlier stages, they were practically confined to the 
provision of guns. After eighteen months' experience 
we can say that the guns on the whole have failed com- 
pletely. Zeppelins have been fired at many lumdreds 
of times bj'.many hundreds of groups of guns, and only 
one — -L. 15 — is known for certain to have been brought 
down by these weapons. This makes it look as if hitting 
a Zeppelin was really an affair of luck only. And it is 
of course notorious that you may have to hit many 
times before the effective shot is delivered. On the other 
hand, tliere can be no possible question that our new 
methods of using aeroplanes and the new equipment 
which they carry, make it a practical certainty that at 
least one Zeppelin will be brought down every time a 
raid is made. The guns, in other words, have been a 
failure, and the aircraft so terribly effective as to make it 
probable that Zeppelin raids will have to be dropped 
altogether. If this is so, need there be any delay in 
abandoning the gun defence, in releasing the crews and 
lire control parties for more urgent duties, and devoting 
the guns themselves to the paramount affair of saving 
the merchantmen ? If tliis is the logical course to pursue 
it would be a thousand pities to clelay action on it for 
a single day. No doubt there will be opposition, and lots 
of people will hesitate' to allow that all this gunnery effort 
has been wasted, and tlie gunnery installations no longer 
wanted. But we must recognise that all war is one vast 
complicated experiment and that the secret of success lies 
in the promptest possible application of the lessons any 
])art of the great experiment may teach. In this matter, 
above all, let the authorities decide on expert analysis of 
the situation and act without fear of popular clamour, 
' if that analysis shows tliat the guns are really nqt wanted. 
Because there can be no earthly question that they are 
needed for the ships with an urgency that cannot be ex- 
aggerated. 
[753 and U.S. Destroyer Benham 
I have received a communication relating to certain 
incidents in the events of October 8th, when U-,-^ sank 
the Stcjam, Blommcrsdjik, West Point, etc., off Nantucket, 
which throws what is to me a new light on the conduct 
of the U.S. destroj'er Benham. And it is from a source 
tliat leaves me in no doubt whatever as to its constituting 
an account of what occurred which can be accepted as 
definitely authoritative and final. 
It may be remarked that several of the New York 
correspondents cabled to their papers in London to the 
effect that the commander of {753, wishing to finish off 
one of the ships that he had held up and finding the U.S. 
destroyer Benham was dangerously near his line of fire, 
instead of moving on, called upon the Benham to clear- 
out of the way. ' It was added that Benham had obeyed, 
and thus hastened, if he did not facilitate, the destruction 
bf a peaceful ship. Taken in connection with another 
set of facts put before us in the same communication— 
namely, the presence of Benham in reply to signals of 
distress and the rescue, by her and her consort, of crews 
and passengers who must otherwise have been drowned 
—this story of German arrogance and American sub- 
mission bore a most sinister aspect. The comments of 
the American press deepened the unfortunate impression 
that something had taken place extremely derogatory to 
the honour and dignity of the American naval flag. We 
were told that, had these destroyers not run W so 
promptly from Newport, the passengers of the Stcfano 
and the crews, both of that and of all the other ships, 
would have been in the greatest jeopardy. And, of 
course had even one of tliem been lost there must liav 
occuiTcd, riglit on the margin of American territorial 
waters, a direct and tragic breach by Germany of the 
agreement entered into on the 4th of last May. Thus, 
we were categorically assured, by doing for {'53 what 
that craft could not do for itself, "Benham and Macdougall 
had prevented a massacre, and so it was that the American 
navy had kept the peace between Washington and 
Berlin, for by saving life they had saved Germany from 
war with the United States. This interpretation made the 
whole incident seem from its inception humiliating enough 
for America. But if, on the top of so using the .\merican 
destroyers, the German commander, impatient to com- 
plete his nefarious work, had ordered the Benham aside, 
a situation must have been created, the toleration of 
which by a chivalrous and spirited service appeared quite 
inexplicable. 
The facts as they .reach me now are quite incompatible 
with this somewhat lurid story. In the first place, the 
sea throughout the day on October 8th seems to have 
been so smooth that boats could have had no difficulty 
whatever in making their way from the sunken ships to 
the Nantucket lightship, or from the lightship to New- 
port. But, as a shnple matter of fact, it \\ as not necessary 
for them to do tliis, because (753 herself towed the boats, 
first of the West Point and then of the Blommersdjik 
right up to the lightship, ^^'hatever, then, the discomfort 
or alarm of the passengers may have been, they were 
never in actual danger. Strictly speaking, the destroyers 
that left Newport in reply to the S.O.S. call from the 
West Point, were never called upon to save life at all. 
There can be no cjuestion then, that it was not their 
action that saved Berlin from Washington's anger 
on this occasion. 
The truth of the Benham incident, in its new setting, 
is as follows : 
The Dutch steamer Blommersdjik was stopped and 
the personnel ordered into the boats at about 6.30 p.m. 
.'\fter all were thus afloat, the submarine went off to 
attack another vessel and, in her absence, the destroyers 
McDottgall and Benham went from boat to boat taking 
tlie people therein on board. When Benham was almost 
alongsicle the Blommersdjik, after emptying the last 
boat, she having gone alongside to make sure that no 
one was left on board, (''53 returned, Benham, her 
task' completed, was getting under weigh to return to 
Newport. But she had not started, and the German 
commander did in fact make a signal asking her to move. 
But in proceeding on her journey Benham was not re- 
sponding to the German request, but obeying her previous 
instructions. There was no further reason for her 
staying. All the Blommersdjik people were safe. The 
ship was derelict and doomed, and no possible counsel 
of law or humanity would have justified the commander 
of tl e Benham in trying to save her. That the captain 
of ^'53 was guilty of an insolent discourtesy is clear 
enough. But it is equally' clear that the action of the 
commander ol the Benham was not in response to the 
German signal — nor was it in any way affected b}' it. 
From some points of view the whole incident may be 
regarded as too trivial for notice. But, in p>oint of fact, 
nothing which touches the honour or dignity of a great 
service is other than- supremely and overwhelmingly 
important. The relations between the Rritish and 
American navies have always been, not onl}^ pleasant 
but, in the strictest meaning of the word, cordial. The 
freemasonry of the sea supplies a bond of brotherhood 
between the sailors of all sorts and of all naticmalities. 
But there are special reasons for the bonds that exist 
between the navies of the two great English s\oeaking 
peoples. Each has learned valuable lessons of wiir from 
the other on the field of battle, and they are less ons of - 
mutual respect which neither will very readily iorget. 
And in producing Mahan the American navy has put ours 
under a special obhgation. Mahan may almost be sa'd to 
have discovered for us the real secret of Nelson's genius, 
and the true meaning of the great deeds of our other naval 
forefathers. Both navies to-day are thus the heirs to 
the same traditions. It cannot be denied that the stSM'y 
of the Benham. as we have had it first, offered a pictorxj 
of the American navy in action singularly untrue of wliai\ 
we know it to have been in the past, and conceive it to 
be to-day. It is quite worth while, then, to corract 
that picture and make sure that the truth should be on 
record. Arthur Pollevi 
