August 8, 191 8 
Land & Water 
13 
With the American Fleet: By Herman Whitaker 
A! 
Torpedoed in the bows 
CERTAIN 
picture at 
the Royal 
Academy 
this year 
shows English fisher- 
men on gaze at a long 
line of American de- 
stroyers emerging from 
a background of mist 
and rain. I am sure 
that no American can 
\-icvv that picture with- 
out experiencing a 
swelling in his throat. 
I siiould imagine that 
it might excite equal 
emotion in an English- 
man. For that starry 
banner, streaming out 
in the mist, waves 
over a closed breach ; 
signifies the healing 
of an old sore; 'stands for the concord of the Anglo-Saxon 
peoples, at last full and complete. 
This brief account of the Arnerican Fleet's Work during 
the past year may well begin with a review of the situation 
which the first units depicted in that picture found on their 
arrival in British waters last 3'ear. For the last two days of 
the voyage they cruised amidst the wreckage of torpedoed 
ships — boxes, barrels, crates ; smashed boats, often with 
dead and dying men in them; drowned animals; alas! 
far too often, dead men and women, still upheld by life- 
preservers. 
Far better, however, than by any pen picture, the situation 
is set forth in the accompanying map, which approximately 
gives the sinkings of Allied ships during April, 1917. Each 
of the black dots and circles that surround the Allied cdasts 
with a mourning border represents a ship sunk by 
torpedo, mine, or gun-fire. But now, one year later, the 
month of April shows a happy reduction in sinkings of 70 
per cent. 
This striking change appears still more remarkable when 
we remember the tre- 
mendous volurhe of 
transport tonnage 
which was added to 
the normal merchant 
trade during the year. 
Troop and supply 
ships aggregating two 
and a quarter millions 
of tons streamed in 
a gigantic ferry across 
the Atlantic, carrying 
a million American 
soldiers to France. 
These ships had to be 
and were securely con- 
voyed — so securely 
that even Hindenburg 
acknowledged the 
other day that it was 
suicide for a U-boat 
to attack them — -and 
this extra .service 
drew from the English 
and American fleets a 
large number of de- 
stroyers which would 
otherwise have been 
used to protect mer- 
chant shipping and 
hunt down U-boats. 
It goes without saying, 
therefore, that but for 
this paramount neces- 
sity, the number of 
merchant sinkings 
would have been still 
less; the number of 
U-boats sunk, still 
more. 
As it is, we may rest satisfied ; for the most gratifying; 
feature is found in the fact that during the last three months 
the two great curves that represent , U-boats sunk and . new 
ships built, "show a remarkable acceleration. In the first 
year of the war the U-boat curve was little better than hori- 
zontal. It really began to curve late in the following year, 
and has gone on bending upwards more and more steeply, 
until, in the last few months, it threatens to become vertical. 
We are now sinking U-boats faster than the Germans can 
build them. We are building ships far faster than the- 
U-boats can sink them. In th? sense of a' contest in which 
the issue is still at stake, the underseas war is over. Hence- 
forth it descends to the level of privateering and sporadic 
raids, which will become fewer as the months go by. 
This remarkable showing is, of course, the product of 
many factors — the introduction and extension of the convoy 
system ; improved methods of hunting U-boats bj' depth- 
mine barrages ; the perfection of Hstening devices ; the use 
of Allied submarines to hunt down U-boats ; the extension 
of the Naval Aviation Service, both American and English ; 
the closing of Zeebriigge and Ostend ; and blocking of other 
U-boat routes by new mine-fields ; in all of which the 
American Fleet has assisted. 
Before touching on its work, a word on its composition. 
Battleships, dreadnoughts, destroyers, scouts, cruisers, sub- 
marines, armed yachts, coast-guard vessels, mine-layers, and 
repair ships, make up the main body, which is manned 
by a personnel of more than 40,000 men. To this now has 
to be added over a hundred "chasers" and their crews; 
many thousands of men serving on troop and supply ships, 
naval transports, as armed guards, radio and signal men ; 
naval gun crews furnished to merchant vessels ; lastly, ten' 
thousand men of the American Naval Aviation Service. 
Lumping them all together, a hundred thousand men would' 
be a conservative estimate of the American naval forces^ 
either serving directly under the command of Admiral Sims- 
or coming and going in the transport service. 
Judged by any standard, this is a large fleet, and one of 
the most satisfactory things about it — to an American, at 
least — is found in the fact that its upkeep has laid no addi- 
tional burden on England — already over-weighted with her 
own war costs and those of weaker allies. The American 
Fleet is practically self-sustaining. All its food and supplies 
have been brought 
from the United States. 
Excepting major oper- 
ations that require a 
dry dock, it makes its 
own repairs. It manu- 
factures its own tor- 
pedoes ; provides its 
own hospitals ; and 
as sailors, hke other 
men, cannot live by 
bread alone, it has 
established numerous 
recreation buildings, 
with cinema theatres, 
dormitories, dining, 
reading, writing, and 
bath rooms, the quah- 
ty of which may be- 
gauged from the fact 
that one single es-. 
tablishment cost. six. 
thousand pounds. 
For convenience irt 
operations, the Fleet 
is divided into five 
principal units. The 
first to come over, a 
flotilla of crack de- 
stroyers, operated in 
Irish waters, and made 
good in both offensive 
and defensive warfare 
against the submar- 
ines. Two vessels [of 
this flotilla steamed . 
si.xty-four thousand 
miles apiece during 
the year— a distance 
equal to a voyage from 
Uffic, 
Explosion of a depth charge 
