Первая мировая война
У монструозной транспортной субмарины, которая ввозила нанотехнологии из Германии в Японию в обмен на хинин и опиум, и была утоплена американской торпедой Дружок, были предшественницы - кайзеровские меркантильные подлоки. Они, кстати, признавались амриканскими властями в начале ПМВ за коммерческий транспорт и торговали в открытую, ювелирку, почту немецкой диаспоре возили. Потом были вооружены, успешно минировали прибрежные воды США. Топили суда и корабли. Захватили рыболовецкое судно Триумф и на этом корсаре утопили ещё десять таких же. Но всё тщетно, хотя американцы серъёзно опасались европейского кидалова, сепаратного мира и высадки немцев. Это и многие другие интересные вещи переводить нет времени,
WORLD WAR I
At the beginning of America's involvement in World War I, two months after the German resumption of unrestricted submarine warfare on 1 February 1917, a debate over the proper role of the U.S. fleet occurred between various parts of the naval leadership. Simply put, RAdm. William S. Sims, commander of U.S. Navy Forces Operating in European Waters, believed that the United States should move its forces, especially escort and mining forces, to English waters as rapidly as possible. Sims believed that the greatest threat facing the Allies, and thus the U.S., was the German submarine campaign against shipping in the Eastern Atlantic. The Secretary of the Navy, Josephus Daniels, and Chief of Naval Operations, Adm. William S. Benson, believed that the main elements of the fleet, including most ships suitable for convoy escort operations, should remain in the Western Atlantic to protect the U.S. coast against a threat from German submarines and, potentially, Germany's High Seas Fleet. In addition, some officers feared that deploying the fleet overseas would risk it at the far end of an uncertain supply line (in light of the U-boat threat). An additional element of this discussion focused on the substantial ongoing naval shipbuilding program. Sims argued that the building of capital ships should be halted so that the ship yards could concentrate on construction that would aid in the antisubmarine war. Benson, on the other hand, believed that this would put at risk long-term U.S. interests, especially in the event of a British collapse and a concentration of the German, Japanese, and, potentially, surrendered British navies against the U.S. coast. This debate waxed and waned, but after several months President Wilson made the decision to focus on escort operations in the Eastern Atlantic.
The ability of German submarines to operate in the Western Atlantic had been demonstrated before the U.S. entry into the war. In 1916, two German submarines crossed the Atlantic and raised the specter that the U.S. coast might be vulnerable to German submarines. (U-boats did not start actual war patrols off the coast until a year after the U.S. entry into the war.) One of these U-boats, Deutschland, an unarmed "mercantile" submarine, ran the Allied blockade and entered east coast ports twice that year.1 The other, U-53, made a one-day courtesy port call in Newport on 7 October 1916 following a rough trans-Atlantic passage. The U-53 was tasked with attacking Royal Navy ships (which it did not encounter) that were patrolling for Deutschland. The day following the port call, U-53 attacked and sank five non-U.S. merchant ships in international waters off the U.S. coast
The public reaction to these five sinkings was enormous. A significant stock market fall and a jump in shipping insurance rates followed the U-53 attacks. RAdm. Bradley A. Fiske warned that "U-53 has shown us how accessible our shores are to Europe.... If U-53 got as far as the vicinity of Newport undetected, she could have gone into the harbor itself undetected, and could have sunk one or more of our battleships without our even knowing the cause of their sinking.... If one submarine could come across, a fleet could do the same." Fiske argued that, in case of war, the U.S. fleet would be required to stay on the east coast to prevent the imposition of a blockade.1
1. After avoiding Royal Navy ships sent to intercept her, the Deutschland arrived in Baltimore, MD, on 9 July 1916 with a cargo of dyes, mail, and precious stones. The Deutschland was unarmed; and, after inspection, it was recognized as a merchant-vessel by the U.S. government. On 2 August, she departed for Bremen (arrived 24 August) with a cargo of zinc, copper, and nickel. The second voyage occurred in October/November, when the Deutschland visited New London. A second mercantile submarine, the Bremen, also sailed for the U.S., but it never arrived. Following her second voyage, the Germans modified Deutschland and her sister ships (there were a total of seven built or building, plus two long-range submarines designed from the keel up as war vessels) to carry torpedoes. (See: R.H. Gibson and Maurice Prendergast, The German Submarine War, London, Constable & Co., 1931, pp. 103-104, 111; Edwyn Gray, The Killing Time, New York, Charles Scribner's Sons, 1972, pp. 150-151, 225; and Dwight R. Messimer, The Merchant U-Boat, Annapolis, Naval Institute Press, 1988.)
Public (and military) fears were not limited to a submarine campaign. One popular work of the war years prior to the U.S. entry into the war, America Fallen, postulated a German invasion of the United States following a negotiated settlement in Europe in 1916.2 While somewhat farfetched, this scenario was not totally unrelated to scenarios that had been examined in more serious fora. In the early 1890s, following German-American tension over Samoa, the German admiralty began to examine options for a conflict against the U.S. An 1899 plan called for a surprise assault on New York, while a January 1902 plan called for the seizure of Puerto Rico as an operating base for operations against the U.S. coast.3
In 1903, Proceedings republished with commentary an article from Scientific American on the path of a naval war between Germany and the U.S. as it had unfolded during one war game society's utilization of the "Jane Naval War Game." While the game ended in the U.S. side "winning," victory came at the cost of 60 percent of U.S. commerce, the destruction of 40 percent of U.S. coastal property and the weakening of the U.S. Navy.4 While these may have been considered unlikely scenarios, that the Germans might be capable of exerting force directly against the United States was of concern to the U.S. military leadership. In fact, the primary U.S. Navy planning for a war against Germany, Plan Black, focused on the probability of a major naval engagement on the high seas between the two nations' fleets.5
Thus, at the beginning of the war, these prewar concerns and the fears elucidated by Fiske and others were paramount in the thinking of many in the Navy Department. Sims, secretly sent to England just prior to the U.S. entry into the war, called for an immediate and total U.S. commitment to the ASW battle in the convoy approaches in the Eastern Atlantic because Britain seemed to be on the verge of being forced out of the war as a result of the merchant shipping losses to German submarines. And, with longer lasting implications, Sims argued that the entire U.S. shipbuilding effort should be focused on two types of shipping - destroyers and other ASW-capable vessels, and merchant ships to replace the heavy allied losses - and that the substantial U.S. production of major fleet units should be halted for the duration of the ASW emergency.
1. Rear Adm. B.A. Fiske (USN), "What the Visit of the U-53 Portends to the United States," USNI Proceedings, n. 6, 1916, pp. 2038-2039. At the time of the U-53 visit to Newport, Fiske was finishing his last tour of duty with an assignment to the Naval War College.
2. The book outlines this scenario: Germany negotiates peace with a large indemnity ($15 billion) to Britain and France, but does not destroy any forces. Germany purchases St. Thomas from Denmark and deploys her fleet to the Caribbean. On 1 April, the day after the U.S. learns of the St Thomas purchase, German troops land in Boston and New York, and the German Navy cripples the U.S. Navy through a surprise attack. Within a month, the U.S. is forced to accept a $20 billion indemnity - thus Germany earns a $5 billion profit between the two conflicts. J. Bernard Walker, America Fallen, New York, Dodd, Mead & Co., 1915. One military reviewer wrote that "The author has made use of accurate information regarding our land forces to draw a vivid picture of possible consequences of our present unpreparedness for national defense.... The tragic events recited are supposed to take place on April 1, but granting only the element of surprise, there is no reason why they should not take place on any other day of the year." Infantry Journal, vol. XII, July-August 1915, pp. 163-165.
3. This somewhat fantasy planning essentially ceased in 1906 as the Admiralty Staff increasingly turned its attention to questions of a European conflict. See Carl-Axel Gemzell, Lund Studies in International History 4: Organization, Conflict, and Innovation: A Study of German Naval Strategic Planning, 1888-1940, Stockholm, Esselte Studium, 1973, pp. 70-73.
Benson and Daniels, on the other hand, believed that a threat existed against the U.S. coast that required keeping the fleet in reserve. They perceived a multidimensional threat that was not limited to the German submarine fleet (and Sims' assertions that Great Britain was near collapse strengthened their concern that the German High Seas Fleet would threaten the U.S. directly when Britain fell). They also looked with concern at the Japanese in the Pacific (following a 1912-1913 war scare in the Pacific) and at the possibility of a U.S.-U.K. confrontation following the war. The fear that the Allies might collapse (leaving the U.S. to face Germany and, perhaps, Japan alone) and the desire to achieve the shipbuilding goal of acquiring a Navy second to none both encouraged hesitation over modifications in the shipbuilding program. On 20 April 1917, the Navy's General Board met and presented its views on the question of whether to continue the capital ship building program. The Board thought it necessary to consider not only the present emergency but also the possibility of "a war resulting from the present one in which the United States may be confronted by Germany and Japan operating conjointly in the Atlantic and Pacific; it is also possible that we may have to meet these two powerful navies without allies to restrict the operations of the German fleet"1 Thus, Sims' requests for the rapid deployment of Navy assets to the British Isles and the realignment of U.S. shipbuilding efforts faced great resistance in Washington.
Despite the debates, however, the Navy was the only service prepared to make an immediate contribution to the war effort and it quickly started deploying forces to England. On 4 May 1917, the first flotilla of six destroyers reached the Irish coast. By 1 July, 28 of the 52 available U.S. destroyers were on station in Europe. At this point, deployments to England slowed. The Navy Department withheld dispatch of the remaining destroyers for a variety of reasons. While some were in need of repair, the primary concerns were hesitation over further dividing the battle fleet and demands for destroyers for patrols along the east coast.2 Sims vociferously argued for the deployment of all available ships to the Eastern Atlantic.
For months, the Navy Department and Sims battled via trans-Atlantic cable. President Wilson finally resolved the issue by supporting Sims' emphasis on the protection of merchant shipping in the area of the British Isles3 and, therefore, in favor of a shipbuilding program that emphasized vessels for the submarine war over continued expansion of the main battle line. This was never wholeheartedly adopted as Navy policy and while, at the height of the effort, some 370 ships were in Eastern Atlantic or Mediterranean waters, this was out of a total of over 1,500 Navy units and included less than 15 percent of Navy personnel.4 Adm Benson stated his war priorities in this manner:
3. As early as late summer 1917, as convoying eased the submarine crisis, the debate shifted to whether the USN should concentrate on protecting shipping to England or on protecting U.S. troop transports. As Captain William V. Pratt (USN) wrote, "The impelling reason of the British was protection to food and war supplies in transit. Our basic reason was protection to our own military forces in crossing the seas.... The most important future cross water operations" were those that would ensure "safe transportation of American troops to French soil." On this issue, Sims did not have his way, and the USN emphasis was placed upon safely transporting the U.S. Army to France. See: Mary Klachko, Admiral William Shepherd Benson: First Chief of Naval Operations, Annapolis, Naval Institute Press, 1987, p. 70-71; and, Dean C. Allard, "Anglo-American Naval Differences During World War I," Military Affairs, vol. XLIV, n. 2, April 1980, pp. 76-77.
4. Elting E. Morison, Admiral Sims and the Modern American Navy, New York, Russell & Russell, 1942, p. 369. The personnel figure is potentially misleading. The percentage of the Navy's manpower in training camps, assigned to transports and cargo ships carrying troops to Europe, and manning the fleet's battleships (few of which were deployed to the Eastern Atlantic) must have been enormous.
My first thought in the beginning, during, and always, was to see first that our coasts and our own vessels and our own interests were safeguarded. Then ... to give everything we had... for the common cause.1
In May 1918, the long-dreaded U-boat activity in the Western Atlantic began as U-151, the first of seven U-boats to operate off the east coast, arrived in its area of operations.2 This submarine, a converted mercantile submarine, cut telegraph cables, laid mines, and attacked shipping both on the surface (with gunfire, and by boarding and sinking with demolitions) and submerged (with torpedoes). After U-151's minefields, laid off Baltimore, "claimed their first victims ... a wild panic ensued on shore. German U-boats were reported everywhere, ships were hurriedly recalled to harbor by their owners, freight rates began to rise, and marine insurance premiums soared."3 The other U-boats to operate off the U.S. coast used the same techniques. An unusual twist was added near the end of August. A fishing boat, Triumph, was captured and used to attack other fishing boats near the Grand Banks.4
U-151's activities and those of the six other U-boats that deployed to the Western Atlantic came with very accurate prior warning from Adm. Sims in England, who erred, for example, by one day as to the arrival of U-151 off the east coast.5 Sims was well aware of the potential psychological dangers of the coming U-boat campaign and feared that undue pressure would be brought to bear to keep antisubmarine ships on the east coast
There is no doubt in our minds over here, that what [the enemy] seeks to do is to produce a moral and political effect, and that as the result of these effects, he can induce the Allies to disintegrate their [anti] submarine forces.
For example, if by sending one submarine to America to plant the few mines he can carry, or to sink the few ships that he can sink, he can through the influence of his presence upon public opinion, force our Government to keep a large number of destroyers on the other side or in any service not connected with the real antisubmarine campaign, he will have succeeded admirably in his objective.
Of course I understand something about the effect of public opinion, but this public opinion must necessarily be an ignorant opinion viewed from a military standpoint. It would therefore seem that it was up to us to instruct this opinion so as to prevent the effect the enemy wishes to produce... This should not be difficult, as the question [explaining the purpose of the cruising submarines to the public] is one of marked simplicity.6
The seven German U-boats had great success. With the loss of just one submarine, over 150,000 tons of shipping were sunk in the Western Atlantic. Losses included the sinking of USS San Diego, an armored cruiser, and damage to the battleship USS Minnesota. Large numbers of U.S. Navy ships were active in the Western Atlantic to deal with this seven-submarine threat. In terms of the U.S. capability to wage war, however, the U-boat campaign itself had little effect. Just one ship involved in convoy operations was sunk, the British steamer Dvinsk, which was empty en route to Newport News for troops.1 The Navy Department's postwar study of the submarine offensive concluded that:
The German campaign, by means of submarines on the Atlantic coast of the United States, so far as concerned the major operations of the war, was a failure. Every transport and cargo vessel bound for Europe sailed as if no such campaign was in progress. All coastwise shipping sailed as per schedule, a little more care in routing vessels being observed. There was no interruption to the coast patrol which, on the contrary, became more active. The small vessels ... scoured the coast regardless of the fact that the enemy submarines were equipped with ordnance very much heavier than their own. There was no stampede on the Atlantic coast; no excitement; everything went on in the usual calm way and, above all, this enemy expedition off the Atlantic coast did not succeed in retaining on the Atlantic coast any vessels that had been designated for duty in European waters.2
2. For a discussion of the German debate over whether or not to operate submarines off the U.S. coast, see: Holger H. Herwig and David F. Trask, "The Failure of Imperial Germany's Undersea Offensive Against World Shipping, February 1917 - October 1918," The Historian, vol. XXXIII, n. 4, August 1971, pp. 613, 617-623, 626. The Kaiser hesitated over deploying submarines to the Western Atlantic, hoping to avoid arousing "the less militant regions of the United States" and, thus, that pacifist elements in the United States might weaken the U.S. war effort.
4. Gibson and Prendergast, German Submarine War, pp. 309-310. The Triumph, as a German corsair, was responsible for the sinking of at least ten fishing vessels in the last weeks of August.
It is true that the German submarine campaign off the east coast did not force a redeployment of U.S. Navy assets from Europe back to the U.S. However, prior to the U-boats' arrival, the fears of such a campaign had already contributed to the Navy's restraint for the year that the U.S. had been in the war. While the restriction on the U.S. Navy's activities and hesitation in modifying its building program reflected concerns in much of the populace, it resulted from a debate and concerns within the Navy itself rather than pressure from the civilian community. In examining the record, it is difficult to separate the military decision process from the atmosphere in which the decisions were made. It seems, however, that the debate over how best to utilize the Navy and what force to construct for the war centered on differing naval perspectives of the war and its imperatives rather than from undue or uninformed pressure on the Navy's leadership.
Wartime Diversion of U.S. Navy Forces in Response to Public Demands for Augmented Coastal Defense by Adam B. Siegel, Center for Naval Analysis, Professional Paper 472 / November 1989.
WORLD WAR I
At the beginning of America's involvement in World War I, two months after the German resumption of unrestricted submarine warfare on 1 February 1917, a debate over the proper role of the U.S. fleet occurred between various parts of the naval leadership. Simply put, RAdm. William S. Sims, commander of U.S. Navy Forces Operating in European Waters, believed that the United States should move its forces, especially escort and mining forces, to English waters as rapidly as possible. Sims believed that the greatest threat facing the Allies, and thus the U.S., was the German submarine campaign against shipping in the Eastern Atlantic. The Secretary of the Navy, Josephus Daniels, and Chief of Naval Operations, Adm. William S. Benson, believed that the main elements of the fleet, including most ships suitable for convoy escort operations, should remain in the Western Atlantic to protect the U.S. coast against a threat from German submarines and, potentially, Germany's High Seas Fleet. In addition, some officers feared that deploying the fleet overseas would risk it at the far end of an uncertain supply line (in light of the U-boat threat). An additional element of this discussion focused on the substantial ongoing naval shipbuilding program. Sims argued that the building of capital ships should be halted so that the ship yards could concentrate on construction that would aid in the antisubmarine war. Benson, on the other hand, believed that this would put at risk long-term U.S. interests, especially in the event of a British collapse and a concentration of the German, Japanese, and, potentially, surrendered British navies against the U.S. coast. This debate waxed and waned, but after several months President Wilson made the decision to focus on escort operations in the Eastern Atlantic.
The ability of German submarines to operate in the Western Atlantic had been demonstrated before the U.S. entry into the war. In 1916, two German submarines crossed the Atlantic and raised the specter that the U.S. coast might be vulnerable to German submarines. (U-boats did not start actual war patrols off the coast until a year after the U.S. entry into the war.) One of these U-boats, Deutschland, an unarmed "mercantile" submarine, ran the Allied blockade and entered east coast ports twice that year.1 The other, U-53, made a one-day courtesy port call in Newport on 7 October 1916 following a rough trans-Atlantic passage. The U-53 was tasked with attacking Royal Navy ships (which it did not encounter) that were patrolling for Deutschland. The day following the port call, U-53 attacked and sank five non-U.S. merchant ships in international waters off the U.S. coast
The public reaction to these five sinkings was enormous. A significant stock market fall and a jump in shipping insurance rates followed the U-53 attacks. RAdm. Bradley A. Fiske warned that "U-53 has shown us how accessible our shores are to Europe.... If U-53 got as far as the vicinity of Newport undetected, she could have gone into the harbor itself undetected, and could have sunk one or more of our battleships without our even knowing the cause of their sinking.... If one submarine could come across, a fleet could do the same." Fiske argued that, in case of war, the U.S. fleet would be required to stay on the east coast to prevent the imposition of a blockade.1
1. After avoiding Royal Navy ships sent to intercept her, the Deutschland arrived in Baltimore, MD, on 9 July 1916 with a cargo of dyes, mail, and precious stones. The Deutschland was unarmed; and, after inspection, it was recognized as a merchant-vessel by the U.S. government. On 2 August, she departed for Bremen (arrived 24 August) with a cargo of zinc, copper, and nickel. The second voyage occurred in October/November, when the Deutschland visited New London. A second mercantile submarine, the Bremen, also sailed for the U.S., but it never arrived. Following her second voyage, the Germans modified Deutschland and her sister ships (there were a total of seven built or building, plus two long-range submarines designed from the keel up as war vessels) to carry torpedoes. (See: R.H. Gibson and Maurice Prendergast, The German Submarine War, London, Constable & Co., 1931, pp. 103-104, 111; Edwyn Gray, The Killing Time, New York, Charles Scribner's Sons, 1972, pp. 150-151, 225; and Dwight R. Messimer, The Merchant U-Boat, Annapolis, Naval Institute Press, 1988.)
Public (and military) fears were not limited to a submarine campaign. One popular work of the war years prior to the U.S. entry into the war, America Fallen, postulated a German invasion of the United States following a negotiated settlement in Europe in 1916.2 While somewhat farfetched, this scenario was not totally unrelated to scenarios that had been examined in more serious fora. In the early 1890s, following German-American tension over Samoa, the German admiralty began to examine options for a conflict against the U.S. An 1899 plan called for a surprise assault on New York, while a January 1902 plan called for the seizure of Puerto Rico as an operating base for operations against the U.S. coast.3
In 1903, Proceedings republished with commentary an article from Scientific American on the path of a naval war between Germany and the U.S. as it had unfolded during one war game society's utilization of the "Jane Naval War Game." While the game ended in the U.S. side "winning," victory came at the cost of 60 percent of U.S. commerce, the destruction of 40 percent of U.S. coastal property and the weakening of the U.S. Navy.4 While these may have been considered unlikely scenarios, that the Germans might be capable of exerting force directly against the United States was of concern to the U.S. military leadership. In fact, the primary U.S. Navy planning for a war against Germany, Plan Black, focused on the probability of a major naval engagement on the high seas between the two nations' fleets.5
Thus, at the beginning of the war, these prewar concerns and the fears elucidated by Fiske and others were paramount in the thinking of many in the Navy Department. Sims, secretly sent to England just prior to the U.S. entry into the war, called for an immediate and total U.S. commitment to the ASW battle in the convoy approaches in the Eastern Atlantic because Britain seemed to be on the verge of being forced out of the war as a result of the merchant shipping losses to German submarines. And, with longer lasting implications, Sims argued that the entire U.S. shipbuilding effort should be focused on two types of shipping - destroyers and other ASW-capable vessels, and merchant ships to replace the heavy allied losses - and that the substantial U.S. production of major fleet units should be halted for the duration of the ASW emergency.
1. Rear Adm. B.A. Fiske (USN), "What the Visit of the U-53 Portends to the United States," USNI Proceedings, n. 6, 1916, pp. 2038-2039. At the time of the U-53 visit to Newport, Fiske was finishing his last tour of duty with an assignment to the Naval War College.
2. The book outlines this scenario: Germany negotiates peace with a large indemnity ($15 billion) to Britain and France, but does not destroy any forces. Germany purchases St. Thomas from Denmark and deploys her fleet to the Caribbean. On 1 April, the day after the U.S. learns of the St Thomas purchase, German troops land in Boston and New York, and the German Navy cripples the U.S. Navy through a surprise attack. Within a month, the U.S. is forced to accept a $20 billion indemnity - thus Germany earns a $5 billion profit between the two conflicts. J. Bernard Walker, America Fallen, New York, Dodd, Mead & Co., 1915. One military reviewer wrote that "The author has made use of accurate information regarding our land forces to draw a vivid picture of possible consequences of our present unpreparedness for national defense.... The tragic events recited are supposed to take place on April 1, but granting only the element of surprise, there is no reason why they should not take place on any other day of the year." Infantry Journal, vol. XII, July-August 1915, pp. 163-165.
3. This somewhat fantasy planning essentially ceased in 1906 as the Admiralty Staff increasingly turned its attention to questions of a European conflict. See Carl-Axel Gemzell, Lund Studies in International History 4: Organization, Conflict, and Innovation: A Study of German Naval Strategic Planning, 1888-1940, Stockholm, Esselte Studium, 1973, pp. 70-73.
Benson and Daniels, on the other hand, believed that a threat existed against the U.S. coast that required keeping the fleet in reserve. They perceived a multidimensional threat that was not limited to the German submarine fleet (and Sims' assertions that Great Britain was near collapse strengthened their concern that the German High Seas Fleet would threaten the U.S. directly when Britain fell). They also looked with concern at the Japanese in the Pacific (following a 1912-1913 war scare in the Pacific) and at the possibility of a U.S.-U.K. confrontation following the war. The fear that the Allies might collapse (leaving the U.S. to face Germany and, perhaps, Japan alone) and the desire to achieve the shipbuilding goal of acquiring a Navy second to none both encouraged hesitation over modifications in the shipbuilding program. On 20 April 1917, the Navy's General Board met and presented its views on the question of whether to continue the capital ship building program. The Board thought it necessary to consider not only the present emergency but also the possibility of "a war resulting from the present one in which the United States may be confronted by Germany and Japan operating conjointly in the Atlantic and Pacific; it is also possible that we may have to meet these two powerful navies without allies to restrict the operations of the German fleet"1 Thus, Sims' requests for the rapid deployment of Navy assets to the British Isles and the realignment of U.S. shipbuilding efforts faced great resistance in Washington.
Despite the debates, however, the Navy was the only service prepared to make an immediate contribution to the war effort and it quickly started deploying forces to England. On 4 May 1917, the first flotilla of six destroyers reached the Irish coast. By 1 July, 28 of the 52 available U.S. destroyers were on station in Europe. At this point, deployments to England slowed. The Navy Department withheld dispatch of the remaining destroyers for a variety of reasons. While some were in need of repair, the primary concerns were hesitation over further dividing the battle fleet and demands for destroyers for patrols along the east coast.2 Sims vociferously argued for the deployment of all available ships to the Eastern Atlantic.
For months, the Navy Department and Sims battled via trans-Atlantic cable. President Wilson finally resolved the issue by supporting Sims' emphasis on the protection of merchant shipping in the area of the British Isles3 and, therefore, in favor of a shipbuilding program that emphasized vessels for the submarine war over continued expansion of the main battle line. This was never wholeheartedly adopted as Navy policy and while, at the height of the effort, some 370 ships were in Eastern Atlantic or Mediterranean waters, this was out of a total of over 1,500 Navy units and included less than 15 percent of Navy personnel.4 Adm Benson stated his war priorities in this manner:
3. As early as late summer 1917, as convoying eased the submarine crisis, the debate shifted to whether the USN should concentrate on protecting shipping to England or on protecting U.S. troop transports. As Captain William V. Pratt (USN) wrote, "The impelling reason of the British was protection to food and war supplies in transit. Our basic reason was protection to our own military forces in crossing the seas.... The most important future cross water operations" were those that would ensure "safe transportation of American troops to French soil." On this issue, Sims did not have his way, and the USN emphasis was placed upon safely transporting the U.S. Army to France. See: Mary Klachko, Admiral William Shepherd Benson: First Chief of Naval Operations, Annapolis, Naval Institute Press, 1987, p. 70-71; and, Dean C. Allard, "Anglo-American Naval Differences During World War I," Military Affairs, vol. XLIV, n. 2, April 1980, pp. 76-77.
4. Elting E. Morison, Admiral Sims and the Modern American Navy, New York, Russell & Russell, 1942, p. 369. The personnel figure is potentially misleading. The percentage of the Navy's manpower in training camps, assigned to transports and cargo ships carrying troops to Europe, and manning the fleet's battleships (few of which were deployed to the Eastern Atlantic) must have been enormous.
My first thought in the beginning, during, and always, was to see first that our coasts and our own vessels and our own interests were safeguarded. Then ... to give everything we had... for the common cause.1
In May 1918, the long-dreaded U-boat activity in the Western Atlantic began as U-151, the first of seven U-boats to operate off the east coast, arrived in its area of operations.2 This submarine, a converted mercantile submarine, cut telegraph cables, laid mines, and attacked shipping both on the surface (with gunfire, and by boarding and sinking with demolitions) and submerged (with torpedoes). After U-151's minefields, laid off Baltimore, "claimed their first victims ... a wild panic ensued on shore. German U-boats were reported everywhere, ships were hurriedly recalled to harbor by their owners, freight rates began to rise, and marine insurance premiums soared."3 The other U-boats to operate off the U.S. coast used the same techniques. An unusual twist was added near the end of August. A fishing boat, Triumph, was captured and used to attack other fishing boats near the Grand Banks.4
U-151's activities and those of the six other U-boats that deployed to the Western Atlantic came with very accurate prior warning from Adm. Sims in England, who erred, for example, by one day as to the arrival of U-151 off the east coast.5 Sims was well aware of the potential psychological dangers of the coming U-boat campaign and feared that undue pressure would be brought to bear to keep antisubmarine ships on the east coast
There is no doubt in our minds over here, that what [the enemy] seeks to do is to produce a moral and political effect, and that as the result of these effects, he can induce the Allies to disintegrate their [anti] submarine forces.
For example, if by sending one submarine to America to plant the few mines he can carry, or to sink the few ships that he can sink, he can through the influence of his presence upon public opinion, force our Government to keep a large number of destroyers on the other side or in any service not connected with the real antisubmarine campaign, he will have succeeded admirably in his objective.
Of course I understand something about the effect of public opinion, but this public opinion must necessarily be an ignorant opinion viewed from a military standpoint. It would therefore seem that it was up to us to instruct this opinion so as to prevent the effect the enemy wishes to produce... This should not be difficult, as the question [explaining the purpose of the cruising submarines to the public] is one of marked simplicity.6
The seven German U-boats had great success. With the loss of just one submarine, over 150,000 tons of shipping were sunk in the Western Atlantic. Losses included the sinking of USS San Diego, an armored cruiser, and damage to the battleship USS Minnesota. Large numbers of U.S. Navy ships were active in the Western Atlantic to deal with this seven-submarine threat. In terms of the U.S. capability to wage war, however, the U-boat campaign itself had little effect. Just one ship involved in convoy operations was sunk, the British steamer Dvinsk, which was empty en route to Newport News for troops.1 The Navy Department's postwar study of the submarine offensive concluded that:
The German campaign, by means of submarines on the Atlantic coast of the United States, so far as concerned the major operations of the war, was a failure. Every transport and cargo vessel bound for Europe sailed as if no such campaign was in progress. All coastwise shipping sailed as per schedule, a little more care in routing vessels being observed. There was no interruption to the coast patrol which, on the contrary, became more active. The small vessels ... scoured the coast regardless of the fact that the enemy submarines were equipped with ordnance very much heavier than their own. There was no stampede on the Atlantic coast; no excitement; everything went on in the usual calm way and, above all, this enemy expedition off the Atlantic coast did not succeed in retaining on the Atlantic coast any vessels that had been designated for duty in European waters.2
2. For a discussion of the German debate over whether or not to operate submarines off the U.S. coast, see: Holger H. Herwig and David F. Trask, "The Failure of Imperial Germany's Undersea Offensive Against World Shipping, February 1917 - October 1918," The Historian, vol. XXXIII, n. 4, August 1971, pp. 613, 617-623, 626. The Kaiser hesitated over deploying submarines to the Western Atlantic, hoping to avoid arousing "the less militant regions of the United States" and, thus, that pacifist elements in the United States might weaken the U.S. war effort.
4. Gibson and Prendergast, German Submarine War, pp. 309-310. The Triumph, as a German corsair, was responsible for the sinking of at least ten fishing vessels in the last weeks of August.
It is true that the German submarine campaign off the east coast did not force a redeployment of U.S. Navy assets from Europe back to the U.S. However, prior to the U-boats' arrival, the fears of such a campaign had already contributed to the Navy's restraint for the year that the U.S. had been in the war. While the restriction on the U.S. Navy's activities and hesitation in modifying its building program reflected concerns in much of the populace, it resulted from a debate and concerns within the Navy itself rather than pressure from the civilian community. In examining the record, it is difficult to separate the military decision process from the atmosphere in which the decisions were made. It seems, however, that the debate over how best to utilize the Navy and what force to construct for the war centered on differing naval perspectives of the war and its imperatives rather than from undue or uninformed pressure on the Navy's leadership.
Wartime Diversion of U.S. Navy Forces in Response to Public Demands for Augmented Coastal Defense by Adam B. Siegel, Center for Naval Analysis, Professional Paper 472 / November 1989.