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Show .Allied Methods of Convoying Vessels Described by Sims Elaborate System of Protecting Alerchant Ships and Convoys From Submarine Attacks Worked Out by Navies of America and Great Britain. By ADMIRAL WILLIAM SOWDEN SIMS. (Copyright, 1D19. hy thft World's Work. Tim cjpyr.ght o! ihr.-r; ar lidos in Gruat Hri!;j .n i.i m( rir-tiy ru.-'-rvcl by J Vu-s.jri'a M;iiZino, London. WiihouL their pir-tnifi:iioii, pir-tnifi:iioii, no i uoLaLi'-n liny be made. I'ub-li:.h'd I'ub-li:.h'd by fijitcial ai ramnm-nt with the .MoCiuro Newspaper s ndiijate.) THE admire lty in London v ;is the central norvoua ay stem ot' a com-i com-i 1 1 ca t e d , but p e r f oc 1 1 y working, organ i:ivi which reai:hod the ro-niotr;at ro-niotr;at corners ot tho v. orld. AVhorevei tliero was a port, whetln r in South Ajnerica, Australia, or in the iivjs'l inaccessible partd ot India or China, from which merchantman sailed to any of tho other countries involved in the war, rep-resntativea rep-resntativea of the linusli nuvy and 'tho lirit inn govern mtiiit. were stationed, all working harmoniously w'ith yh.ppniK men to gut their cargoes saiVly through tlie danger zonc-s. TiKse dantaT zones ocni-pied ocni-pied a comparatively small area surrounding sur-rounding the belligerent countries, but the safeguarding of the ships was an elaborate process which boga w far back iu tho countries from which the commerce com-merce started. Until about July, 1317, the world's ship-pint? ship-pint? for the most part had been unregulated; unregu-lated; now for the first, time it was arranged ar-ranged in hard and fust routes and dispatched dis-patched in accordance with schedules as fixed aa those of a great railroad. The whole management, of convoys, indeed, bore manv resemblances to the method of handling freight cars on the American Mvstem of transcontinental lines. In the United States tlu-.re are several great headquarters of freight, sometimes known as "gatewavs." places, that is, at which freight cars are assembled from a thousand thou-sand places, and from which the great accumulations are routed to their destinations. desti-nations. Such places are Pittsburg, Buffalo, St. Louis, Chicago, Minneapolis, Denver, San Francisco to mention only a. few. , Shipping destined for the . belligerent nations was sim.larly assembled, in the years 1917 and .ID IS, at six or e.ght great, ocean "gateways," and there formed into convovs for "through routing" to the British Isles, France and tho Mediterranean. Mediter-ranean. Onlv a few of tho ships tnat were exceptionally fast speed in itslt being a particularly efficacious protection against submarines were permitted to ignore this routing system, and dash unprotected un-protected through tho infested area. Vessels Required to Sail Under Convoy. This was a somewhat dangerous procedure pro-cedure even for such ships, however, and thev were escorted whenever destroyers destroy-ers 'were available. All other vessels, from whatever parts of the world they came, were required to sail first for one of these great assembling points, or "gateways," at which place they were added to one of the constantly forming convoys. Thus all shipping which normally nor-mally sailed to Europe around the Cape of Good Hope proceeded up the west coaot of Africa until it reached the port of Dakar or Sierra Leone, where it Joined tho convov. Shipping from the east coast of South Americaports like? PJo de Ja-no'ro Ja-no'ro Bahia, Buenos Aires, and Montevideo Monte-video instead of sailing directly to Europe, Eu-rope, joined the convoy at this same African Af-rican town. . Vessels which came to Britain and France by wav of Suez and Mediterranean Mediterran-ean ports, found their great stopping place at Gibraltar a headquarters of traffic which, in the huge amount of freight which it "created," became almost al-most the Pittsburg of this mammoth transoortation svsiem. The four "gateways'"' "gate-ways'"' for Xorth America and the west coast of South America were Sydney (Cape BretorO. Halifax, New York, and Hamoton Roads. The grain-laden merchantmen mer-chantmen from the St. Lawrence valley rendezvoused at Sydney and Halifax. Vessels from Portland Boston, New York, Philadelphia and other Atlantic coast Doints, found their assembling headquarters at New York, while ships from Baltimore, Norfolk, the Gulf of Mexico Mex-ico and the west coast of South America proceeded to the great convoy center which had been established at Hampton Roads. Skips Leave Port on Regular Schedules. Tn the convoy room of the admiralty these aggregations of ships were always referred to as the "Dakar convoy," the "Halifax convoy," the "Hampton Roads convov," and the like. When the system was completely established the convoys sailed from their appointed headquarters on regular schedules, like railroad trains. From New York one convoy departed everv sixteen days for the west coast of England and one left every sixteen days for the east coast From Hampton Roads one sailed every eight days to the west I coast and one every eight days to the east coast, and convoys from all the other convoy points maintained a similarly, rigid schedule. The dates upon which these sailings took place were fixed, like the arrivals and departures of trains upon a railroad time-table, except when it became necessary neces-sary to delay the sailing of a convoy to avoid congestion of arrivals. According to this program, tho first convoy to the west coast left New York on August 14, 1917, and its successor thereafter sailed at intervals of about sixteen days. Tho instructions sent to shipmasters all over the world, by way of the British consulates, consu-lates, gave explicit details. Here, for example, was a ship at New York, all loaded and ready to sail for the war zone. The master visited the port officer at the Rri'ds.i consulate, who directed di-rected him to proceed to Gravesend Bay, anchor his vessel and report to the convey con-vey officers for further instructions. The merchant captain, reaching this indicated spot, usually found several ot her vessels on hand, all of them, like his ship, waiting wait-ing for the sailing date. Tho commander of the gathering convey, con-vey, under whose instructions all the mere 'nam men were to operate, was a naval officer, usually of tiie rank of commodore com-modore or capta n, who mainlined constant con-stant cable communication with the convoy con-voy room of the admiralty and usually used one of the commercial vessels as his fiagship. Merchantmen Travel in Large Groups. When the sailing day arrived there were usuaiiy from twenty to thirty merchantmen mer-chantmen a ssf-mb'.ed ; the commander summoned al! their masters, gava each a blue book comamirg ir;f ructions on the man irement of convoyed snips, and frequently fre-quently delivered s-me thing in the nature na-ture of a lecture. Before t.ie aggregation sailed it was joined i-y a cruiser or pre-dreadnougc pre-dreadnougc t bat tlesh ip of ' h America n navy, or by a British or French cruiser. This ship was to accompany tne convoy across tho Atlantic as far as tc.r- danger zone; its mission was not, a most people mistakenly believed, to pn ' the convoy con-voy from submarines, bu ' to protect It from any surface German r;i jdr that might have escaped into the high peas. Tne allied navies cons'antly had before their minds the exploits of the Em den ; the opportunity to break 1P a convoy in inidocean by daredevil entcrpns'-s of this kind vaa so tempting that It seemed al together likely that Germany might take advantage of It. To send twenty or thirty merchant ships across the Atla.ntic with no protection protec-tion against such assaults would have i;eu to invite a 'possible disaster. As a matter of fact , the last German raider that even attempted to gain the high seas was sunk in the North S-a by the British patrol squadron iu February. 1917. On the appointed day the whoie convoy con-voy v cighed anchor and siiently slipped out to sea. To such spectators as observed Its movements It seemed a ra i ;u-r limping, halting procession. The spued of a convoy was the speed of the slowest, ship, and vessels that could easily easi-ly make twelve or fourteen knots were obliged to put on the brake, much tcthe disgust of tneir masters, in order to keep formation with the ship that made only eighty or ten; though, whenever possible, vessels of nearly equal speed sailed together. to-gether. All Kinds of Craft in Same Aggregation. Little in the newly formed groups suggested sug-gested the majesty of the sea. The ships formed a miscellaneous and ill-assorted company, rusty train ps shamefacedly sailing alongside of spick-and-span liners; miserable little two or three thousand ton ships attempting to hold up their heads in the same company with sister ships of ten or twelve. The whole mass was sprawled over tho tea in most ungainly fashion ; twenty or thirty shLps. with spaces of nine hundred or a thousand yards stretching out between them, took up not far from ten square miles of the ocean's surface. Neither at this stage of the voyage did the aggregation give the idea of efficiency. effi-ciency. It presented about as desirable a target as the submarine could have desired. de-sired. But the period taken in crossing j the ocean was entirely devoted to educa-tion. educa-tion. Under the tutorship of the convoy j commander, the men composing the I twenty or thirty crews went every day to school. For fifteen or twenty days, upon the broad Atlantic, they were trained in all the evolutions which were necessary for coping with the submarine. Every possible situation that could arise in the danger zone was anticipated and the officers of-ficers and the crews wero trained in meeting it. They perfected themselves in the signal code; they learned the art of making the sudden maneuvers which were instantaneously instan-taneously necessary when a submarine was sighted; they acquired a mastery in the art of zigzagging, and they became accustomed to sailing at night without lights. The crews were put through all the drills which prepared them to meet such crises as the landing of a torpedo in their engine room or the sinking of the (Ship; and th,ey wero thoroughly schooled in getting all hands safely into the boats. Possibly an occasional scare on the way over may have Introduced the element of reality into these exercises; though no convoys actually met submarines in the open ocean, the likelihood that they might do so was never absent, especially after the Germans began sending out their huge underwater cruisers. Convoy Commanders Given Sealed Orders. The convoy commander left his port with sealed orders, which he was instructed in-structed not to open until he was a hundred hun-dred miles at sea. These orders, when the seal was broken, gave him the rendezvous assigned by the convoy board in London. Lon-don. Tho great chart in the convoy room at the admiralty indicated the point to which the convoy was to proceed and at which it would be met by the destroyer escorts and taken through the danger zone. This particular New York convoy commander was now perhaps instructed to cross the thirtieth meridian at the fifty-second parallel of latitude, where he would be met by his escort. He laid his course for that point and regulated his speed so as to reach it at the appointed ap-pointed time. But he well knew that these instructions instruc-tions were only temporary. The precise point to which he would finally be directed di-rected to sail depended upon the movement move-ment and location of the German submarines sub-marines at the time of his arrival. If the enemy became particularly active in the region of this tentative rendezvous, then, asthe convoy approached it, a wireless wire-less from London would instruct the commander com-mander to steer abruptly to another point, perhaps a hundred miles to the north or south. "Getting your convoy" was a searching test of destroyer seamanship, particularly particular-ly in heavy or thick weather. It was not the simplest thing to navigate a group of destroyers through the tempestuous waters wa-ters of the North Atlantic, with no other objective than tne junction point of meridians merid-ians and parallels, and reach the designated desig-nated point at a certain hour. Such a feat demanded navigation ability of a hign order; and the skill which our American Amer-ican naval officers displayed In this direction di-rection aroused great admiration, especially espe-cially on the part of the merchant skio-pers; skio-pers; in particular it aroused astonishment astonish-ment of the average doughbov. Manv destroyer escorts that went out to meet an Incoming convoy also took out one which was westward bound. Ships Are Furnished Escort Both Ways. ' A few mishaps in the course of the war, isuch as the sinking of the Justicia, sailing sail-ing from Europe to America, created the false notion that outward bound convoys were not escorted. It was just as desirable, desira-ble, of course, to escort the ships going out as to escort those which were coming in. The mere fact that he inbound ships carried troops and supplies gave stronger reasons, from the humane standpoint, for heavier escorts, but. not from tho standpoint stand-point of the general war situation. The Germans were not sinking our ships because be-cause they were carrying men and sun-plies; sun-plies; they were sinking them simply because be-cause they were ships. They were not seeking to destroy American troops and munitions exclusively; they were seeking to d-'Stray tonnage. They were aiming to reauee the world's supply of ships to such a point that the allies would be compelled to abandon the conflict for lack of communications. It was. therefore, necessary that they should sink empty ships, which were going go-ing out. as well as the crowded and loaded load-ed ships which were coming in. For the same reason it was necessary that we should protect them, and we did as far as practicable without causing undue delays de-lays in forming outward bound convoys. The Justicia. thougn most people stiii think that she was torpedoed because s:ie was unescorted, was. in fact, protected pro-tected by a destroyer es:ort of considerable consider-able size. Escorting outward bound ships increased in-creased considerately the strain on our destroyer force. Tiie difficulty was that the inbound convoy arrived in a bod v. but that the ships could not be unloaded and sent back in a body without d-tainim; a number of them an undue length of time and time wan such an important facto-in facto-in this war tiiat it was necessary to inak tne "turnaround" of each important trans port us quickly as possible. The consequence conse-quence was that returning ships were (Continued ou Following Page.) i (Coutieucd ;im:;i rrtvodms rasa.) ctlen disi a tciic.l in small convoys as fast as they u.-re unloaded. The escorts which wo were ahle to supi'lv lor such groups were thus iimc.l "eakcr !!,., aI..lnl(. sal'etv reuuired. and soiiieinr.es v.e were forced to send e-ses across the suhmarine .one with I';". It auv, escocinu; ware h i pa. This ex-p.ams ex-p.ams why ,vrta!n liome.vard hound ir.irxport were torp.Mood. 'Phis was par-l par-l v:j..tny true of lio.n, and munition con-W';,S.'J con-W';,S.'J 'eslorn ports of Vraneo. Omy when we eon ,1 assemhie a large ongoing . annoy and di-;gilcll it at such a ,11110 'hat it could nu-,.t an incoming one at tli.- weslern edge of Iho suhmarmo .'ono, con.-l wo tl-.eso vessels the same u.s'.royer escort as that which we anas gace tor toe loaded convoys bound lor I'.uropean ports. As s,,oii as ill,, rles'royers innde contact, con-tact, w:;h an inward bound eouvov. the ocean escort, the cruiser or pro-dreadnought 1 n American, a'.andoned It and n.ut'd lack home, sometimes with a '.-. annul convoy if one had been assented as-sented in time. Urilish escorts went ahead til il sneed inlo a liritlsh port usual usu-al v escorted by one or more destrovers. 1 n:s abandonment sometimes aroused the wral.i of the passengers on the inbound convoy Jneir prole. -tor had dropped Inem just us they had entered the submarine sub-marine zone, the verv moment its services ser-vices wore reallv needed! . Those passen-c;rs passen-c;rs did not understand, auv more than u.d the peonlo at liome. that the purpose 01 the ocean escort was. not to protect l.ieni from submarines, but from possible raiders. Inside the danger zomi this ocean escort would become part the convoy itselt and require protection from submarines, so that its rather suinmarv ueparture really mado the merchantmen more secure. Prepare to Fight on Entering Danger Zone. As iho convoy approached t ho danger zone, after boiner driiUxl all the way across t:ie ocean, its vfry appearance was I 'm taut ninl iHi.'-iceslike. Tin- !ipw ' U . ; r (:,..,.; up, lU'rpijilI utii- Si!'ii dls-! dls-! ;.ine'ri a 11 r 1 :i w.'i'e eSM-nrliil I'm' tpiie! j ir.a iif'.n I'rii:;:, and for a more rtm-pin-t , i'"rniu! iua. ( Jftaa-ally I ho eonvr.y w as ' I'TiiH d tn a Ioiut jiarallrhtwrani, t lm dls-! dls-! tan. e a. tosh the fnnt of wlreh was much : inn.T ilian Hie dunth or distance .iloutf j i lie sidos. 1 si!,i Uy t ho formal ion w;is a nunil-er of pmiius of four vessels each, in column or "Indian file," at a dismnee I "'f al'uul f:vo hundred yard from ah p to j shin, :md all groups abivast of eaclt oilier 1 and iil-imt one-half mile a!ari. 1 Tims a Ciuivoy of I went y -four vess.da, nr six i;ronps (if fmr, would have a width of ai. out five miles and a drptii of one. i Most of the destroyer's were mationed on I the narrow sidt-s, for tt was only on the s de, or the heam, that the huh marine) j could attack with much chance of suf-j suf-j cess, it was usually neeesaary for tv de- tsiroyer to lie stationed in iho rear of a1 j convoy, for, though t he speed of nearly j.i'I convoys was faster than that of a suhm;;riT!e when ih merged, tiie latter wii'i.- rii'iinicr on tiie surfaco could follow a cot voy at nit-rht with a fair ehnnro of torp.' hiim: a vessel at early daylight and 's :tp! o-.t to the rear tf tin ham pored Ivy t he pi -o.senee of a rear jfuard tifs' rover. T u ms generally lm pract I cnMo and dangerous dan-gerous for the suhmariim to wait ahead, schnierre, niul launch Its torpedo, as the convoy passe 1 over It. The e1'.tt to which merely mechanical d.-t ; t 1m protect ed merchant ships is not understood, and tiiis inability to attack sncc. 'ssfuliv from the front illustrates thla point. The submarine launches its tor-j tor-j pedoes fr.en tubes in the bow or stern; it i has no tubes on the beam. If it did pos-soss pos-soss such side tubes, it could lie in wait ahead and shoot its brondsldes at the convoy us it passed over the spot where It was concealed. Its U-n;li in that case would bo parallel paral-lel to that of the merchant ships, and thus It would have a comparatively small part of its area exposed to tho dimmer of rammimr. The mere fact that its torpedo tor-pedo tubes are placed in the how and stern makes it necessary for the suhma-j suhma-j rine, if it wishes to attack in the fashion I described, to turn almost at rlyht angles I to the course of the convoy, and to I maneuver into a favorable posit ion from which to d isehnrLre its m'ssile a procedure pro-cedure so altogether hazardous that it almost al-most never attempts it. Submarines Mast Fire From Dow or Stern. With certain reservations, which It is hardly necessary to explain in detail at tlvs point, it may he taken at least as a croneral rule that the sides of the convoy not only furnish the U-boats much the best chance to torpedo ships, but also i subjects them to the least danger; and tiiis is the reason why, in tiie recent war, tho destroyers were usually concentrated at these points. I have already compared the convoy system to a ur-at acre?:ii ion of railroads. rail-roads. This comparison holds good of its oprratit.u nfb't- If nt .-r.-rl the in- f'-i;.-i .one. Indi-rd, the vi-ry ter;nlno'o-:v of ';iir ralirniid nwn was ii.'d. Kv.vv convoy nearly follow. 'ii one of two main routes, known at eouvov leaduuii rt rs as the two "trutdc lines." "Tim trunk line whhdi reached tho west ooa -n. of Knr.land uHnnlly passe-l north of Ire and throuu'h tho North Cluinnel and down the Irlsli , Sra to Uverpoo!. lfndr cerralu conditions condi-tions ihes, convovB passed south of Ireland Ire-land and thence up tho Irish Sea. The 1 convoys to tho east coast took a trunk ! Ine that passed up the Ktmllsh channel, i IVaoth ally all shipping fnm the Tnit.-d 'States to Great Hriiain and France took I one ,..f tnese trunk lines. Uut, like our railroad systems, each of these main I routes had branch lines. Thus, shipping ! destined for French ports took the sou Hi - ern boute until off the entrance to the I Knllsh channel; hero it abandoned the main line find took a branch route to I Brest, Bordeaux, Nantes and other j French ports. In tiie channel likewise several "single track" branches went to I various English ports, such as PIvmouth. j Portsmouth. Sout hampton. and t lie like The whole i;l;r:intio enterprise flowed with , a precision and a rcrularitv, which, 1 think, it is hardly likelv that anv other transportation system lias ever achieved. Typical Experience Explains Methods. A description of a few actual convoys, and tiie experiences of our destroyers with them, will perhaps best make clear the nature of tho nv-chanism widen projected pro-jected tho world's shipping. For tins pur- pose I have selected typical Instances I which illustrate the everyday routine experiences ex-periences of escorting destroers, and n-hi r evprv!e. j,, which I heir work u i iion. sped .t.-ular. One diiy late in Octf.ber, 1!17. a llvision of Aiimrir.'in desiroy.'rs at (jueii.stowu received deiaiie.i Instructions hmit Admiral Ad-miral llavly to leave at a certain hour and escort I in; oui.wn rd convoy '') 11" .'i nd brine; into port the Inltound eon vov "IIS 1 4." These detailed inst ructions wen1 based upon funeral inst ruU lous Issued Is-sued from tho admiralty, where my staif was in constant attendance and coop-era coop-era t Ion. The svrnhois by which t her-e two Ki'oup. (f Miilpa were designated ci'ii be easilv Jnterprf'ted. The OQ simply meant that ennvtv "No. 17" the seventeen h which lia-1 left that port was outward hound from (Jueens-lown, (Jueens-lown, and the I IS signified t ha t convoy ''No. 1-1" wan hotntiward bound from Sidney, Sid-ney, Cape ireloi i. Qu enslnwn, dui itiK t ho first few moot lis, was one of those places at which ships, having discharged 'heir cargoes, assembled In groups for dispatchlmr back to the Fid led Kta'e;i. T -at er M ilford Maven. 1 (vet-poo), a nd other ports, were more often used for this purpose. Vessels had been arriving here for several days from ports of tht Irish Sea and tho east coast of i;n:;Ian l. These had now been formed into convoy "OQ 17"; they were ready for a destroyer escort to take them through (lie submarine subma-rine zowe and start them on the westward west-ward voya:;o tf) Ameri.-an ports. This escort consisted of eiht American dest rovers ami one liritlsh "special service ser-vice ship"; tho latter was one of that famous fa-mous company of decov vessels, or "mystery "mys-tery ships," which, though to all outward out-ward appearances they were unprotected merchantmen, rea'ly carried concealed armament ar-mament of sufficient power to destroy any submarine that came within ranije. This special service Fhip, the Aubrietla, wai iifiT-dlv a member of the protective e. -.,(. jei- mj.-lon was to hail about thirty miles ahead of tne convoy; v ben observed from tne periscope or tiie con-uiii:,' con-uiii:,' lower of a submarine, the Aubrietla KCMne.l to be merely a helplo.su merchantman merchant-man nailiiur .''lone, and as such .siio presented pre-sented a, particularly tempi iub tart to the U-boat. Germans Deceived by Mystery Ships. Fiit her i- 1 1 pnrpos-r in life was to he toipf lo.-ii. .f(.T laieiinK' its missile in a vc.'-s-Ts side, t ne mii h marine unually re-niain-d mifjiiit-rtfed for a period, while tin- crew or its victim wen gettine; oft" In boats; it then eamo 1 o the surface, and the men prepn i"'d to hoard t he disabled ship and search hrr for valuables and de n-acles, iiarti"ularly for in urination which would assist I hem in their cam-pai;;n. cam-pai;;n. such as secrnf codts, Baiiili(; instructions, in-structions, fi nd tho like. Tiie mystery ship had. been preparing for this moment and, as boon :m the sub-marlne sub-marlne broki: '.eater, tjie un ports of tun ilis-.;uised ne.-rcha nt ma n dronp'-d. and her hitherto conc-ah-d guns he-aii blazing away at the Gorman. Uv Octoler, F' 1 7, these sp.-eal sorvie. sliips lirjd already acc-ouuti d for several ui) marines ; nncl it hai now became a frecjuunt practic to attach one or more to a convoy, either ahead, where she micpht dispose of the submarine lying 'in wait for tiie approaching aggregation, or In the rear, where a U-boat might easliy mistake her for ono of those mrasu'lcrs which were an almost inevitable part of every convoy. Trawlers and mine sweepers, as was the invariable custom, spent several hours sweeping the Queen stown channel Ik foro Fe- t-uil'ng of comoy "' Q 17," and i t h oS'-ori. Prompriy at Fie appoiut- d tlmo tiie c.Urht Am. ricau hhips sail-d our. in "Indian lbe," passiu;; llirougii the- Jm (. ( which was always kepi in place, ti" entrance to tho harifjr. Their first duly j whh to putrol tho waterw outid ior ;l j radius of twelve mile.-;; it was uot im- I probable that tiio fjerinans, having ' learned that tills convoy was to nail, h':il stationed a t-'unniarino not far from tho j iiarhor entrance. Having finally satisfied himself that. J there were no lu-kin enemies in iho neighborhood, the commander of tiie de- 1 stroyer Fagnhip ignait-y to the merchant ships, which promptly left the harbor and J entered tho open sea. Tho weather way stormy; the wind was blowing something V of a gale and head seas w'-rc breaking 1 over the destroyers' decks. Jiut the con- voy uuickly maneuvered into three col- f. umiis, tiie destroyers rapidly closed j around them, and the whole group started for "Uetid.-zvoua A" this being the des- lunation of that spot on the ocean's sur- face where tno fourteenth meridian ot j Inngifude crossed tho forty-ninth paral- r ! 1 of latituoo a point In the Atlantic ; a bout threw hundred miles southwest of Q u e e n s to w n , re srard ed at that lime y s saftdy beyond the operating zone of ti. J h jh marine. Meanwhile the "mystery ) .ship." sailing far aiiead, fiitrapieared be- j neath the horizon. |