Our Navy at war

WHEN THE WAR CALL CAME

NEWS FLASHED TO SHIPS AND STATIONS FIVE MINUTES AFTER PRESIDENT SIGNED DECLARATION--ENTIRE NAVY MOBILIZED AT ONCE--FLEET, ON WAR BASIS SINCE BREAK WITH GERMANY, WAS AT YORKTOWN--"IN BEST STATE OF PREPAREDNESS IT HAD EVER BEEN," ADMIRAL MAYO SAID--OFFICERS AND MEN EAGER FOR ACTION.

Five minutes after President Wilson signed the war resolution passed by Congress April 6, 1917, the Navy's radio operators were flashing this message to every ship and station:

Sixteen Alnav. The President has signed act of Congress which declares a state of war exists between the United States and Germany. Acknowledge. 131106.

SECNAV.

That dispatch had been prepared hours before. Radio and telegraph operators were at their keys waiting for the word to "let it go." Lieutenant Commander Byron McCandless, my naval aide, was waiting in the executive office at the White House. Lieutenant Commander Royal Ingersoll was stationed at the Navy Department, across the street, watching for the signal. The moment the President appended his signature, McCandless rushed out and wigwagged that the resolution had been signed. Ingersoll dashed down the corridor to the Communication office, and ordered the operators to start the "alnav" (all navy) dispatch.

Flashed from the towers at Arlington, in a few minutes it was received by the Atlantic and Pacific fleets, by vessels and stations all along the coast. By radio, telegraph and cable, the message was carried to Panama, across the Pacific to Honolulu, the Philippines, to the vessels on the Asiatic station. By the time the newspaper "extras" were on the street, the naval forces had received notice that we were at war.

The fleet was mobilized that afternoon by the following telegram to the five flagships:

_U. S. S. Pennsylvania_ _U. S. S. Minnesota_ _U. S. S. Seattle_ _U. S. S. Columbia_ _U. S. S. Vestal_

Flag Sigcode. Mobilize for war in accordance Department's confidential mobilization plan of March 21. Particular attention invited paragraphs six and eight. Acknowledge.

JOSEPHUS DANIELS.

[Paragraph 6 assigned the rendezvous of the various forces, and paragraph 8 contained instructions with regard to vessels fitting out at navy yards.]

When this message was received by the Atlantic Fleet, at 1:33 p. m., Admiral Henry T. Mayo, Commander-in-Chief, hoisted on his flagship, the _Pennsylvania_, the signal, "War has commenced." At 5:50 o'clock he received the mobilization order, for which officers and vessels were so well prepared that Admiral Mayo said he did not have to "give a single order of any kind or description to pass the Fleet from a peace to a war basis." The entire Navy--Department, Fleet, yards and stations--was on a war footing within a few hours after war was declared. Complete instructions and plans, brought up to date, had been issued two weeks previous, and mobilization was completed without an hour's delay.

The Fleet was at its secret rendezvous "Base 2," to which it had sailed from Hampton Roads on April 3, the day after President Wilson delivered his war message to Congress. "Base 2" was Yorktown, Va., one of the most historic spots in America, and our battleships were in sight of the place where Cornwallis surrendered to George Washington. They rode at anchor in the waters where the timely arrival of De Grasse's ships assured the success of the war for American independence.

In those waters, first made historic in naval annals by the presence of the French ships sent to aid the struggling colonists in the crucial days of 1781, the American Navy was making ready to repay that invaluable assistance--to send its vessels to the beleaguered French coast, both to safeguard the vast army America would send to France and to drive back the onrushing enemies that threatened its life. In 1917 the York and the Chesapeake were again the rendezvous of fighting men of the same mettle as those of 1781, who were to strengthen by united service and common sacrifice in the World War the bonds of friendship between France and America that had been forged more than a century before.

And those who fought each other then were comrades now. "Old wars forgot," Great Britain and France for years had held the lines, and America was taking its place beside them, throwing all its power and strength with them against the common foe. From Yorktown went the first United States forces, ordered overseas just after war began. Sent to England's aid, to serve with the British forces, their arrival was hailed as the beginning of a new era in the relations of the nations--the "Return of the Mayflower." And later went huge dreadnaughts to the North Sea, joining the Grand Fleet in the mightiest aggregation of naval power the world has ever seen.

That is a wonderful harbor, there in the York River, with water deep enough for the largest battleship, and broad enough to accommodate a whole fleet. With defenses at the entrance to Chesapeake Bay, and nets, mines and patrol across York River, no submarine could ever hope to penetrate to this safe haven.

"When the active fleet arrived in Hampton Roads about the 1st of April, after its training period in Cuban waters, it was in the best state of preparedness that it had ever been," said Admiral Mayo, "and there was a feeling of confidence in the personnel of being able to cope with any emergency."

"At the end of March, 1917, when we were on the verge of entry into the war," said Rear Admiral Charles P. Plunkett, Director of Gunnery Exercises, "the gunnery was in the highest state of efficiency that it has been in the history of the American Navy."

When the break with Germany came the fleet was in Cuban waters, engaged in target practice, engineering exercises, and battle maneuvers. This intensive training had been going on under regular schedule for more than two years. Every man in the fleet, from the Commander-in-Chief to the youngest recruit, felt in his bones that the maneuvers that spring were a real preparation for war. Eager to get a chance at the Germans, confident that they could defeat any force of similar strength and tonnage afloat; they were just waiting for the word "Go!"

Is there such a thing as mental telepathy! Would you call it that or a mere coincidence, if the same thought at almost the same moment came to the Admiral of the Fleet at Guantanamo and to the Chief of Naval Operations in Washington? That is exactly what occurred on February 4, 1917. And the two dispatches stating the same conclusions in regard to moving the fleet were en route at the same time.

At 3:59 o'clock that afternoon Admiral Mayo sent this message from his flagship at Guantanamo:

Unless instructions are received to the contrary, propose to shift fleet base to Gulf of Guacanayabo after spotting practice February 5th; then proceed with schedule of all gunnery exercises.

Before that message reached Washington, in fact in less than ten minutes after it was handed to the operator in Cuba, the following to Admiral Mayo from Admiral William S. Benson, Chief of Operations, was being sent from the Department:

Position of fleet well known to everybody. If considered advisable on account of submarines, shift base to Gulf of Guacanayabo or elsewhere at discretion. Inform Department confidentially.

The first duty was protection of the Fleet from submarine attack. Four months before the U-53 had called at Newport, and sallying forth, had sunk British vessels just off our coast. On January 16th a Japanese steamer, the _Hudson Maru_, captured by Germans, a prize crew placed on board, had put into Pernambuco with 287 survivors from half a dozen vessels sunk by a German raider. That raider, as was learned later, was the famous _Moewe_, which captured twenty-six vessels, sinking all except the _Hudson Maru_ and the _Yarrowdale_, which carried several hundred prisoners to Germany, among them fifty-nine American sailors.

The Germans could easily send their U-boats across the Atlantic. There was a possibility that they might strike quickly without warning. Naval strategists do not yet understand why Germany did not make an immediate dash against our coasts in the spring of 1917, instead of waiting until 1918. Allied and American officers alike expected the submarines to extend their operations to this side of the Atlantic when this country entered the war. It was necessary to provide for the fleet a rendezvous with which the Germans were not familiar, one easily defended, where battleships could carry on their work free from attack until the time came to bring them into action. But why Guacanayabo?

Though you would hardly notice it on the average map, the Gulf of Guacanayabo is a sizeable body of water, extending in a sort of semicircle some seventy miles, the broadest part about fifteen miles wide. On the southern coast of Cuba, it extends from Santa Cruz del Sur to below Manzanillo, nearly to Cape Cruz. With plenty of deep water inside, once the main channel is closed, only a navigator familiar with the turnings and depths can navigate safely through the other channels, for the Gulf is surrounded by a chain of islands, with many shoals. Difficult for submarines to negotiate submerged, it is easily defended against them.

When Admiral Mayo had placed his ships in this landlocked harbor, shut the door and turned the key, they were as safe as my lady's jewels in a safety deposit vault. At Guacanayabo the fleet continued its work, going out to sea for battle practice and long-range gunnery in the daytime, returning at night to conduct night firing with the secondary batteries, torpedo attack, and other exercises. There was even room in the G