Through the Naval Communication Service full information as to convoys, rendezvous and other details were sent in code. Each ship's master, before sailing, was required to go to the routing office and receive written instructions as to the route to be followed and areas to be avoided. He was given all the latest submarine information and was told of the signals and the location of each "speaking station."
THE GUN-CREW OF THE LUCKENBACH HAS A FOUR-HOUR FIGHT WITH A SUBMARINE]
CHIEF GUNNER'S MATE DELANEY, OF THE CAMPANA, DEFYING HIS CAPTORS]
These speaking stations were established at various points along the coast. Manned by navy personnel, using a simple code of distance signals, they could communicate with ships not equipped with radio, call vessels into harbor if necessary, and divert them from dangerous localities. They performed a valuable function in expediting the flow of shipping from district to district, as well as, by prompt action, warning craft in danger. Ships at sea received by radio all war warnings and orders, and when it was necessary to divert convoys, orders to change course could be sent at a moment's notice. Far south were two "reporting" stations. Vessels passing out of the Gulf of Mexico coastwise-bound were required to report at Sand Key, those northbound through the Old Bahama passage, to report at Jupiter.
[Illustration: THE MERCHANT SUBMARINE DEUTSCHLAND IN BALTIMORE HARBOR
Inset: Gun mounted on the U-155, as the Deutschland was called after its conversion into a war craft.]
Thus escort was provided for vessels through all the areas in which submarines were likely to operate, and a system provided by which the Navy could keep track of and in touch with them from the time they sailed until they reached port. Though this necessitated a large fleet of escorting vessels, of which our best were at work in Europe, by utilizing all the patrol craft that could be secured and our sturdy little sub-chasers, we managed to provide sufficient escorts.
It is a notable fact that, while the submarines sank many schooners and fishing craft and some steamers proceeding independently, during the entire four months in which the U-boats operated in the Western Atlantic not one convoy, coastwise or trans-Atlantic, was attacked off the coast of the United States.