After talking over this critical situation with the Prime Minister and other members of the Government, I cannot refrain from most strongly recommending the immediate sending over of every destroyer and all other craft that can be of anti-submarine use. This seems to me the sharpest crisis of the war, and the most dangerous situation for the Allies that has arisen or could arise.
If enough submarines can be destroyed in the next two or three months the war will be won, and if we can contribute effective help immediately it will be won directly by our aid. I cannot exaggerate the pressing and increasing danger of this situation. Thirty or more destroyers and other similar craft sent by us immediately would very likely be decisive.
But Mr. Page and I thought that we had not completely done our duty even after sending these urgent messages. Whatever might happen, we were determined that it could never be charged that we had not presented the Allied situation in its absolutely true light. It seemed likely that an authoritative statement from the British Government would give added assurance that our statements were not the result of panic, and with this idea in mind, Mr. Page and I called upon Mr. Balfour, Foreign Secretary, who, in response to our request, sent a despatch to Washington describing the seriousness of the situation.
All these messages made the same point: that the United States should immediately assemble all its destroyers and other light craft, and send them to the port where they could render the greatest service in the anti-submarine campaign--Queenstown.
[1] The statements published were not false, but they were inconclusive and intentionally so. They gave the number of British ships sunk, but not their tonnage, and not the total losses of British, Allied, and neutral tonnage.
[2] See Appendices II and III for my cable and letter to the Navy Department, explaining the submarine situation in detail.
[3] See Appendix IV for my statement to Washington on arming merchant ships.
[4] For specimens of my reports to the Navy Department in these early days see Appendices II and III.
The morning of May 4, 1917, witnessed an important event in the history of Queenstown. The news had been printed in no British or American paper, yet in some mysterious way it had reached nearly everybody in the city. A squadron of American destroyers, which had left Boston on the evening of April 24th, had already been reported to the westward of Ireland and was due to reach Queenstown that morning. At almost the appointed hour a little smudge of smoke appeared in the distance, visible to the crowds assembled on the hills; then presently another black spot appeared, and then another; and finally these flecks upon the horizon assumed the form of six rapidly approaching warships. The Stars and Stripes were broken out on public buildings, on private houses, and on nearly all the water craft in the harbour; the populace, armed with American flags, began to gather on the shore; and the local dignitaries donned their official robes to welcome the new friends from overseas. One of the greatest days in Anglo-American history had dawned, for the first contingent of the American navy was about to arrive in British waters and join hands with the Allies in the battle against the forces of darkness and savagery.