THE VICTORY AT SEA
REAR-ADMIRAL W. S. SIMS
U.S. NAVY
THE VICTORY AT SEA
G. Vandyk Ltd. photographers
Rear Admiral William Sowden Sims
U.S. Navy
THE VICTORY AT SEA
BY REAR-ADMIRAL WILLIAM SOWDEN SIMS
U.S. NAVY
COMMANDER OF THE AMERICAN NAVAL FORCES
OPERATING IN EUROPEAN WATERS DURING THE GREAT WAR
IN COLLABORATION WITH BURTON J. HENDRICK
WITH PORTRAIT AND PLANS
LONDON
JOHN MURRAY, ALBEMARLE STREET, W.
1920
First Edition, November 1920
Reprinted, December 1920
All Rights Reserved
Printed by Hasell, Watson & Viney, Ld., London and Aylesbury, England.
TO
THE GALLANT OFFICERS AND MEN
WHOM I HAD THE HONOUR TO COMMAND
DURING THE GREAT WAR
IN
GRATEFUL RECOGNITION OF
A LOYAL DEVOTION TO THE CAUSE
THAT GREATLY LIGHTENED THE
RESPONSIBILITY
BORNE BY
"THE OLD MAN"
PREFACE
This is not in any sense a history of the operations of our naval forcesin Europe during the Great War, much less a history of the navaloperations as a whole. That would require not only many volumes, butprolonged and careful research by competent historians. When such a workis completed, our people will realize for the first time the admirableinitiative with which the gallant personnel of our navy responded to therequirements of an unprecedented naval situation.
But in the meantime this story has been written in response to a demandfor some account of the very generally misunderstood submarine campaignand, particularly, of the means by which it was defeated. The interestof the public in such a story is due to the fact that during the war thesea forces were compelled to take all possible precautions to keep theenemy from learning anything about the various devices and means used tooppose or destroy the under-water craft. This necessity for the utmostsecrecy was owing to the peculiar nature of the sea warfare. When thearmies first made use of airplane bombs, or poison gas, or tanks, ormobile railroad batteries, the existence of these weapons and the mannerof their use were necessarily at once revealed to the enemy, and thepress was permitted to publish full accounts of them and, to a certainextent, of their effect and the means used to oppose them. Moreover, allgeneral movements of the contending armies that resulted in