WAR OFF OUR COASTS FROM MAY TO SEPTEMBER, 1918--GERMANS SENT SUBMARINES TO INTERRUPT TROOP AND SUPPLY TRANSPORTATION, BUT TRANSPORTS WERE SO WELL GUARDED THAT NOT ONE WAS ATTACKED OR EVEN DELAYED--MANY SCHOONERS AND SOME STEAMERS SUNK, BARGES AND LIGHTSHIP SHELLED, BUT GERMANS FAILED IN THEIR MAIN OBJECT. Europe was not the only "war zone." There was war off our own coasts from May to September, 1918, and the Navy had to protect transports and shipping, to escort convoys and hunt submarines on this side of the Atlantic as well as off the coasts of Great Britain and France. During that period the Navy was as much in active war service in home waters as it was in Europe. And our methods were quite as successful here as there, for in the entire four months in which German submarines operated off our coasts not one convoy was attacked, and not one transport was delayed in sailing. Will you ever forget that Sunday, June 2, 1918, when a German submarine suddenly appeared off the New Jersey coast and sank six vessels, ending the day with the destruction of the passenger steamer _Carolina_? The first news came at 5:30 p. m., from the Ward Liner _Mexico_, which radioed that she had picked up three lifeboats containing fifty men of the _Isabel B. Wiley_ and other schooners that had been sunk. This message was immediately broadcasted with a warning to all ships along the coast. Naval vessels were at once ordered to the vicinity and patrol craft in that region and all along the coast were notified to keep a sharp lookout for the submarine. The passenger steamer _Carolina_, en route to New York from Porto Rico, was 13 miles from where the _Wiley_ was sunk, when she received the warning at 5:55 o'clock. Darkening her lights, she steered due west, putting on full speed. The captain had just got his vessel steadied on the new course, when he sighted the submarine two miles away. In a moment or two the U-boat fired three shells, which landed near the steamer. At the second shot the captain stopped his ship. He had ordered the wireless operator to send out an "SOS" signal, stating that the vessel was attacked by submarine. But, realizing, he said, the uselessness of trying to escape, and fearing if he sent out radio messages the U-boat might shell the ship, endangering the lives of those aboard, the captain recalled the order. The radio operator stated that the submarine had wirelessed to him, under low power, "If you don't use wireless I won't shoot." That was the reason we were so long in getting news of the sinking of the _Carolina_. She sent out no distress signals.