From the day the first German raider sank a British ship or a submarine fired at an Allied vessel, the British and French were zealous to protect the oil supplies in Mexico. They maintained patrol vessels in that region and kept ceaseless vigil of sea routes to protect this priceless agency of war. However great their need of ships on their own coast, they knew that if the oil supply failed at Tampico they would lose the only adequate available source of oil for all their operations. The question has sometimes been raised why the Navy Department did not immediately upon the declaration of war send every patrol ship into European waters. One answer is Oil. Before the United States entered the war, sensing, as the authorities did then, that oil might determine the outcome, a naval squadron, first under Admiral Wilson and afterwards under Admiral Edwin A. Anderson, was organized for patrol service in the Gulf and Caribbean as well as in the North Atlantic. Why? Again the answer was Oil, with a big O. The United States was importing millions of barrels of oil from Mexico for its own ships and industries. It could not permit any danger of cessation of this supply. Our dependence would be heightened when we entered the war. Gasless Sundays and other methods of conservation were practiced later in order that the Army and Navy in Europe might be well supplied. At one time the sinking of the tankers was serious enough to alarm the Allied navies. The maintenance of fleets of Great Britain and America in the North Sea was dependent upon oil supplies, and always the U-boats were on the watch to torpedo oilers. They were so successful and the number of tankers was so small, compared to the need, that the American and British naval administrations decided to construct a pipe line across Scotland as the best new way to lessen the danger of losing tankers and to hasten the delivery of oil to the Allied fleet in the North Sea. The Bureau of Navigation will enroll a force to lay the pipe line (Glasgow, Scotland) to consist of seven officers and one hundred men experienced in pipe line work. All material expense to be borne by British Government and personnel expense by United States Government.