The _Christabel_, smallest of the converted yachts, surprised her big sisters by smashing up a submarine so badly that it was just able to reach a Spanish port, where U-boat and crew were interned for the remainder of the war. Escorting the _Danse_, a British steamer which had fallen behind its convoy two miles from Ile de Yeu, on May 21, 1918, the _Christabel_ at 8:52 p. m. sighted a periscope, and made for it, firing two depth-bombs. As the second charge exploded, there followed another violent explosion which threw up, between the _Christabel_ and the water column raised by the bomb, a large amount of water and debris. Heavy black oil and a number of splintered pieces of wood rose to the surface. That was the last the _Christabel_ saw of the "sub," but three days later the report came that the UC-56 had arrived at Santander, Spain, too seriously damaged to attempt to return to Germany. Its officers and men were glad enough to escape with their lives. Fine as was the record of the armed yachts, it was more than equaled by the destroyers, which bore the heaviest part in escorting the vast number of troop and cargo ships sent to France. This duty was performed at first by our force at Queenstown, but from October on, when the tender _Panther_ (Commander A. M. Procter) and five destroyers arrived, destroyers were sent to Brest as follows: _Reid_, (Commander C. C. Slayton); _Flusser_, (Lieutenant Commander R. G. Walling); the _Preston_, (Lieutenant Commander C. W. Magruder); _Lamson_, (Lieutenant Commander W. R. Purnell); _Smith_, (Commander J. H. Klein); _Monaghan_, (Lieutenant Commander J. F. Cox); _Roe_, (Lieutenant Commander G. C. Barnes); _Warrington_, (Lieutenant Commander G. W. Kenyon); _Whipple_, (Lieutenant Commander H. J. Abbett); _Truxtun_, (Lieutenant Commander J. G. Ware); _Stewart_, (Lieutenant Commander H. S. Haislip); _Worden_, (Lieutenant Commander J. M. B. Smith); _Isabel_, (Lieutenant Commander H. E. Shoemaker); _Nicholson_, (Lieutenant Commander J. C. Fremont). Recounting what they accomplished, Admiral Wilson said: The record of the service of these vessels on the coast of France furnishes one of the finest tributes in the history of our Navy to the soundness of their construction and to the ability of the personnel under trying conditions. Until about the first of June, 1918, when the original lot of destroyer captains was detached and ordered to the United States to fit out new vessels, no American destroyers sent from France had ever missed contact with a convoy; no destroyer dispatched with a mission had ever returned to port before the completion of her duty, and furthermore, during this period, after the torpedoing of the _Finland_, on October 28, 1917, no vessel en route from America to France or from France to America, when escorted by American vessels based on France, had ever been torpedoed or successfully attacked on the high seas.