As for incidents reflecting gloriously upon the morale of our officers and men, the navy has already its growing share. There is the destroyer _Cassin_ struck by a torpedo and seriously crippled, but refusing to return to port as long as there appeared to be a chance of engaging the submarine that had attacked her. There is Lieutenant Clarence C. Thomas, commander of the gun crew on the oil-ship _Vacuum_. When the ship was sunk he cheered his freezing men tossing on an icy sea in an open boat far from land, until he at length perished, his last words those of encouragement. There is Lieutenant S.F. Kalk, who swam from raft to raft encouraging and directing the survivors of the destroyer _Jacob Jones_ after a torpedo had sent that vessel to the bottom. There are those two gunners on the transport _Antilles_ who stood serving their gun until the ship sank and carried them down. There is the freighter _Silver-Shell_ whose gun crew fought and sank the submarine that attacked the ship, and the gun crews of the _Moreni_, the _Campana_, and the _J.L. Luckenback_--indomitable heroes all. There is Osmond Kelly Ingram, who saved the _Cassin_ and lost his life. There is the glorious page contributed to our naval annals, by the officers and crew of the _San Diego_. History indeed is in the making--history that Americans are proud to read. In all that has been written in this foreword the design has been merely to sketch, to outline some of the larger achievements of the United States Navy in this war. In chapters to come our navy's course from peace into war will be followed as closely as the restrictions of a wise censorship will permit. CHAPTER I First Experience of Our Navy with the German U-Boat--Arrival of Captain Hans Rose and the U-53 at Newport--Experiences of the German Sailors in an American Port--Destruction of Merchantman by U-53 off Nantucket--Our Destroyers to the Rescue--Scenes in Newport--German Rejoicing--The Navy Prepares for War How many of us who love the sea and have followed it to greater or less extent in the way of business or pleasure have in the past echoed those famous lines of Rudyard Kipling: "'Good-bye Romance!' the skipper said. He vanished with the coal we burn." And how often since the setting in of the grim years beginning with August of 1914 have we had occasion to appreciate the fact that of all the romance of the past ages the like to that which has been spread upon the pages of history in the past four years was never written nor imagined. Week after week there has come to us from out the veil of the maritime spaces incidents dramatic, mysterious, romantic, tragic, hideous.