The Sixth Battle Squadron had returned to its anchorage east of the great Forth Bridge. Adm. Sir David Beatty, Commander in Chief of the Grand Fleet, on his flagship _Queen Elizabeth_, had swept through the American Squadron. And as the “_Q.E._” passed us, so close aboard that one could have heaved a spud onto her decks, Beatty had stood on his bridge, gold-visored cap cocked over his right eye, bulldog chin jutting out over the bridge screen, hand raised to his visor in acknowledgment of our cheers. As these died away, _Q.E._’s searchlights had begun flashing a bridge signal that burned itself on my memory: FROM: COMMANDER IN CHIEF GRAND FLEET TO: BRITISH EMPIRE BRITAIN HAS THIS DAY WITNESSED A DEMONSTRATION OF SEA POWER WHICH SHE WILL FORGET AT HER PERIL Then as the flagship had slid by, her turrets topped by fighter aircraft poised for take-off, she had uncovered to our view the loom of a hulk lying down toward May Island. It was the aircraft carrier _Argus_, latest addition to the world’s one and only carrier force. And I had thought that, even as British sea power had triumphed, the shadow of air power was darkening the fleet. I had learned details of the _Argus_ from an enthusiastic naval aviator, Godfrey de Courcelles de Chevalier, class of 1909, one of our big boat pilots from the Northern Bombing Base, who, detailed to observe carrier operations, had been billeted on the _Ark_. The British Admiralty, fearful lest the Hun decoy Beatty into the Skagerrak and hit him below the armor belt with torpedoes carried by shore-based aircraft, had mounted fighters on every available ship, and had augmented this defense with aircraft carriers. Most of these had been converted from old battle cruisers and, like other vessels, could only launch aircraft. Their fighting planes were expected to return to prepared air fields on shore, such as the Grand Fleet base at Turnhouse, whence they would be lightered off to their vessels. But the _Argus_, originally built for the Italian Line as the _Conte de Savoia_, had been the first flattop capable of receiving aircraft aboard as well as launching them. And she had carried torpedoplanes with which to hit the Hun below his own belt. This force had been Beatty’s “secret weapon,” and, some thought, had helped persuade the Hun to surrender without firing a shot.