_Night Attack:_—All vessels instantly change course ninety degrees either to port or starboard. Course will be resumed before any vessel has proceeded ten miles after ninety degrees change. If any vessel is damaged by torpedo, that vessel will act independently and all other vessels of convoy escape at best speed. The damaged vessel may send out radio distress signals provided for merchant vessels. Owing to the presence of escorting ships it is not probable that submarines will be caught on the surface and therefore will not attempt to use her guns. It is very probable that the first indication of the presence of a submarine will be the wake of her torpedo. Mines, floating or submerged, may be encountered. All floating objects, the character of which is uncertain, must be carefully avoided. Floating mines have recently been encountered under the following conditions: (a) Two mines connected by lines. (b) Secured to bottom of dummy periscopes which were mounted in a box or other object. (c) In waterlogged boats, used as decoys. (d) Attached to wreckage of various kinds. If submarine is sighted or if gunfire from any ship indicates attack, destroyers and fast yachts of escort will head at best speed in direction of submarine, force it to submerge, and attack as conditions permit. They will rejoin convoy at earliest possible moment. If any ship is damaged by torpedo, two destroyers will stand by ship, those nearest of escort, affecting such rescue as may be necessary and possible. CHAPTER II “LAFAYETTE, WE ARE HERE!” The _Corsair_ stood out to sea with the transports and the escort in the morning of June 14th after a thick fog had delayed the departure for several hours. As finally selected, the ship’s company consisted of 130 officers and enlisted men. The shifting fortunes of war were to scatter most of them to other ships and stations during the long exile overseas, and when the battered yacht came home, only Commander Porter and Lieutenant McGuire and eighteen of the crew of this first muster roll were left on board. Changes were so frequent that from first to last almost three hundred men served in the _Corsair_.[1] The ship proved to be a training school for officers, and made an exceptional record in that thirteen of her enlisted force and one warrant officer won commissions during the war, some taking the examinations while on foreign service and others being sent to Annapolis for the intensive course of three months and receiving the rank of temporary ensigns in the regular naval organization. On deck and below, men were rated as petty officers as rapidly as they displayed aptitude, and few of the crew failed to advance themselves. The spirit of the ship was eager and ambitious from the start and drudgery could not dull it.