World War, 1914-1918 -- Naval operations -- Submarine; World War, 1914-1918 -- United States
chance; and the torpedo struck and sank the vessel within a few minutes.
On this occasion Rose acted with his usual decency. The survivors of the
_Jacob Jones_ naturally had no means of communication, since the
wireless had gone down with their ship; and now Rose, at considerable
risk to himself, sent out an "S.O.S." call, giving the latitude and
longitude, and informing Queenstown that the men were floating around in
open boats. It is perhaps not surprising that Rose is one of the few
German U-boat commanders with whom Allied naval officers would be
willing to-day to shake hands. I have heard naval officers say that they
would like to meet him after the war.
We were able to individualize other commanders; the business of
acquiring this knowledge, learning the location of their submarines and
the characteristics of their boats, and using this vital information in
protecting convoys, was all part of the game which was being played in
London. It was the greatest game of "chess" which history has known--a
game that exacted not only the most faithful and studious care, but one
in which it was necessary that all the activities should be centralized
in one office. This small group of officers in the Admiralty convoy
room, composed of representatives of all the nations concerned,
exercised a control which extended throughout the entire convoy system.
It regulated the dates when convoys sailed from America or other ports
and when they arrived; if it had not taken charge of this whole system,
congestion and confusion would inevitably have resulted. We had only a
limited number of destroyers to escort all troops and other important
convoys arriving in Europe; it was therefore necessary that they should
arrive at regular and predetermined intervals. It was necessary also
that one group of officers should control the routing of all convoys,
otherwise there would have been serious danger of collisions between
outward and inward bound ships, and no possibility of routing them clear
of the known positions of submarines. The great centre of all this
traffic was not New York or Hampton Roads, but London. It was
inevitable, if the convoy system was to succeed, that it should have a
great central headquarters, and it was just as inevitable that this
headquarters should be London.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
Reviews
Reviews
No reviews yet
Be the first to share your thoughts on this work.
Elsewhere in the archive
Join the Discussion
Join the discussion
Sign in to leave a comment or review.
Sign InorCreate an account