World War, 1914-1918 -- Naval operations -- Submarine; World War, 1914-1918 -- United States
could be done in a better way, we certainly wanted to know it. Whenever
any specific problem of importance came up, it was always submitted to
these men for a report. The value of such a report depended upon the
completeness and accuracy of the information available, and it was the
business of the Intelligence Department of the staff to supply this. If
the desired information was not in their files, or the files of the
Allied admiralties, or was not up to date, it was their duty to obtain
it at once. The point is that the Planning Section had no other duties
beyond rendering a decision, based upon a careful analysis of the facts
bearing upon the case, which they submitted in writing. There was no
phase of the naval warfare upon which the officers of the Planning
Section did not give us reports. One of their favourite methods was to
place themselves in the position of the Germans and to decide how, if
they were directing German naval operations, they would frustrate the
tactics of the Allies. Their records contain detailed descriptions of
how merchant ships could be sunk by submarines, and these methods, our
officers believed, represented a great improvement over those used by
the Germans. Indeed, I think that many of these reports, had they fallen
into the hands of the Germans, would have been found by them exceedingly
useful. There was a general impression, in our own navy as well as in
the British, that most of the German submarine commanders handled their
boats unskilfully and obtained inadequate results. All these documents
were given to the responsible men in our forces, as well as to the
British, and had a considerable influence upon operations. The British
also established a Planning Section, which worked harmoniously with our
own.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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