From a beginning that was next to nothing, for it lacked merchant ships, organization, officers, crews, there was developed a cruiser and transport fleet of 42 transports and 24 cruisers with a personnel of 3,000 officers and 42,000 men. There was a fleet of cargo carrying ships in steady service numbering 321 and aggregating 2,800,000 tonnage, nearly one-third of which were supplied by the United States Shipping Board Emergency Fleet Corporation and officered and manned by the efforts of the Navy Department. At the end of hostilities there had been transported across the Atlantic in the seventeen months from the first sailing over 2,000,000 troops, of which 911,000 had been carried by U. S. naval transports and 41,500 by other United States ships, while British and British leased ships had carried 1,075,000 and French and Italian ships 52,000. In the summer of 1918 as many as 300,000 per month were carried overseas. Of the entire army of 2,079,880 men American ships carried 46¹⁄₄ per cent and British ships 51¹⁄₄ per cent, while 2¹⁄₂ per cent sailed in French and Italian ships. Of the total strength of the naval escort guarding these 2,000,000 troops 82³⁄₄ per cent was furnished by the United States, 14¹⁄₈ per cent by Great Britain and 3¹⁄₈ per cent by France. All the troops carried in American ships were escorted by American warships, cruisers, destroyers and converted yachts, and American destroyers gave a large part of the safe conduct through the danger zone to the troops that were carried by British, French and Italian ships. The enemy had counted confidently upon being able to paralyze American transport of troops and supplies by submarine activity and his undersea vipers were constantly speeding back and forth and up and down through the eastern waters of the Atlantic and even as far as its western shores. But no troop transport on its heavily laden eastward trip was ever lost and none at all under American escort. Only three troop ships, all told, were sunk by submarines, and these were westward bound and the loss of life was very small. The first convoy of troop ships twice battled with submarines and many others were attacked, while the naval officers who did convoy duty saw the undersea boats upon almost every voyage. By submarines and raiders there were lost during our war period 130 cargo carrying ships but under the guarded convoy system these losses steadily decreased.