It took brave men to steam week in and week out through submarine and
mine infested waters at eight knots an hour in a ship loaded with
several thousand tons of depth charges, TNT, or poison gas, not knowing
what minute the entire vessel was going to be blown to matchwood.
It is on record that a convoy of fifty ships from New York was
disintegrated by a violent storm in mid-Atlantic, and that only two of
the number reached France under convoy. "Every ship for herself," the
forty-eight others by luck, pluck, and constant vigil, all finally
dropped their anchors in the protected harbors of their destination.
The value of a cargo ship is realized when it is known that under
existing war conditions each ship cost to operate $100 every hour. Good,
bad, and indifferent ships, old or new, fast or slow, were transformed
into serviceable craft. The personnel of the Naval Overseas
Transportation Service at the time of the armistice included 5,000
officers and 45,000 enlisted men.
The world has been so deeply occupied with figures and facts relating to
the havoc by the German submarine that little thought has been centred
upon the work of the Allied submersibles. Yet in the way of accounting
for war-ships one may fancy that they rivalled the Teutonic craft.
Details may be given of the part which British submarines played during
the war. This service destroyed 2 battleships, 2 armed cruisers, 2 light
cruisers, 7 destroyers, 5 gunboats, 20 submarines, and 5 armed auxiliary
vessels.
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