WEBVTT

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[Shannon Ricles] Thank you so much for joining us today

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for Sims versus Gleaves: The Battle Over How to Convoy

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During the First World War,

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featuring our guest speaker, Dr. Sal Mercogliano.

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We're joined today with Mark Losavio,

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who's having a little bit of technical difficulty.

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He is the outreach coordinator

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for Monitor and Mallows Bay National Marine Sanctuaries.

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And I am Shannon Ricles,

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the education and outreach coordinator

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for Monitor and Mallows Bay,

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and I'll be your host and co-host today.

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And joining us also is Tane Casserley,

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the resource protection and permit coordinator

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for Monitor and Mallows as well.

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This webinar is brought to you

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by NOAA's Monitor National Marine Sanctuary

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in collaboration with the North Carolina Office

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of State Archaeology.

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Partnering since 1975, NOAA and the state of North Carolina

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work to research, honor, and protect the hallmarks

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of North Carolina's underwater

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cultural heritage, shipwrecks.

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Now, these shipwrecks hold information

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about the ever-changing technologies

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and cultural and physical landscapes.

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They serve as a uniquely accessible underwater museum,

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and a memorial to generations of mariners

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who lived, died, and worked, and fought off the shores.

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This is one of the many webinars

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we will host in the coming months

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for this Submerged North Carolina Webinar Series

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in collaboration with the North Carolina Office

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of State Archaeology.

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Now, Monitor is just one of 15 national marine sanctuaries

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and two marine national monuments

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in the National Marine Sanctuary System.

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And this system encompasses more than 620,000 square miles

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of marine and Great Lakes waters

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from Washington State to the Florida Keys

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and from Lake Huron to American Samoa.

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Today, we welcome our presenter, Dr. Sal Mercogliano,

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and he is going to talk to us

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about some of the conversations,

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World War I off the Atlantic Coast.

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So Sal, I'm gonna turn it over to you.

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Let me make you presenter.

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[Sal Mercogliano] Thank you, Shannon.

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I appreciate the opportunity and being invited back again.

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It's great privilege and honor to be able to come back here.

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I have to say how much I do enjoy this.

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Let me make sure my display is correct.

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There we go.

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[Shannon] There you go, perfect.

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[Sal] Good.

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So what I wanna talk about with you today

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is two commanders that were involved

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in an operation during the First World War.

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Now, World War I in the span of American history

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doesn't get a lot of attention,

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yet the marine sanctuaries here,

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with the Monitor Sanctuary and the Mallows Bay Sanctuary

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are really key for understanding the First World War.

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At the Monitor Sanctuary, you have three vessels

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that were sunk during the First World War,

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the Light Vessel 71 and the Merak,

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both sunk by a German U-boat

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right off the coast of North Carolina,

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the U-140 back in August of 1918.

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And up in Mallows Bay,

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you have the remnants of the U.S. shipbuilding program,

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particularly the wooden vessels that were built

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to basically counter the Kaiser during the First World War.

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But today, I wanna talk about an event

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that took place between these two commanders,

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on the left, William S. Sims,

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and on the right, Albert Gleaves.

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Sims versus Gleaves: The Battle Over How to Convoy

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in the First World War.

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Now a lot of discussion is always made

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about convoying in the First World War,

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and a big focus is on that,

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you know, are we going to convoy, are not gonna convoy?

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That's not the focus for today.

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The focus for today discusses specifically how to convoy,

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how are they actually going to do it.

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Sims who becomes the commander of US Naval Forces in Europe

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has a concept, an idea that's largely that of the British.

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However, Albert Gleaves who had been commander

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of Destroyer Forces,

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commanded all the United States destroyers

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on the East Coast of the United States

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in the Atlantic Fleet has a different idea,

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particularly when he's appointed

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as the commander of cruiser, excuse me,

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of the Cruiser and Transport Force

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and in command of American convoy operations.

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Now these are two men who share a very similar track.

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Both of them are naval academy grads.

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Gleaves in 1887, Sims in 1890.

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They both serve throughout their course in the US Navy.

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At the time of World War I,

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Sims in 1917 is the president of the Naval War College.

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He had just given up his post,

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which was command of the Destroyer Force.

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He had been commander of Destroyer Force

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before being relieved by Albert Gleaves,

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who now assumes command of the Destroyer Force.

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Gleaves had sought combat during the Spanish-American War

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commanding the very first torpedo boat destroyer

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in the US Navy.

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Sims himself had been over in Europe, being a naval attache.

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And both of these men are going to share

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kind of opposing view of how things are supposed to be done.

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Now this is not new in the history

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of the United States Navy.

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Just in the previous conflict, prior to this,

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the Spanish-American War,

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there was great controversy between two commanders,

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Sampson and Schley.

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During the War of 1812 and the lead up to that conflict,

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there was great opposition between two naval commanders,

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Stephen Decatur and James Barron

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that actually led to a duel

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where James Barron shot and killed Stephen Decatur.

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While Sims and Gleaves are not going to have

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an affair of honor.

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They're not going to go duel each other.

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There's no Hamilton-like musical that we can share for that,

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and you certainly don't want me singing,

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but the issue between these two become very important

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for how the US aims to succeed in the First World War.

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Now the US does not initially get involved

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in the First World War.

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We proclaim our neutrality, but very quickly,

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we start getting pulled into the conflict.

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In 1915, you have the sinking of the RMS Lusitania,

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famous event takes place.

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The U-20 sink the RMS Lusitania, just south of Ireland,

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1,198 people killed, including 128 Americans.

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It forces the Germans to back off

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on unrestricted submarine warfare.

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However, the Germans always kept submarine warfare

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in their back pocket.

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This image you see here is going to impact Albert Gleaves

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in a very substantial way.

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Gleaves, at this time, commander of Destroyer Force,

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is on board his flagship a cruiser in Newport, Rhode Island.

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When in October of 1916, this vessel,

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the U-53 commanded by a German

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by the name of Hans Rose surfaces off Newport,

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sails into the harbor and anchors and requests permission

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to stay for a brief period of time.

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Up to this point, German submarines

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had not really crossed the Atlantic.

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There had been one passage by a large commercial submarine,

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the Deutschland, but that was a very modified vessel.

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This, the U-53 was a combat submarine.

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And when U-53 arrives in Newport, the vessel anchors.

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It opens itself up for tours by American naval commanders.

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Hans Rose is greeted by Admiral Gleaves.

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They meet each other.

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Gleaves asked Hans Rose, "Do you need anything?

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Fuel, food, provisions?"

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And Hans Rose's answer back is, "Nein, don't need anything.

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I'm just here for a visit."

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And then shortly after he set sail

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and left the anchorage at Newport,

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went out into international waters

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off Block Island in Montauk Point,

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in the following day sank five Allied vessels,

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British, French, Norwegian vessels.

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The purpose of the visit was to demonstrate

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to the United States that German U-boats

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could reach the East Coast of the United States.

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And that's gonna be sitting

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in the back of Albert Gleaves's mind

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as he assumes commander of the Destroyer Force

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and as the US moves closer and closer to war.

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Now as the Germans reinitiate

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unrestricted submarine warfare in 1917, February 1st,

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the United States decides to dispatch a naval attache

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across the Atlantic to converse with the British Admiralty

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on the course of unrestricted submarine warfare.

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The new chief of naval operations,

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a guy the name of William S. Benson tags William Sims,

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the president of the Naval War College to do it.

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He's a two-star admiral at this point.

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And he's really the only available admiral

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that Benson has oversight over.

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So Sims boards a commercial ship, the SS New York,

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and sails across with this naval aid in disguise,

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no uniform, under an assumed name,

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but before they get across, war is declared.

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Woodrow Wilson goes before Congress,

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talks about the fact that 10 American ships

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have been sunk by German U-boats, 64 mariners drowned.

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And that is the casus belli, the cause for war.

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And the US Congress debates

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and goes ahead and declares war in April 6.

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As the New York arrives off the port of Liverpool,

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it is mined by a German U-boat.

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That's William Sims introduction to the war.

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No one's hurt.

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Sims has gotten off the vessel

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along with his aid, John Babcock.

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And they're brought over to London

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to meet with Admiral Jellicoe, the first sea lord.

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It is at that point that Sims realizes

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how bad unrestricted submarine warfare was.

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The Germans had set out

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to sink 600,000 tons of shipping a month.

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600,000 tons, to give you an idea,

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a normal World War I ship was about three to 5,000 tons.

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Well, the Germans weren't sinking 600,000 tons.

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They were sinking 800,000 tons.

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And Sims finds out from Jellicoe

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that England is going to starve in under three months,

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unless something is made differently.

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Sims immediately dispatches word back to the United States

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that we need to provide assistance

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to the British in any way possible.

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And what Sims wants is the dispatch of forces.

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Sorry, I got a little too fast there.

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Wants a dispatch of forces.

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This image right here is the Return of the Mayflower,

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one of the most famous images from the First World War.

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It's the arrival of the first six American destroyers

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at Queenstown in Ireland.

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That painting and then this image here

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from the Imperial War Museum shows the arrival

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of those destroyers off Queenstown in May of 1917.

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These are the first of a vanguard

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of what eventually becomes 36 destroyers

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that are sent over within the span of two months.

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And it becomes the core of a naval force

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that'll eventually accumulate over 300 vessels

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all under the command of Admiral William S. Sims.

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Sims goes from being just a naval attache sent over

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to becoming commander, US Naval Forces in Europe.

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And Sims immediately takes his destroyer force

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and puts it to action.

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He is meeting with the British on a fairly routine basis,

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and he's asking, "What do you need?

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What do you need to help?"

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And the information he gets from the British

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is the dire situation.

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Ships are being sunk.

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We can't stop 'em.

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What we need are destroyers.

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We need these anti-submarine vessels

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that can hunt German U-boats and sink them.

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And the British come up with a plan,

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a disposition of forces.

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Their main fleet is all the way up in Northern Scotland,

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in a place called Scapa Flow.

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And that fleet up in Scapa Flow can provide

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some of the escorts coming in over the North of England.

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They dispatched two squadrons of 18 destroyers,

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one to Northern Ireland,

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one to the English Channel to basically fill holes

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and patrol for German U-boats.

263
00:11:57.110 --> 00:11:59.750
The initial concept here is to go out

264
00:11:59.750 --> 00:12:01.550
and hunt for German U-boats

265
00:12:01.550 --> 00:12:03.850
and see if you can push them under.

266
00:12:03.850 --> 00:12:06.900
But the big gap, the big hole in the British strategy

267
00:12:06.900 --> 00:12:09.860
is right in the center, just south of Ireland,

268
00:12:09.860 --> 00:12:12.370
where they need 36 destroyers.

269
00:12:12.370 --> 00:12:14.840
And the only one, the only nation in the world

270
00:12:14.840 --> 00:12:18.550
that can fill that gap is the United States of America.

271
00:12:18.550 --> 00:12:21.180
And so the plan here is for the US

272
00:12:21.180 --> 00:12:23.570
to dispatch those destroyers across.

273
00:12:23.570 --> 00:12:26.600
Sims becomes the commander and the United States

274
00:12:26.600 --> 00:12:30.970
will come to the assistance here of the British.

275
00:12:30.970 --> 00:12:32.100
Now at the beginning of the war,

276
00:12:32.100 --> 00:12:34.690
as Sims finds an himself in England,

277
00:12:34.690 --> 00:12:36.380
surrounded by all these sinkings,

278
00:12:36.380 --> 00:12:39.250
these dots represent the sinking of ships.

279
00:12:39.250 --> 00:12:44.250
In April of 1917, Sims realizes the serious situation.

280
00:12:44.920 --> 00:12:46.620
He contacts Admiral Benson,

281
00:12:46.620 --> 00:12:49.170
the chief of naval operations who sent him over,

282
00:12:49.170 --> 00:12:51.420
contacts the commander of the Atlantic Fleet,

283
00:12:51.420 --> 00:12:53.920
Admiral Mayo pictured there in the center of the screen,

284
00:12:53.920 --> 00:12:56.350
just below Admiral Benson.

285
00:12:56.350 --> 00:13:00.280
And Benson and Mayo decide to dispatch

286
00:13:00.280 --> 00:13:01.980
the destroyers across.

287
00:13:01.980 --> 00:13:05.050
Now at the time, Albert S. Gleaves

288
00:13:05.050 --> 00:13:07.010
is the commander of Destroyer Forces.

289
00:13:07.010 --> 00:13:10.850
He commands all US destroyers on the East Coast.

290
00:13:10.850 --> 00:13:15.470
That's roughly 60 plus destroyers in nine divisions.

291
00:13:15.470 --> 00:13:18.810
A division is about five to six destroyers.

292
00:13:18.810 --> 00:13:20.970
And then there are several other divisions station,

293
00:13:20.970 --> 00:13:23.310
two on the West Coast, one in the Philippines.

294
00:13:23.310 --> 00:13:25.780
But as the US was marching toward war,

295
00:13:25.780 --> 00:13:28.120
Gleaves's destroyers started to leave him.

296
00:13:28.120 --> 00:13:31.220
Gleaves will find himself a man without a job.

297
00:13:31.220 --> 00:13:32.850
Of his nine destroyer squadron,

298
00:13:32.850 --> 00:13:36.060
six of them are allocated to what's called a patrol force

299
00:13:36.060 --> 00:13:37.680
to patrol off the coast.

300
00:13:37.680 --> 00:13:39.300
So those are taken away from him,

301
00:13:39.300 --> 00:13:42.500
but Gleaves is able to keep the three most experienced,

302
00:13:42.500 --> 00:13:45.220
newest destroyers divisions with him.

303
00:13:45.220 --> 00:13:47.950
But now with Sims giving the highlight

304
00:13:47.950 --> 00:13:50.970
of how bad the situation is in Great Britain,

305
00:13:50.970 --> 00:13:54.440
and as meetings are taking place in the United States

306
00:13:54.440 --> 00:13:56.923
between a British and French mission,

307
00:13:58.050 --> 00:14:01.290
President Wilson, S of the Navy,

308
00:14:01.290 --> 00:14:02.700
the Assistant Secretary of the Navy,

309
00:14:02.700 --> 00:14:05.400
a young man by the name of Franklin Delano Roosevelt,

310
00:14:05.400 --> 00:14:08.150
and Admiral Mayo and Admiral Benson decide

311
00:14:08.150 --> 00:14:09.760
to dispatch the bulk

312
00:14:09.760 --> 00:14:13.760
of the American destroyer force to Europe.

313
00:14:13.760 --> 00:14:17.020
And the decision is made to reallocate forces.

314
00:14:17.020 --> 00:14:18.810
A division of destroyers in the Philippines

315
00:14:18.810 --> 00:14:20.140
goes to Gibraltar.

316
00:14:20.140 --> 00:14:23.420
Seven destroyer divisions go across, six to Sims,

317
00:14:23.420 --> 00:14:24.990
one to the Azores.

318
00:14:24.990 --> 00:14:28.710
And Gleaves finds himself really without much of a mission.

319
00:14:28.710 --> 00:14:31.240
He's supposed to be commanding all US destroyers.

320
00:14:31.240 --> 00:14:33.920
And instead he's kept with a small number

321
00:14:33.920 --> 00:14:36.870
of troop destroyers under his command.

322
00:14:36.870 --> 00:14:39.010
As he writes in his memoir,

323
00:14:39.010 --> 00:14:41.550
he felt like a man without a mission,

324
00:14:41.550 --> 00:14:43.690
he felt like he was being abandoned,

325
00:14:43.690 --> 00:14:47.580
and his opportunity to command destroyers in combat

326
00:14:47.580 --> 00:14:49.070
was fleeting from him.

327
00:14:49.070 --> 00:14:51.980
Meanwhile, Sims is a savior.

328
00:14:51.980 --> 00:14:54.760
He is seen as a huge relief to the British.

329
00:14:54.760 --> 00:14:57.930
Sims's 36 destroyers are gonna be essential

330
00:14:57.930 --> 00:15:01.540
in plugging the gap, dealing with the U-boats,

331
00:15:01.540 --> 00:15:05.240
but an issue arrives about how transportation

332
00:15:05.240 --> 00:15:07.770
should be done across the Atlantic.

333
00:15:07.770 --> 00:15:08.930
Up to this point,

334
00:15:08.930 --> 00:15:12.530
ships were sailing independently across the Atlantic.

335
00:15:12.530 --> 00:15:15.970
So for example, when General John J. Pershing,

336
00:15:15.970 --> 00:15:17.570
who become the commander

337
00:15:17.570 --> 00:15:19.770
of the American Expeditionary Force

338
00:15:19.770 --> 00:15:22.040
sails across the Atlantic.

339
00:15:22.040 --> 00:15:24.160
In May of 1917,

340
00:15:24.160 --> 00:15:28.950
he does sail on board a Royal Mail steamship, the Baltic.

341
00:15:28.950 --> 00:15:30.660
And most ships were sailing

342
00:15:30.660 --> 00:15:33.000
across the Atlantic independently.

343
00:15:33.000 --> 00:15:35.370
They would sail from ports in North America,

344
00:15:35.370 --> 00:15:37.210
South America and Africa,

345
00:15:37.210 --> 00:15:40.810
and enter the war zone on their own.

346
00:15:40.810 --> 00:15:43.960
Hopefully they could meet up with a petroleum destroyer,

347
00:15:43.960 --> 00:15:48.210
but the goal initially in the anti-submarine campaign

348
00:15:48.210 --> 00:15:50.790
was to send destroyers out and look literally

349
00:15:50.790 --> 00:15:52.830
for a needle in the haystack.

350
00:15:52.830 --> 00:15:54.340
That wasn't working very well.

351
00:15:54.340 --> 00:15:57.120
Now the Baltic and other ships like her were unique.

352
00:15:57.120 --> 00:16:01.150
They were very fast vessels, can steam over 15 knots.

353
00:16:01.150 --> 00:16:04.900
And so initially, the Americans were using high speed ships,

354
00:16:04.900 --> 00:16:08.110
like the Baltic, British liner and American liners

355
00:16:08.110 --> 00:16:10.950
to send across essential personnel,

356
00:16:10.950 --> 00:16:13.570
base hospitals, the Baltic.

357
00:16:13.570 --> 00:16:15.940
And then they would orchestrate them to be met

358
00:16:15.940 --> 00:16:20.530
by one, two or three American destroyers and escorted in.

359
00:16:20.530 --> 00:16:22.680
But this was seen to be very inefficient,

360
00:16:22.680 --> 00:16:25.170
as American and British destroyers have to race out

361
00:16:25.170 --> 00:16:27.260
and meet individual ships,

362
00:16:27.260 --> 00:16:30.380
that is using up the available resources

363
00:16:30.380 --> 00:16:35.060
available to the British and the Americans.

364
00:16:35.060 --> 00:16:39.300
Instead, the decision is made to form convoys.

365
00:16:39.300 --> 00:16:40.690
Now, convoys were not new.

366
00:16:40.690 --> 00:16:43.910
They'd been around since the days of sail.

367
00:16:43.910 --> 00:16:47.300
John Paul Jones on board the Bonhomme Richard

368
00:16:47.300 --> 00:16:50.430
in the American Revolution was attacking a British convoy

369
00:16:50.430 --> 00:16:53.220
when he encountered HMS Serapis.

370
00:16:53.220 --> 00:16:54.890
He was trying to get at the convoy,

371
00:16:54.890 --> 00:16:57.850
but the convoy escort got at him first.

372
00:16:57.850 --> 00:16:59.040
And so convoys weren't new.

373
00:16:59.040 --> 00:17:01.870
And even in World War I, they weren't new.

374
00:17:01.870 --> 00:17:05.570
Troopship convoys from Canada, from Australia, from India,

375
00:17:05.570 --> 00:17:08.620
from New Zealand were all in large convoys

376
00:17:08.620 --> 00:17:10.330
escorted by warships.

377
00:17:10.330 --> 00:17:14.430
And even into 1917, we're seeing the use of some convoys

378
00:17:14.430 --> 00:17:18.880
to neutral nations, Norway, Sweden, and the Netherlands.

379
00:17:18.880 --> 00:17:21.230
But the British decide through,

380
00:17:21.230 --> 00:17:22.570
and there's a lot of debate about this

381
00:17:22.570 --> 00:17:23.770
and I don't wanna get into it

382
00:17:23.770 --> 00:17:26.910
because it's a huge other story that's usually talked about,

383
00:17:26.910 --> 00:17:30.230
of how the concept for convoys came up,

384
00:17:30.230 --> 00:17:33.440
but suffice it to say, there was a decision to test it out

385
00:17:33.440 --> 00:17:36.910
in a convoy sailed from Gibraltar to Great Britain,

386
00:17:36.910 --> 00:17:39.290
what was called the HG 1 convoy.

387
00:17:39.290 --> 00:17:41.090
And it was extremely successful.

388
00:17:41.090 --> 00:17:44.490
That convoy under the escort of two vessels

389
00:17:44.490 --> 00:17:46.910
that sailed from Gibraltar would meet

390
00:17:46.910 --> 00:17:50.680
a squadron of British destroyers, about eight of them.

391
00:17:50.680 --> 00:17:52.030
And then they would be escorted

392
00:17:52.030 --> 00:17:53.350
through the Western Approaches,

393
00:17:53.350 --> 00:17:55.963
that area where all those sinkings took place.

394
00:17:56.910 --> 00:17:59.640
And the British realized this is the solution

395
00:17:59.640 --> 00:18:00.840
we have been looking for.

396
00:18:00.840 --> 00:18:04.140
It's not foolproof, but what a convoy allows you to do

397
00:18:04.140 --> 00:18:07.380
is gather together a large group of vessels,

398
00:18:07.380 --> 00:18:10.210
sail them across in formation,

399
00:18:10.210 --> 00:18:12.890
when outside of U-boat infested waters,

400
00:18:12.890 --> 00:18:15.180
they'll be met by a group of destroyers,

401
00:18:15.180 --> 00:18:16.560
depending on the size of the convoy

402
00:18:16.560 --> 00:18:19.500
from four to 10 destroyers.

403
00:18:19.500 --> 00:18:22.600
And then those destroyers will escort that convoy

404
00:18:22.600 --> 00:18:25.330
through the contested waters.

405
00:18:25.330 --> 00:18:28.900
Understand, the vessels take up a smaller amount of area

406
00:18:28.900 --> 00:18:30.360
being constrained together.

407
00:18:30.360 --> 00:18:31.280
It's harder to the sight.

408
00:18:31.280 --> 00:18:32.920
They're a smaller target.

409
00:18:32.920 --> 00:18:35.060
20 ships together make a smaller target

410
00:18:35.060 --> 00:18:36.970
than 20 individual ships.

411
00:18:36.970 --> 00:18:40.790
Plus with an escort, if a submarine decides to attack it,

412
00:18:40.790 --> 00:18:43.550
one or two of the escorts can peel off,

413
00:18:43.550 --> 00:18:45.560
keep the submarine down under the water.

414
00:18:45.560 --> 00:18:48.027
Remember, this is pre-sonar

415
00:18:48.027 --> 00:18:50.900
and the ability to send those electric waves into the water,

416
00:18:50.900 --> 00:18:54.290
those pinging sounds you hear in every submarine movie,

417
00:18:54.290 --> 00:18:56.700
but they can keep that submarine underwater long enough

418
00:18:56.700 --> 00:18:59.870
for the convoy to move out of position, move away,

419
00:18:59.870 --> 00:19:01.630
and then the escorts can speed up,

420
00:19:01.630 --> 00:19:04.810
go follow it and escort it the rest of the way.

421
00:19:04.810 --> 00:19:09.320
This was seen as the solution and the British adopt this.

422
00:19:09.320 --> 00:19:11.560
In June, excuse me, in May and June,

423
00:19:11.560 --> 00:19:14.220
they adopt convoy formations.

424
00:19:14.220 --> 00:19:15.380
A series of convoys,

425
00:19:15.380 --> 00:19:19.080
the very first one sails from Hampton Roads, Virginia,

426
00:19:19.080 --> 00:19:22.000
the area of Norfolk on May 24th.

427
00:19:22.000 --> 00:19:25.680
12 vessels are in the convoy, the HH1 convoy.

428
00:19:25.680 --> 00:19:29.470
They're escorted by a British armed cruiser, the Roxburgh.

429
00:19:29.470 --> 00:19:31.330
These armed cruisers are meant

430
00:19:31.330 --> 00:19:33.470
to kind of keep the vessels in check,

431
00:19:33.470 --> 00:19:35.620
make sure they're in convoy.

432
00:19:35.620 --> 00:19:39.080
They're there to fight off any potential surface raiders,

433
00:19:39.080 --> 00:19:40.720
whether disguised merchant men

434
00:19:40.720 --> 00:19:43.530
or a German battle cruiser breaking loose.

435
00:19:43.530 --> 00:19:46.490
And then as they get closer to England, they'll be met.

436
00:19:46.490 --> 00:19:49.560
In this case, they're met by the Fourth Destroyer Flotilla

437
00:19:49.560 --> 00:19:51.940
out of Devonport, eight destroyers.

438
00:19:51.940 --> 00:19:54.740
And those eight destroyers will escort them in

439
00:19:54.740 --> 00:19:57.170
to their final location.

440
00:19:57.170 --> 00:20:01.140
These first convoys are extremely successful.

441
00:20:01.140 --> 00:20:03.980
Only one ship, which broke out of the convoy

442
00:20:03.980 --> 00:20:06.740
due to a mechanical issue will actually be hit

443
00:20:06.740 --> 00:20:09.000
and sunk as a result of this.

444
00:20:09.000 --> 00:20:11.370
And what you see are a series of convoys,

445
00:20:11.370 --> 00:20:15.040
almost one every week, sailing from the United States,

446
00:20:15.040 --> 00:20:18.520
escorted by a cruiser or an armed merchant cruiser.

447
00:20:18.520 --> 00:20:23.480
They'll be met by British and American destroyers

448
00:20:23.480 --> 00:20:26.710
on the far side, escorted into port.

449
00:20:26.710 --> 00:20:29.840
And it proves wildly successful, wildly successful.

450
00:20:29.840 --> 00:20:33.210
So much so that Sims is asked to allocate

451
00:20:33.210 --> 00:20:36.870
some of his destroyers at Queenstown to this operation.

452
00:20:36.870 --> 00:20:39.500
And eventually, what you'll see are convoy sailing,

453
00:20:39.500 --> 00:20:42.320
not just from Hampton Roads, but from New York,

454
00:20:42.320 --> 00:20:44.590
from Halifax, from St. John's,

455
00:20:44.590 --> 00:20:48.330
from Rio de Janeiro, from Dakar, from Gibraltar.

456
00:20:48.330 --> 00:20:51.300
The convoy operations is gonna be extremely successful.

457
00:20:51.300 --> 00:20:54.060
While it doesn't stop the sinking of vessels,

458
00:20:54.060 --> 00:20:58.170
it lowers it tremendously and also puts a burden

459
00:20:58.170 --> 00:21:01.550
on the German submarines to press their attacks.

460
00:21:01.550 --> 00:21:04.940
In the meantime, as Sims is coordinating this

461
00:21:04.940 --> 00:21:06.180
with the Admiralty thinking,

462
00:21:06.180 --> 00:21:09.260
I have this solution here to the convoy problem,

463
00:21:09.260 --> 00:21:10.740
in the United States,

464
00:21:10.740 --> 00:21:14.920
the Americans are asked to send over an expeditionary force.

465
00:21:14.920 --> 00:21:19.920
The US has to recruit Selective Service draft an army.

466
00:21:20.720 --> 00:21:21.910
It's gonna take months.

467
00:21:21.910 --> 00:21:23.520
It takes on average about six months

468
00:21:23.520 --> 00:21:25.300
to train up American forces.

469
00:21:25.300 --> 00:21:28.630
In the meantime, they decide to send over a token

470
00:21:28.630 --> 00:21:32.480
kind of force of ready troops that they have,

471
00:21:32.480 --> 00:21:34.420
largely on the border of Mexico

472
00:21:34.420 --> 00:21:36.740
because of the Mexican Expedition.

473
00:21:36.740 --> 00:21:39.080
They decide to wrap them together,

474
00:21:39.080 --> 00:21:42.640
put them into a unit called the First Expeditionary Division

475
00:21:42.640 --> 00:21:45.210
later on known as the First Infantry Division

476
00:21:45.210 --> 00:21:47.080
and sail them across.

477
00:21:47.080 --> 00:21:51.070
And to oversee that the chief of naval operations,

478
00:21:51.070 --> 00:21:56.070
William S. Benson tags Admiral Albert Gleaves.

479
00:21:56.210 --> 00:21:57.700
Now Gleaves has been sitting there

480
00:21:57.700 --> 00:22:02.210
watching his destroyer force slowly, slowly be depleted

481
00:22:02.210 --> 00:22:04.280
to the point that he was just sending out

482
00:22:04.280 --> 00:22:07.670
a few destroyers to escort American warships

483
00:22:07.670 --> 00:22:09.720
and patrol off the coast.

484
00:22:09.720 --> 00:22:12.140
Now, Sims had sent word initially

485
00:22:12.140 --> 00:22:15.150
that don't expect the arrival of German U-boats

486
00:22:15.150 --> 00:22:15.983
off the coast.

487
00:22:15.983 --> 00:22:18.710
And if they do, it's going to be a harassment.

488
00:22:18.710 --> 00:22:21.410
It's meant to draw your attention away.

489
00:22:21.410 --> 00:22:24.570
The focus is here on the European side,

490
00:22:24.570 --> 00:22:25.740
not on the American side,

491
00:22:25.740 --> 00:22:28.010
but remember, Gleaves had been in Newport.

492
00:22:28.010 --> 00:22:30.450
He had seen U-53 under Hans Rose,

493
00:22:30.450 --> 00:22:34.550
pop to the surface, welcome the crews on board,

494
00:22:34.550 --> 00:22:37.370
and then go out and sink five Allied vessels.

495
00:22:37.370 --> 00:22:39.830
So Gleaves has a much different opinion

496
00:22:39.830 --> 00:22:43.120
about German U-boats than Sims does.

497
00:22:43.120 --> 00:22:45.350
And so Sims has to put together, excuse me,

498
00:22:45.350 --> 00:22:48.570
Gleaves has to put together a convoy to sail across.

499
00:22:48.570 --> 00:22:53.570
He doesn't adopt the British method of large convoy,

500
00:22:53.740 --> 00:22:58.110
multiple ships, anywhere from nine to 20 vessels,

501
00:22:58.110 --> 00:22:59.520
sailing one a week.

502
00:22:59.520 --> 00:23:03.330
Instead he decides to organize his convoy much differently.

503
00:23:03.330 --> 00:23:05.610
He decides to organize his convoys

504
00:23:05.610 --> 00:23:08.893
around a smaller group of vessels, four,

505
00:23:09.880 --> 00:23:13.980
each of them carrying either troops or vital equipment.

506
00:23:13.980 --> 00:23:18.980
So all told, he's got 14 ships that are going to be used

507
00:23:19.000 --> 00:23:21.750
to transport over the First Infantry Division,

508
00:23:21.750 --> 00:23:24.490
largely the regiments of them,

509
00:23:24.490 --> 00:23:27.710
about 14,000 US Army soldiers.

510
00:23:27.710 --> 00:23:31.180
Add to it, the Navy will tack on several of their troopships

511
00:23:31.180 --> 00:23:33.560
to bring over the 5th Marine Regiment.

512
00:23:33.560 --> 00:23:38.320
And Sims is not coordinated with this at all.

513
00:23:38.320 --> 00:23:41.330
Matter of fact, Sims has almost no word about this.

514
00:23:41.330 --> 00:23:43.270
Sims is busy working with the British

515
00:23:43.270 --> 00:23:45.350
in patrolling the Western Approaches

516
00:23:45.350 --> 00:23:48.690
and helping convoy in these new convoys

517
00:23:48.690 --> 00:23:50.220
coming across in June.

518
00:23:50.220 --> 00:23:53.590
Meanwhile, Gleaves is orchestrating these convoys

519
00:23:53.590 --> 00:23:56.050
to be escorted, not just part of the way,

520
00:23:56.050 --> 00:23:57.790
but all the way across.

521
00:23:57.790 --> 00:24:00.710
Each of the convoys will have its own escort,

522
00:24:00.710 --> 00:24:03.130
an armored cruiser, an auxiliary cruiser,

523
00:24:03.130 --> 00:24:06.250
a converted yacht and several destroyers.

524
00:24:06.250 --> 00:24:09.830
Now, not all his destroyers can make the passage across

525
00:24:09.830 --> 00:24:11.380
because of the distance involved.

526
00:24:11.380 --> 00:24:14.110
Some of his destroyers are coal-fired destroyers,

527
00:24:14.110 --> 00:24:16.490
so they'll have to turn around and head back,

528
00:24:16.490 --> 00:24:18.450
but some of his other destroyers can make it.

529
00:24:18.450 --> 00:24:19.283
And matter of fact,

530
00:24:19.283 --> 00:24:20.530
one of the things that Gleaves

531
00:24:20.530 --> 00:24:24.140
should get a lot of the claim for is during his tenure

532
00:24:24.140 --> 00:24:26.210
as commander of Destroyer Forces,

533
00:24:26.210 --> 00:24:28.840
he perfected the method whereby destroyers

534
00:24:28.840 --> 00:24:32.590
could refuel from tankers underway at sea.

535
00:24:32.590 --> 00:24:35.150
And so he'd sent out a ship called the Maumee,

536
00:24:35.150 --> 00:24:36.890
which is a large tanker,

537
00:24:36.890 --> 00:24:39.130
basically to sit in the middle of the Atlantic

538
00:24:39.130 --> 00:24:40.750
and the Maumee will be able to be there

539
00:24:40.750 --> 00:24:44.550
to replenish his destroyers as his convoys come across.

540
00:24:44.550 --> 00:24:48.120
Now, Gleaves doesn't buy the British idea

541
00:24:48.120 --> 00:24:50.000
of not just big convoys.

542
00:24:50.000 --> 00:24:52.110
He doesn't buy the idea of sending them out

543
00:24:52.110 --> 00:24:53.040
a week at a time.

544
00:24:53.040 --> 00:24:57.090
Instead he sails his vessels literally back to back.

545
00:24:57.090 --> 00:25:01.360
On one day in June, June 14th, three of his convoys sail.

546
00:25:01.360 --> 00:25:03.700
Now the convoys are broken up based on speed,

547
00:25:03.700 --> 00:25:05.170
one's faster than the other

548
00:25:05.170 --> 00:25:07.540
and the other one's faster than the next.

549
00:25:07.540 --> 00:25:11.530
And what that means is the convoys will arrive in Europe,

550
00:25:11.530 --> 00:25:14.670
literally about a day apart from each other.

551
00:25:14.670 --> 00:25:17.570
And each of those convoys are gonna have to be met

552
00:25:17.570 --> 00:25:21.740
by six destroyers from Gleaves's force.

553
00:25:21.740 --> 00:25:24.700
At this time, he only has 28 destroyers.

554
00:25:24.700 --> 00:25:27.330
He hasn't gotten himself up to full force yet.

555
00:25:27.330 --> 00:25:29.060
It's also at this time that Sims

556
00:25:29.060 --> 00:25:31.350
has an opportunity to actually command.

557
00:25:31.350 --> 00:25:34.660
Typically, during the World War I, Sims is in London,

558
00:25:34.660 --> 00:25:36.440
but for this brief period of time,

559
00:25:36.440 --> 00:25:38.190
the British commander at Queenstown,

560
00:25:38.190 --> 00:25:39.960
an admiral with the name of Lewis Bayly,

561
00:25:39.960 --> 00:25:43.040
who'd been in service now for three years continually,

562
00:25:43.040 --> 00:25:44.520
asked for a leave of absence.

563
00:25:44.520 --> 00:25:48.330
And Sims temporarily assumed command at Queenstown.

564
00:25:48.330 --> 00:25:50.870
And so right as Sims arrives in Queenstown,

565
00:25:50.870 --> 00:25:52.730
he gets a notice from Admiral Benson,

566
00:25:52.730 --> 00:25:54.620
chief of naval operations,

567
00:25:54.620 --> 00:25:59.030
that you will make available 24 of your 28 destroyers

568
00:25:59.030 --> 00:26:04.030
to escort in these four convoys, and Sims is livid.

569
00:26:04.240 --> 00:26:05.770
He is livid, basically,

570
00:26:05.770 --> 00:26:09.010
literally his entire destroyer force, 24 out of 28.

571
00:26:09.010 --> 00:26:12.110
And two of the destroyers he has are in shipyards.

572
00:26:12.110 --> 00:26:15.070
So he leaves them with two destroyers to escort in

573
00:26:15.070 --> 00:26:17.640
all the commercial vessels coming into England.

574
00:26:17.640 --> 00:26:20.820
And this is going to denude him of all his forces.

575
00:26:20.820 --> 00:26:24.220
Sorry, my dog doesn't agree with the decision

576
00:26:24.220 --> 00:26:25.963
by Sims and Gleaves either.

577
00:26:26.980 --> 00:26:29.340
Sims decides that I have no choice.

578
00:26:29.340 --> 00:26:32.450
I have to follow this and decides to go ahead

579
00:26:32.450 --> 00:26:34.190
and initiate this plan.

580
00:26:34.190 --> 00:26:36.050
He's going to send his destroyers out,

581
00:26:36.050 --> 00:26:37.790
escort in the convoys.

582
00:26:37.790 --> 00:26:41.720
However, this is the moment where Sims and Gleaves

583
00:26:41.720 --> 00:26:43.840
get into their opposition.

584
00:26:43.840 --> 00:26:47.000
They decide that they have different views

585
00:26:47.000 --> 00:26:49.720
in how the destroyers will be used.

586
00:26:49.720 --> 00:26:50.760
Sims is adamant.

587
00:26:50.760 --> 00:26:54.930
He starts sending messages back about the problem with this.

588
00:26:54.930 --> 00:26:58.620
You cannot orchestrate convoys the way Gleaves is doing it.

589
00:26:58.620 --> 00:27:01.490
You can't send them over in these mass waves.

590
00:27:01.490 --> 00:27:05.610
You can't expect the entire American destroyer force

591
00:27:05.610 --> 00:27:08.640
to be allocated, to bring in these American units

592
00:27:08.640 --> 00:27:12.230
and we're leaving the commercial vessels unescorted

593
00:27:12.230 --> 00:27:14.250
because the Germans will target them

594
00:27:14.250 --> 00:27:17.500
and potentially starve the British and French out.

595
00:27:17.500 --> 00:27:20.870
It creates a bitter animosity between the two commanders.

596
00:27:20.870 --> 00:27:24.440
And I would argue it is a complete misunderstanding

597
00:27:24.440 --> 00:27:26.930
between both of them.

598
00:27:26.930 --> 00:27:30.290
Gleaves is paramount in defending these American ships.

599
00:27:30.290 --> 00:27:31.560
They're loaded with troops.

600
00:27:31.560 --> 00:27:33.830
I mean, each of these troopships coming across

601
00:27:33.830 --> 00:27:36.090
are loaded with several thousand troops.

602
00:27:36.090 --> 00:27:38.050
He wants ultimate protection.

603
00:27:38.050 --> 00:27:41.910
He thinks it's too risky to just send them out unescorted.

604
00:27:41.910 --> 00:27:44.200
And so he wants to send them with an armored cruiser

605
00:27:44.200 --> 00:27:45.630
and several destroyers

606
00:27:45.630 --> 00:27:47.910
should they run across a German U-boat.

607
00:27:47.910 --> 00:27:50.800
If you're Gleaves, you have the experience of U-53.

608
00:27:50.800 --> 00:27:53.860
You know German U-boats can make it to the East Coast.

609
00:27:53.860 --> 00:27:56.210
So he is being prudent.

610
00:27:56.210 --> 00:27:59.580
However, he's being ill-informed

611
00:27:59.580 --> 00:28:02.920
about how to send these convoys across.

612
00:28:02.920 --> 00:28:05.740
What you saw with the British convoys, the HH convoys,

613
00:28:05.740 --> 00:28:06.990
going once a week,

614
00:28:06.990 --> 00:28:09.410
that allowed the British to allocate destroyers,

615
00:28:09.410 --> 00:28:12.130
meet them and bring them in with full force.

616
00:28:12.130 --> 00:28:14.260
Sims is basically having to deplete

617
00:28:14.260 --> 00:28:17.210
his entire destroyer force to go get it.

618
00:28:17.210 --> 00:28:20.810
And it leads to a series of messages back and forth

619
00:28:20.810 --> 00:28:23.690
by both Sims and Gleaves to their commander

620
00:28:23.690 --> 00:28:28.180
that is woefully misinterpreted by all sides.

621
00:28:28.180 --> 00:28:31.660
And I would argue it still is in the literature.

622
00:28:31.660 --> 00:28:34.460
Sims makes it sound like I have a problem

623
00:28:34.460 --> 00:28:36.260
with escorting American troopships in.

624
00:28:36.260 --> 00:28:37.926
He doesn't. He has no problem with that.

625
00:28:37.926 --> 00:28:39.780
He understands the priority.

626
00:28:39.780 --> 00:28:43.480
His problem is allocating so many resources

627
00:28:43.480 --> 00:28:45.170
to bring these convoys in.

628
00:28:45.170 --> 00:28:49.840
Gleaves believes Sims is fighting him on this issue.

629
00:28:49.840 --> 00:28:53.220
And Sims is willing to basically focus

630
00:28:53.220 --> 00:28:57.040
on the British cargo convoys versus the troopships.

631
00:28:57.040 --> 00:28:58.230
Now, it should be noted

632
00:28:58.230 --> 00:29:00.600
that throughout the course of World War I,

633
00:29:00.600 --> 00:29:03.810
not one American troopship is torpedoed and sunk,

634
00:29:03.810 --> 00:29:05.760
heading to Europe.

635
00:29:05.760 --> 00:29:08.420
There are some British ships carrying American troops

636
00:29:08.420 --> 00:29:10.680
that are hit and sunk, but largely,

637
00:29:10.680 --> 00:29:12.400
the American Expeditionary Force

638
00:29:12.400 --> 00:29:15.560
gets across two million men and women.

639
00:29:15.560 --> 00:29:17.820
There are women in the American Expeditionary Force.

640
00:29:17.820 --> 00:29:22.820
Two million get across with no substantial loss of life.

641
00:29:23.210 --> 00:29:25.340
And that's because of the efforts by Gleaves.

642
00:29:25.340 --> 00:29:27.710
When Gleaves returns back home home,

643
00:29:27.710 --> 00:29:30.160
he is gonna be elevated up to commander

644
00:29:30.160 --> 00:29:33.704
of what's called the Cruiser and Transport Force.

645
00:29:33.704 --> 00:29:35.750
And the Cruiser and Transport Force will handle

646
00:29:35.750 --> 00:29:39.480
the movement of troops across the Atlantic.

647
00:29:39.480 --> 00:29:43.830
And eventually, he acknowledges that Sims is right,

648
00:29:43.830 --> 00:29:47.620
that sending mass convoys across in large formations

649
00:29:47.620 --> 00:29:50.200
all concurrently was the wrong path.

650
00:29:50.200 --> 00:29:53.550
However, late in the war, they do run into a problem

651
00:29:53.550 --> 00:29:56.190
when the number of troopships coming across

652
00:29:56.190 --> 00:29:59.520
are so high, so large that there's no choice.

653
00:29:59.520 --> 00:30:01.720
You can't just wait and send one a week.

654
00:30:01.720 --> 00:30:03.060
They're coming so fast

655
00:30:03.060 --> 00:30:06.050
as Americans are trained and ready to go.

656
00:30:06.050 --> 00:30:08.480
And the situation deteriorates on the Western front,

657
00:30:08.480 --> 00:30:10.410
in the spring of 1918,

658
00:30:10.410 --> 00:30:12.980
that Sims and Gleaves run into this issue.

659
00:30:12.980 --> 00:30:14.220
Sims also sends a notice,

660
00:30:14.220 --> 00:30:16.580
I don't like you sending these individual ships across.

661
00:30:16.580 --> 00:30:18.990
They're consuming up my resources.

662
00:30:18.990 --> 00:30:22.660
And it creates a bitter animosity between Sims and his boss,

663
00:30:22.660 --> 00:30:25.720
the secretary of the Navy, Josephus Daniels.

664
00:30:25.720 --> 00:30:30.070
And this issue resonates into not just the war,

665
00:30:30.070 --> 00:30:32.423
but the post-war environment.

666
00:30:32.423 --> 00:30:36.160
At the end of World War I, Sims is a hero.

667
00:30:36.160 --> 00:30:37.280
Both these commanders,

668
00:30:37.280 --> 00:30:40.020
both Sims and Gleaves write autobiographies.

669
00:30:40.020 --> 00:30:44.910
Sims, "The Victory at Sea" will win the Pulitzer Prize.

670
00:30:44.910 --> 00:30:48.010
Gleaves's book, "The History of the Transport Force,"

671
00:30:48.010 --> 00:30:50.130
is not as well received.

672
00:30:50.130 --> 00:30:50.963
At the end of the war,

673
00:30:50.963 --> 00:30:52.687
Sims who's elevated up to a four-star admiral.

674
00:30:54.200 --> 00:30:56.820
He becomes a full admiral while in command

675
00:30:57.810 --> 00:31:00.210
as commander of naval forces in Europe

676
00:31:00.210 --> 00:31:01.700
comes back to the United States.

677
00:31:01.700 --> 00:31:03.610
He's offered a plethora of positions,

678
00:31:03.610 --> 00:31:06.820
but decides to return back to the Naval War college.

679
00:31:06.820 --> 00:31:08.160
That's a two-star rank.

680
00:31:08.160 --> 00:31:10.510
He reverts back to a rear admiral.

681
00:31:10.510 --> 00:31:12.760
And he loses his four-star rank.

682
00:31:12.760 --> 00:31:17.760
Gleaves, on the other hand, is lauded for his effort.

683
00:31:17.760 --> 00:31:20.500
He's appointed to commander of the Asiatic Fleet,

684
00:31:20.500 --> 00:31:23.350
a four-star position, and he heads out to Manila

685
00:31:23.350 --> 00:31:25.250
in the Philippines to command it,

686
00:31:25.250 --> 00:31:26.690
which is a fortunate thing

687
00:31:26.690 --> 00:31:29.610
because in the immediate post-war environment,

688
00:31:29.610 --> 00:31:31.850
there's a massive naval investigation.

689
00:31:31.850 --> 00:31:35.130
The US Congress hosts a naval investigation.

690
00:31:35.130 --> 00:31:39.550
The Senate decides to convene together a panel

691
00:31:39.550 --> 00:31:43.780
to discuss what happened during the First World War.

692
00:31:43.780 --> 00:31:46.940
And it largely has to do with the fact that William Sims,

693
00:31:46.940 --> 00:31:49.460
who's now president of the Naval War College

694
00:31:49.460 --> 00:31:53.070
decides to write his book, "The Victory at Sea,"

695
00:31:53.070 --> 00:31:56.260
but he also writes a series of articles that proceed this,

696
00:31:56.260 --> 00:31:57.910
where he talks about basically

697
00:31:57.910 --> 00:31:59.790
what we would call today lessons learned.

698
00:31:59.790 --> 00:32:03.660
What should we have learned about the First World War?

699
00:32:03.660 --> 00:32:05.620
And one of those lessons he talks about

700
00:32:05.620 --> 00:32:07.470
is this convoying issue.

701
00:32:07.470 --> 00:32:09.870
And Sims naturally thinks he's right.

702
00:32:09.870 --> 00:32:13.503
I mean, you write a book on your accounts of World War I,

703
00:32:14.723 --> 00:32:16.910
you're not gonna be the bad guy in it, and Sims is not.

704
00:32:16.910 --> 00:32:19.210
And Sims gets great acclaim for his book,

705
00:32:19.210 --> 00:32:20.950
I mentioned the Pulitzer Prize,

706
00:32:20.950 --> 00:32:24.240
and his book parts of it run in article format

707
00:32:24.240 --> 00:32:26.240
so people are reading it every week.

708
00:32:26.240 --> 00:32:29.360
And that angers the Secretary of the Navy

709
00:32:29.360 --> 00:32:33.320
and Sims winds up in a fight with Josephus Daniels,

710
00:32:33.320 --> 00:32:36.010
the head of the US Navy.

711
00:32:36.010 --> 00:32:38.439
Now Josephus Daniels was a publisher.

712
00:32:38.439 --> 00:32:41.530
He owned the News & Observer in Raleigh, North Carolina.

713
00:32:41.530 --> 00:32:44.920
And getting yourself into a fight with a news publisher

714
00:32:44.920 --> 00:32:46.010
isn't always the best thing

715
00:32:46.010 --> 00:32:48.520
because news publishers know how to use the news

716
00:32:48.520 --> 00:32:50.560
to their advantage in the press.

717
00:32:50.560 --> 00:32:54.280
And there is a series of hearings and investigations

718
00:32:54.280 --> 00:32:56.320
where all the major commanders

719
00:32:56.320 --> 00:32:57.700
are brought before the Senate.

720
00:32:57.700 --> 00:33:02.370
It's a over 2,000 pages, this investigation,

721
00:33:02.370 --> 00:33:04.670
where every little issue from this

722
00:33:04.670 --> 00:33:07.790
that I just talked about is elaborated on.

723
00:33:07.790 --> 00:33:10.900
But I would argue a lot of it is misunderstood

724
00:33:10.900 --> 00:33:13.010
because people don't understand the context

725
00:33:13.010 --> 00:33:16.080
of what Sims and Gleaves are fighting about.

726
00:33:16.080 --> 00:33:19.400
The typical narrative, the kind of the standard approach

727
00:33:19.400 --> 00:33:20.500
that comes out of World War I

728
00:33:20.500 --> 00:33:23.130
is Sims is the genius and Gleaves

729
00:33:23.130 --> 00:33:24.590
is an error most of this time.

730
00:33:24.590 --> 00:33:27.020
And I'd argue both of them are right

731
00:33:27.020 --> 00:33:29.470
and wrong on different issues.

732
00:33:29.470 --> 00:33:31.890
I think Gleaves is adamant

733
00:33:31.890 --> 00:33:34.340
that there has to be adequate protection

734
00:33:34.340 --> 00:33:36.100
for troopships coming across.

735
00:33:36.100 --> 00:33:39.090
Matter of fact, to the point that Josephus Daniels,

736
00:33:39.090 --> 00:33:41.480
Secretary of the Navy, has to send numerous messages

737
00:33:41.480 --> 00:33:43.750
to Sims reminding him of that fact.

738
00:33:43.750 --> 00:33:45.370
Now Sims knew that,

739
00:33:45.370 --> 00:33:48.000
but because of Sims's issues with Gleaves,

740
00:33:48.000 --> 00:33:48.940
he really didn't like him.

741
00:33:48.940 --> 00:33:52.790
And if you read Sims's private letters to his wife

742
00:33:52.790 --> 00:33:54.390
and to Fletcher Pratt,

743
00:33:54.390 --> 00:33:59.390
who is a captain in the chief of naval operations office,

744
00:33:59.920 --> 00:34:03.220
and later on a future chief of naval operations.

745
00:34:03.220 --> 00:34:05.730
You can read Sims does not like Gleaves.

746
00:34:05.730 --> 00:34:08.552
There's a lot of distrust toward Gleaves.

747
00:34:08.552 --> 00:34:10.920
And Sims is a bit of a micromanager too.

748
00:34:10.920 --> 00:34:14.030
Sims is both commander of naval forces in Europe,

749
00:34:14.030 --> 00:34:17.420
and he commands the operations at Queenstown.

750
00:34:17.420 --> 00:34:19.350
And he should have had an admiral under him.

751
00:34:19.350 --> 00:34:22.030
I mean, Gleaves should have been sent across

752
00:34:22.030 --> 00:34:26.310
to command destroyers in Europe, but that's not done.

753
00:34:26.310 --> 00:34:29.940
And what you saw here was a clash of personalities.

754
00:34:29.940 --> 00:34:31.760
And you would like to think, well, wait a minute,

755
00:34:31.760 --> 00:34:33.470
these are commanders, these are admirals.

756
00:34:33.470 --> 00:34:34.900
This is World War I.

757
00:34:34.900 --> 00:34:36.840
People's lives are at stake.

758
00:34:36.840 --> 00:34:38.810
You wouldn't wanna think that personalities

759
00:34:38.810 --> 00:34:42.870
and issues come to bear, but they do, they do.

760
00:34:42.870 --> 00:34:45.150
And during the naval investigation, this all comes out.

761
00:34:45.150 --> 00:34:48.300
However, during the naval investigation,

762
00:34:48.300 --> 00:34:51.260
Albert Gleaves is in the Philippines.

763
00:34:51.260 --> 00:34:52.430
He does not testify.

764
00:34:52.430 --> 00:34:55.470
So he is the one principal commander

765
00:34:55.470 --> 00:34:58.410
who is not in the naval investigation.

766
00:34:58.410 --> 00:35:02.640
And his testimony not being there, I think, is essential

767
00:35:02.640 --> 00:35:03.900
because I think it would've gotten

768
00:35:03.900 --> 00:35:08.320
to the root of a lot of the issues that are happening here.

769
00:35:08.320 --> 00:35:11.920
Now, all that, with that fight,

770
00:35:11.920 --> 00:35:14.340
one of the things that I think it's important

771
00:35:14.340 --> 00:35:18.630
to clarify is both Gleaves and Sims are successful.

772
00:35:18.630 --> 00:35:20.840
The Americans are not only able to transport

773
00:35:20.840 --> 00:35:23.140
over the American Expeditionary Force,

774
00:35:23.140 --> 00:35:26.850
but they're able to counter the U-boat offensive.

775
00:35:26.850 --> 00:35:31.420
Where the U-boats peaked in March, April and May of 1917,

776
00:35:32.330 --> 00:35:34.840
by the end of the war, they're still sinking ships,

777
00:35:34.840 --> 00:35:38.620
but most of those ships are sailing alone

778
00:35:38.620 --> 00:35:42.560
in areas outside of convoy protection.

779
00:35:42.560 --> 00:35:45.460
They're being sunk by mines and other methods.

780
00:35:45.460 --> 00:35:48.120
And one of the things that the US Navy

781
00:35:48.120 --> 00:35:50.630
along with the merchant marines of Great Britain,

782
00:35:50.630 --> 00:35:53.510
the United States and its allies are able to do

783
00:35:53.510 --> 00:35:56.740
is they're able to keep the sea lanes open.

784
00:35:56.740 --> 00:35:59.970
This very famous poster from World War I

785
00:35:59.970 --> 00:36:04.050
really encapsulates this and demonstrates to everybody

786
00:36:04.050 --> 00:36:07.830
how they were able to keep the sea lanes open

787
00:36:07.830 --> 00:36:11.040
and be able to move goods across this.

788
00:36:11.040 --> 00:36:16.030
Now, both Sims and Gleaves go on to have great careers.

789
00:36:16.030 --> 00:36:18.120
Gleaves will eventually retire from the Navy

790
00:36:18.120 --> 00:36:19.480
as a four-star admiral.

791
00:36:19.480 --> 00:36:22.280
Sims will retire as a two-star admiral.

792
00:36:22.280 --> 00:36:24.170
There's efforts to get him returned

793
00:36:24.170 --> 00:36:26.190
to his rank of four-star.

794
00:36:26.190 --> 00:36:29.290
But he remains the president of the Naval War College.

795
00:36:29.290 --> 00:36:31.100
And one of the things he initiates

796
00:36:31.100 --> 00:36:34.750
is the study of the First World War and what happened.

797
00:36:34.750 --> 00:36:36.810
And unfortunately, most of the focus

798
00:36:36.810 --> 00:36:40.130
of the First World study is on the big naval battles,

799
00:36:40.130 --> 00:36:41.520
the Battle of Jutland,

800
00:36:41.520 --> 00:36:43.390
which was the climactic naval battle

801
00:36:43.390 --> 00:36:44.827
between the British Grand Fleet

802
00:36:44.827 --> 00:36:48.900
and the German High Seas Fleet in mid 1916

803
00:36:48.900 --> 00:36:50.980
when the United States Navy

804
00:36:50.980 --> 00:36:55.480
had an extremely successful operation in convoy.

805
00:36:55.480 --> 00:37:00.220
Now I should mention that Gleaves felt a moment

806
00:37:00.220 --> 00:37:03.470
of justification in the summer of 1918.

807
00:37:03.470 --> 00:37:04.800
In the summer of 1918,

808
00:37:04.800 --> 00:37:08.650
the Germans dispatched their big what are called U-cruisers.

809
00:37:08.650 --> 00:37:10.190
These are the larger U-boats.

810
00:37:10.190 --> 00:37:12.530
These are U-boats that cannot just sail out

811
00:37:12.530 --> 00:37:13.840
to the Western Approaches,

812
00:37:13.840 --> 00:37:17.750
but can actually cross the Atlantic to the West Coast.

813
00:37:17.750 --> 00:37:20.930
And as these U-cruisers come out, William Sims,

814
00:37:20.930 --> 00:37:22.610
who has a great intelligence network

815
00:37:22.610 --> 00:37:25.510
through the British and through naval attaches

816
00:37:25.510 --> 00:37:26.903
and in neutral countries,

817
00:37:27.740 --> 00:37:29.490
find out that the Germans were preparing

818
00:37:29.490 --> 00:37:31.640
to send these large U-cruisers

819
00:37:31.640 --> 00:37:35.780
out into the Central and Western Atlantic.

820
00:37:35.780 --> 00:37:39.090
And the purpose here wasn't to so much

821
00:37:39.090 --> 00:37:40.390
stop the flow of goods.

822
00:37:40.390 --> 00:37:43.270
They knew the few U-cruisers that the Germans have

823
00:37:43.270 --> 00:37:46.460
were not gonna be enough to stop the flow of troops.

824
00:37:46.460 --> 00:37:49.290
However, what it could do

825
00:37:49.290 --> 00:37:52.030
is stop the flow of American destroyers

826
00:37:52.030 --> 00:37:53.830
and escorts coming across.

827
00:37:53.830 --> 00:37:56.530
By this point in the war, the ship you see depicted there,

828
00:37:56.530 --> 00:37:59.590
the American war ship is a four-stacked destroyer.

829
00:37:59.590 --> 00:38:02.330
The Americans began a massive building program

830
00:38:02.330 --> 00:38:03.720
to build destroyers.

831
00:38:03.720 --> 00:38:08.680
273 are authorized during World War I.

832
00:38:08.680 --> 00:38:11.740
One ship is built in 19 days.

833
00:38:11.740 --> 00:38:14.020
An amazing feat to launch a ship

834
00:38:14.020 --> 00:38:17.731
at the Mare Island Shipyard in just 19 days.

835
00:38:17.731 --> 00:38:20.650
USS Ward will not get into action in World War I,

836
00:38:20.650 --> 00:38:22.890
but it'll be a very important ship.

837
00:38:22.890 --> 00:38:27.150
It's on patrol off of Pearl Harbor on December 7th, 1941,

838
00:38:27.150 --> 00:38:28.960
and fires the first shot of the war

839
00:38:28.960 --> 00:38:31.320
when it sinks a two person German,

840
00:38:31.320 --> 00:38:32.980
excuse me, Japanese submarine,

841
00:38:32.980 --> 00:38:36.130
trying to penetrate Pearl Harbor on the day of the attack,

842
00:38:36.130 --> 00:38:39.850
but these destroyers start coming off the ways very quickly.

843
00:38:39.850 --> 00:38:41.770
Meanwhile, the US Shipping Board

844
00:38:41.770 --> 00:38:45.610
is building vessels to supplement existing tonnage.

845
00:38:45.610 --> 00:38:47.600
Matter of fact, the US Shipping Board

846
00:38:47.600 --> 00:38:50.270
will build over seven million tons of shipping

847
00:38:50.270 --> 00:38:53.330
to add to the US fleet before the end of the war.

848
00:38:53.330 --> 00:38:55.020
Ships are being built at Hog Island,

849
00:38:55.020 --> 00:38:57.720
which is today the Philadelphia Navy Yard.

850
00:38:57.720 --> 00:38:59.800
The ships are gonna be built at shipyards

851
00:38:59.800 --> 00:39:02.760
all up along the coast on the Great Lakes,

852
00:39:02.760 --> 00:39:04.180
on the West Coast.

853
00:39:04.180 --> 00:39:06.840
And ships, like you see off Mallows Bay, for example,

854
00:39:06.840 --> 00:39:08.630
these composite and wooden ships,

855
00:39:08.630 --> 00:39:12.840
these wooden ships that are built with engines

856
00:39:12.840 --> 00:39:14.360
are built and they're used

857
00:39:14.360 --> 00:39:16.800
to supplement ships heading across.

858
00:39:16.800 --> 00:39:19.530
The US industrial mine is about to peak

859
00:39:19.530 --> 00:39:20.880
in the summer of 1918.

860
00:39:20.880 --> 00:39:23.720
This tidal wave of ships and escorts

861
00:39:23.720 --> 00:39:26.520
are about to come across and it's at that moment,

862
00:39:26.520 --> 00:39:28.820
the German U-boats head across.

863
00:39:28.820 --> 00:39:31.510
And those German U-boats make a couple of key sinkings.

864
00:39:31.510 --> 00:39:34.050
I mentioned the fact that the Merak,

865
00:39:34.050 --> 00:39:36.530
a impounded, excuse me, a Dutch ship

866
00:39:36.530 --> 00:39:41.080
that the US seized in Harbor in March of 1918 will be sunk.

867
00:39:41.080 --> 00:39:45.750
The USS San Diego, a armed cruiser will be mined and sunk.

868
00:39:45.750 --> 00:39:48.330
A battleship, the USS Minnesota is mined

869
00:39:48.330 --> 00:39:51.700
and damaged off the approaches of the Delaware River.

870
00:39:51.700 --> 00:39:54.710
The arrival of these German U-boats off the coast

871
00:39:54.710 --> 00:39:57.060
convinces Gleaves, here they are.

872
00:39:57.060 --> 00:39:58.040
I knew they were coming.

873
00:39:58.040 --> 00:39:59.270
Now they're here.

874
00:39:59.270 --> 00:40:02.090
I need to keep destroyers on the East Coast

875
00:40:02.090 --> 00:40:03.610
and not send them across.

876
00:40:03.610 --> 00:40:06.100
And what that does is the reinforcements

877
00:40:06.100 --> 00:40:08.460
that were scheduled ahead across don't.

878
00:40:08.460 --> 00:40:11.700
And in many ways, you see a split in the US destroyer force.

879
00:40:11.700 --> 00:40:14.610
The large majority went across early in the war,

880
00:40:14.610 --> 00:40:16.900
but as new destroyers come on line,

881
00:40:16.900 --> 00:40:18.640
they're kept on the East Coast

882
00:40:18.640 --> 00:40:21.870
to provide transatlantic convoy operations.

883
00:40:21.870 --> 00:40:24.230
You start seeing destroyers tact to convoys

884
00:40:24.230 --> 00:40:25.880
going all the way across.

885
00:40:25.880 --> 00:40:29.110
These new Wickes-class destroyers have the range to do that.

886
00:40:29.110 --> 00:40:31.630
And then you see destroyers kept on the East Coast

887
00:40:31.630 --> 00:40:34.340
to prevent a U-boat onslaught

888
00:40:34.340 --> 00:40:36.070
that would sink hundreds of vessels,

889
00:40:36.070 --> 00:40:38.430
instead just a hand and full of vessels

890
00:40:38.430 --> 00:40:40.520
are sunk off the coast.

891
00:40:40.520 --> 00:40:45.170
So Sims versus Gleaves is an interesting story for me,

892
00:40:45.170 --> 00:40:46.820
because it has personality.

893
00:40:46.820 --> 00:40:50.230
It has impact not just in the First World War,

894
00:40:50.230 --> 00:40:54.230
but all the way beyond it into the Second World War

895
00:40:54.230 --> 00:40:56.840
and into modern history today.

896
00:40:56.840 --> 00:40:59.120
So I appreciate the opportunity to present this to you,

897
00:40:59.120 --> 00:41:02.543
and I'm happy to take any questions from the audience.

898
00:41:04.950 --> 00:41:06.400
[Shannon] All right, thank you, Sal.

899
00:41:06.400 --> 00:41:07.870
That was awesome.

900
00:41:07.870 --> 00:41:09.590
If you have a question for Sal,

901
00:41:09.590 --> 00:41:11.290
please enter it into the question box.

902
00:41:11.290 --> 00:41:14.470
That'll be down at the bottom part of your control panel.

903
00:41:14.470 --> 00:41:17.870
And also if you haven't downloaded Sal's bio yet,

904
00:41:17.870 --> 00:41:19.410
it's also in the chat box.

905
00:41:19.410 --> 00:41:21.450
So be sure to download that now.

906
00:41:21.450 --> 00:41:23.840
And in the bio, you're gonna find various links

907
00:41:23.840 --> 00:41:27.590
to learn more about the merchant marines and World War I.

908
00:41:27.590 --> 00:41:30.550
So we have one question, Sal, that came in early.

909
00:41:30.550 --> 00:41:33.120
It says the Deutschland was a commercial submarine,

910
00:41:33.120 --> 00:41:36.290
question mark, what was it used for?

911
00:41:36.290 --> 00:41:38.450
[Sal] Right, the Germans had built a series

912
00:41:38.450 --> 00:41:40.430
of this class of commercial submarine,

913
00:41:40.430 --> 00:41:42.530
and it was meant to be an evasion.

914
00:41:42.530 --> 00:41:46.040
Very early in World War I, the British initiated a blockade,

915
00:41:46.040 --> 00:41:48.330
and they're able to blockade Germany largely

916
00:41:48.330 --> 00:41:52.680
because Germany has very few accesses to the open ocean,

917
00:41:52.680 --> 00:41:56.290
the North Sea and the area through the English Channel.

918
00:41:56.290 --> 00:41:59.550
And because the Germans needed several key commodities

919
00:41:59.550 --> 00:42:01.810
that was very rare for them to get,

920
00:42:01.810 --> 00:42:04.080
they designed this class of cargo submarine.

921
00:42:04.080 --> 00:42:07.730
And basically, she was a very large overbuilt submarine

922
00:42:07.730 --> 00:42:09.150
with cargo space.

923
00:42:09.150 --> 00:42:11.160
And the idea was she can submerge,

924
00:42:11.160 --> 00:42:12.640
evade the British blockade

925
00:42:12.640 --> 00:42:16.150
sail across with the range to do so to the United States.

926
00:42:16.150 --> 00:42:18.643
She actually sailed into Baltimore in Maryland,

927
00:42:19.660 --> 00:42:21.440
loaded cargo, and then come back.

928
00:42:21.440 --> 00:42:23.746
And the Germans had planned a class of these.

929
00:42:23.746 --> 00:42:26.190
A matter of fact, the U-53 was escorting over

930
00:42:26.190 --> 00:42:28.310
another cargo submarine, the Bremen,

931
00:42:28.310 --> 00:42:29.650
but that ship disappeared.

932
00:42:29.650 --> 00:42:32.730
And so it never arrived in the United States.

933
00:42:32.730 --> 00:42:35.420
The Deutschland eventually became a German U-boat.

934
00:42:35.420 --> 00:42:38.410
I believe it was U-155 or 151.

935
00:42:38.410 --> 00:42:43.100
And it became the basis for these large cruiser submarines

936
00:42:43.100 --> 00:42:45.029
that were built after the war.

937
00:42:45.029 --> 00:42:46.460
As a matter of fact, these cruiser submarines

938
00:42:46.460 --> 00:42:48.490
were studied by the allies

939
00:42:48.490 --> 00:42:51.270
and you see the United States built very similar ones.

940
00:42:51.270 --> 00:42:54.420
There's a lot of impact from those German cruiser submarines

941
00:42:54.420 --> 00:42:56.460
in the World War II fleet boats we built

942
00:42:56.460 --> 00:42:59.150
that are very successful in the Pacific in World War II.

943
00:42:59.150 --> 00:43:00.590
And even the Japanese look at 'em

944
00:43:00.590 --> 00:43:04.010
for some of their larger classes of submarines,

945
00:43:04.010 --> 00:43:05.900
a lot of which could carry sea planes.

946
00:43:05.900 --> 00:43:08.903
The I-400 class was one of those groups.

947
00:43:09.760 --> 00:43:13.460
[Shannon] Right, Mark, are you able to be online?

948
00:43:13.460 --> 00:43:15.780
I'm not sure if you're available.

949
00:43:15.780 --> 00:43:17.340
If you are, do you have any questions

950
00:43:17.340 --> 00:43:19.510
that you see that you'd like to ask?

951
00:43:19.510 --> 00:43:22.990
[Mark] Yes, you said that they were working

952
00:43:22.990 --> 00:43:26.280
on getting Sims restored to his four-star rank.

953
00:43:26.280 --> 00:43:27.853
Did that ever end up happening?

954
00:43:28.770 --> 00:43:29.740
[Sal] It didn't.

955
00:43:29.740 --> 00:43:33.560
Sims manages to anger a lot of people.

956
00:43:33.560 --> 00:43:36.970
He manages to burn a lot of bridges.

957
00:43:36.970 --> 00:43:40.760
In his testimony, he's very candid in his testimony

958
00:43:40.760 --> 00:43:44.670
and him and the Secretary of the Navy

959
00:43:44.670 --> 00:43:47.870
really don't have a good relationship.

960
00:43:47.870 --> 00:43:50.050
And actually, what you saw was very similar

961
00:43:50.050 --> 00:43:52.430
to what happened in the Spanish-American War,

962
00:43:52.430 --> 00:43:55.270
in the War of 1812, you create kind of a bifurcation.

963
00:43:55.270 --> 00:43:58.600
You split the the Navy into camps.

964
00:43:58.600 --> 00:44:01.000
And Sims's camp was never able

965
00:44:01.000 --> 00:44:02.870
to really come back into power enough

966
00:44:02.870 --> 00:44:05.680
to get him promoted back to that fourth.

967
00:44:05.680 --> 00:44:07.180
Now I understand that was fairly typical,

968
00:44:07.180 --> 00:44:09.970
two, three and four-star ranks were temporary.

969
00:44:09.970 --> 00:44:12.130
They were more position ranks that you would have,

970
00:44:12.130 --> 00:44:15.090
so you'd be equal to admirals from other navies.

971
00:44:15.090 --> 00:44:17.850
So it was fairly typical for that, but post-World War I,

972
00:44:17.850 --> 00:44:18.980
there was an effort, for example,

973
00:44:18.980 --> 00:44:21.750
and it was successful, to promote Pershing

974
00:44:21.750 --> 00:44:23.170
to a permanent rank.

975
00:44:23.170 --> 00:44:26.380
He was actually promoted to General of the Armies,

976
00:44:26.380 --> 00:44:30.920
which is the highest rank officially in the US Army.

977
00:44:31.820 --> 00:44:35.460
It actually equates to six stars, not five, six stars

978
00:44:35.460 --> 00:44:38.230
Admiral Dewey, who had been the Victor

979
00:44:38.230 --> 00:44:39.250
at the Battle of Manila Bay

980
00:44:39.250 --> 00:44:43.684
was promoted to Admiral of the Fleet.

981
00:44:43.684 --> 00:44:46.970
And that was a six-star position eventually.

982
00:44:46.970 --> 00:44:49.350
And that's what they wanted to do with Sims,

983
00:44:49.350 --> 00:44:50.410
but they were never able to do it.

984
00:44:50.410 --> 00:44:53.300
The legislation just kind of fell out again.

985
00:44:53.300 --> 00:44:56.980
Benson and Roosevelt didn't like what Sims was saying.

986
00:44:56.980 --> 00:44:59.050
And that basically killed him

987
00:44:59.050 --> 00:45:01.863
with Wilson to be able to do that.

988
00:45:03.810 --> 00:45:05.710
[Shannon] Okay, another question we have

989
00:45:05.710 --> 00:45:07.560
is did the German ships ever land

990
00:45:07.560 --> 00:45:09.665
on US soil and come ashore?

991
00:45:09.665 --> 00:45:11.570
I thought you talked about one,

992
00:45:11.570 --> 00:45:13.860
but would you explain a little bit more about that?

993
00:45:13.860 --> 00:45:15.190
[Sal] Yeah, in World War I, they don't.

994
00:45:15.190 --> 00:45:18.060
In World War II, we see the landing of German

995
00:45:18.060 --> 00:45:20.230
kind of saboteurs is very famous case

996
00:45:20.230 --> 00:45:21.830
that happens off Long Island where they do it.

997
00:45:21.830 --> 00:45:23.870
Now, we do see German U-boats

998
00:45:23.870 --> 00:45:25.230
right off the coast in World War I.

999
00:45:25.230 --> 00:45:26.420
Obviously, talked about, again,

1000
00:45:26.420 --> 00:45:31.420
the shirts, the LV-71, the Merak.

1001
00:45:31.840 --> 00:45:35.910
The most famous case is off Orleans in Massachusetts,

1002
00:45:35.910 --> 00:45:38.870
where a tug and barge came under gunfire

1003
00:45:38.870 --> 00:45:39.870
from a German U-boat.

1004
00:45:39.870 --> 00:45:44.640
And actually some shells landed on Cape Cod.

1005
00:45:44.640 --> 00:45:46.680
So you had German U-boats right off the coast,

1006
00:45:46.680 --> 00:45:49.030
but there was no landings that were done,

1007
00:45:49.030 --> 00:45:52.020
at least not in World War I that we know of.

1008
00:45:52.020 --> 00:45:55.020
But again, the idea that World War I is right off the coast.

1009
00:45:55.020 --> 00:45:57.610
And again, I always salute the Monitor Sanctuary

1010
00:45:57.610 --> 00:45:59.250
for talking about this,

1011
00:45:59.250 --> 00:46:00.580
but when I talk about World War I

1012
00:46:00.580 --> 00:46:02.550
to my students in North Carolina, I tell 'em listen,

1013
00:46:02.550 --> 00:46:05.430
World War I battlefield is just a few

1014
00:46:05.430 --> 00:46:07.630
miles off the coast here.

1015
00:46:07.630 --> 00:46:09.250
And that's an important aspect.

1016
00:46:09.250 --> 00:46:11.870
And I think Gleaves, again, is really taken by that.

1017
00:46:11.870 --> 00:46:15.100
The arrival of Hans Rose in U-53 in Newport

1018
00:46:15.100 --> 00:46:16.000
really colors him.

1019
00:46:16.000 --> 00:46:17.630
What's really interesting about this,

1020
00:46:17.630 --> 00:46:20.870
and just to broach it a little bit off subject here,

1021
00:46:20.870 --> 00:46:24.480
on this is how this impacts the US in World War II.

1022
00:46:24.480 --> 00:46:26.070
You would sit there and say, well, wait a minute,

1023
00:46:26.070 --> 00:46:29.410
World War II, what was the Navy's position toward convoying?

1024
00:46:29.410 --> 00:46:32.530
And if you know anything, I did a talk not too long ago,

1025
00:46:32.530 --> 00:46:34.700
where I talked about the fact that for six months,

1026
00:46:34.700 --> 00:46:36.580
the U-boats had a field day

1027
00:46:36.580 --> 00:46:39.100
off the East Coast of the United States.

1028
00:46:39.100 --> 00:46:41.700
Why wasn't there convoys off the East Coast

1029
00:46:41.700 --> 00:46:43.240
of the United States implemented?

1030
00:46:43.240 --> 00:46:45.860
You don't have the coastal convoys put until May.

1031
00:46:45.860 --> 00:46:48.610
And you can look at World War I for really that answer.

1032
00:46:48.610 --> 00:46:52.610
Number one, well, the U-boats didn't come for almost a year.

1033
00:46:52.610 --> 00:46:53.443
They didn't come.

1034
00:46:53.443 --> 00:46:56.280
They attacked the troop convoys

1035
00:46:56.280 --> 00:46:58.380
and the cargo convoys coming across.

1036
00:46:58.380 --> 00:47:00.010
So where were American escorts

1037
00:47:00.010 --> 00:47:02.200
in the early part of World War II?

1038
00:47:02.200 --> 00:47:03.820
They were on those Lend-Lease convoys,

1039
00:47:03.820 --> 00:47:05.010
they were on those troop convoys.

1040
00:47:05.010 --> 00:47:08.480
They were not off the East Coast of the United States.

1041
00:47:08.480 --> 00:47:10.960
And then when the German U-boats did arrive,

1042
00:47:10.960 --> 00:47:12.240
you have to sit there and say, well, wait a minute.

1043
00:47:12.240 --> 00:47:13.710
They did this in World War II.

1044
00:47:13.710 --> 00:47:15.030
It was a small attack.

1045
00:47:15.030 --> 00:47:16.960
It was several submarines.

1046
00:47:16.960 --> 00:47:19.280
And then they went back and really didn't come back again.

1047
00:47:19.280 --> 00:47:21.260
It was more of a harassment.

1048
00:47:21.260 --> 00:47:22.900
And unfortunately, what was missed

1049
00:47:22.900 --> 00:47:25.110
is by about March of 1942,

1050
00:47:25.110 --> 00:47:27.690
the US is now in the war for almost four months,

1051
00:47:27.690 --> 00:47:31.350
is the realization is no, this is a concentrated campaign.

1052
00:47:31.350 --> 00:47:34.060
The Germans have shifted the bulk of their submarines

1053
00:47:34.060 --> 00:47:36.700
off attacking convoys.

1054
00:47:36.700 --> 00:47:39.480
And now they're off the East Coast of the United States.

1055
00:47:39.480 --> 00:47:41.340
Plus you have geography different.

1056
00:47:41.340 --> 00:47:43.140
The German U-boats aren't sailing

1057
00:47:43.140 --> 00:47:46.210
from Germany and World War II, they're sailing from France.

1058
00:47:46.210 --> 00:47:47.460
They can get across the Atlantic.

1059
00:47:47.460 --> 00:47:48.420
They got longer range.

1060
00:47:48.420 --> 00:47:49.700
They're able to do it.

1061
00:47:49.700 --> 00:47:51.900
And so you can really see the impact

1062
00:47:51.900 --> 00:47:53.920
of the World War I convoy operations

1063
00:47:53.920 --> 00:47:56.573
on World War II convoy operations.

1064
00:47:57.650 --> 00:47:59.603
[Shannon] Okay, Mark, do you have a question?

1065
00:48:04.690 --> 00:48:06.300
We may have lost Mark.

1066
00:48:06.300 --> 00:48:07.660
Let me see if I can.

1067
00:48:07.660 --> 00:48:10.300
There's one here and, oh, are you back, Mark?

1068
00:48:10.300 --> 00:48:12.280
[Mark] Sorry about that, I muted myself. (laughs)

1069
00:48:12.280 --> 00:48:13.870
[Shannon] Okay, no problem.

1070
00:48:13.870 --> 00:48:14.703
[Mark] I just wanted to mention

1071
00:48:14.703 --> 00:48:15.781
for those of you who are asking in the chat

1072
00:48:15.781 --> 00:48:18.320
that this webinar is being recorded

1073
00:48:18.320 --> 00:48:19.800
and will be put on our website

1074
00:48:19.800 --> 00:48:23.980
in the same place as Dr. Mercogliano's previous talk,

1075
00:48:23.980 --> 00:48:25.410
if you wanna watch them back to back,

1076
00:48:25.410 --> 00:48:29.200
which I highly recommend, but this is a very good question.

1077
00:48:29.200 --> 00:48:31.600
What was Sims's legacy as a teacher

1078
00:48:31.600 --> 00:48:34.570
in that naval school you were mentioning earlier?

1079
00:48:34.570 --> 00:48:37.400
[Sal] Sure, I mean, I think one of Sims's greatest legacies

1080
00:48:37.400 --> 00:48:39.440
was being president of the Naval War College.

1081
00:48:39.440 --> 00:48:42.200
I mean, one of the things that the US embraces

1082
00:48:42.200 --> 00:48:45.010
is this concept of education, the great educators.

1083
00:48:45.010 --> 00:48:46.500
Stephen B. Luce, for example,

1084
00:48:46.500 --> 00:48:50.660
who founded the Naval War College came up with this idea

1085
00:48:50.660 --> 00:48:51.880
is like, you don't stop learning.

1086
00:48:51.880 --> 00:48:55.790
And what we needed was education venue

1087
00:48:55.790 --> 00:48:58.990
beyond the college undergraduate,

1088
00:48:58.990 --> 00:49:01.340
we need something a little bit more refined

1089
00:49:01.340 --> 00:49:03.340
where we can teach mid-level officers

1090
00:49:03.340 --> 00:49:05.860
and flag officers, admirals.

1091
00:49:05.860 --> 00:49:09.610
And so Sims, when he comes back from World War I,

1092
00:49:09.610 --> 00:49:11.070
the Naval War College actually shut down

1093
00:49:11.070 --> 00:49:13.260
during World War I when Sims left.

1094
00:49:13.260 --> 00:49:14.810
They graduated their last class,

1095
00:49:14.810 --> 00:49:17.190
shut down because the focus was on war.

1096
00:49:17.190 --> 00:49:19.560
When Sims came back and I had an opportunity

1097
00:49:19.560 --> 00:49:21.910
to be at the Naval War College for the 100th anniversary

1098
00:49:21.910 --> 00:49:23.870
of the reopening of the War College.

1099
00:49:23.870 --> 00:49:25.990
And we talked about Sims.

1100
00:49:25.990 --> 00:49:27.257
And Sims sat there and said,

1101
00:49:27.257 --> 00:49:31.020
"All right, there is a lot to learn from what just happened.

1102
00:49:31.020 --> 00:49:33.560
What can we learn from this event?"

1103
00:49:33.560 --> 00:49:36.860
And Sims orchestrated an entire education program

1104
00:49:36.860 --> 00:49:39.420
along with some key figures that play a big role

1105
00:49:39.420 --> 00:49:40.530
in World War II.

1106
00:49:40.530 --> 00:49:42.110
One of them is Ernest J. King,

1107
00:49:42.110 --> 00:49:45.880
who becomes the chief of naval operations in World War II.

1108
00:49:45.880 --> 00:49:50.790
And King, other key admirals,

1109
00:49:50.790 --> 00:49:52.080
who eventually become admirals and admiral

1110
00:49:52.080 --> 00:49:55.300
by the name of William S. Pye and Husband E. Kimmel

1111
00:49:55.300 --> 00:49:58.140
all sit down and they start taking the lessons

1112
00:49:58.140 --> 00:50:01.220
from World War I, and what can we learn from them?

1113
00:50:01.220 --> 00:50:03.620
And I would argue that Sims,

1114
00:50:03.620 --> 00:50:05.380
he's not at the Naval War College

1115
00:50:05.380 --> 00:50:07.440
very long after this, until he retires.

1116
00:50:07.440 --> 00:50:09.870
He reaches maximum age and retires.

1117
00:50:09.870 --> 00:50:11.810
But one of the things that I think was missing

1118
00:50:11.810 --> 00:50:14.000
really was the focus on the convoys.

1119
00:50:14.000 --> 00:50:16.550
The focus tended to be at the Naval War College

1120
00:50:16.550 --> 00:50:19.013
on these large fleet battles, the Jutland.

1121
00:50:20.247 --> 00:50:21.610
One of the jokes about the Battle of Jutland

1122
00:50:21.610 --> 00:50:23.390
is that is the most refought battle

1123
00:50:23.390 --> 00:50:25.450
in the history of naval warfare.

1124
00:50:25.450 --> 00:50:27.960
And they did it on the floor of the Naval War College,

1125
00:50:27.960 --> 00:50:29.730
where they literally took models

1126
00:50:29.730 --> 00:50:32.520
and refought that battle time again.

1127
00:50:32.520 --> 00:50:35.030
That battle had been fought over and over again.

1128
00:50:35.030 --> 00:50:36.350
The battles that hadn't been fought

1129
00:50:36.350 --> 00:50:39.210
were the convoy operations, the escorts,

1130
00:50:39.210 --> 00:50:42.180
and not a lot of attention was attributed to that.

1131
00:50:42.180 --> 00:50:44.220
And yet I would argue it's one of the great successes

1132
00:50:44.220 --> 00:50:46.390
of the American Navy in World War I.

1133
00:50:46.390 --> 00:50:49.460
Their ability to get ships across,

1134
00:50:49.460 --> 00:50:51.870
successfully break the blockade

1135
00:50:51.870 --> 00:50:54.930
to prevent the maritime collapse of the British,

1136
00:50:54.930 --> 00:50:57.670
the French, the Italians in 1917,

1137
00:50:57.670 --> 00:51:00.480
and most importantly, to get enough forces across

1138
00:51:00.480 --> 00:51:03.100
to stem the German spring offense,

1139
00:51:03.100 --> 00:51:06.380
or what's known in World War I as the Kaiserschlacht,

1140
00:51:06.380 --> 00:51:07.340
the Kaiser's battle.

1141
00:51:07.340 --> 00:51:11.060
Always love a good long German word with lots of consonants.

1142
00:51:11.060 --> 00:51:14.610
And the reason that the American forces

1143
00:51:14.610 --> 00:51:16.980
that there are about five, six divisions there,

1144
00:51:16.980 --> 00:51:19.060
to stem the spring offensive

1145
00:51:19.060 --> 00:51:21.060
is because we had suppressed the U-boats.

1146
00:51:21.060 --> 00:51:23.420
We had been able to get convoys across.

1147
00:51:23.420 --> 00:51:26.140
And unfortunately, Sims really instills

1148
00:51:26.140 --> 00:51:28.210
the Naval War College with this idea of studying.

1149
00:51:28.210 --> 00:51:30.370
And I have to say it still exists today.

1150
00:51:30.370 --> 00:51:32.700
The Naval War College is one of these great bastions

1151
00:51:32.700 --> 00:51:34.240
of education and learning.

1152
00:51:34.240 --> 00:51:35.780
Still there in Newport, Rhode Island,

1153
00:51:35.780 --> 00:51:38.300
right there where Hans Rose came ashore,

1154
00:51:38.300 --> 00:51:40.060
and right there where Sims and Gleaves

1155
00:51:40.060 --> 00:51:41.310
had some of their fights.

1156
00:51:42.680 --> 00:51:44.380
[Shannon] Okay, it looks like we may have time

1157
00:51:44.380 --> 00:51:45.770
for one more question.

1158
00:51:45.770 --> 00:51:48.630
And this one asked, what was the impact

1159
00:51:48.630 --> 00:51:51.500
of World War I convoy tactics

1160
00:51:51.500 --> 00:51:54.770
and Senate naval investigation on convoy tactics

1161
00:51:54.770 --> 00:51:55.870
in early World War II?

1162
00:51:56.850 --> 00:51:58.990
[Sal] Sure, I mean, one of the things that you see

1163
00:51:58.990 --> 00:51:59.990
in World War I, for example,

1164
00:51:59.990 --> 00:52:02.900
when those first American destroyers went across,

1165
00:52:02.900 --> 00:52:04.550
they were outfitted with depth charges.

1166
00:52:04.550 --> 00:52:06.850
And at the time, there was only two depth charges

1167
00:52:06.850 --> 00:52:07.710
for each destroyer.

1168
00:52:07.710 --> 00:52:09.560
They only had two of these things.

1169
00:52:09.560 --> 00:52:11.660
And one of the things we learned very quickly

1170
00:52:11.660 --> 00:52:14.710
is we need to mass produce these, we really need to come up.

1171
00:52:14.710 --> 00:52:16.480
And so one of the tactics they developed

1172
00:52:16.480 --> 00:52:17.950
was called the depth charge barrage.

1173
00:52:17.950 --> 00:52:19.640
They eventually would fit destroyers

1174
00:52:19.640 --> 00:52:22.550
like you saw come across with 50 depth charges.

1175
00:52:22.550 --> 00:52:24.990
And since they couldn't detect where the submarines were,

1176
00:52:24.990 --> 00:52:26.270
they would just lay patterns

1177
00:52:26.270 --> 00:52:29.010
and just try to push the submarines down.

1178
00:52:29.010 --> 00:52:30.860
And so these tactics were fine,

1179
00:52:30.860 --> 00:52:32.440
but that was seen very wasteful.

1180
00:52:32.440 --> 00:52:34.700
I mean, it's literally just dropping a depth charge

1181
00:52:34.700 --> 00:52:38.030
in the ocean and thinking maybe there's a submarine around.

1182
00:52:38.030 --> 00:52:39.900
During the course of World War I,

1183
00:52:39.900 --> 00:52:42.970
the Americans only confirm sink one submarine

1184
00:52:42.970 --> 00:52:45.820
with their destroyers, only once is it done.

1185
00:52:45.820 --> 00:52:47.130
The rest of the war, they don't,

1186
00:52:47.130 --> 00:52:48.950
but they still are successful.

1187
00:52:48.950 --> 00:52:50.170
In post-World War I,

1188
00:52:50.170 --> 00:52:53.450
there are decisions of how we're going to counter this.

1189
00:52:53.450 --> 00:52:56.240
So for example, the development of sonar,

1190
00:52:56.240 --> 00:52:58.290
which the British call ASDIC.

1191
00:52:58.290 --> 00:53:02.470
And again, sonar are the sound ranging device,

1192
00:53:02.470 --> 00:53:04.650
the classic ping you hear underwater.

1193
00:53:04.650 --> 00:53:07.710
The idea was, well, we can detect submarines underwater,

1194
00:53:07.710 --> 00:53:12.090
pinpoint them and drop depth charges now and destroy them.

1195
00:53:12.090 --> 00:53:14.610
The concept of the fleet submarine and how were fight.

1196
00:53:14.610 --> 00:53:17.300
We basically sat there and said, after World War I,

1197
00:53:17.300 --> 00:53:18.850
we're never gonna fight a war

1198
00:53:18.850 --> 00:53:21.280
where we're gonna go after the enemy's commerce.

1199
00:53:21.280 --> 00:53:24.700
Instead, our focus is going to be against their navies.

1200
00:53:24.700 --> 00:53:26.810
And yet, as soon as World War II happened,

1201
00:53:26.810 --> 00:53:28.510
right after the attack on Pearl Harbor,

1202
00:53:28.510 --> 00:53:30.990
one of the very first orders that goes out

1203
00:53:30.990 --> 00:53:34.910
is the US Navy will conduct unrestricted submarine warfare.

1204
00:53:34.910 --> 00:53:36.990
And we don't know how to do it. We hadn't studied that.

1205
00:53:36.990 --> 00:53:40.160
We really didn't study the German submarine campaign

1206
00:53:40.160 --> 00:53:42.720
because we thought we would never do it again

1207
00:53:42.720 --> 00:53:43.870
yet we see it being done.

1208
00:53:43.870 --> 00:53:45.430
And one of the ironies about World War II

1209
00:53:45.430 --> 00:53:48.540
is we're conducting a submarine campaign

1210
00:53:48.540 --> 00:53:50.650
in the Pacific while we're conducting

1211
00:53:50.650 --> 00:53:53.690
an anti-submarine campaign in the Atlantic.

1212
00:53:53.690 --> 00:53:55.990
And so you had this weird kind of confluence

1213
00:53:55.990 --> 00:53:57.690
where one point, we're using our subs,

1214
00:53:57.690 --> 00:54:00.190
the other point, we're trying to destroy subs.

1215
00:54:00.190 --> 00:54:02.260
And it's one of the reasons why post-World War II,

1216
00:54:02.260 --> 00:54:05.750
the Cold War, our submarines became really a deadly force.

1217
00:54:05.750 --> 00:54:09.420
We really became one of the best practitioners

1218
00:54:09.420 --> 00:54:13.283
of use of submarines and anti-submarine warfare today.

1219
00:54:14.320 --> 00:54:15.623
[Shannon] Okay, excellent.

1220
00:54:17.080 --> 00:54:19.000
Well, if we did not get to your question,

1221
00:54:19.000 --> 00:54:20.250
or if you have additional ones,

1222
00:54:20.250 --> 00:54:22.920
you can always send them to Sal at the email address

1223
00:54:22.920 --> 00:54:24.823
that's listed there on the screen.

1224
00:54:25.930 --> 00:54:27.877
And if you want to learn more about World War I

1225
00:54:27.877 --> 00:54:29.160
off the North Carolina coast,

1226
00:54:29.160 --> 00:54:30.850
you can visit our shipwreck webpages

1227
00:54:30.850 --> 00:54:33.330
on the monitor.noaa.gov site.

1228
00:54:33.330 --> 00:54:35.380
And then click on a tab on our website,

1229
00:54:35.380 --> 00:54:36.500
just click on shipwrecks.

1230
00:54:36.500 --> 00:54:38.270
And there you'll find 54 shipwrecks,

1231
00:54:38.270 --> 00:54:40.470
all from the Civil War to World War II.

1232
00:54:40.470 --> 00:54:42.690
And each shipwreck has its own individual page

1233
00:54:42.690 --> 00:54:44.950
with its history and beautiful images

1234
00:54:44.950 --> 00:54:47.283
and its current state that it's in.

1235
00:54:48.600 --> 00:54:50.410
Now a video recording, as Mark said,

1236
00:54:50.410 --> 00:54:52.650
is being done of this presentation

1237
00:54:52.650 --> 00:54:53.710
and it will be available

1238
00:54:53.710 --> 00:54:56.660
on our sanctuaries' webinar archived page

1239
00:54:56.660 --> 00:54:59.760
that's found at the URL listed there at the top.

1240
00:54:59.760 --> 00:55:01.630
In addition, the webinar will be archived

1241
00:55:01.630 --> 00:55:05.040
on Monitor National Marine Sanctuary's webinar page,

1242
00:55:05.040 --> 00:55:07.500
and you just click on the multimedia section

1243
00:55:07.500 --> 00:55:09.950
in the tool bar to access the webinar box.

1244
00:55:09.950 --> 00:55:12.550
You'll also find future webinars in that same section.

1245
00:55:12.550 --> 00:55:14.300
And don't worry, all of this information

1246
00:55:14.300 --> 00:55:16.570
is gonna be sent to you in a follow-up email

1247
00:55:16.570 --> 00:55:18.490
once the recording is ready to view.

1248
00:55:18.490 --> 00:55:20.870
And that usually takes about anywhere

1249
00:55:20.870 --> 00:55:23.790
from three days to a week, sometimes a little longer,

1250
00:55:23.790 --> 00:55:25.870
depending upon our web team

1251
00:55:25.870 --> 00:55:28.783
but we'll send you an email out as soon as it's ready.

1252
00:55:30.050 --> 00:55:33.883
So we have some upcoming webinars. Tomorrow on March 9th.

1253
00:55:34.820 --> 00:55:35.820
I'm sorry, that's wrong.

1254
00:55:35.820 --> 00:55:38.180
That's at noon, my apologies.

1255
00:55:38.180 --> 00:55:40.050
At noon tomorrow, we're gonna be celebrating

1256
00:55:40.050 --> 00:55:42.870
the 160th anniversary of the Battle of Hampton Roads

1257
00:55:42.870 --> 00:55:44.660
with John Quarstein.

1258
00:55:44.660 --> 00:55:47.650
He is the director emeritus of the USS Monitor Center.

1259
00:55:47.650 --> 00:55:49.490
And he's gonna be asking the question,

1260
00:55:49.490 --> 00:55:51.710
who really won the Battle of Hampton roads?

1261
00:55:51.710 --> 00:55:53.350
Was it the North or the South?

1262
00:55:53.350 --> 00:55:56.170
And then in April on the 12th at 1:00 p.m.,

1263
00:55:56.170 --> 00:55:58.090
we're gonna have our own Tane Casserley.

1264
00:55:58.090 --> 00:56:01.660
And then NCCOS's Chris Taylor and Avery Paxton,

1265
00:56:01.660 --> 00:56:02.920
along with Chris Southerly

1266
00:56:02.920 --> 00:56:05.610
from the North Carolina Office of State Archaeology.

1267
00:56:05.610 --> 00:56:07.220
They're gonna be giving an overview

1268
00:56:07.220 --> 00:56:09.790
of the upcoming Valor in the Atlantic Expedition

1269
00:56:09.790 --> 00:56:11.350
that's gonna be occurring in May.

1270
00:56:11.350 --> 00:56:13.460
It's gonna be a live expedition that you can watch

1271
00:56:13.460 --> 00:56:16.210
from your computer or your phone.

1272
00:56:16.210 --> 00:56:17.650
And you'll be learning more information

1273
00:56:17.650 --> 00:56:19.010
about how to access that

1274
00:56:19.010 --> 00:56:21.400
and a little bit more about the dates and times

1275
00:56:21.400 --> 00:56:24.320
that it'll be available for you to view.

1276
00:56:24.320 --> 00:56:26.690
And as always, we of course invite you

1277
00:56:26.690 --> 00:56:28.080
to follow us on social media.

1278
00:56:28.080 --> 00:56:30.503
So check us out on Facebook and on Twitter.

1279
00:56:31.950 --> 00:56:33.700
And lastly, as you exit the webinar,

1280
00:56:33.700 --> 00:56:37.090
there is a short survey for formal and informal educators.

1281
00:56:37.090 --> 00:56:40.000
So if you are an educator, NOAA would really appreciate it

1282
00:56:40.000 --> 00:56:41.280
if you would just take a minute or two

1283
00:56:41.280 --> 00:56:42.770
to complete the survey.

1284
00:56:42.770 --> 00:56:45.290
Your answers will help NOAA develop future webinars

1285
00:56:45.290 --> 00:56:46.310
to meet your needs.

1286
00:56:46.310 --> 00:56:48.410
And your participation is voluntary

1287
00:56:48.410 --> 00:56:50.793
and your answers will be completely anonymous.

1288
00:56:52.380 --> 00:56:54.010
Once again, we want to thank you, Sal,

1289
00:56:54.010 --> 00:56:55.390
for a great presentation.

1290
00:56:55.390 --> 00:56:57.180
And I concur with Mark,

1291
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if you will go to our webinar page, archive page,

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you will see his presentation that he did on World War II.

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I suggest watching it as well as re-watching this one.

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And thank you all for taking the time to join us today.

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Have a wonderful day, and this concludes the presentation,

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and I'm gonna end the broadcast for all.

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Thanks, everyone, bye.