Admiral Sims arrives in England

On 9 April 1917 the American liner New York arrived in Liverpool. Among the passengers were two gentlemen in civilian clothes, entered on the list as S. W. Davidson and V. J. Richardson. In reality they were Rear-Admiral William Sims, president of the Naval War College in Newport, and his aide, Commander John V. Babcock. They had sailed from New York at the end of March, when the United States was formally still neutral. The ambassador in London, Walter Hines Page, had asked that, with war approaching, a senior naval officer be sent to London. The Secretary of the Navy, Josephus Daniels, wanted no publicity, so Sims was to travel on a merchant ship, under an assumed name and out of uniform, while officially still heading the college in Newport. According to his memoirs, a suspicious steward reported to the captain that the initials on one passenger’s pyjamas did not match his name.

The choice of Sims was no accident. Born in Canada, he was regarded as one of the ablest and most unruly officers of the US Navy. At the beginning of the century he had introduced British methods of naval gunnery into the American fleet, and in 1910, in a speech at London’s Guildhall, he had assured the British that in time of danger they could count on the help of their “kindred across the sea”, for which he received a public reprimand from President Taft. He had known the man he was to meet in London, the First Sea Lord, Admiral John Jellicoe, since 1901, when both had served in Chinese waters.

The voyage nearly ended badly. As the New York approached the mouth of the Mersey, she struck a German mine. The damage was not serious, but the passengers were transferred to another ship. In port Sims was met by Rear-Admiral Hope of the Admiralty and a special train to London. Three days earlier the United States had declared war on Germany, so the American admiral was arriving as the representative of a belligerent.

In London Jellicoe took out of a drawer a statement of losses unknown to the British press. According to Sims’s memoirs, British and neutral ships with a total tonnage of 536,000 tons had been sunk in February, 603,000 in March, and in April losses promised to approach 900,000 tons. The newspapers printed reassuring weekly statistics from which the tonnage could not be read, and in London’s theatres and drawing rooms the belief prevailed that the German submarine campaign had already collapsed. “It is impossible for us to go on with the war if losses like this continue,” Jellicoe is said to have told him. Asked whether there was any solution, he replied: “Absolutely none that we can see now.” Sims also noted his words that the Germans would win the war unless these losses could be stopped soon. The Admiralty calculated that at this rate of sinkings Britain could hold out until about November.

For the first few days Sims gathered data, and then sent Washington a long telegram with the first detailed picture of the situation. He demanded that the United States immediately send to the waters west and south of Ireland all destroyers and other vessels capable of fighting submarines. In the following weeks he also became one of the most ardent advocates of convoys (PL), which the British admirals were still treating with reserve. At the end of April the Admiralty decided to send an experimental convoy from Gibraltar, and on 4 May the first six American destroyers arrived at Queenstown in Ireland. Sims went on to command all United States naval forces in Europe.